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What is art?

2012-01-25T16:03:00.003-06:00

A new version of Star Wars was just released, one madethrough the cooperation of thousands of strangers. Star Wars Uncut is a crowd-sourced film, meaning that people all over theworld recorded their own versions of individual scenes, and a team of collaborators edited theminto a full-length copy of the movie. This new creation has Lego actors, littlekids, cartoons, ferrets, Darth Vader as one of Charlie’s Angels, and lots andlots of people in C3PO masks. It is good-humored, irreverent, a labor of love, andmesmerizing. It’s also, I think, a workof art.

When people see art that they don’t like, appreciate, orunderstand, they often claim that the piece isn’t really art when what theymean is that it’s “bad.” So, people will look at a Jackson Pollack painting andclaim, “I could do that” or call it “ugly” even though they can't do it and his paintings aren't ugly (besides, art doesn’t have to be beautiful, anyway). But the question of whatart is, is much more basic and much more difficult. We can’t know if somethingis good if we don’t know what it is.

Possibly the most influential example of this debate isMarcel Duchamps’s “Fountain,” a sculpture that was actually a urinal taken outof its proper context and displayed in a gallery. The reactions at the timewere exactly what you would expect: some people claimed it was trash and othersthought it was genius. History has sided with the latter, and his “ready made”piece has become one of the most influential pieces of twentieth century art.

Duchamp shows how difficult it is to find a definition orart, and since this is the first of what I suspect will be many posts on thetopic, I won’t try too hard today. (If you want a full-length discussion, Irecommend the WHY? episode with Arthur Danto.) What I will suggest however, isthat whatever art is, it is concerned with the intentional creation of a workthat is to be contemplated for its form as well as its content. The processof creating it needs to be valued as much as the product created, and both themaking and the thing made must also let us see our world in a novel andinteresting light. Star Wars Uncut does this. It is an impressive collaborationof people who put their own stamps on the production, sometimes as jokes,sometimes with all seriousness. Together they created an object that is morethan just the sum of its parts, also a condition of art.

There are people who will object to my position, claimingthat the movie is just pop-culture silliness. It is anything but. Star WarsUncut is a monument to the desire of people to participate in a phenomenon that helped defined how each of us see the world, whether we know itor not. It is a document to those who want to be “in” Star Wars after-the-fact, and who hopedto tweak it, just enough, to preserve their identities while revealing newaspects of a movie they watch over and over again.

To see what I mean, compare Star Wars Uncut to a recentVolkswagon commercial, featuring dogs barking Darth Vader’s theme. I love this commercial. It’s funny, cute,and full of in-jokes, but it’s not art. Why? Because it doesn’t tell usanything new. It doesn’t move any debates forward. The creativity is pat. Itadds nothing to the viewer but distraction.

Nevertheless, I admit that it is hard to define exactly whyStar Wars Uncut is art and the VW commercial isn’t. To a certain extent, myjudgment is a result of an intuition rather than an argument, but I stand by myanswer nonetheless. For lack of a better metaphor, Star Wars Uncut hasa soul and the advertisement does not., All art must have soul, even though I can’t define the latter term any more than I can define the former. WhatI do know is that it isn’t just because one is an advertisement and the otherisn’t. Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters were advertisements too, but they had moresoul that any of us know what to do with. Star Wars Uncut is art and anyone who watches it will see the original StarWars differently because of it. Duchamp might even be proud.

Are people responsible for their thoughts?

2012-01-20T16:14:00.000-06:00

Several weeks ago, a group of Orthodox Jews in Israel spatat and harassed an eight-year old girl on her way to school; theythought she wasn’t dressed modestly enough. The event recalls the more extreme 2002 case,in Saudi Arabia, when Muslim “religious police” preventedgirls from escaping a school fire because the girls weren’t wearing headscarves.A recent opinionpiece in the New York Times emphasizes that the demand for modest dress isnot really about how young women are dressed, but about the thoughts of the men who see them. Provocativedress causes men to think sexual thoughts, the argument goes, and, as such, itshould be banned.

Let’s ignore the fact that in most countries, none of the outfitsin question would ever be considered provocative. Let’s also ignore the factthat the girl is Israel is eight years old and that there is something veryalarming about grown men who respond sexually to someoneher age. And, perhaps even more difficult, let’s pass on discussing theinherent sexism of the circumstance. Instead, I’m curious about the core claim thatpeople can ever control their thoughts. I don’t think people can.

The question that heads this blog entry asks whether peopleshould be responsible for their thoughts, but the heart of the puzzle has to bethe question of self-regulation. People are not morally culpable for thingsthey cannot control, or, to put it as philosophers do, ought implies can. If someone says you ought (or should) dosomething, then it assumes that you are able to do it. So, for example, I amnot a bad person because I don’t spout wings and fly; I cannot physically doso. And, I am not acting immorally because I am not, right now, jumping infront of a car to save a baby lying in a St. Louis street. I am nowhere nearSt. Louis and I physically can’t intervene no matter how much I might want to. Inshort, if I can’t control my own thoughts, I cannot be held accountable forthem.

Try a simple experiment: don’t think about an elephant. No matter whatyou do, right now, stop imagining that elephant. Stop. Think about somethingelse…. see you can’t. Everyone reading this is thinking of an elephant, and if I can direct your thoughts so easily,how can you be said to control them for yourself?

This lack of control comes upin debates about homosexuality. Many who defend the morality of homosexualsargue that one does not choose whoone is attracted to. Gay and straight people alike are bound by their emotionsand therefore, neither homo- nor heterosexuality is a choice. If one’s orientationis not a choice, then it cannot be moral or immoral, although acting on suchfeelings may be, and this is the key. In the end, all human beings seem to beable to do is control their reactions to their own thoughts, but not thethoughts themselves. People are responsible for their actions alone.

Jews and Muslims are not the only ones who expect people tocontrol their ideas. Many denominations of Christianity prohibit even the mostfleeting of lustful thoughts. This is why Catholicism needs confessionals, for example. Practitioners must have some wayof cleansing themselves of the sins of imaginations they will inevitably commit. But,in fact, I suspect that the more one confesses to sins of thought, the more onethinks them. After all, the more I mention elephants, the more you have tothink about them.

Now, one might claim that all of this justifies the ban on women’sprovocative dress: if we can’t control our own thoughts, then we must remove negativeinspirations. But this doesn’t follow at all. First, as George Orwell shows better than anyoneelse, it is impossible to eradicate unwanted ideas, even if we eliminate thelanguage that describes them. Second, and more relevant, if my argument did suggestthat a ban on "immodest" clothing is justified, we would end up in an even more absurd positionthan where we started. We would have moved from claiming that I should controlmy own thoughts to asserting that because I can’t stop my ideas someone else should.If I can’t even get in my own head, how can anyone else?

In the end, I would suggest that thoughts-in-themselves are neithersinful nor righteous. They are neither vicious nor virtuous. Theyare just free material that we react to. If we could manipulate our thoughtsdirectly, it seems likely that we would be very different creatures than we are. Religious prohibitions would probably be different as well.

[Ethical Dilemma] Who should pay the dead man’s water bill?

2012-01-14T17:45:00.000-06:00

A man in Ontario died suddenly, right after turning on the bathroom faucet. The water ran for three weeks, resulting in a $500 bill.His daughter is asking that the utility forgive the bill but the City Councilis unsure whether it will do so.

On the one hand, someone died and the city council should becompassionate; onewould think that the city utility would have some kind of fund or insuranceto pay for things like this. More philosophically, it seems odd to suggest that a dead person can even be said to incur charges. He or she is no longer an "agent" in the economic sense. (Living relatives are charged for funerals, not the deceased.)

On the other hand, it’s the man’s house, it’s hiswater meter, and it is unclear whether taxpayers should be on the hook because ofhis untimely death. Someone has to pay for it. Why shouldn't it be his estate or his family? He's the one who turned on the faucet. Who else could be said to be liable?

Yes, forgiving his debt is generous and kind, but is it theright thing to do?

Can social networks be true communities?

2012-01-10T17:14:00.002-06:00

My friend Neil died suddenly last week; I hadn’t seen him ina very long time. We knew each other well in college and then lived near oneanother in Boston for a few years after we graduated. We didn’t reconnect untilFacebook and didn’t talk much, but we read each other’s status updates, madesnarky comments on posts, and maintained a digital presence in one another’slives. I learned that he died from another friend’s status.

Neil is the third person whose death I learned about thisway. The first was a high-school friend whom I wrote about in a previous blog post and the second was a local friend’s child who died in the crib before I andmost of the community got to meet him. In each instance, the loss wasoverwhelming, and during all three, I was able to read and communicate withothers about the sorrow I felt. When I learned about Neil’s death from Brian –fewer than 24 hours after it happened – he and I were able to chat and remindeach other, not just how important Neil was, but how lucky Brian and I were to have eachother as friends. For a week now, all of our friends have been postingpictures, sending our condolences, and communicating with the family via Facebook.

There are those who object to social networks because theyclaim the interaction is shallow and unreal. The argument, as I understand it,is that digital lives are only virtual and that their two-dimensionalityreplaces real communications, intimacy, and friendship. I certainly understandthese points. If I were to choose not to leave the house in service of my digitallife, I would be missing something important. A status update does not replacea conversation and a webcam is not a substitute for human touch.

Yet, at the same time, I, like many people, have friends allover the world. Many of these are people whom I really love, but would never getto see, write, or phone. So, the fact that tons of my friends are on Facebook isa wonderful thing. I can keep up with their lives, give my two cents and gettheirs in return. I can see pictures of their kids and celebrate theirsuccesses. I can commiserate with their losses.

However, if this was my only defense, then the critiqueswould hold: Facebook would still be a shallow compromise. Instead, I wouldsuggest something different. The fact of the matter is that the grief I felt at myfriends’ deaths was real and the solace I received from talking to others wasgenuinely healing. The photos were no less powerful on the computer screen thanin an album and the chats were as cathartic as a phone call.

I have been on the other side of this too. When we lost afamily member recently, my wife and I read the condolences regularly. Theyhelped. They didn’t make the grief go away (it’s still very much there), but nothing can except, perhaps, time. Human interaction takes many forms and ultimately, the power ofthe contact depends on how much of oneself people are able to communicate. Ihave a Facebook friend who clearly has some form of social anxiety disorder.Faecbook allows her to be gregariousin a way she can’t otherwise be. I’m sure the same is true of people who arehomebound for any reason.

I object to the term virtual reality. There is no sothing. A flight simulator is, indeed, a simulation as the term describes, but thesensations, adrenaline, lights, sounds, and textures are as real as any other. Weare all bodies surrounded by sensation. We have an internal and external lifeand the first gives meaning to the second even if the second is somehow only areplica of something found in nature. With only a moment’s thought, we can makeourselves afraid, anxious, aroused, curious, angry, complacent, or most of the otherhuman emotions. There is nothing virtual about the imagination. It’s just realin a different way. Plato thought art was immoral because it only copied real things. I think those who object to Facebook are sharing some of the same attitudes.

To those who think Facebook is somehow destroying modernrelationships, I suggest that the burden is on you to show that we areless of a community than we would be if Facebook didn’t exist. I also wonder whatyour definition of community actually is. I can’t imagine it is simply physicalproximity or that you would argue there is a significant difference between a voice on Skype and avoice on the phone.

Almost twothousand years ago, Augustine argued in City of God that neighbors could be in two totally differentcommunities solely by virtue of the values they hold dear. He may have been right. Community is about acommon goal and if that goal is maintaining a friendship over a long distance,then social networks are invaluable tools and communities to boot. I learned this from Neil when hepassed away. I just wish he were still around for me to thank him

Next Episode of WHY? "A House Divided: Philosophy's Deepest Fault Line" with guest Gary Gutting

2012-01-06T14:35:00.000-06:00

For a free high-resolution poster advertising this episode, click here

WHY? Radio presents:

"A House Divided: Philosophy's Deepest Fault Line"
with guest Gary Gutting

January 8, 5 p.m. central

Listen live from anywhere in the world at www.whyradioshow.org and in North Dakota at 89.3 (Grand Forks), 91.9 (Fargo), 90.5 (Bismarck), and on Prairie Public radio stations across the state.

Should philosophy make things simpler or more complex? Should it describe the muddle of human emotions or simply give us the language to analyze them? The answers to these questions not only tell us what we can know, but also aligns us with of two very controversial philosophy camps. Join WHY? as we discuss one of philosophy's deepest and most divisive controversies: the battle between the "continentals" and the "analytics."

Gary Gutting holds the Notre Dame Chair in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He writes for both general and specialized audiences. His more recent work includes pieces in the New York Times philosophy blog “The Stone” and the books Foucault: A Very Short Introduction (2005) and French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (2001).

If you have a question for Gary that you want to submit in advance, send it to askwhy@und.edu or leave a message at 701) 428-1510. We’ll call you back!

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Should White people be permitted to use the N-word?

2011-12-26T14:25:00.000-06:00

First of all, let me begin by stating how much I hate thephrase “the N-Word.” It makes me feel like I’m infantilizing everyone I talkto. We are adults; we can use adult language when appropriate. But I also knowthat lots of people will not be very happy if their blog feeds suddenly flashthe word “nigger” on their screen. Kids, bosses, and many others may be lookingover readers’ shoulders. The word is poison and people should be prepared forthe controversy they are about to encounter.

But look at what I did. I used the actual word in the firstparagraph. Am I allowed to do that? My short answer is “sometimes,” although aswe shall see, the brilliant and very funny blogger at Yo, Is this Racist? is going to disagreewith me.

Here is what I’m certain of. I shouldn’t call anyone thatname ever, not to their face and not behind their back. Whether I could if I myselfwere black is a different question. While some people claim no one should eversay it regardless of their race, I think the question about White people usingit is more philosophically interesting. Words exist in context and there areplenty of things that can only be said in certain relationships. I’m allowed tosay things to my wife that others can’t. The same is true about talking to mydaughter, parents, friends, doctors, lawyers, etc. So, there is nothinginherently odd about claiming that Black people can use a word that Whitepeople cannot.

There is another reason why I shouldn’t call anyone thisword: most people who self-identify as black don’t want me to and nothing givesme the moral authority to override their desires. How people want to be treatedis relevant to how we should treat them.

As an aside, notice two difficulties I face in writing thepost. The first and most important is that when discussing a group of peoplethat share a common characteristic, it becomes easy to slip into some “they areall identical” mode – “Black people think this; White people think that.” Butthis is dangerous and dehumanizing. For every general statement I make aboutany group, there will likely be individuals who don’t share the opinion. Maybethere are black people who want to be called “nigger” by white people. It’s possiblebut, if so, I've never met any of them.

Next, it is unclear what phrase I should use to refer to thegroups in question. “African American” is often used to be polite, but most Africannon-Americans don’t like “the N-word” either. “Black” is most commonly used inpolitical analysis, but it feels blunt and impersonal. “White” is also problematic.Why not use the term “Caucasian” instead? In short, there will be people whoare unhappy with any word choice independent of my typing the word “nigger.” Iask simply that everyone give me the benefit of the doubt and recognize thatsometimes philosophy makes us uncomfortable. (What “white” means is going to bea subject of a later blog post.)

So, when can awhite person use the term “nigger” if ever? My usual answer is that they can use itwhen they are referring to the word itself or where not using the word changesthe meaning of what they are saying. So, as both Family Guy and TheDaily Show point out, reading TheAdventures of Huckleberry Finn and calling the character “N-word Jim,” or "slave Jim" violates the literary integrity of the book and changes its power. If I’mteaching a class and using N.W.A. lyrics to illustrate something, I too can usethe word if the song does.

Why this is involves some technical philosophy, so bearwith me. There is a difference between nigger and “nigger.” The first refers toa person while the second refers to a term. Quote marks indicate that we areconcerned with language, not the object the language is pointing too. So,famously (in philosophy circles, anyway) the sentence “snow is white” is saidto be true if and only if snow is white. This is referred to as disquotation.

In other words, I should probably never refer to niggers, butwhen teaching, discussing literature, and writing this blog post, I can referto “niggers,” assuming, of course, that I’m trying to make a meaningful philosophical point. (Thisdoesn’t mean that it’s okay to point to someone and say, “look at this person,what a quote nigger unquote because that’s not just being racist, it’s being racist and pretentious.) As a responsible teacher, I do have the moralauthority to make people uncomfortable if there is a good pedagogical reason todo so.

Now, I have always found this distinction between words withand without quotes helpful. It allows me to talk about what I need to talkabout while still being a good person (I believe) and while offending only the smallestsubset of people. (Whether people have the right not to be offended will alsobe the subject of a later post.) But the blogger at Yo, Is This Racist? has mademe second-guess myself.

The blog is what it sounds like. People write in asking ifsomething is racist and the blogger, whose name is Andrew, I think, answers as humorously as possible while stillbeing informative. After responding to a string of questions asking about justificationsfor allowing White people to use the word, Andrew wrotethe following:

“basicallythere is only one thing in the world that White people aren’t allowed to do,and the forbidden fruit drives them absolutely fucking crazy.”

I love this response. Of course, there are plenty of thingsWhite people aren’t allowed to do (murder, rape, etc.) but the point is welltaken, and my entire post is just an excuse to talk about this observation. It does drive me crazy that I can’t use theword. It doesn’t upset me at all that I can’t call anyone nigger or refer to them as such, I have no desire to. Butthe idea that I can’t use it in the classroom under certain conditions ofappropriateness (or that there are, by definition, no conditions ofappropriateness) -- the notion that by typing the word in this paragraph I am beingracist -- I find this baffling. We should be ableto talk about these things, at least on the meta-level. It is how we grow and learn.

But, the fact that I fit the blogger’s description of a White person being driven crazy makes meseriously reconsider my position. Am I "safe" from accusation because I'm using it t teach? I think so. In scholarly contexts, when we are talkingabout the word itself, does the inquiry and self-awareness not contain the violence inherent in the wordjust enough to allow people to discuss it? Or, in the end, am I just kiddingmyself? Is the word forbidden for White people in any form whether I like it or not?

In the end, I suppose, the question I’m asking can be boileddown to this: despite my attempts at being thoughtful and respectful,… isthis blog post itself racist? I don't think it is, but I could very well be wrong.

Is infidelity just another product to sell?

2011-12-21T20:40:00.002-06:00

It is no secret that people cheat in their relationships(although it may be a secret to their partners). Given that infidelity is sofrequent, it is worth asking whether it is moral to sell cheating and whetherit is acceptable to celebrate those who have affairs. Famously, the website ashleymadison.com advertises theirfind-someone-to-cheat-with service using the tagline “Life is short. Have anaffair.” Now they are using Newt Gingrich as their poster boy. I have to admit,I love their billboard (pictured above).

It is difficult to determine how many people cheat, but the most reliablestatistics suggest that 12 percent of men and 7 percent of women havecheated on their spouses and that the number of women cheating is increasingevery year. If you consider people under 35, this number is about 20 percent of men and 15 percent ofwomen. For people over sixty, the lifetime rate of infidelity has increased dramatically in recent years.

It is harder tofind statistics on unmarried couples, but the best I can discover tell us that 30 to 40 percent of those relationships involve at least one instanceof infidelity. Also, I once heard a claim from what I recall to be a reliablesource that while men cheat more in relationships, women cheat earlier. I don’tremember where I heard it so I can’t confirm the statement.

Regardless of thestatistics, the fact of the matter is that cheating is frequent enough thatthere is a tremendous market to be tapped. (Excuse the pun.) And, while theproducts involved in cheating range from mouthwash, to lingerie, to birthcontrol, only Ashley Madison and Las Vegas have managed to make it thecenterpiece of their advertising campaigns. (Remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.) Are they wrong to doso?

The question ofwhether or not it is actually immoral to cheat is another question; for thetime being, let’s just assume it is. Our concern now is whether it is immoralto provide tools to help people do immoral things. The folks at Ashley Madisonand Vegas tourism can honestly report that they aren’t forcing anyone to doanything, they’re just providing a wanted service. This is no different from what the liquor-store owner might say about dozens of activities, fromcheating to binge drinking. Encouraging vice is so central to capitalism thatone of its central texts is subtitled “Private Vices, PublicBenefits.” That book was first published in the year 1705.

These questions havemany versions for other contexts: do we give heroin addicts clean needles sothey don’t contract HIV? Do we sell radar detectors so people can speed withoutgetting caught? Questions of infidelity are further complicated by the factthat adultery, like other “immoral” activities, is legal in most countries. Youcan’t get arrested for it; you’re just a bad person if you’re doing it.

The argumentagainst all of this is pretty straightforward. Helping someone engage inimmoral acts encourages immorality, therefore it is immoral itself. Finding waysto encourage people to fall off the wagon just isn’t very nice. You don’t tauntsomeone on a diet with a Ding Dong; you don’t knowingly give a recoveringalcoholic a bottle of scotch, and you don’t encourage cheating.

But again, thesearguments run counter to our daily experiences. Virtually everything we seetells us the opposite: get people to buy your product even if what they do withit is unethical. And, if this is the case, why shouldn’t we celebrate those whoengage in bad behavior? The Republic Party, the “family values” party, doesn’tseem to have a problem with Newt Gingrich’s bad behavior. Why should anyoneelse?

In the last blogentry I asked whether hypocrisy was a vice. Here we are even further downthat road. If our culture endorses bad behavior, if we cover the infidelitiesof the famous with glee, if we write books, make movies and television shows,and sing songs about all those whose exciting lives involve cheating on theirpartners, then why shouldn’t we just be up front about it? And, if we are upfront with it, why not make some money in the process?

Is hypocrisy a vice?

2011-12-19T17:44:00.001-06:00

Amy Koch, the Minnesota State Senate Majority Leader resigneda couple of days ago, after she was confronted about having an affair with one ofher staff members. This is nothing new; it feels like every month there’s a newsex scandal. I myself don’t really care what people do on their off hours and I’munconvinced that fidelity has much to do with how good of a leader a person is.What bothers me is those who engage in behaviors that they preach or legislateagainst. You know what I’m talking about: the anti-gay rights politician who endsup getting caught while a male escort “liftshis luggage,” or a family values governor who claims to be hikingthe Appalachian Trail while actually flying across the world forextramarital sex. Amy Koch was one of these. As the blog Towleroadsums it up:

Mrs. Koch is married and has ateenage daughter, and has held her office for a little less than a year. Duringthat time, she helped orchestrate a massive Republican takeover of the statesenate, which in turn helped get an anti-gay, marriage-defining amendment onthe 2012 ballot. The amendment's purpose is to "protect the sanctity ofmarriage."

In my last post, I asked if consistencyis a virtue; in this one, I’m asking a related question, whether hypocrisy isa vice. If people aren’t required to be consistent in their opinions, then whyshould their attitudes be consistent with their behaviors? In fact, hypocrisydoes seem to be an odd thing to get upset about because a person’s actions don’tchange the truth of their beliefs.

Philosophers call attacking thearguer rather than the argument the ad hominem fallacy. It is relatedto the genetic fallacy which I discussed inan earlier post. It tells us that even if a doctor is an obese smoker, he or she may still becorrect in telling a patient to go on a diet or quit smoking. Or, more relevant to Koch, if adultery iswrong, the fallacy reminds us that it is wrong even when an adulterer says so. As a result, a closetedgay politician who is anti-gay may be filled with self-hatred, but his or herbehavior has no impact on whether the statement “gay behavior is immoral” is trueor false. (For the record, I firmly believe this statement to be false.)

On the other hand, there is acomponent of argument that requires authenticity;we want the arguer to represent real convictions and act on them. If a personisn’t arguing authentically – if he or she is not genuinely invested in aposition – the arguing becomes sport rather than a search for knowledge or anegotiation for justice. Or, so it seems.

Perhaps this is what I object to aboutlawmakers who espouse one idea and secretly act on its opposite; their behaviorreveals the tactical nature of politics. Politics is about power more than thebetterment of the people. It’s about strategy before it is a search for justiceand wisdom. Maybe hypocrisy isn’t the problem, maybe politics is, and maybe hypocrisyis just the window revealing the shallowness of governance. If Amy Koch didn’thave power, her behavior wouldn’t matter to anyone but her family and her god. But becauseshe gets to decide what other people can do, it seems distasteful that she isbound by a different standard than the one she creates for others. By having anaffair, Senator Koch has declared herself above the law, a declaration fundamentallyat odds with the democracy she purports to cultivate.

Is consistency a virtue?

2011-12-17T15:42:00.000-06:00

Scott Simon just broadcast a fabulousobituary for Christopher Hitchens, focusing on the late author’s willingnessto reconsider what he believed. Unlike today’s politicians who refuse to everadmit that they change their minds, Hitchens took great pride in holdingdiffering opinions and different times in his life. As Simon explains “…Iwonder if always making consistency into a virtue is wise for anyone. Whystrive to enjoy a rich life, filled with the deep, transforming experiences offamily, travel, learning, love, daring, triumph and loss if you're determinedjust to cling to the same ideas that you've always had?” I certainly couldn’thave said it better.

Philosophers admire (Plato’s) Socrates because he refused toaccept that he knew anything. Additionally, I have always admired Malcolm Xbecause when he came back from his pilgrimage to Mecca, the first thing he didwas hold a press conference to admit that he was wrongabout many of the beliefs he previously advocated. It is certainly important tohave core beliefs, to have some constancy in one’s convictions and behaviors, butthere is a difference between changing one’s attitudes daily or weekly, andadmitting that as our knowledge changes, our beliefs and behavior should as well.

Mitt Romney, the perennial Republican second-placer, hasbeen under constant attack for designing and implementing the Massachusettshealthcare plan that serves as a model for Obama’s national overhaul. Romney deniesmuch of his involvement and its influence, but it always strikes me as odd thathe distances himself from his past instead of saying something like, “yeah, Isigned that health care plan into law. That is what my constituents wanted andI was their representative. But now, with more experience, I realize that theplan is, in principle, wrong, and I will do a better job of defending smallgovernment ideals to those people who don’t see their value.” Wouldn’t thatmake him a stronger candidate? Shouldn’t all of us want a president who can learn.

Consistency is no doubt important. But discovering that we are wrong is not the same as beingwishy-washy. What’s the point of an education if it is?

What is the difference between teaching religion and teaching diversity?

2011-12-15T22:19:00.000-06:00

Today, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher asked me aquestion that I knew would come eventually: do I want to visit her classroomand show students how to play Dreidel?Dreidel is the “official” game of Chanukah and Jewish parents all over thecountry are asked to give demonstrations to the younger grades in an effort to“even things out.” Teachers give Christmas assignments but parents have topresent the alternatives; I declined the invitation. Adina is not just the onlyJewish kid in her class, I’m pretty sure she’s the only one at her school, but Ibelieved that religion shouldn’t be taught in schools and this includes my own religion, not just otherpeople’s. I can’t make an exception just because I agree with myself.

To really understand the situation, I have to go over some background.First, let me state unequivocally that I reallylike Adina’s teacher, both as a person and as an educator. She does her jobvery well, with professionalism and respect, and all of our interactions beenpositive and satisfying. Nothing, and I mean nothing in this post should be taken as criticism of her in any way.

Second, the people who claim that there is a “war onChristmas” don’t understand what they’re talking about. What they don’tacknowledge is that in America, at this time of year, Christmas is everywhere –on every television, radio station, newspaper and sign. Even when the wordChristmas isn’t being used, red and green, candy canes, and trees withornaments are ubiquitous. When a person or a business says “Happy Holidays”instead of Merry Christmas, it is a split second acknowledgement, a half-dropof recognition in an ocean of isolation. It is just a brief gift that letsnon-Christians know that someone, somewhere, regards them with respect.

Third, my objection to celebrating Christmas in school is asmuch about economics as it is about the separation of church and state. Thereis the most minimal ethnic diversity in my daughter’s elementary school, but ithas the largest income disparity in the city. Keeping Christmas out of theschool day is as much about giving the parents who can’t afford the holiday abreak from the pressure of purchasing gifts as it is about protecting my own daughter.

So, back to the request: A student’s grandmother is comingto the class to teach the students how to decorate ornaments; she is also providingall the supplies. Adina’s teacher was being considerate and asking whether Iwanted my daughter excused from the event. (I said the decision was Adina’s.) Inexchange, the teacher offered to have me come in and teach the Dreidel class.

When I said no and explained my reason, the teacherresponded that she didn’t see it as teaching religion but as teaching differentcultures – she is promoting diversity which is, of course, a good thing. Butthis is where the philosophical conundrum comes in. On some level, she’s right.Judaism is a different culture and I can talk about Chanukah beingthe Festival of Lights, and about lighting the menorah, and about spinning thedreidel without a single mention of God. But if I do that, am I really teachingthem anything meaningful at all?

Jews don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, but Christmascelebrates it. It is Christ’s mass after all. And while there are plenty of peoplewho give presents and have a Christmas tree referencing Santa and not Jesus,the war on Christmas people have at least one part right: Christmas is, was,and always will be a religious holiday. But again, the issue at hand is how tonegotiate my disagreement with Adina’s teacher. Talking about a holiday issurely cultural, and if I don’t tell the kids about Chanukah, who will? But onthe other hand, if I teach without acknowledging the religious meaning, Judaismbecomes incoherent, and kids hatethings that don’t make sense What do I answer if a student asks why our familydoesn’t celebrate Christmas or why we have a different religion? My presence isinviting such questions. I certainly can’t tell them not to ask; I'm there to teach. Adina isunder strict instructions not to tell her classmates that Santa doesn’t exist.We don’t want her to be the Jewish kid that ruins their childhood dreams. Butasking her to explain her religion without acknowledging that hers isn’t theirsseems to be asking too much of even a six-year old. Or, so it seems to me.

I respect Adina’s teacher enough to agree to disagree and togive her the benefit of the doubt in her classroom. I’m not going to make astink about the Christmas-oriented lesson and Adina says she wants to makeornaments with her class; she told me that she’s going to give them as gifts topeople who celebrate the holiday. (She’s a really thoughtful kid.) But I stilldon’t like the idea of bringing my religion into a situation in which I thinkno religion should be permitted. Am I wrong and is her teacher right? Is thisjust diversity, after all, or is it more? I have my conviction but I’msecond-guessing myself. [Sigh.] I can’t wait for Christmas to be over.

How should we argue about the legitimacy of marriage?

2011-12-10T18:48:00.005-06:00

In honor of tomorrow’s WHY? episode, people have been sending me links about the nature of marriage. Two stick out from the pack. The first sent to me by a reader named Jay, is a tongue-in-cheek video arguing a version of what our guest will claim, that “traditional” marriage is not actually between one man and one woman. The second, posted by a bunch of people on Facebook, is a heartfelt defense of the rights of lesbians to marry based on their child’s experience of what it means to be a good person. It is noteworthy that no one sent me anything defending traditional marriage, but I’m not sure if this indicates anything about PQED’s audience, me, or if it doesn’t mean anything at all.

The two videos I embed below, taken together, bring-up an important question: what is the most effective way to criticize a deeply-felt traditional institution like marriage? The first uses sarcasm to point to an internal contradiction within the concept of “traditional marriage.” It does so sarcastically and with a sense of humor. And, while it can be dismissed by its opponents as disrespectful, it offers a powerful connection to a text many of them see as central to the debate (the Bible). The second appeals to what its speaker regards as a larger or more foundational virtue, justice. While there is even less agreement about the meaning of justice as there is on marriage, it relies on common experience about what a good person is. Obviously, the two approaches can work in tandem, but it is still worth asking whether one has inherently more philosophical power than the other. When given the choice, do we argue for consistency or for moral legitimacy?

The issue will not be resolved here; hopefully, we’ll get to it tomorrow with our guest. For now, and in preparation, as you watch the videos, ask yourself, which one contains the better philosophical argument and what, if anything, would you have to hear to change your mind about this issue?

Next Episode of WHY? "Philosophy of Marriage," with Stephanie Coontz. Sunday, December 11, 5 p.m. central

2011-12-07T13:03:00.000-06:00

For a free, high-resolution poster advertising this episode, click here.

Stephanie Coontz argues that the union between one man and one woman has not been the most valued marriage throughout history. Join WHY? as we discuss the traditions of marriage and family, and the morality behind them.

"The Philosophy of Marriage "
with guest Stephanie Coontz

Sunday, December 11, 5 p.m. central.

Listen live from anywhere in the world at www.whyradioshow.org
and in North Dakota at 89.3 (Grand Forks), 91.9 (Fargo), 90.5 (Bismarck), and on Prairie Public radio stations across the state.

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Is the “traditional” marriage between one man and one woman really the most preferred form of marriage? History suggests it is not. In addition to polygamy (the most valued, historically), there is also polyandry (one woman, many husbands), ghost marriages, “female husbands,” and many others, and almost none of them had anything to do with love. Join WHY? as we talk with Stephanie Coontz about her research on the history of marriage, family, and the moral systems that justify the choices.

Stephanie Coontz is the author Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, and other books. She teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. She also serves as Co-Chair and Director of Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-profit, nonpartisan association of family researchers and practitioners based at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work has been featured in many newspapers such as The New York Times, as well as scholarly journals such as Journal of Marriage and Family, and she is frequently interviewed on national television and radio.

A selection of her writings and interviews can be found here.

If you have a question you want to ask Stephanie in advance, send it to askwhy@und.edu or call us and record your question -- we'll call you back: (701) 428-1510

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Is it okay to hate another person?

2011-12-07T12:18:00.007-06:00

This post is a follow-up from the last one in which I asked about the morality of video games. In that entry, I focused on a possibly-fake game about Christians killing Jews and atheists after the rapture. First, it turns out that there does appear to be a real game that the story is based on, although the article seems to be an exaggeration. (Thanks to our reader Kay, for the heads up.) Second, I suggested that while the game may be wrong to teach hate, hateful opinions aren’t illegal and therefore the game should be allowed to exist.

It is the second point that I have been thinking about since I posted the discussion. In particular, I’m curious about the claim that it is immoral to teach hate. Is it? Some religious traditions teach that one should love one’s enemies and certain brands of Christianity teach people to “hate the sin not the sinner,” but these seem to be odd prescriptions. Why shouldn’t you hate your enemy, they are your enemy after all? And, aren’t people who they are largely because of their acts? Sinners sin; that’s what makes them sinners.

Aristotle argues that people shouldn’t worry about being honored; they should try to be honorable. Adam Smith extends this to suggest that people should concern themselves with praise, but with being praiseworthy. This makes me think, not about hate per se but about being hateful. Isn’t the real issue not that it is immoral to hate people but rather that it’s immoral to hate the wrong people? Hating people because they are different is prejudice. Hating people because they don't share an opinion is closed-mindedness, but hating someone who deserved to be hated seems to be good moral judgment.

Now, someone might object by claiming that loving someone can help the loved person redeem him or herself, or that hate begets more hate – that hate leads to more violence. But these are utilitarian objections. In these examples, hate is bad and love is good because of their consequences, not because they are wrong or right in and of themselves. Instead, I’m curious about the very basic premise that hate itself is such an awful emotion that it is inherently bad and as a result, people shouldn’t allow themselves to feel it regardless of the results.

The question remains, of course, what someone must do to earn hate, but that’s a conversation for another time. Instead, the query I pose here is that if someone meets this criteria, if someone is worthy of being hate, is it okay to hate them?

Can video games be immoral?

2011-12-05T17:04:00.000-06:00

A 2006 article about a “new” video game is once again being circulated on the internet. It’s probably a fake, although Snopes.com doesn’t have anything about it. The alleged game is based on the Left Behind series of books, and involves the player pretending to be in a gang of Christians killing Jews and atheists who refuse to convert. The (probably fraudulent) story has sparked outrage both from people who are offended at the violence against particular groups and by people who feel it misrepresents Christianity. There are also, predictably, people who argue that the Jews and atheists in question deserve it and others who claim that this is entirely consistent with the history of Christian power.

My reaction as a philosopher, however, is different. I ask, first, what the substantive difference is between this and the endless number of other video games that kill all kinds of people, and then I ask whether or not being rude is indeed a violation of freedom of speech.The latter, of course, forces us to ask about the relationship between the law and morality, a question that is endlessly complex.

Let me explain: First, what makes this (likely, fake) game different is that it is aimed at a particular subgroup – Jews and atheists – not enemy soldiers, robots, or egg-stealing pigs. It is easy to see why there would be outrage if there was a game about lynching African Americans or raping women, so why shouldn’t there be equal outrage if Jews and atheists are the victims? But, the opposition can argue, the game is make believe (more on this in a moment), so no actual Jew, atheist, African American, or woman, is actually being harmed, and since no one is actually being harmed, it becomes fairly easy to dismiss the outrage.

But that's not really the argument against the game. Instead, the implicit reason for the anger is that video games shouldn't teach hate, either in the name of Christianity or otherwise. But if this is the argument, then the game is certainly legally permissible, even if it is, on some level immoral (is it?), because declaring hate is protected by free speech. And again, if brute violence is immoral, then why isn’t Grand Theft Auto or other video games where the player kills prostitutes or, heck, anyone else who gets in their way, immoral as well? (Or, are they?)

Some Christian theologies still hold that the only way to redemption is through Christ (although certainly not all hold this opinion). Some of these also hold that violence and compulsion are acceptable means of conversion (although, in this case, these are in the vast minority). Are not these people entitled to their own video games? Again, they’re not actually hurting anyone. They’re being rude, they’re teaching hate, they’re misrepresenting a religion (most people think), but they’re not hurting anyone any more than Saw, Harry Potter, or Saving Private Ryan are. It’s all pretend. That is, it’s pretend, unless it can be shown that the video games actually inspire people to act on their hate or to hate people more than they might otherwise do without playing the video game. This is where the twist in the story comes in.

According to the article that everyone points to in their outrage,

The [video game] company is offering a free demonstration model to churches. "We see it as a beacon of light that could shine in the dark world of video games," said Jerome Mikulich, "director of outreach ministries" for the company. "The most important thing is that it helps kids realize there is power in the spirit world, and that by praying they can endure and get through their real-life situations."

In other words, the video game is not just teaching hate, but teaching that the slaughter of Jews and atheists is a “beacon of light,” and that people should want this to come true. So, the real objection is not that the video game is teaching people what to believe (to hate), but that it is teaching people how to act.

If this is indeed the case, what is the impermissible part, teaching people that they should act this way or people actually acting this way? No one seems to be doing the latter, just like no one actually committed suicide because Ozzy Osborne told them to. Thus, the only things that is genuinely objectionable in the story are people's desires. Legislating against wants is a tricky business, although ironically, it is Christianity that has had the most consistent argument that individual thoughts can indeed by sinful.

On some level, a video game like this, if it were real, would infuriate me. On another level, though, I don’t even know if I would react at all. It seems totally consistent with the kind of hate and tolerance that permeates the world (and not, obviously, just from Christians). In fact, there seems to be something soothing about it being out there for all to see. To show this, I will conclude by quoting something that several different black students have said to me in private conversation over the years, all independent of one another, and most in very different geographical locations. Each of them reported that they would rather live in the Southern United States than in the North because while both regions are incredibly racist, at least in the South “you know where you stand.” In this respect, the likely-fake video game has its merits. If I am ever in someone’s house and I see it on the shelf, I know both where I stand and I know how fast I have to leave.

What moral obligations do we have toward our date?

2011-12-04T13:26:00.001-06:00

Business Insider reports a story of a 23-year old woman who used Match.com to pay for her meals. She and her roommates set up spreadsheets and created ground rules for how to get the most meals out of their dates. After a while, she was saving $1200 per month by having someone else pay for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She did it because she wanted to live more lavishly than she could afford.

We have all been taught that buying dinner does not “obligate” anyone to anything – no one should feel like they have to have sex because someone purchased their meal. But does the lack of obligation to hook-up remove the responsibility to be there for the right reason? Shouldn’t someone on a date have at least some intention of seeking romance, of acting in in good faith? In short, while some could accuse this woman of exploiting her dates, others could claim that she never promised her dates anything but company during a meal. This is what they received.

What do you think? Is the woman in question being unethical and taking advantage of people’s desire for love, or did she just find a loophole that doesn’t really hurt anyone else? Interestingly, this was such a hot button topic, that Business Insider shut down comments. They wrote: “Update: We've disabled comments on this post because they were getting out of control. We have also changed the name of the woman in the story because people were taking it waaaay too seriously.” Clearly, lots of people have very strong opinions on the subject.

How much authority should schools have over a child’s life?

2011-11-28T14:46:00.001-06:00

Last week Kansas high school student Emma Sullivan visited her state capital and then tweeted that she wished she could tell her governor that “he sucked” in person. She then ended the tweet with the hashtag: “#heblowsalot.” I will admit, I think that’s a funny hashtag.

One of the Governor’s staff members found the tweet and called the Principal who demanded she write a letter of apology. Then the Governor experienced The Streisand Effect, the online phenomenon in which the attempt to hide something calls disproportionate attention to the thing one is trying to hide. In response to the fracas, Sullivan’s Twitter followers went from about fifty people to over 8,000, and media coverage went national. Today, Governor Brownback apologized for the reaction; the complete opposite of what his Communications Director wanted. No one is asking Sullivan to apologize anymore.

What interests me is not the reaction to the tweet – karma and the Streisand Effect took care of that. I am concerned, instead, with the fact that is was the Principal who demanded Sullivan write an apology, and that this was done in response to a political opinion expressed through a student’s personal account. The US 3^rd Circuit Court of Appeals found that schools do not have the right to discipline students for off-campus behavior that does not risk significant disruption, a finding that is enhanced, in this case, by Sullivan being eighteen years old and a legal adult. They did not have a compelling legal interest in disciplining her other than stopping the browbeating from the Governor’s office.

But that’s a legal question; as a philosopher I have to ask the moral version. Should schools discipline students for off-campus behavior? The answer in favor is obvious, kids need to learn that there are consequences for their action and school discipline often seems more serious than punishments at home. But the argument against can be summarized like this: school kids are whole people and like workers who should be allowed to have lives outside of their employment, kids need places where they can act independently of school authority. I don’t see that she did anything wrong (except perhaps using rude language), but even if she had, shouldn’t she have the space to act out without school intervention? Parents, police, neighbors, religious communities, all have different kind of authority over kids’ lives; there is no shortage of people to yell at them. Isn’t school oversight of this kind just another reason to hate school and the authorities that represent it every day?

Schools are largely about socialization – they educate pupils to acquiesce to community standards at least as much as they teach skills and facts. (For more about this, listen to Michael Apple’s episode of WHY?) But this standard is not unchallengeable. In fact some might find it profoundly objectionable, as many do when schools refuse to let gay students attend proms with same-sex dates. If the school has authority over every aspect of a kids’ life, then there is no venue for him or her to challenge those standards. And, what happens when the parents’ standards contradict the schools’? On campus, the school has final authority, but who has it on the street, in the home, or out in the community? Why should school rules trump all other authority?

Sullivan won this round; the school and the Governor were adequately humbled. But what if no one had come to her defense and who will protect her when the school inevitably finds another excuse to punish her for no reason other than retribution? At root, these questions point to deep controversies about what it means to be an independent child and a full human being. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Are stupid traditions worth preserving too?

2011-11-23T12:23:00.000-06:00

President Obama pardoned the Thanksgiving turkeys yesterday. For our foreign readers, this is a White House tradition in which the American President finds two turkeys and declares that they will not be eaten, sending them off to live a life of ease in a petting zoo or some national monument. This year’s birds were named “Liberty” and “Peace,” so needless to say, he couldn’t have killed either one.

This tradition is dumb. First off, the turkeys can’t be pardoned because they haven’t been convicted of a crime. Maybe they could be rescued or saved, but that’s not the same thing. More importantly, there are no consequences of the pardon. Obama (and most of America) are still going to eat other birds, so there isn’t even the symbolic value of swearing off the slaughter of millions of living creatures.

Conservative philosophers from Edmund Burke to Tevye the dairy farmer have argued that traditions are goods in themselves and that there is virtue in doing certain things simply because they have been done in the past. There are moments when I’m sympathetic to this argument, but what happens when the ritual is empty and just plain silly? Does the virtue of it being a tradition outweigh its senselessness?

I love Thanksgiving. I love the meal (including the turkey). I love having huge crowds at my house and cooking obscene amounts of food for people I care about. There are many arguments against the holiday worth discussing, including those that examine the slaughter of Native Americans and the immorality of a gluttonous holiday that exists in the shadow of world poverty and starvation. But I’m not discussing those now. Instead, I’m looking specifically at the ridiculous and self-contradictory nature of the turkey pardon and asking, does the fact that it’s a tradition mean it’s worth doing? Arguing yes would be, I think, a hard case to defend.

Should statistics change people’s minds?

2011-11-22T11:27:00.002-06:00


Source: http://dailyinfographic.com/face-off-occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party-infographic

A friend of mine just had a breast cancer scare. Given where the mass was in her body, people kept reassuring her that she had only a 25% chance of malignancy. Her response was always the same: “You are telling me that I have a one-in-four chance of getting cancer. These are NOT good odds!”

Thankfully, the masses turned out benign, but her point was well taken. One-in-four is not ideal when we're talking about cancer. The problem is, statistics don’t tell us anything about a specific case. If it is true that one in ten people are homosexual, it is not necessarily true that I have four homosexual students in my forty-person class. I could have none, ten, or even forty. Statistics only talk about patterns. Yes, they show how likely it was that she had cancer, but they didn’t tell her whether or not she did (the most important fact). Only the medical tests do that.

Patterns do inform us about things. Take the above chart. Despite the generally agreed-upon caricature, seventy percent of Occupy Wall Street protestors are currently employed, but only fifty-six percent of Tea Party members are. Also in comparison, the largest number of Occupy protestors was 1.4 million; the largest tea party protest was 300,000. It looks like many more people support the former than the latter, yet the latter has much more political clout in the United States.

In essence, what this chart shows is that the stories the media are telling about the Occupy movement are largely inaccurate. The question before us, then, is: should these facts change anyone’s mind about the Occupy movement? People in it are employed, educated, and more than half of respondents agree with their goals (I don’t know the details of the survey, so I'm not clear on what "agree with" means). Ought this persuade naysayers to take another look?

There is a logical fallacy called “appeal to the people” that points out that just because most people agree with something doesn’t make it true or right; consider slavery or the oppression of women. Logic teachers have been telling their students for ages not to take popular opinion as fact. Yet, at the same time, surely we should consider community opinion when we deliberate about controversial issues. Popular opinion can help balance out our subjective attitudes. Society can and does teach us things.

So, where does this leave us? When faced with statistics that give us a different understanding of something, are we obligated to change our mind, or can the numbers be dismissed because they don’t offer certain information? Given how much polls have already been cited in the American presidential election, I can think of no better time to start trying to focus on this question.

Is satire ever harmless?

2011-11-20T21:14:00.001-06:00

There’s a fine line between laughing with someone and laughing at them. This is made more complex by the ironic stance that seems ubiquitous on the internet. Since the Occupy Wall Street movement started, there has been an avalanche of jokes, satires, and derivative activities feeding off of the term “occupy.” Most of it isn’t making fun of the people involved, but I can’t help wonder whether it still works unconsciously to delegitimize the movement, even among those who would otherwise support it.

In the eighteenth century especially, there were many people who saw ridicule as a moderating influence on people’s manners (see, for example, comments by the Third Earl of Shaftesbury). Occasionally, something comes along that insightfully ridicules in this way, like this image, calling attention to the absurdity of pepper-spraying passive protestors at University of California, Davis.

But most of the jokes are not as incisive as the above Suerat painting and serve little purpose but to make people laugh. Does all of this take away from the message

I'm not suggesting that I am offended, and my own relationship with Occupy is complex, to say the least. But again, I can't help but wonder how public reaction would be different if there were a more solemn reaction to the movement. Is the disarming nature of humor the greatest adversary Occupy faces? I'm beginning to think that it is.

Is there a human right to toilet access?

2011-11-19T16:22:00.000-06:00

Poster courtesy of: http://www.worldtoilet.org/WTD/

Today is World Toilet Day, a day dedicated to calling attention to the one-third of people around the world who do not have access to flushable toilets. Campaigns like this remind those of us who take infrastructure for granted just how difficult life can be for the poor.

It is worth asking, though, not just what we can do to provide those in need with things like toilets, but whether we think people have a right to such things. While there are plenty of people around today who don’t think we have an moral obligation to help others, there are also many who go out of their way to help – not just out of charity but out of duty and a sense of justice. If everyone does have a human right to toilet access, then the rest of us have to work towards guaranteeing those rights. (Although, what each of us ought to be responsible for, in the face of others' needs, is a different question.) Do you think that there is a human right to adequate plumbing? Do you think each person is entitled to a toilet just because they are human? If so, what follows from your conclusion?

When is shock a moral political tool?

2011-11-18T18:04:00.002-06:00

My decision to use a pixelated version of this picture is one I am uncomfortable with, precisely because, as I say below, I think there is nothing wrong with showing nudity. But I also know that this is going to show up on people's Facebook and RSS feeds and I didn't want to impose the picture on others without warning. Do you think readers would react differently to my comments if I had shown the original picture instead of the censored one?

Much of the liberal-democratic world is used to nudity in protests. From PETA to peace activists, nudity has become an effective tool to get attention (link probably NSFW), precisely because the media likes to cover it. But these tactical decisions are the result of prurient motives -- the media likes to film nudity because people like to look at it; these pictures are often arousing.

Recently, though, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, an Egyptian blogger, posted nude pictures of herself to protest Egyptian and Islamic conservatism and their attitudes about women's sexuality. As The New York Times explains:

"Ms. Elmahdy — whose boyfriend, Kareem Amer, spent four years in jail for writings deemed insulting to Islam and Mr. Mubarak — posted the photographs with a statement declaring them an act of rebellion against Egypt’s conservative culture and “sexual complexes,” in the spirit of the revolution.

'Try nude models who worked in Fine Art Faculties in the early 1970s, hide all art books and smash naked archaeological statues,' read the statement, alluding to some recent protests staged here by ultra-conservative Islamists known as Salafis. 'Then take off your clothes and look at yourselves in the mirror, then burn your body that you so despise to get rid of your sexual complexes forever, before subjecting me to your bigoted insults or denying my freedom of expression.'"

Several questions come to mind. Can an act of sexual exposure -- of possible objectification -- counter sexism? Many would argue that it only makes it worse. (Karl Marx, for example, might refer to this as "universal prostitution.") Is it moral to expose oneself to such personal risk? This woman is laying a lot on the line for what is likely very little gain. This seems extreme for anyone.

Most interesting to me, though, is the question about the power of shock itself. In an Islamic context, this photo is indeed over-the-top shocking, not to mention, in many countries, illegal. As an American, I can hardly imagine it's impact. So, the question becomes, is using shock in this way an effective political tool? If it isn't, what's the point? And, more philosophically, are there any limits to how one should use shock to cause change? If sexuality is acceptable, what about images of violence? If violence is morally acceptable, what about images of suffering?

I don't mean to say that sexuality is equivalent to violence -- I think sexuality is a wonderful thing that should be explored and cultivated, and I don't find nudity objectionable at all, but I am very uncomfortable with depictions of violence and suffering. Since I am not shocked by this picture, I'm not sure how else to enter into the perspective of those who view it as inherently dangerous and immoral except by analogy with things I don't like, like violence.

And herein lies the problem. Shock is culturally defined, but shock is also intended to change culture. When is this acceptable and when isn't it? Are there instances that you think are beyond the pale -- that are morally wrong? And, given the Islamic context, do you think Aliaa Magda Elmahdy did a good thing? I wold love to hear from our Islamic readers as well.

Today is World Philosophy Day: How should we celebrate it?

2011-11-17T23:17:00.000-06:00

Today is World Philosophy Day, at least as declared by the fine people at UNESCO. No celebrations were planned where I am (in part because we didn't know it was World Philosophy Day), but I am forced to wonder what would the ideal celebration would be. In Plato's Symposium, the philosophers decide that they should celebrate by rejecting alcohol and discussing the true nature of Love. I find, however, that a little alcohol might actually help the discussion. At least, in that respect, I follow the advice of the Philosophy Professors at the University of Wooloomooloo in Australia. (See the video below.)

If you could do anything you wanted, how would YOU celebrate this esteemed holiday?

Our address is now www.PQED.org!

2011-11-17T22:48:00.003-06:00

Greetings everyone. As a sign that the slow posting season is now leaving us, we're happy to announce our new URL:

www.pqed.org

Blogger assures us that the old URL will continue to work, but adjust your bookmarks and tell your friends. anyway And we promise, more exciting posts will follow shortly.

Here is a QR-code to prove how hip and with it we now are:

Next Episode of WHY? "Philosophy of Violence" with Steven Pinker. Sunday, November 13, at 5 p.m. Central

2011-11-09T16:55:00.000-06:00

Join WHY? as we ask whether the world is less violent and whether humanity is progressing morally.

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"The Philosophy of Violence"
with guest Steven Pinker

Sunday, November 13, 5 p.m. central.

Listen live from anywhere in the world at www.whyradioshow.org
and in North Dakota at 89.3 (Grand Forks), 91.9 (Fargo), 90.5 (Bismarck), and on Prairie Public radio stations across the state.

Steven Pinker argues that the world is less violent today than it has ever been before. For some of his critics, this claim is more than false, it’s bizarre. What is Pinker’s argument, what does it tell us about human nature, and how should we think about violence in general? Join WHY? as we explore Steven’s newest book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, and come face to face with one of the contemporary world’s most important questions: is there moral progress?

Steven Pinker is the Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research on visual cognition and the psychology of language has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the American Psychological Association. He is the author of numerous books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. He is the Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New Republic, The New York Times, and other publications. He has been named Humanist of the Year, and is listed in Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine's "The World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals" and in Time magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today."

If you have a question to ask Steven in advance, send it to askwhy@und.edu, or call us and record your question -- we'll call you back: (701) 428-1510

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Should age be a factor in sending people to die?

2011-10-10T14:43:00.000-05:00

War favors the young. Children and teens are regularly sent to kill and be killed. But recently, in Japan, a group of retirees offered to sacrifice themselves by working to repair the dangerously irradited Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. They are explicit that they want to go in the place of younger people with more of a future.

Click here for an article from NPR, including an audio and text version of it.

The question before us, is whether it is moral to take age into account like this. Clearly, the people are volunteers, but suppose they weren't. Would it be wrong then? Isn't there a case to be made that relying on the elderly in cases like this limits the collective damage? On the other had, don't all people, regardless of age have equal moral worth? I'm wondering what your thoughts are.

Thanks long time reader, Elizabeth, for sending me the article and the idea for the blog entry! If you have ideas for the blog, send them to ippl@und.edu

How do you identify sexism?

2011-10-10T14:30:00.000-05:00


From the comic "Dykes to Watch Out For" (c) Allison Bechdel. http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/

Just to get the blog back on track, I'm going back to posting some short subjects to get our (read:my) brains going again. Some of these will be older and have been screaming at me (in my head) to post them for ages. Here is the first one: the famed Bechdel test.

Cartoonist Allison Bechdel points out that most American movies do not have significant female presence. To see if they do, she wants us to ask three simple questions:
(1) Are there two or more women who have names?
(2) Do they talk to each other?
(3) Do they talk to each other about anything other than men?

Here is a video that lists just a few of movies that fail the test:

Do you think that this is indeed a systemic problem as the video and cartoon suggests? And, do you think movies that fail the test are indeed sexist? Are there other simple ways like this to identify sexism that would help those who can't easily identify it?

Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, together again!

2011-09-28T11:05:00.003-05:00

PQED writer and WHY?'s host Jack Russell Weinstein is this week's guest on NPR's long-running show The Thomas Jefferson Hour. In the episode "Untrammeled Economy," Jack portrays Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith, and discusses morality and its connection to economics.

Click here to listen to online -- look for episode 938.
(Or, click here if you want to download the episode or subscribe to the TJ hour Podcast)

And revisit the Thomas Jefferson Hour next week when Jack and the host Clay Jenkinson discuss the classic book Robinson Crusoe (and argue a lot!).

Jack’s first appearance as Adam Smith was in Thomas Jefferson Hour episode #766. Go to the TJ Hour Archives to listen.

Clay, by the way, was the guest on the most recent episode of WHY? "Philosophy of Water." Click here to listen.

Next Episode of WHY? "The Philosophy of Water" with Clay Jenkinson. Sunday, September 11, 5 p.m. Central

2011-09-09T17:46:00.002-05:00

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WHY? Radio presents:

"Philosophy of Water"
with guest Clay Jenkinson.

Sunday, September 11 at 5 p.m. central

RSVP on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=237047643008183

Water is a force for life and for destruction. We simultaneously take it for granted and infuse it with profound meanings. Some of the deepest political battles revolve around its access, yet for most of us, these debates are invisible or disregarded. What is the philosophy of water? How does it affect our lives, and what happens what we are denied it, face too much of it, and when it becomes our enemy? Join host Jack Russell Weinstein and his guest Clay Jenkinson as they swim though these questions, asking about the legacy of hurricane Katrina, the recent floods in Minot, North Dakota, and the struggle to supply clean, accessible water to the world.

Clay Jenkinson is the Director of The Dakota Institute through The Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation, Chief Consultant to The Theodore Roosevelt Center through Dickinson State University, Distinguished Humanities Scholar at Bismarck State College, and a columnist for the Bismarck Tribune. A cultural commentator who has devoted most of his professional career to public humanities programs, Clay is the host of public radio's The Thomas Jefferson Hour. He has been honored by two United States presidents for his work. On November 6, 1989, he received one of the first five Charles Frankel Prizes, the National Endowment for the Humanities' highest award (now called the National Humanities Medal), at the nomination of the NEH Chair, Lynne Cheney. Since his first work with the North Dakota Humanities Council in the late 1970s, including a pioneering first-person interpretation of Meriwether Lewis, Clay Jenkinson has made thousands of presentations throughout the United States and its territories, including Guam and the Northern Marianas. He is also the author of numerous books.

Send a question in advance or ask it during the show at askwhy@und.edu

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Does power always corrupt?

2011-08-07T15:48:00.007-05:00

Lord John Acton famously remarked that “All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It is either a pragmatic comment or a cynical one, depending on your point of view, but modern democracies all assume its truth. Government checks and balances are built on the belief that if there are lots of people watching, and other people who can overturn previously made decisions, no single person or group will have too much power. Maybe this safety net works with government, but I can’t help thinking of Acton as I read about what United States airlines are doing at airports.

My comments here are not about the TSA; that’s a whole other discussion. I'm thinking instead about the airline employees themselves. In the last couple of months, a man was booted off of a plane for not pulling up his pants when a pilot told him to. (They were saggy, not obscene, although how low they were is a matter of dispute.) A woman was kicked off a plane because she was falsely accused of going pantsless when she wore a long sweater. And, a different woman, who was crying because her father had just passed away from a fatal heart attack, was removed from a plane because she asked for a glass of wine to calm down. In each of these, the airline employees used the power granted them to protect people passengers from terrorists. The people were no threat at all, and in two of the incidents, the cause was clearly a mistake. The first woman was indeed wearing pants and the second wasn’t drunk. Yet, no one said, simply, “Oops, my mistake. I apologize. Have a nice day.”

The incident that scares me the most, though, is the woman who was threatened with being put on the no-fly List for taking a picture of an employee at an understaffed baggage line. Here is how the woman describes it:

A minute later, we noticed [the employee] chasing us across the lobby. She demanded that I hand over my camera phone so that she could delete the photo I took. I politely refused. She then insisted that I delete the photo while she watched. I again refused. She then informed me that if I didn't delete the photo in her presence, she would call the Houston Police Department, have be arrested, put me on the "no-fly list" and "make me miss my fancy Costa Rica vacation." She stated, "you will never fly my airline again." I asked her what law she was talking about and she replied, "My law."

So, a woman wanted to complain, took a picture of an employee to document an activity, and she was threatened with being added to the no-fly list. Again, this is a list that is designed to protect people from terrorists. The sole purpose of preventing someone from taking a picture is to prevent the possibility of checks and balances. It is to preserve one’s power over another person. The airlines can be sued. Employees can be fired. But none of this can happen without documentation.

After the photograph incident, the TSA confirmed that taking pictures of airport employees is legal. Continental Airlines says that the woman was owed an apology but United Airlines says it’s an acceptable policy. In other words, it is completely arbitrary as to whether or not a person is permitted to take a picture. This violates two key precepts in the philosophy of law: all laws must be publicly known and they must consistently apply to all people. (Inventing a law on the spot is also problematic.)

There can certainly be a debate as to whether flying is a right or a privilege; similar debates take place about driver’s licenses all the time. But the real issue is whether even a privilege can be taken away for no reason. It seems that the airline employees are trading on their newfound power to protect themselves and to avoid admitting they made a mistake. This, it seems to me, is unacceptable.

There are people who will point out how difficult it is to work in airports and how rude passengers can be. I don’t deny this. But these facts are irrelevant to the issue at hand. Rude people should be held accountable in a proportionate way, including, perhaps, being refused service until they calm down or act respectfully. Nevertheless, being rude is not a crime and it is in no way akin to terrorism. Most importantly, polite people, grieving people, people with a certain fashion sense, or people who want to document activity to make a complaint shouldn’t be denied either rights or privileges because someone else was rude.

Do you think it’s possible to be in a position of significant power and not abuse it? As Lord Acton points out, it isn’t that power necessarily corrupts, it’s that a lot of it does. Airline employees these days have a lot of power. Do you think that they are a special case? Do you think I’m making more of this than I should, or do you think that any person or group of people, in this same situation, would act in the same way? Are this employees a few bad apples or are we watching human nature at work?

I will admit that there’s a part of me that worries that this blog post will result in me being put on the no fly list. But that’s just paranoia, right? Right!?

Next Episode of WHY? "Food and Sustainability" with guest Jay Basquiat

2011-08-06T16:02:00.000-05:00

"Like" us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Why-Philosophical-Discussions-About-Everyday-Life/197930226924288

WHY? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life
presents:

"Food and Sustainability"
with guest Jay Basquiat

How much thought have you given to the idea of food? Why do we eat some things and not others, even though they are all edible? And, what exactly does it mean to be natural? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the philosophy of food and sustainability: What are the moral rules for manufacturing food, for farming, and for our agricultural priorities? Why does food play such important cultural and spiritual roles in virtually every society? What responsibilities do we have to provide food for other and to provide specific kinds of food for ourselves? And, to what extend is the creation of food – farming, baking, manufacturing, etc. – cultures in and of themselves, and how do those cultures effect the larger ones we live in?

Jay Basquiat is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bismarck State College and sustainably farms near Mandan, ND. He operates a Community Supported Agriculture venture called Baskets of Plenty and serves on the board of the ND Humanities Council.

Listen live from anywhere in the world at www.whyradioshow.org and in North Dakota at 89.3 (Grand Forks),
91.9 (Fargo), 90.5 (Bismarck), and on Prairie Public radio stations across the state.

RSVP via Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/inbox/?compose&attach=2344061033&s=7&p[0]=267775016569376&oid=197930226924288

(This episode was pre-recorded on August 5, 2011)

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WHY? needs your questions in advance for our next show: "Food and Sustainability" with guest Jay Basquiat

2011-08-01T14:31:00.001-05:00

How much thought have you given to the idea of food? Why do we eat some things and not others, even though they are all edible? And, what exactly does it mean to be natural? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the philosophy of food and sustainability: What are the moral rules for manufacturing food, for farming, and for our agricultural priorities? Why does food play such important cultural and spiritual roles in virtually every society? What responsibilities do we have to provide food for other and to provide specific kinds of food for ourselves? And, to what extend is the creation of food – farming, baking, manufacturing, etc. – cultures in and of themselves and how do those cultures effect the larger ones we live in?

Our August show will deal with these and many more vexing questions, but we will be prerecording it, so we need your questions in advance.

Please write us or call us with your questions by August 5^th at 4 p.m.

Email: askwhy@und.edu

Our new 24-hour question line: 701-428-1510.

Our guest, Jay Basquiat,is an Assistant Professor at Bismarck State College and sustainably farms near Mandan, ND. He operates a Community Supported Agriculture venture called Baskets of Plenty and serves on the board of the ND Humanities Council.

“Food and Sustainability” will be broadcast August 14, at 5 p.m. central, on Prairie Public radio and via our website at www.whyradioshow.org.

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Read a new article about WHY? and its host

2011-07-31T13:15:00.000-05:00

"Jack Russell Weinstein says that society no longer condemns its philosophers to drink hemlock; it just sequesters them in universities."

This is the first line of a new article about WHY? and its host, published in Boston University Today. Jack received his Ph.D. from Boston University in philosophy in 1998.

If you're interested in reading it, click: "Radio Show Brings Philosophy to the Masses" | BU Today.
And, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, here is an article on WHY? from Humanities Magazine, the official magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. If you can't read it via the embed below, here is the original link.

As always, your feedback is most welcome.

How should we define terrorism?

2011-07-27T11:48:00.000-05:00

Interestingly, I could not find an illustration of "terrorism" or "terrorist" that did not beg the question asked in this entry. This "terrorist buster" logo is actually from the CIA website!

A friend posted the following data on Facebook:

Terror attacks in Europe 2006-2009:
Total number: 1770
Islamic: 6 (0.34%)
Right Wing Ethno-Nationalist and Separatist: 1596 (90.17%)
Left Wing: 106 (5.99%)
...Other/Not Specified: 62 (3.50%)
Source: Euro Pol

I thought it was interesting and posted it myself. The overall numbers seemed so much larger than I thought, and, of course, the percentage of Islamic terrorist attacks was even smaller than I would have guessed (although the overall trend was not surprising to me). I wanted to pass it on.

People saw the post, shared it, and commented on it, but someone asked the question that I myself would have asked had it not been 4 a.m. when I read it (and had I not been suffering from insomnia): what is terrorism? The answer was harder to find than I would have thought.

The source of the chart is not the data. The chart probably comes from blog devoted to documenting anti-Muslim feeling and caricatures with the unfortunate name of loonwatch.com. They posted the European analysis as a follow-up to a similar analysis about the USA. The data, on the other hand, comes from two different sources: Europol for European Data and the FBI for American data. Here is what the breakdown of terrorism in the US looks like (according to loonwatch):

Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil by Group, From 1980 to 2005, According to FBI Database

When I dug deeper, I found the FBI report and the federal definition of terrorism. It is intuitively satisfying: “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).

So, terrorism according to the USA, is using force to intimidate or harm for political objectives. Fair enough. But this isn’t the definition the FBI used for the report. Instead, when collecting numbers about domestic terrorism, they used: “unlawful use, or threatened use,” In other words, for domestic classification they used threats of terrorism rather than terrorist acts. This too makes sense. Threats intimidate and the purpose of violence is often to make threats credible.

Interestingly, the FBI didn’t use threats to define international terrorism. There terrorism refers to “violent acts or acts dangerous to human life,” intended to coerce, that are against the law in the US or other states. Why would they use a different definition domestically and internationally? The cynic in me wonders if they want to increase the numbers for political purposes, but the realist guesses that since their job is to stop acts based on threats, domestic threats are just more serious to the FBI than international ones. I hope it’s the latter, of course.

Europol’s definition was harder to find; it was in a very long report available as a PDF. They distinguished threat statements and terrorist attacks. Here is the data for 2010 in Europe:

• 249 terrorist attacks
• 611 individuals arrested for terrorist
related offences
• 46 threat statements against EU
Member States
• 307 individuals tried for terrorism charges

There is a lot more terrorism than I knew. And if you want details, both the FBI and the Euro Pol reports provide them. But what is most surprising to me is that terrorism includes everything from burglary, to taking animals from laboratories, to vandalism, to bombing and kidnapping. What distinguishes these acts from other crimes is the intentions. If the purpose of an act or threat is to influence governments and policy, then it’s terrorism.

Philosophers spend a lot of time arguing about how to gauge the moral worth of something. Do we judge an act by the intention or by the consequences? Is saving a baby from drowning equally good, for example, if you do it to get famous instead of doing it to save a life? It seems that in the case of terrorism, this debate has been resolved. It doesn’t matter if an act is just a threat or if it’s actually carried out, it doesn’t matter if someone spray paints a message or kills 3,000 people. What does matter is the motivation behind the act. If the purpose is political, then it is a terrorist act.

But this means that the same act is going to be punished in a variety of ways and a terrorist threat may have more consequences than a random murder of a stranger. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with this. Furthermore, as a friend once said to me (I’m paraphrasing, here), a murder is a murder, whether it’s because you don’t like the individual or you hate them because of the color of their skin. The consequences are the same. She was talking about “hate crimes,” and I don't know that I agree, but the underlying question is the same: how much should someone’s motive matter in a crime? Isn’t it the harm that’s done that matters? In the case of terrorism, we can ask whether attacking a state is more serious than attacking a person. Relatives and friends of the victim might not agree that it is.

I am glad Loonwatch is out there; Islamophobia needs to be recorded and curbed. The data is tremendously interesting and frightening, and it shows, yet again, that many people are much frightened of Muslims in general, and they shouldn’t be. But as always, anytime we try to define anything, there are a myriad of philosophical issues that complicate the issue. Nothing, not even recording a list of terrorist incidents, is straight forward. Our definition is going to heavily influence our data and our motivation is going to affect our definition. Objectivity, as always, is very hard to find.

Should we follow our hearts?

2011-07-18T13:57:00.000-05:00

IPPL/WHY? received a very nice email asking a very interesting question that I thought I would post to all of you. Matt (short for Mathieu) wrote the following (and he asks for understanding since French is his native language):

“We hear a lot "Listen to your heart" which is almost the most popular quote of our times. But, it's really rare (if nonexistent) that we hear philosophers saying that. Most of the time, they are actually saying the complete opposite. Who's right & who's wrong: poetic Disney quotes and morals, or unpopular and rational philosopher’s sayings?”

Listen to your heart can mean one of two things in this question. The first is a form of moral intuitionism that claims moral actions are best derived from looking within ourselves. The traditional philosophical response is to point out that listening to one’s inner self is often just obeying norms and habits. Thus, American slave owners, if they listened to their hearts, would have thought that their slaves genuinely deserved to be their property. Nazis, when listening to their hearts, thought Jews were genuinely viruses. (I assume I don’t have to explain why both of these are immoral and incorrect.) In response, an intuitionist might respond that these people simply didn’t listen hard enough, or think deeply enough, and that if they had really thought, and really paid attention, they would have seen the suffering and changed their ways. This position has been held by many different Christian denominations and is the core of meditation and enlightenment in many Eastern traditions.

The second meaning of the question – the more “Disney “ meaning, as Matt references it – is that regarding relationships or goals we hope to achieve, we should follow our deepest passions and desires. In terms of relationships, the difficulty here is that many people have trouble distinguishing love from lust and others repeatedly choose dysfunctional partners. Most people, it could be claimed, simply don’t have the self-knowledge or aren’t healthy enough to follow the paths their hearts want. In terms of our goals, we might ask whether it is responsible to encourage people to pursue those things that they’ll never accomplish. For example, if we have a sixteen-year old, four foot seven child with no athletic ability at all, but who wanted to be a professional basketball player, would it not our responsibility to be pragmatic and discourage him or her? On the flipside, for life to be meaningful, both our relationships and our goals have to be something that is valuable to us; this is what following our hearts must mean.

I don’t want to get much more into it. I would rather ask all of you the question Matt sent and see what your thoughts are. So, please do comment. And when you do, please respond in the comment box below (either the Facebook box or the Blogger comments), because I want everyone to see what you wrote, especially Matt.

Thanks, Matt, for writing, and please, everyone else, feel free to do so as well. Write us at ippl@und.edu or leave a phone message via the link on the left!

How important is self love?

2011-07-11T18:22:00.008-05:00

Bizarrely, and quite randomly, the Whitney Houston song “The Greatest Love of All” has been going through my head and I can’t get it to stop. This is the song that begins with the line “I believe that children are our future.” Maybe this is because last night’s episode of WHY? was on teaching philosophy for children, I don’t know. An added annoyance is that it is not the Whitney Houston version that I keep imagining (I’m not a fan) but, rather, it is the Sexual Chocolate version from Coming to America that is stuck in my head. And, I only know the first line of the song by heart, so it just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating. Once I learned the rest of the lyrics, my mood only got worse.

The song sounds like it’s about love of children, but it’s really not. It is an ode to narcissism. After Whitney declares that she has vowed “long ago, never to walk in anybody’s shadow,” she then realizes that whether she fails or succeeds, she has achieved the greatest love of all: love of herself.

“I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all”

This, needless to say, is problematic. Self love is important, as is dignity, which she also mentions in the song. (Dignity is what we’re supposed to be teaching the children who are our future.) But I find it hard to imagine that self-love is the greatest love of all, and I am wondering just how pervasive this narcissistic attitude is in pop culture and in our contemporary attitudes.

This moral solipsism isn’t just happening in the United States, although some people will knee-jerksihly say so. (Yes, knee-jerkishly is a perfectly cromulant word). I recently visited a friend in Vienna who had spent a few months in Nigeria teaching very poor children. It was a physically and emotionally difficult task and she couldn’t fulfill her commitment. I understand this and I don’t condemn her in the slightest for coming home. But during the conversation about her time in African she said to me that although she had to leave, “I know that I learned a lot about myself and that’s the most important thing, right?” She’s going through some tough times, so I didn’t say anything, but no. No, it’s not. However important self-knowledge is, I don’t think it compares to creating a significantly better life for a couple of dozen poverty-stricken school children with few options.

I want to avoid the discussion of what obligations we have to the poor. It is a long, complex, and interesting one, but it will derail my point here. I simply want to think about the nature of loving and knowing oneself in the contemporary world.

The idea of self-knowledge as central to morality has a long history. For example, the classical Greek philosophers saw is as a necessary component of virtue. But the idea that self-love is itself a virtue and not a vice really began with Bernard Mandeville in the turn of the 18^th century. He argued that acquisition, bad behavior, and the vicious life actually helps society by increasing economic welfare. (Without criminals there wouldn’t be police or locksmiths, therefore we’re all better off because there are more jobs.) Adam Smith extended this idea to recognize that self-interest and self-betterment were themselves worthy and noble goals. But none of these thinkers ever suggested that loving oneself was the most virtuous, most glorious thing that anyone can do, only that in-itself, there is nothing corrupt about self love and self interest.

We hear every day that it is important to be true to oneself, and many parents, teachers, movies, and songs, repeat this advice. But surely, authenticity is not the sole moral criteria. Wouldn’t we have been better off is Stalin, Hitler, and Mao had not been true to themselves? I can think of many people in my own life who aren’t as evil as those three but who would still benefit from being inauthentic every once in a while. Bill Cosby said it best in his 1980’s standup comedy:

“I said to a guy, ‘Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful,’ and he said, ‘Because it intensifies your personality.’ I said, ‘Yes, but what if you're an asshole?’”

None of what I’m saying here is revolutionary or new. But I was struck by the tone of power and glory that The Greatest Love of All cultivates. The song sounds like it’s about love of children (which, as a father, I think may indeed by the greatest love of all), and it sounds like it might be about one’s relationship with God, which, for many religious traditions is also a likely candidate for the greatest. It could also be about the love for humanity as a whole, which is key as well. But the song is insidious because it actually sneaks in this massively corrupt claim that love for oneself is the central moral mission of a human life. That makes it dishonest as well as misleading and I wish it would get out of my head.

Please take the WHY? listener survey

2011-07-08T22:30:00.001-05:00

Are you a WHY? listener or hoping to be? If so, we would very much appreciate it if you would fill out the following survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WT6LZL6

It will help us understand our audience better and improve the show!

Thanks!

What is the difference between experience and expertise?

2011-07-08T10:49:00.004-05:00

ABC news has announced that Elizabeth Smart has been hired as a special news correspondent on stories related to child abduction and victimization. Smart herself was kidnapped and abused for nine months when she was fourteen years old. The Faculty Lounge blog calls this new hire “creepy” and Salon.com asks if it is exploitation. But the most interesting question for me is whether having been kidnapped makes her an expert. Her victimization gives her a specific and important perspective on such incidences, but this experience constitutes data and may not be understanding. Does her experience give her specialized or general knowledge about child abduction victimization?

Expertise, I would think, involves knowing an entire field of study, being able to apply this knowledge in a range of cases, and being able to articulate details about particular instances in order to advance knowledge in the field. Maybe this is just an academic point of view, but I don’t know that her experience would necessarily lead to this kind of knowledge. She has become a victims' rights advocate and even written a book for victims, but advocacy isn't expertise either. The first is politics and the second is analysis.

I once heard Tom Brokaw say that the big shift in television news in the 1990s was moving from telling people what they should know to telling people how they should feel. I found this particularly insightful, and if Brokaw is right, Elizabeth Smart will certainly advance the mission of ABC news. She will make people feel for the victim, which is, no doubt an important part of knowing. But will people learn more because of her comments and is she a better use of resources than hiring someone who has studied these kinds of cases for twenty years? What, in this and in other circumstances, is expertise?

Is philosophical thinking “work"?

2011-07-07T12:23:00.000-05:00

I just got back from a long vacation. It was my first real non-working vacation in maybe two decades and since I’ve returned I’ve been thinking about writing the blog, but my mind has been a blank. I was out of the country for Anthony’s wiener (thank God), and I will admit that I had never heard of, nor know anything about Casey ~~Anderson~~ Anthony. Frankly, I haven’t been compelled to write about anything lately and it feels like the philosophical part of my brain has been shut off.

I am a professional philosopher and, not surprisingly, I see the world in a certain way. I watch movies, read books, and engage in conversations with frequent and automatic mental references to people, theories, controversies, and phrases. But even so, that kind of stuff is a background conversation and most of the time I can engage with family, friends, the folks I meet on the street, and various mail carriers, cashiers, and baristas without any hint of philosophizing. Putting the philosophy “up front” takes effort and while it feels natural, it does so in the way that using a stick-shift does, not in the way that chewing should. In other words, it seems like an artifact of a habit rather than a natural way of being. This made me wonder whether philosophical thinking ought to be considered as a form of “work” or not.

As a total aside, I feel really weird every time I use the term 'barista', as if it's a made up word. (Firefox thinks it's misspelled, adding support to my attitude.) I know it's originally Italian, but it feels both fake and pretentious. I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary and it's first use was in 1982 when I was 13. This explains it. In my brain, it is grouped with other fake words, like "tweeting" and "muffin top." Here, for all you word lovers, is the OED entry:

barista, n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /baˈriːstə/ , /bəˈrɪstə/ , U.S. /bɑˈristə/ , /bəˈrɪstə/

Inflections: Plural baristas, (rare) bariste, (irreg.) baristes.

Etymology: < Italian barìsta (plural barìste; 1939–40) < bar (see bar n.¹ 28a) + -ista-ist suffix.(Show Less)

Categories »

A bartender in an Italian or Italian-style bar. Also spec. (orig. U.S.): a person who makes and serves coffee in a coffee bar (the more frequent sense in English).

1982    P. Hofman Rome, Sweet Tempestuous Life 24   A good barista can simultaneously keep an eye on the coffee oozing from the espresso machine into a battery of cups, pour vermouth and bitters‥and discuss the miserable showing of the Lazio soccer team.

1988    Boston Globe (Nexis) 13 Dec. 61   A feisty but cordial competitor to the larger caffeine chains the [Boston Coffee] Exchange has unfurled a help-wanted poster titled ‘Learn to be a coffee barista’.

1990    Atlantic Nov. 157/2   This ritual unites all the baristas in Italy. But not everyone accomplishes the layer of light-colored crema, or foam, that is the pride of an expert espresso-maker.

When I use the term 'work,' I mean more than effort but less than employment. I probably mean something close to what Marx meant by labour (or labor, for my English speaking, barista-loving readers): the willful doing/creating/altering of things; a combination of mental and physical activities that only become real when someone actually exercises it. Philosophy is this, for me, and, as Marx would happily point out, since it is my profession, it is also something that I can buy and sell, and whose product gets taken away from me.

But if philosophy is simply work in this sense then it is in the same category as making cars or filling out TPS reports. It would be in the same realm as building a dam or painting my house, but it doesn't seem right to lump them all together because I know that when my philosophical brain is engaged, I see the world differently than I do otherwise. (Not that a carpenter doesn't see a house differently than I do.) For example, Shaun of the Dead is great fun when I’m zoning out on the couch (if anyone knows Simon Pegg, please introduce us), but it is a brilliant vehicle for cultural examination when I am thinking about it philosophically. Interacting with my daughter is automatic in many respects if, but if I think about her perspective, her needs, and her future philosophically, the entire experience is changed. It becomes much richer. It adds – pardon the Marx again – distinct value to the experience. It also takes much more conscious effort. It is harder. (Speaking of my daughter, don’t forget to listen to the next episode of WHY?. It’s about teaching philosophy to children.)

Obviously, writing this blog is work. It is also a labor of love (or a labour of love for the non-American English), but the philosophical thinking behind it is more ambiguous. So, I wonder if any of you have thoughts about this. Does my brain's ability to turn philosophy off and on make philosophical thought more like work than other forms of automatic thinking? How about the fact that philosophical thinking is significantly more difficult and more tiring than non-philosophical thought? If these do turn it into work, what does this say about creativity, since the two kinds of thinking are certainly related? And, if we become habituated to something, does it remain work even if it doesn’t feel like it, or does it stop being work because it’s automatic? Finally, if philosophical thinking is indeed a kind of work, what does this mean for reading this blog? Am I imposing added work upon you and does this become less or more problematic if you (or I) get pleasure from the process? Philosophy is immensely enjoyable for me. How does that change the whole equation?

Do help me answer these questions. They are too much work for me to address on my own.

Next Episode of WHY? "Teaching Philosophy for Children ." Sunday, July 10, 5 p.m. central

2011-07-06T12:13:00.000-05:00

Join WHY? as we ask how children are being taught philosophy all around the world.

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"Teaching Philosophy for Children"
with guest Maughn Gregory

Sunday, July 10, 2011, 5 p.m. central.

Listen live from anywhere in the world at www.whyradioshow.org
and in North Dakota at 89.3 (Grand Forks), 91.9 (Fargo), 90.5 (Bismarck), and on Prairie Public radio stations across the state.

How young can children learn philosophy? How should it be taught in the schools? What does philosophy offer that other curricula do not? For decades, the international movement known as “philosophy for children” has had tremendous success teaching in both public and private schools. Emphasizing moral education, critical thinking, and concept development, P4C, as it is know, has inspired even the youngest children to speak out in class, think about the most difficult subjects, and come to their own conclusions about controversial issues. Join WHY? as we examine this fascinating topic and ask whether a subject like philosophy is compatible with schooling built on standardized testing.

Maughn Gregory is Associate Professor of Education Foundations and Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children at Montclair State University, in New Jersey. He publishes and teaches in the areas of Pragmatism, Political Philosophy, Philosophy for Children, Philosophy of Education, and Gender and Critical Thinking. He holds both a Ph.D. and J.D.

WHY’s host Jack Russell Weinstein says, “Philosophy for Children is a fascinating subject. People always think about philosophy as a subject for college student, but it seems to be more successful the younger the students are. I’m thrilled to be able to talk with someone who has such an international view about philosophy and its impact on children’s education.”

If you have a question you want to ask Maughn in advance, send it to askwhy@und.edu or call us and record your question -- we'll call you back: (701) 428-1510

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“Growing Up North Dakotan” - A special live event from WHY? Radio.

2011-05-17T22:55:00.000-05:00

What do young North Dakotans think about out-migration?

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Should we celebrate the death of an enemy?

2011-05-04T19:11:00.006-05:00

Most people are aware by now, that Osama Bin Laden has been killed by American forces. Like many, I watched the announcement live and shared surprise, jubilation, and jibes with friends on Facebook. There were, at various places in the US, spontaneous gatherings during which people shouted “USA!” and sang the national anthem. It was a powerful night of catharsis that many people are now criticizing.

The argument against celebration is, in short, that it is unseemly to celebrate anyone’s death, whether enemy or not. The loss of a person’s life is a tragedy, the argument asserts, and such a killing should be handled with solemnity and thoughtfulness. I get this and it is a criticism that stings for two reasons. First, it is often made by people for whom I have the deepest respect, and second, I made a similar point ten years ago, in one of my favorite pieces of writing, during a sermon I delivered for the Jewish high holidays. Just six days after the attacks on the world trade centers, I wrote:

“There is an image, within our cultural consciousness, of the prison that executes the condemned using the electric chair. As the warden pulls the switch, the lights outside the prison dim. Outside, inevitably, are the few, the self-righteous, the indignant. As the light dims they cheer. This death, this tragedy, induced and endorsed by the state, becomes, for them, a moment of celebration…. [but] Jews have no business standing outside the prison, watching the dimming lights, and cheering.”

(Remember, I’m reading this to a synagogue on one of the two holiest days of the year, so the mention of “Jews” is not anachronistic or tribalism. I thought that the message applied to everyone, Jewish or not. I was just talking to Jews about Jewish morality.)

Given that I too celebrated Bin Laden’s death on Sunday night, I must ask whether I have changed my mind or whether I was simply swept away by the moment. I’ve been thinking about this non-stop for the last two days, I even wrote a long note about it on facebook, and although my comments were well-received by most, a few people leveled the same criticism against it: I was wrong to defend the celebration. (I’m not linking to the note, by the way, because it reveals too much of my personal politics and such comments have no place on a non-partisan blog like this.) In the end, however, I have come to the conclusion that I have neither changed my mind nor acted incorrectly. I think that ten years ago, I was writing about a different case.

There is, I believe, a difference between executing a prisoner who is trapped in a cell and who poses no danger, and an enemy combatant with whom we are at war. The prisoner is in our care, at our mercy, and because of this we have a specific trust to fulfill. If the death penalty is ever necessary (and it is far from certain that it is), it is something that is deliberate, theatrical, and the executed person has no opportunity to defend him or herself. A war, however, is more spontaneous and riskier. Original reports suggested that Bin Laden was armed during the battle. Now there is some suggestion that he was not. I’m not sure if it makes a difference because the American soldiers were in a firefight and it sounds like it was impossible to know what Bin Laden could and couldn’t do to defend himself. But, if Bin Laden had lain down, put his hands behind his head, passively surrendered, and the soldiers knew for certain that they were safe from bombs or ambush, then the attack would have become an execution and different rules might have applied. It sounds like this wasn’t the case and I think they were justified in killing him.

This still doesn’t answer the question, though. Whether Bin Laden should have been killed is different than whether anyone should celebrate the fact that he was, and the latter point is the occasion for this post. Those who condemn us for celebrating Bin Laden’s death do so because of the sanctity of life. Human existence is special (perhaps all existence is), and when it is taken away, people claim, its loss must be mourned. However, it is at this very point where I start to have trouble with the argument. It seems odd to me that we celebrate the sanctity of life at the moment of death and not during the life itself. We hate paying taxes to help educate, or to help promote health care, or to assist people in need across the globe. We waste our time watching Jersey Shore instead of great works of art and other significant human achievements, we treat our bodies horribly, eating bad food with cancerous chemicals and while avoiding exercise (I was about to go the gym when I sat down to write this). We neglect our families and become overly focused on work. We are rude, selfish, hostile, and suspicious. Americans in particular tend to spend a lot of time arguing for life’s sanctity at the moment of conception (if they are anti-abortion) and at the moment of death (if they are anti death penalty) but they don’t spend a lot of time focusing on it during the periods in between. Maybe this is because those two moments are the main instances where a person’s life is solely controlled by someone else, or maybe it is when we are most aware of its preciousness. But being made aware that life is precious is not the same as life actually being more precious, and it seems to me that the people who are focusing on the moment of death are blaming the soldiers (and the celebrants) for a crime committed long before the raid on Pakistan ever began.

To put it another way: I mourn Bin Laden’s life rather than his death. I mourn the fact that he chose to waste what God or nature gave him by killing others, by living in hiding, by blowing untold millions of dollars on guns, bombs, and uniforms, instead of spending it on education, medicine, culture, and charity.

Bin Laden took a fringe interpretation of Islam and used it to eat away at the moral core of a religion that is responsible for some of the world’s most important philosophy, art, theology, and inspiration. This crime must be mourned too. There are billions of Muslims in the world who are kind, righteous, loving people, and whom I would be proud to call neighbor and friend. But Bin Laden betrayed them too with his war mongering and his selfishness. I know he thought he was correct in his theological views, but evidence shows otherwise, and virtually every Islamic scholar in the world agrees. In other words, his life was the tragedy, not his death.

In response, though, my critics will reassert that life is sacred and therefore a good in itself. How he lived his life then, is irrelevant to the value we should place on his very existence. When we have to kill someone, they might continue, we should be humble because death is the one thing that destroys all possibilities. It is a display of power, of cessation, of the animalistic side of humanity that we must conquer. Nothing follows from death, but anything can happen from a life.

Again, I get this. I’m not convinced that I agree, but I get it, and even if I disagree, I think I should be ever conscious of the perspective because doing so will make me a better person. So, with that in mind, here is my ultimate response: sometimes we celebrate because we don’t have the tools to do better. Sometimes we make jokes because it’s the best vocabulary we have for catharsis. Sometimes we act a certain way because we are, at that moment, incapable of acting differently. Would it have been better if the spontaneous crowds shouted, “we are relieved!” instead of “USA!”? Perhaps. Should the Facebook posts have read “now I have a little less anxiety,” instead of “yay! We got the bastard””? Maybe. Should all of us engage in a collective, soul-searching, mapping of the complex emotional landscape that living in a dangerous world and fighting three wars (four if you count the war against terror) requires of us? Yes. We should. And doing so is part of the motivation of this post. But in times of great relief, in moments of catharsis, in instances of collective identification, we ought to have permission to be imperfect creatures who emphasize the most immediate emotion and the most powerful expressions. Jon Stewart accurately called his celebration of Bin Laden’s death a show of “pure id.” I couldn’t have said it better. And it makes me realize that the true answer to the question “should we celebrate an enemy’s death?” is not either “yes” or “no” but rather “first yes then no.” Given all that we have been through and all that Bin Laden has meant for everyone in the world, we ought to be entitled to a period of celebration and catharsis, but then we also need to get over it.

It seems to me that the real question is not whether we were wrong to celebrate Bin Laden’s death on Sunday night but once the threat has passed, once our heartbeats calm down, and once we move on with our lives, whether we should continue to celebrate his death or take the occasion to reflect on human life, foreign policy, religious tolerance, and how we treat the men and women who exist in the world with us right now. If we do this, then we are recognizing the sanctity of life while people are living it and not at the moment they die when it is too late to make a difference to them. But if we need to feel joy before we get there and to act out a bit before we can center ourselves and reflect on our circumstances, then I’m okay with that. After significant reflection, I do not think we were cheering at the dimming lights outside the prison at all. Instead, I think we were all celebrating our own existence instead of focusing on the enemy’s death and we ought to be permitted to do that as well. If all life is sacred, our lives our sacred too. We are entitled to attend to that joy as well.

This Sunday: Next Episode of WHY? - "Are There Just Wars?"' with Michael Walzer

2011-04-06T22:26:00.000-05:00

Next episode of

WHY? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life:

“Are There Just Wars”
With guest Michael Walzer.

Sunday, April 10 · 5:00pm - 6:00pm, central time.

Prairie Public Radio (89.3 Grand Forks / 91.9 Fargo) and

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The philosopher William James once remarked that those who think that war is inevitable suffer from a lack of imagination. What about those who think that war is never justified, do they suffer from a lack of imagination as well? Can war ever be the moral thing to do? Is it ever justified to be the attacker, or is war only a matter of defense? Given the modern nature of war, can we really distinguish between civilians and combatants, and, given the dangers of terrorism, is preemptive war now permissible? Join WHY? as we engage in the thousand-year old quest for a definition of just war with one of the most influential thinkers on the subject: Michael Walzer.

Michael Walzer is professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. One of America’s foremost political thinkers, he has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He has played a critical role in the revival of a practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. Walzer’s books include Just and Unjust Wars (1977), On Toleration (1997), and Arguing About War (2004); he has served as editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades. Currently, he is working on issues having to do with international justice and the new forms of welfare and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.

WHY?’s host Jack Russell Weinstein explains, “I’ve been reading Michael Walzer since I was an undergraduate and he’s always impressed me with his ability to see politics in a different light. There are few subjects more emotional than war. It will be a relief to discuss its morality with someone who can be both passionate and reasonable at the same time.”

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