This being a Saturday morning, I've been lazy. For some ungodly reason, I've read some piffling article about Rod Liddle's possible editorshop of The Independent being challenged over comments he'd allegedly made pseudonymously on some Milwall website message board, and followed a trail (didn't it use to be called 'surfing the Net'?) to this:
I read a comment somewhere recently on the Internet that expressed the view that most reasonable people are by now "bored to tears" with this whole atheism versus religion debate, and I am, too. Nonetheless, I thought I'd see what Rod Liddle had to say on the subject.
I don't really know what I think about Rod Liddle. His style seems broad and wading. So far, however (I'm halfway through the 3rd clip) I can't really fault him on the direction of that broad wading. (For instance, he cites Stalin's regime as atheist, but not Hitler's.) My own personal reaction is that he is stating the obvious, or what should be the obvious. Perhaps it's not. Anyway, I have the impression that this programme is a simple registering of what the title describes (the trouble with atheism) in the barest and most common, least controversial form such a document can take. There's not a sense so far, that this is breaking new ground, only that it is putting in order a number of observations that have been made and can now be seen as a standard view of a particular position. And no position is neutral, no – not even mine, though I suppose I suggest it is when I describe this programme as "stating the obvious". However, it is precisely this point that is the trouble with atheism, and, at the risk of hammering in a nail that is already nailed, it was summed up for me by the phrase I've just heard from the mouth of Peter Atkins:
What's wrong with arrogance if you're right?
This is a beautiful phrase, since it illustrates perfectly the circularity of atheist chauvinism. The arrogance comes in the certainty that you are right. Atkins justifies his arrogance through the certainty that he is right, which certainty is propped up by his arrogance.
I suppose what is obvious to me is simply this circularity, that atheism is a position that claims to be no position.
Anyway, I'll probably watch the rest of this now, to see if anything becomes less obvious.
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Yes, it is, at least, an interesting experiment. I hope it is or can become more than that. There’s the question of whether anything can really change. It is encouraging to think (and here I seem to differ from Chesterton and others who see human nature as immutable, though I sympathise with them) that consciousness has not always existed as it does today, that change has occured before and so, presumably, may do so again.I’ve always been attracted to the notion that the world can change or even be transformed. In the US, this view of things tends to be held by New Age people who, of course, are hoping for a New Age.I don’t have that much hope for the New Age vision, but it is an interesting way of looking at life. If I had to go with some version of collective transformation, I’d probably go with the view that technology or information will keep increasing exponentially until some tipping point. And then the shit will hit the fan.It seems highly probable that collective transformation is inevitable. We either transform or we destroy ourselves. I don’t see any other options.Originally posted by quentinscrisp:I would like it if life were not simply one thing after another. I do understand that many, many people have died while looking and hoping for something else. Still… I am interested in the possibility that there might be real change and an end to the nightmare of linear time, perhaps – perhaps – even in our lifetimes.An end to linear time. Sounds lovely. Perhaps, even in our lifetimes. How ironic. But with God’s sense of humor the end of time probably is just the same as the beginning. There is no escape!I read an interesting book many years ago which was about the end of linear time, the end of the linear progression of history. The book was Yuga: An Anatomy of Our Fate by Marty Glass. It was an odd analysis that combined Eastern and Western views of reality. The author thought we were in the Endtimes and that life was just a dream. His conclusion was that there isn’t really anything one can do in the Endtimes other than pray and stop fighting the inevitable. It actually wasn’t a depressing book. I read a short bio about the author and he seemed liked a happy guy.
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Somewhere way back in time the Mafia took over. Now we call them ‘the Government’, or ‘the church’, or ‘the banks’. Their influence is evil.I like that you use the word ‘evil’ in that comment. I don’t often refer to anything as evil, but sometimes it seems like the perfect word. I make no claims about metaphysical evil. What seems evil to me is something in human nature that on the collective level becomes incomprehensible in its destructive capacity. Evil is that which is inevitable because of no single person being responsible for it. Evil is expressed through the actions of individuals, but it’s the culture itself that is at the root of it. It’s passed on from generation to generation, from one culture to the next.Evil only makes sense in terms of humans and human culture. When I look at nature, I see suffering but no evil. When I look out into the universe, I at times sense a cold indifference but no evil. Evil is neither in the individual nor is it beyond the individual. Human culture which sustains evil doesn’t exist in any objective way. Evil is evil because it can’t be grasped, can’t be comprehended. We can’t see evil. We can only see its results: rape, abuse, murder, genocide. Et Cetera.I was just now thinking about how evil is most often placed in terms of stories. Evil is the bad guy with the black hat. Evil is simple and clear in stories. The Good battles with the Bad, and typically the Good wins: Osiris and Set, Jesus and Satan. It’s very strange how the concept of Good and Evil has been with humans for since around the beginnings of Western Civilization. I’m not if there was an exact equivalent ideology in early Eastern Civilization. The Western ideology of Good and Evil comes from Zoroastrianism. I’ve never studied Zoroastrianism, and so I don’t know if it’s influence ever reached as far east as Japan. I know Manichaeism survived the longest in the East.By the way, I heard of two books that I thought might interest you. One of the books is “The Last Train From Hiroshimo”. I heard an interview with the author. It sounded interesting. The author interviewed some of the survivors and did lot of research. The author talked about “fire worms”, “grass people”, and “ant people”. A Japanese poet who saw the mushroom cloud thought it looked like a flower with petals opening up. He felt that all the Japanese people should die like petals on a beautiful flower.The other book I don’t remember the title of. It was about the Americanization and globalization of mental illness. I also heard the author interviewed. The author made a reference to Japan. He described Japanese culture as revering sadness, but that the US exported it’s disease paradigm. I don’t know how this has changed Japanese culture. I suppose Japan probably was never quite the same after being bombed and then rebuilt.
I just saw the movie Avatar. I wrote a review about it where I discuss culture, imagination and stories. You might find it interesting.http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/avatar-imagination-culture/
Originally posted by Marmalade:”I make no claims about metaphysical evil.”Forgive me for saying this, but in a sense you do. Or rather you appear to when you write:“Evil is expressed through the actions of individuals, but it’s the culture itself that is at the root of it…Evil is evil because it can’t be grasped, can’t be comprehended. We can’t see evil.”This seems to imply (an intangible something)“evil” has existence within the fabric of a particular culture – as opposed to, say, an individual following his or her personal inclinations. By this definition “evil” is almost transcendent, like the many and varied concepts of God that exist or have existed within the multitudinous cultures of the world. As such, it seems your explanation contains more than a whiff of the metaphysical – and I don’t mean this as a criticism, only as a demonstration of how difficult it is to keep the metaphysical out of a discussion of this sort. “ Evil is neither in the individual nor is it beyond the individual. Human culture which sustains evil doesn’t exist in any objective way”I make the assumption here that it is “evil” not human culture that “doesn’t exist in any objective way”? In which case “evil” becomes subjective. Or are you suggesting that the elements “within” a culture sustaining “evil” are beyond objectification, hence indefinable?Much of what we term “evil” in the world seems to me to be rooted in ignorance. I would agree that the “concept” of “evil” is “passed on from generation to generation”, although I would add over time it becomes modified. There is no “universality” of “evil” (IMO)– you mention rape, murder, etc, actions currently recognised as “evil” but which were acceptable, in fact devoutly to be pursued, in any number of human societies – for example, the ancient Assyrians advertised and glorified their many genocides in monuments still standing today.I suspect the human concept “evil” along with most of our ethical beliefs is closely linked to our need for religion, superstition and magic. To quote Bruce Hood, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol: “I don’t think we’re going to evolve a rational mind, because there are benefits to being irrational – Superstitious behaviour — the idea that certain rituals and practices and protect you is adaptive. If you remove the appearance that they are in control, both humans and animals become stressed. During the Gulf War in 1991, in the areas that were attacked by Scud missiles, there was a rise in superstitious belief.”I want to challenge recent claims by Richard Dawkins among others, that supernaturalism is primarily attributable to religions spreading beliefs among the gullible minds of the young. Rather religions may simply capitalise on a natural bias to assume the existence of supernatural forces.”In much the same way, it may have been essential to our survival as a species, that we didn’t start out on the wild and wooly savannahs killing everyone that moved: there was strength in numbers, in combination, but this would entail a number of human beans living in close proximity to each other – it would make their survival more of a possibility, if they could do so without recourse to battering each other’s brains out at each available opportunity. Hence the development of concepts of “good” and “evil”, moral stances define by culture, which became manifestly essential for our continued survival as a species.The human mind is adapted to reason intuitively, so it can generate theories about how the world works even when mechanisms cannot be seen or easily deduced. As Bruce Hood has said: “The mind is adapted to reason intuitively about the properties of the world. Because we operate intuitively, it is probably pointless to get people to abandon belief systems. No amount of evidence is going to get people to take it on board and abandon these ideas.” He is here concerned with superstition and various human belief mechanisms. But the same is very true about our belief in “good” or in “evil”, I suspect.I enjoyed your review of Avatar, by the way…although, showing my age (and stupidity) I saw it as a remake of Tarzan!!?Kindest regards.
Originally posted by peedeel:This seems to imply (an intangible something)“evil” has existence within the fabric of a particular culture – as opposed to, say, an individual following his or her personal inclinations. By this definition “evil” is almost transcendent, like the many and varied concepts of God that exist or have existed within the multitudinous cultures of the world.Yes, “evil” is almost transcendent. Many things including culture are almost transcendent in that they’re mired in metaphysical beliefs and experiences. The human psyche is itself shot through with metaphysical and other non-rational biases.Originally posted by peedeel:As such, it seems your explanation contains more than a whiff of the metaphysical – and I don’t mean this as a criticism, only as a demonstration of how difficult it is to keep the metaphysical out of a discussion of this sort.I’m not an atheist and so the metaphysical doesn’t bother me. I was intentionally playing at the edge of what is known and unknown, between the worldly and the metaphysical. I make no claims about metaphysical evil, either for or against it. I’m not trying to keep the metaphysical out of a discussion of this sort. I’m simply saying the metaphysical (as belief or experience) is inseparable from human culture and from humanity in general. I’m not arguing that the ‘metaphysical’ is metaphysically real beyond human experience. The metaphysical is always at the edge of what can be determined real or not. If you’re interested, look into the idea of the imaginal. I’d particularly recommend Patrick Harpur’s Daimonic Reality.Originally posted by peedeel:I make the assumption here that it is “evil” not human culture that “doesn’t exist in any objective way”? In which case “evil” becomes subjective. I’m of the opinion that humans are incapable of absolutely differentiating between “subjective” and “objective”. Look at mind-body research and the field of enactivism. An interesting book about science is The Trickster and the Paranormal by George P. Hansen.Originally posted by peedeel:Or are you suggesting that the elements “within” a culture sustaining “evil” are beyond objectification, hence indefinable?Something like that. Culture itself isn’t easily defined. Human experience isn’t easily defined. I don’t know if “evil” is indefinable, but I don’t think anyone has yet defined it in a satisfying way. I suspect it can’t be defined.Originally posted by peedeel:Much of what we term “evil” in the world seems to me to be rooted in ignorance. I think I may agree with you here. I would add that ignorance is humanities normal state. We humans are largely ignorant in comparison to the vastness of reality.Originally posted by peedeel:I would agree that the “concept” of “evil” is “passed on from generation to generation”, although I would add over time it becomes modified. There is no “universality” of “evil” (IMO)– you mention rape, murder, etc, actions currently recognised as “evil” but which were acceptable, in fact devoutly to be pursued, in any number of human societies – for example, the ancient Assyrians advertised and glorified their many genocides in monuments still standing today.I don’t identify evil as being limited or defined by any particular behavior observed in any particular culture. Our interpretations of evil may change, but the root experience of evil probably doesn’t change or at least not much. (My view is informed by the archetypal understanding of depth psychology.)This is where human ignorance comes in. It’s hard to make any certain statements about ancient cultures. That said, I agree that culture has changed over time. I would pinpoint our present understanding of evil as having arisen with the Axial Age. Originally posted by peedeel:Hence the development of concepts of “good” and “evil”, moral stances define by culture, which became manifestly essential for our continued survival as a species.I’m attracted to such theories, but they’re just theories. There are many theories from many perspectives. I’d say “evil” is either an archetype or an aspect of an archetype. If archetypes are multivalent, then multiple perspectives are required. Objective science and subjective observation both offer clues.Originally posted by peedeel:The human mind is adapted to reason intuitively, so it can generate theories about how the world works even when mechanisms cannot be seen or easily deduced. As Bruce Hood has said: “The mind is adapted to reason intuitively about the properties of the world. Because we operate intuitively, it is probably pointless to get people to abandon belief systems. No amount of evidence is going to get people to take it on board and abandon these ideas.” He is here concerned with superstition and various human belief mechanisms. But the same is very true about our belief in “good” or in “evil”, I suspect.I’m a major fan of critical thinking skills. I often take issue with non-rational beliefs, but I’m fairly accepting of non-rational experiences. Surveys show that most people have experiences what they consider supernatural. It’s not that people are willing to believe in anything without evidence. People often believe the way they do because of experiences they’ve had. All experiences are ultimately non-rational. Experience is just experience.Even so, we can attempt to think rationally about the non-rational. I find it intriguing that supernatural experiences have similarities across religions and cultures. Even alien abduction experiences have strong similarities to experiences of angels and fairies. We can interpret these experiences in many ways, but I think it’s useless trying to dismiss such experiences.Originally posted by peedeel:I enjoyed your review of Avatar, by the way…although, showing my age (and stupidity) I saw it as a remake of Tarzan!!?I can see the Tarzan connection. I’m in my 30s and I also grew up watching Tarzan on tv.
Thanks for the reading suggestions.