Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death

Good to see everyone's in the Christmas spirit...

GOOD JOB, MAINSTREAM MEDIA!!

I was re-reading over one of my old, ranty posts about the RNC/DNC. One of the comments I made was regarding the mainstream media's failure to adequately explain the causes of the Russia's invasion of Georgia, back when that was going down. Now that the financial markets are a mess, I come back to criticize the mainstream media AGAIN for doing a piss-poor job of explaining what happened during the financial crisis, why it happened, what that means for you and me, what the bail-out is REALLY going to do, etc. I don't anyone has a good sense of it, myself included, and I don't think the entirety of that is due to people's laziness. People care about this; it's going to effect them in intense and long-lasting ways. When a country with an economy such as ours moves into a recession, the shit hits the fan. Up to this point, the information has been so scattered and useless as to render any proper understanding impossible without a significant amount of work.

Do you know what a Credit Default Swap is? Or a Collateralized Debt Obligation? No? Of course not, because no one took the time to do a good job explaining any of these high-tech financial instruments to you. Understanding how they went about creating this mess is important to understanding how we are (compared to how we should) go about cleaning up this mess. Especially regarding how we're going to now regulate the financial markets after something like this, without having any information, people fall back on their ideologies, with the "free-marketists" prefering less regulation, tending to blame government incentives for causing problems, vs. "government-interventionists" who believe the government should do more to regulate a problem such as this. However, ultimately, unless you're expert or work heavily in the financial sector, you're not really going to have enough information to come up with any ideas more specific than your ideology would lead you to believe.

I'm of the opinion that, at a minimum, everyone should be watching the news on a daily basis. The only problem with that is you really won't know a whole lot more than you would if you didn't, except you'd get an overview of the days events, divorced from any background or any sense of understanding what's actually happening and WHY. The only way for that idea to work is for the mainstream media to do its due dilligence, get the information we need, and give it to us in a form we can understand and use. If the mainstream media fails to properly explain such a momumental event, it's about time we demanded some change from them as well.

Part of the problem is that because of the way information has been given to us in the past, we've gotten to used to getting this "half-information" and believe we actually have an understanding of the issues because of it. However, every time I've gotten what I thought was an understanding of an event or issue from the mainstream media, further investigation always proved me wrong. If we believe we're getting enough information from the media, there is no impetus to change it.

It's a matter of recognizing the obvious limitations of the mainstream media and demanding better from them, as servers of the public good.

SO MANY QUESTIONS
So few answers

I attend a meditation class on Mondays and Wednesday nights (shout-out to the Interdependance Project - IDP for short - check 'em here: http://theidproject.com/). It's two hours long; for the first hour, we meditate, then we break, and during the second half, we have a discussion, usually centered around some particular concept of Buddhism and how to integrate that concept into your own life (I'm not a Buddhist, although I certainly buy into a lot of their beliefs, but the group is Buddhist). However, before we break, the teacher (Ethan Nichtern, the MAN, BTW) asks if there is any questions regarding meditation practice, and invariably, questions come up regarding a particular experience someone had while meditating, or what they're supposed to be "doing" during meditation. For some reason, I'm always surprised at these questions. Meditation never really seemed that complicated.

What are you "doing" during meditation? Nothing, really. It's really just the 5 or 10 minutes of the day you have to check in with yourself and say "So how am I?" It's probably the only 5-10 minutes you aren't doing anything but sitting and breathing. Granted, there are many different ways to "go about" meditating, so to speak, including several different types of contemplative meditation. However, during mindful meditation, the point is that there is no point.

This kind of ties into the problem I have when I try to explain to people why I meditate (or at least why I did; to be perfectly honest, I've lapsed on practice as of late). Personally, I know I feel a tangible change in the way my mind works after having sat down and meditated for 10 minutes. I just can't communicate these benefits to anyone who hasn't done it and feels that concentrating is a waste of time.

It's interesting to watch as Buddhism and other Easten traditions start to make their way over here into the West. Especially given our culture here, with our emphasis on "work work work, make money, buy things, work more to make more money to buy more things," seeing a contemplative practice such as meditation or yoga make its way into the mainstream is really a great thing for this country and this culture. Here in the West, though, I don't think people quite get it; I don't even think I quite get it either.

That's why I noticed these questions being asked. I've had some interesting experiences during meditation, and I know I feel better after having done it. However, as Westerners, and perhaps more importantly, as Americans, we bring this essentially Protestant work ethic to meditation practice with us. Yes, it is all called meditation PRACTICE, but no, you aren't doing it to get "better" at it, per se. This is where I see the disconnect and the questions: what is the point or purpose of meditation?

The question itself, though, assumes that to do something, it has to serve a purpose, and that's what I identify as a Western cultural value that causes us to resist opening up to meditation. If you look around at a lot of the Western institutions, companies, etc., that "sell" meditation to the public, a lot of them advertise particular benefits: it will increase clarity, make you calmer, reduce stress, and all other sorts of benefits. None of those, however, are really the point of meditation, though, and because people are sold these as the benefits or uses of meditation, they lose the intuitive understanding of the whole "point is no point" ethos of meditation and, to an extant, Buddhism in general.

Now, I'm not an expert on Buddhism, its presence in the West, meditation, or even American culture. Based on my impression of these things, this is how I put them together and currently see meditation/Buddhism's presence in the West. My understanding of Buddhism is rather limited, unfortunately. Is all of this accurate?

When you see pictures of Dick Cheney, can anyone look at him and not tell me that he just looks evil?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Dick_Cheney.jpg

Even pictures where he's supposed to look good, putting on his best face, he just LOOKS like an asshole.

THE DNC (AND RNC) CONVENTIONS ARE A CIRCLE-JERK
At least, they look like it from here.

Has anyone paid any attention to the media's coverage of the conventions? I haven't. You know why? Because I don't give a shit about them. It's a circle-jerk, a chance for our corporate overlords to congratulate themselves on how well they're all fucking us in the ass. It's stupid to watch. How many minds are changed by watching this nonsense? All the red, white, and blue, the wonderful opportunities to parade their "love for this country" around. Go fuck yourselves, you fucking tools.

Don't get me wrong, I rather hope Obama wins (although we'll see how long his wonderful idealism lasts once he gets to the "real world"; so now you support offshore drilling? Even though you know it won't do shit? Pfft.), but this whole "election" thing is a total joke. I mean, come on, tire gauges? Are you guys for real? Were you even LISTENING, or were your heads so far up your collective asses you forgot to THINK?

Meanwhile, Russia is invading Georgia, and NO ONE has given us a good understanding of WHY. GREAT JOB, MAINSTREAM MEDIA! You're doing wonderful at keeping us completely in dark about EVERYTHING. I had to go to fucking Wikipedia to figure out what was going on (although, in their minor defense, the whole thing still makes little sense, but it's one of those ethnic conflicts that goes back to Adam and Eve, kind of like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

Grrr, politics makes me angry sometimes...

The day takes on an entirely different feel when you're stuck in the same place for 8 instead of 4 hours.

EMPATHY AND WHAT IT MEANS TO ME

Going through a funeral is hard and exhausting, physically and emotionally, for everyone involved. The hardest part for me, though, was not necessarily losing my grandfather. There's a certain understanding and expectation, having a grandfather as old as mine (he was 97 when he passed) that there would come a time when he was going to die, and I was somewhat prepared for that reality. I was crushed when I first heard, but after letting that understanding sink in, I feel like I took it well (although, really, I'm not sure). The hard part, though, was spending the weekend so close to my father, who was having a tough time dealing with it, as anyone would. Every time I'd watch him hit another heavy emotional point, I'd feel it with him: the tightness in my chest, the knot in my throat. I will say that being completely helpless to do anything is the hardest thing in the world. The hardest part was the eulogy. I gave him a hug after the funeral, but it still feels so completely inadequate, even as I look back on it.

I was asked initially to speak at the funeral, to give a eulogy of my own, with my brother, but we ended up speaking at the reception. My brother and I wrote a humorous stand-up skit, so to speak, weaving together stories, jokes, and one-liners about my grandfather. Writing it and finally performing it was not as difficult as I might of thought. My whole philosophy going in was to to celebrate the life of my grandfather.

Despite what the religious would have you believe, the wake and the funeral is for the living. It is our chance to say goodbye to our beloved, to let him or her go, and to mourn our loss. Unless you really believe that these rituals NEED to be performed in order to allow the soul into heaven (which I can't buy; why would a higher power make such a small action a prerequisite for heaven? Isn't your WHOLE LIFE enough?), the rituals are for the living; they are part of the grieving process and helps move into a new stage of our lives with this person no longer present. After all this, I wanted to celebrate the long and wonderful life my grandfather had, so we told stories.

Even just telling these stories to my father made, during rehearsal, made him choke up a bit, but telling those stories, I think, was the most helpful thing I could've done. My grandfather, like anyone, goes through difficult times, and sometimes he takes it out on other people. Sometimes, he's hilarious, speaks his mind, and outgoing and good-natured. The point of telling the stories we had of him was to remember him in the best possible light, to remember the things we loved about him, and to celebrate all the wonderful things he gave us. As we went and started to put together the little routine, we got even more stories, and clarifications of stories, and we all laughed and talked about grandpa. It was like he wasn't gone, and then we finished going through it, and my dad excused himself from the room.

You suddenly realize he's gone. And that's what happened, and I felt it with him. I thought the same thing.

You go on, because you have a life to live, but it makes you realize how much more important everything really is, because everything does come to an end. Is this what you're going to want to have done?

WALL-E

Note: Possible spoilers may be written into this review/exploration. If you haven't seen the movie and want to experience its entire emotional impact, see it first, then read this.

After coming home Friday night, I convinced my family to see WALL-E with me. I know it looks like a children's movie, and in some respects, it is. However, as someone (whom I can't currently recall) put it, it is the most delightfully seditious movie aimed at children I have ever seen. On its face, it's a robotic love-story set on post-apocalyptic Planet Earth. However, the deviation comes early on, as you quickly realize that the apocalypse is man-made, and as we zoom in on the Manhatten skyline, we soon find skyscrapers made of trash, and that the entire city used to be run by a major conglomerate called BuyN'Large.

This movie is not subtle; the messages are designed so kids get it. The conglomerate is obviously reminiscent of the Wal-Marts of the world, who run the world like governments, and the portrayal of humanity as fat, lazy, and blissfully unaware of each other and the world around them seems like a comic version of the forseeable future (or at least, that's what the movie is trying to tell us). "I didn't know we had a pool!" one cries out after being shocked from her stupor by WALL-E's bumbling. Humanity doesn't even have to stand and walk; they float around on chairs, being served hand and foot by a team of robots designed to take care of their every bidding, and they communicate through computer screens that are perpetually floating in front of them. We later learn they don't even have physical contact with each other (although there are babies... go figure).

As a foil to the entirety of humanity, WALL-E is intensely curious and lonely, even as a robot. He collects things and uses our trash to create new skyscrapers (which I found... interesting; he takes our trash, things we don't want, and turns them into structures which we now revere. There's a quiet irony in that.). He represents humanity in its infancy, when the world was still bound in mystery. Compare that to the humanity that's later portrayed, more bound up in their own lives than the world around them, and it seems only fitting that WALL-E's appearance on their ship should so thoroughly disrupt their lives, from the big task of proving there is life on earth, to the rather small action of knocking a person off their chair and giving them a moment of awareness of the world around them (attending meditation classes, there was a bit of comparison between WALL-E and a Buddha of sorts, shocking people out of their "slumber," including 40 min of monk-like silence to open the movie).

Also, there's the existence of BuyN'Large, which as I stated before, runs the world like a government. In fact, no government is ever mentioned in the story; it is only this large conglomerate that provides everything. *NOTE: MAJOR SPOILER* It's amusing to note that the conspiracy that ends up preventing humanity's return to earth is engineered by the BuyN'Large CEO, who tells us that Earth has become inhospitable to life and that they can't return, duping the people into going on a "long cruise" in space. These are the types of conspiracies normally attributed to governments, and by attributing it to a company, the movie does a great job of quickly illustrating the kinds of power corporations may be gaining, as they concentrate more wealth in the hands of fewer people and superceding the power of our governments to represent their people. When a coporation engineers a conspiracy even remotely of this sort, we should all be very worried.

The movie is entertaining, even if you don't take in any of these deeper meanings. The characters are well-done, especially WALL-E and his love interest, EVE. Ultimately, the movie is an in-your-face wake-up call of what's going to happen to our planet if we don't start doing anything about it. It's a blunt social commentary, cutely wrapped up in a children's movie.

OPENING UP
The Initial Response

I had a long weekend. My grandfather died. He was very close to myself and my immediate and extended family. I'm doing a series of posts on the things I learned about myself, my family, and life in this weekend.

The first one is about opening up. I've recently been talking to a close friend of mine about whether I open up or not. She claimed initially that I don't talk to her much about some things, and I told her I don't like to burden other people with my problems. I deal, or I don't worry. It's just a matter of being able to let go of something when you can't do anything about it. She accepted that explanation.

On Friday morning, I found out via phone call that my grandfather had died, and I cried. I was sitting in my office, just trying to decide what to do with myself. I probably spent 20 min, frozen, before finally I checked the train schedule. I decided what train I was going to get on.

Then came the hard part. I couldn't figure out how I was going to get out of the office. I don't really know the people in my office too well. I tend to be quiet, sitting in the back office where I work, taking care of the projects I've been assigned. I'm not close with my co-workers yet. (As an aside, I was surprised how well all my co-workers knew each other. They were talking about each other's ex's and things like that. My co-workers rarely knew about that kind of thing, and they only did if I knew them outside of work.) My boss had left me with some stuff to work on, but he was on vacation. Normally, I would have told him and left, but I couldn't figure out who to tell. I didn't really want to tell anyone. I wanted to just get out.

And it is THAT reaction that I have been going over in my head. I know these people are nice, I like them, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them what was going on. I partly want to say that I did because I thought their sympathy and condolences would only make it worse. I just wanted to go home. I couldn't deal with people. Is this a defense mechanism, to protect myself from vulnerability? Or would it really, as I believed, have made it worse?

I don't know, and I want to, because if I am being defensive, if I'm intentionally cutting myself off from people, I want to know, and I want to do something about it to open up.

Fortunately, the story ended up well. Sparing the details, I was saved, and I just slipped out without talking to anyone. No one has said anything to me, and I like it better that way. I'm not sure if it's because they don't know or they didn't realize I left or what. I just never said anything. I came back like I never left.

It's strange. I don't know why that is. I don't know if the way I reacted was a good thing or not. Should I have protected myself? I feel like I handled my emotions much better when I could concentrate on them and face them, but when I was with people, I just want to push them aside so I don't cry. Is this a defense mechanism though? I don't know if I am just suppressing them or not.

What is this supposed to feel like?

INTERNALLY CONSISTENT "UNTRUTHS"

I started this train of thought with this idea: Buddhism claims that when you meditate, you should sit up straight. This helps the energy systems in your body flow more smoothly, which help you calm down and settles your mind. Now, science, having looked at meditation and its effect on the brain and body, has found that when you sit up straight, it settles the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps settle your mind. Both of these explanations have an action and a result, and they come up with different underlying explanations for how they work. It seems to me it could be possible to come up with two completely different systems for understanding the way the world works that would both be internally consistent but which may not be "true," if you believe in an objective truth.

Think about this, as an exercise: look at all the observable phenomena. Do you believe its possible to design a way of explaining all, or most, that goes on around you that's internally consistent and comes out with the correct effects for a given cause? I say this because any method of explaining the world, be it religion, science, a combination, or something I haven't thought it, is only going to be a useful delusion. It is an internally consistent (or sometimes, inconsistent) way of viewing the world that seems to jib with what's actually happening.

Obviously, the first thing that you have to understand is that we can never TRULY know what's actually happening. The amount of sense data our brains have to process every moment of our lives is overwhelming, and our brains throw out an unbelievably large amount of data in order to compress it all down to something we can understand. For starters, let's look at our eyes:

"Cells in the retina scrap 75 percent of the light which pours in through the lens of the eye... they fiddle with the contrast, tamper with the sense of space, and report not the location of what we're watching, but where the retinal cells calculate it soon will be... Adding insult to injury, the eye crushes the information it's already fuddled, compacting the landslide of data from 125 million neurons down to a code able to squeeze through a cable -- the optic nerve -- a mere 1 million neurons in size. On the way to the brain, the constricted stream stops briefly in the thalamus, where it is mixed, matched and modified with the flow of input from the ears, muscles, fingertips, and even sensors indicating the tilt and trajectory of the head, hands, legs, and torso." (Howard Bloom, The Global Brain, New York: Wiley (2000), p.66.)

What we think we're percieving is an illusion. It is only a small portion of "reality." Any claim to explain what is actually happening will be mediated by our bodies' ability to recieve that information and our minds' ability to process and understand that information. This is why I consider science a "useful delusion": it explains things, gives us ways of organizing and understanding information, but it is, like any other system of explanation, limited by our own inherent ability to actually understand. Buddhism claiming that it allows energy to pass easily down your spine vs. science's explanation of settling the parasympathetic nervous system are just ways of explaining our experience. It doesn't really matter why it happens because either explanation is useful for understanding. Some methods of understanding are more useful than others, but really, all I need to know is when I sit up straight, my mind feels more settled. If I believe anything more and claim its understanding, I'm just deluding myself.

It's a beautiful world. Don't you let anyone ever convince you otherwise.

THE AGONY & THE ECSTASY
Michelangelo's David

I actually got goosebumps reading today. As the title says, I'm currently reading "The Agony & the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone. It's a wonderful book, and I would definitely reccommend it to anyone. However, this is not a book review; this is my response to a particular moment it the book, a moment that resonated very strongly with me, and one that will probably resonate just as strongly with any artist, or even, anyone who creates anything for a living.

I just finished a chapter talking about Michelangelo's David, going from how he received the commission, the marble block, his sketchings, his ideas on what the statue should say. Finally, after many months of toil, he finishes the piece, there is some debate on where it should be placed in the city (Florence, where I spent 4 months studying; as an aside, this is part of why I enjoy the book. I love hearing names and places where I lived while I'm reading. It makes the book especially vivid). Finally, the statue is placed over four days of transportation, and it becomes available for viewing to the public.

When the statue went on display, crowds gathered to view it, much as they continue to do today. However, and I'm not sure if this is common practice, when this statue went on display, the people of Florence placed notes at the base of the statue of their responses to the statue. The response is overwhelming positive, although I'll leave the details of how and why to those who eventually read the book. When Michelangelo reads them, though, there is minimal description of how he actually reacted. It states he turns to the crowd, and there is a moment of wordless communication, where he intuitively understands the acceptance and love the people of Florence have for the David.

It was this moment that gave me goosebumps. Anyone who's ever created before knows what this feels like. I'm not a sculptor or painter; I have very little skill in aesthetics and visual medium. However, I know what it feels like to have your work resonate so strongly with an audience, and it wasn't until this moment that I understood that this is one of those universal phenomena.

There is NOTHING like realizing your work is loved by countless number of your audience, of feeling that intrinsic resonating when your creation works on a number of levels with many people. I'm having trouble forming the words, but I know you know what I mean. It's a beautiful thing.

Any artist is nervous when his work begins to be displayed. As a musician, there is always a moment of fear before I begin to perform. (Obviously, as you perform more, this lessons, but never completely dissipates.) You've put your heart and soul into these works. How will people react? You really have no idea. As the music progresses, you KNOW how people are reacting. You don't have to look at their faces; you don't have to look at anyone. When you are performing, you KNOW when your heart and soul is in the music. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, and it sucks when it isn't, but you KNOW. (And people claim there's no such thing as telepathy :).)

Art is universal. I know, this is an old, tired cliche, but it's true. And this passage showed me that in the most direct way: by watching someone experience something you know you yourself have gone through. It's a beautiful thing.

I should probably go back, revisit the David after having read this. I know and understand it's beauty, but I never really felt it, never truly grasped it. I think I may be able to now.

AS MY MIND UNFOLDED
Making a List

You know how I always say, "I always feel like I have a ton of shit to do, but I have no idea what it is."? Well, I understand now why I say that. I don't have a very good memory, I've noticed. Some things that just don't surface in my day-to-day consciousness just never get done. Somehow, though, those things aren't completely forgotten.

I was getting frustrated about all the time I felt like I was wasting. I know I have things I want to, and should be, doing. I couldn't understand it, though, because I never knew what those things I "should" be doing were. Until tonight.

I was sitting around, bumming on the computer, until I finally just got fed up. I had a lot of things lying around, and I just started cleaning up all of it. And then I decided to do something that kind of amazed me: I wrote down everything I need to do. And as I thought of more things, I wrote them all down on a piece of paper. Everything from "buy deodorant" to "do environmental volunteering." I watched as my mind unfolded on a piece of paper, as all the things that had been plaguing me, subconsciously, appeared in front of me. THESE were all the things I needed to do, that were weighing me down, without me even realizing it. This is why I felt like I wasn't going anywhere, because I DO have shit to DO, but I don't always consciously know what it is.

Now, I know writing down a To Do list is nothing new, exciting or special. I was just very pleased at how well and how useful of a technique it turned out to be. I feels kind of liberating to not have to worry about keeping all those things in my head. It was amazing to watch my mind unfold on paper.

Just thought I'd share my story with you. If you feel listless and anxious, try making a list!

SUSHI CHEF AS ARTIST

I went out to sushi the other day, and I was looking at the food in front me, and I realized that the largest part of a sushi's chef energy goes towards the presentation of the food, rather than any actual preparation of the sushi to get it into an edible state. A chef has to prepare the food, cook it, turn it into something edible before it can be served. Obviously, with any chef position, there is an element of presentation, making everything appear appetizing after it has been cooked. But with sushi, there are very few dishes, if any, that require that kind of preparation. The way you cut it has some effect on the taste, but at the very core of it, a suhsi chef is an artist, putting together a work of art that encompasses all the food that you're eating. Have you ever ordered a large amount of sushi at one time with a group of people? They always come out with these wonderful, colorful platters with all the fish cut and laid out for you. I would have to imagine that the chef spends more time preparing the layout and presentation of the food than he does the actual preparing the food for consumption, because all that requires is cutting it.

This is not to say other chefs aren't artists either. There is a certain artistry requires to balance the different flavors, the same way an artist would balance colors in a painting. However, it just seems to me that no other chef spends as large a portion of time preparing the aesthetics of the meal as the sushi chef does. There is something about directly manipulating raw materials, and only raw materials, to make what amounts to a work of art that, to me, makes the sushi chef even more of artist than a chef.

THE DEA AND THE FDA ARE BOUGHT OUT BY PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES

Watch this video:



I can't possibly understand how our politicians are so far behind on this issue. Who are these people who really believe they're doing their country a service by locking up some guy selling medical marijuana? I have such a tough time dealing with this issue because I can't possibly see what you could believe about marijuana that would trigger this type of response.

I have to believe that something's going on; the DEA is protecting the interests of some major corporations. Think about it: anyone can grow it, it's not patentable, and it's a safer and as-effective (or better) alternative to many drugs they sell you already. To legitimize marijuana's use as a medical drug means major losses for drug companies. That's why the DEA HAS to maintain its stance as having no medical use, despite the litany of studies, scientists, doctors, and medical organizations that have come out behind its accepted medical use. I just can't believe these people actually believe what they're saying. It just is not politically viable to act on this issue right now. That's a lot of donation money that's going to go to your opponent, who will be sure to come down hard on medical marijuana. It may not even be so direct as the drug companies telling politicians what to do, but that they know they get a lot of money from drug companies, which they can't lose. So they just do what they know the drug companies need, so they fight to keep medical marijuana illegal. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy; just influence.

Just look at what the GOP said about enforcing medical marijuana laws:

“Barack Obama’s pledge to stop Executive agencies from implementing laws passed by Congress raises serious doubts about his understanding of what the job of the President of the United States actually is. His refusal to enforce the law reveals that Barack Obama doesn’t have the experience necessary to do the job of President, or that he fundamentally lacks the judgment to carry out the most basic functions of the Executive Branch. What other laws would Barack Obama direct federal agents not to enforce?”

http://www.gop.com/news/NewsRead.aspx?Guid=97463e11-fdb3-4412-9f53-2065b9d151d4

I don't think this requires explanation.

I know a conspiracy maybe seem crazy, and I know I have no proof. I don't even know if I completely believe it. However, it does seem plausible, and it's just what I thought when I saw the above video.

(ONE OF) THE FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE(S) WITH MORAL VEGETARIANISM

I like getting into arguments with vegetarians. I find it amusing at times because they usually find themselves getting into the same old arguments with the same old people, making the same points over and over again. However, I tend to agree with a lot of the basic premises of vegetarianism, but I believe that the answer of vegetarianism (and by this, I mean merely not eating any meat) glosses over the complexities of the issues underlying our food producing system.

I disagree with vegetarians in two different ways, depending upon which way they choose to make there argument. Usually, vegetarians make their decision to become vegetarian based on a combination of these two moral arguments, although some tend to lean on one of these arguments more than others. (Obviously, for many individuals, turning to vegetarianism can be a lot more complex, and quite often includes health reasons as well; I don't mean to oversimplify a complex issue, but these tend to be the two common responses.) The reasons for becoming a vegetarian tend to be either a moral response to the killing of animals in general, or a moral response to the way we go about killing animals now, i.e. factory farming, etc.

As for the first part, this is where I believe vegetarians gloss over a very important issue, and that is the damage that is being done to the planet through the use of agriculture. According Union of Concerned Scientists’ The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, these are the consumer-related activities that most harm the environment:

1. Driving (because of air pollution and greenhouse gasses)
2. Production of meat and poultry (because of land use that destroys natural habitats, use of water, water pollution, and production of methane, a greenhouse gas)
3. Cultivation of fruits, vegetables and grains (because of water use, soil erosion, and water pollution through pesticide and fertilizer use)
4. Home heating, hot water and air conditioning (because of air pollution and greenhouse gasses)
5. Household appliances and lighting (because of air pollution and greenhouse gasses)
6. Home construction (because of land use that destroys natural habitats, timber harvesting, and water pollution due to materials production)
7. Household water, sewage and solid waste disposal (because of water pollution and air pollution from incinerators)

Obviously, meat and poultry are number two, but unfortunately, the way agriculture is currently produced, it's still high ranking in the damage that it does. Agriculture reduces biodiversity, extracts all the nutrients from the soil, and is fundamentally unnatural compared to the way plant life normally grows (read here: http://www.urbanscout.org/agriculture-vs-rewilding/ ). Vegetarians are aware that they are cutting down Brazilian rainforests in order to grow the soy that your meatless body needs for protein, correct? No? Hmmm...

This is the problem, and I'm not claiming an easy solution, but I think it's much more complicated than the average vegetarian makes it out to be. I try to buy organic and local as often as I can, as well as trying to reduce my consumption of meat if I can, but I do believe we can produce this food without destroying the natural world. However, whether we can do it and still produce enough food to feed the planet, I'm not sure. Ultimately, I don't propose a perfect solution, or even a good one, but I have an answer to why I can agree with all of vegetarians' premises and not agree with vegetarians. Plus, I enjoy meat, and I can enjoy meat without doing some of the damage that meat currently does to the environment (by eating free-range meat without steroids and all that SHIT they put into cows now), I will.

The second argument is about whether it is moral for us to take another life for food, and to this, I give a resounding YES. The problem is even that the question is posed, because it reveals that they buy into the fundamental assumption that is actually causing a lot of the problems in the first place, which is this: we are fundamentally different and separate from nature, and must control, dominate, and subdue nature for our purposes, instead of functioning inside and as a part of the natural world. It is this assumption that allows us to have factory farming and argiculture and its inherent destruction in the first place. It is this assumption that you are protesting against AND supporting by attempting to make this argument. Is it immoral for the hawk to kill a rat to eat? Is it immoral for the lion to kill the gazelle to eat? No, of course not, only an idiot could possibly think it is, and this is where the divide comes in. Humans and humanity are NOT fundamentally different from the natural world we participate it, and if we thought that way, we wouldn't even pose this question. It is the belief that we are separate that gave rise to this method of food, and it is this same belief that gave rise to the moral question of eating animals.

Basically, vegetarian diets still do damage to the environment, and by switching to a vegetarian diet, you may merely be shifting the damage from one source to another. Vegetarians who are morally opposed to eating animals are perpetuating the system they claim to be railing against. My response: buy local, buy organic, and VOTE. Learn, pay attention, and do the best you can. I'm not perfect, and neither are you.

PERVERTED SCIENCE IS EQUAL TO PERVERTED RELIGION

When the battle between science and religion is pitted against each other, I see two very different aspect of the two systems that come to blows. On the side of science, it is often the theoretical idea of what science is "supposed" to be: science as rational inquiry, dropping all preconceived standards and ideas in search of "truth", that theories are tested, retested, modified and replaced when better theories come out. I've already criticized some of sciences underlying problems, but, for me, those problems only exist if you take it solely from its theoretical face and if you base it as your only form of knowledge. However, on the side of religion, we're forced to compare it to the literal, what religion "is" in modern-day terms: commonly, an institution bent solely on its own self-preservation that achieves that objective by instilling a common set of beliefs in its followers, and attempts to quash any possibility of self-criticism to help maintain order in the ranks. It has developed a hierarchy of people to help do that, from as high up as the Pope, down to small-town churches with their preachers.

My criticism of this ongoing battle is twofold: first, it is not pitting the same systems against each other, and second, it is assuming that the two systems are incompatible.

To begin, I just want to explain what I mean by "literal" vs. "theoretical" science and religion. Literal science and religion are how these two systems of knowledge are actually implemented in our society and our world. Theoretical science and religion are the ideas that both of these systems are based upon. Everyone knows what I mean by theoretical science, but theoretical religion seems like a contradiction. I suppose by theoretical religion, I mean something more what people commonly consider spirituality: the idea that you can have you own personal set of beliefs about what is right and wrong without turning it into a structured hierarchy. Not through any particular research (so I'm admitting right now I'm NOT an expert), but through my travels, I have noticed that the main religions tend to all basically be talking about the same thing. They're all giving their own path on how to be one with God, or achieve Enlightenment. These two are the exact same things, and the basic principle of both Eastern and Western religions is a method of how to be a better person, on a very basic level. Scott Adams described it best in one of his blog posts: Religion is like two different people taking two different routes to the top of a mountain. Each person goes up, plots the route, and comes back and says "I have found the route to the top of the mountain." Followers who follow their route would come back and warn everybody that it would be dangerous to follow another route, as would the followers of the other routes. As time goes on, people find more routes, some easier, some harder, some that don't make it. But ultimately, ALL ARE GOING TO THE SAME PLACE. That's my view on "theoretical" religion. That's what it's supposed to be: not a hierarchy, not an institution, but a personal path you can follow to help re-evaluate yourself and make yourself a better person on a daily basis. I tend to prefer the methods of Buddhism, as a meditator, but as long as it helps you look at who you are, whatever method you choose is fine.

Now, to get back to what this means about science vs. religion, I feel current, institutional, "literal" science is often perverted for the aims of the corporations or governments that sponsor the science. As a follower of arguments over the drug war, it is amazing how often scientific studies are twisted to support their point of view, or how often simple things in the scientific method, like too small a sample size, are ignored when looking at evidence. Medicine is another example of this; companies fund studies to prove that their drugs work so they can sell them more. In fact, follow any issue long enough, and you will find numerous examples of evidence being completely misconstrued by either those reinterpreting it, or even sometimes the scientists themselves. Sometimes evidence conflicting with a prevailing view is thrown out with the prevailing view is so well entrenched. Social scientists call this a "cascade." It's much like groupthink. This is not what science is supposed to be.

This is not a problem with the underlying philosophy of science. Some of this debate is called for in order to discover scientific truths; I understand that. However, the level it reaches in today's society has come to the point of the absurd. In my mind, the same is true of religion: what started as a series of ideas on how to best to life and grow and progress to spiritually whole person has turned into a doctrine, a hierarchy, and a method of wielding and maintaining power that causes it's followers to end all rational thought. I don't believe it was meant to be that way, and I think even those who stage these battles, the New Atheists (Dawkins, et al), would be inclined to agree with me. It's not spirituality they're arguing against, but organized religion (I know I read this somewhere; if someone finds it, let me know). One of them even wrote an article exalting Buddhism. It's all about not getting caught up in the rules and finding your own path.

I believe you have to keep the differences distinct; there is just as much of a problem with institutionalized science as there is with institutionalized religion. If you want to pit an argument between theoretical science vs. theoretical spirituality, go ahead (although even that would be difficult, given differing opinions on what it means to be spiritual). But the argument that they seem to presenting isn't being fair to both sides.

THE BASIS FOR SOCIAL SUPPORTS

I've been thinking a lot recently about social supports (health care, welfare benefits, unemployment benefits, etc.) and how one would justify them given the underlying philosophy of a free-market system. To begin, I have to assume our Western culture. People don't intrinsically feel the connection between individuals as part of a greater whole, and I do believe our society would be organized very differently and the culture that causes it would not necessitate many of things that I currently feel is necessary. Fundamentally, the idea of money and a free-market would be unnecessary and silly if we all instead chose to work as part of a group or community. However, assuming our culture and our current legal system, I have come around to question how would I support the idea that social supports are necessary, given that the free-market system is philosophically based on the idea that everyone should succeed as far as their motivation and skills allow. My desire would be to build social supports that maintain this idea, that doesn't thwart an individuals motivation and ability while making it easier for those who aren't born into a positive situation to succeed regardless.

Those born into poerty exist in a situation where a large amount of social and cultural forces weigh upon them. Amongst those, there are, of course, a few who possess extraordinary ability and drive to exit their situation. However, this is generally not the norm. If someone of rather average ability is born into a middle-class family, he or she would fare far better than that same person born into a lower-class or poverty stricken family. It is my belief, then, that the role of government in a free-market system is to make it as close as possible that people of equal ability and motivation achieve equal standing. Of course, this HIGHLY idealized, but that should be the goal. It is due to this that I ultimately believe in the concept of "free-market socialism."

From this philosophical basis, you can build supports for unemployment benefits, job training, welfare benefits, monopoly breakup, and health care, as all of these help the poor amongst us rise to the level of their ability. If a person is too poor to be able to afford college, then, if he has the ability to succeed in college, he should be able to go to college. Sickness and disease can occur to anyone, poor or rich, so why should becoming ill impact the poor more?

Obviously, I'm aware in reality that not all cultural forces can be overcome, and when practically implementing things of this nature, a balance must be struck between limiting those who already succeed compared to how much you want to help those who haven't. I am aware of these things, but before you implement any policy of this sort, you have to begin by understanding what you're trying to accomplish. Assuming our culture and legal system, that is what I would like to see accomplished by our government.

CORPORATION AS HUMAN

Being in business school is hard (and I can do a whole post on that) because instead of being taught to look at the way our society is constructed and learn to criticize, we instead are given the structures "as-is" and taught how to best function within those structures. One of the things that we are told to accept is that corporations' primary function is to maximize profits for its owners, the shareholders. Besides the obvious problem of the environmental and social destruction this mentality can cause, in the form of destroyed forests, polluted waste dumps, and suppressed wages, I also believe there is a schism between the ideals we hold when it comes to the way we treat each other and our "ideal" when it comes to corporations and how we're treated by them.

For starters, I would like to direct you to the website of a movie called The Corporation:

http://www.thecorporation.com/

It's also available on youtube (legally; the producers put it there, and it's in 23 parts):

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA50FBC214A6CE87

I learned quite a few things from that movie. However, the thing that always stuck out at me was the use of civil rights legislation to claim that the corporation is a "person" and deserves rights under law as such. Prior to that happening, corporations were created to do a specific, usually public-works-related, task and disbanded on completion of that task. Once given person-hood, though, they became the looming monstrosities they are today, dominating the political, social, and especially commercial landscape. Yet, despite the fact the government treats them as a person, we don't. We still treat the corporation as if it were an entity distinctly different from those friends and family who surround us, as if our interactions with these entities should be fundamentally different because the desires and, most importantly, the morals, of the corporation are fundamentally different than our own.

Why should this be? I don't believe a corporations primary function is merely to make the most money at the expense of all else. Think about it: people whose desires align with that of corporation are unhappy people, constantly striving for an increased satisfaction from something that really won't satisfy them. If people's desires are more complex than that, why shouldn't the corporation, who the government considers a person, to be more complex? Basically, my question is this: why do we give the corporation more leeway and lower moral standard than we give random individuals, or even individuals we know and interact with?

It's surprising to me that, given many individuals' moral standards regarding how we interact with each other, that we rarely apply the same standards to corporations, nor do we work forcefully for legislation to enforce at least some of those standards. Think about it: if you and a neighbor lived along a river, and your neighbor started dumping his trash into the river, you'd be pissed. You'd complain to you local government, who would fine him or arrest him. If you heard about this from a neighboring town, you'd probably consider that person an asshole, or some other four-letter-word. You would gladly support regulations for that type of thing, and you'd probably be more that outraged that he could get away with that.

However, you hear about something similar being done by a large company, most people, even if they agree that it should be stopped, just kind of sigh and move on. Especially in the business world, where personal relationships are king, and the only way to move up is by knowing the right people, the corporations relationship to their customers and their general environment tend to more often reflect the initial philosophy I mentioned, that of maximizing profits. Businessmen use the fact that the corporation is its own person to their own benefit without choosing to take on the responsibilities being a "person" really means. When they chose to elevate the legal status of the corporation to a person, they must develop their own level of moral responsibility for the corporation as a person.

Basically, my proposition is this: when considering your personal morality, compare it to the morality of the corporation. It seems completely unfathomable to me that an individual would say to themselves "I'm going to recycle" or "I need to treat my friends with respect" or "I should make sure my trash is disposed of properly" and would then choose to do things like cut the health care benefits of their employees while making a $million+ bonuses or spewing toxic chemicals into the air or lacing their products with all sorts of toxic chemicals. If you, as a business person, would not do something personally, why are you willing to allow your company to do so? At what point did making money supersede your morals?

Recent Synchronicities:
Monty Hall Problem
Sodom and Gomorrah

FREE WILL AND GOD

I am going to begin this particular essay by making this statement: if you DO NOT believe in God (or some kind of external, "spiritual" force), then you logically CAN NOT believe in Free Will. If you are a naturalist, and you believe only in "rationality", you cannot believe in Free Will. To restate it a third way, only the intervention of some kind of external, spiritual force can give humanity Free Will.

Based on the laws of cause and effect, Free Will cannot exist because, on a very simple level, our brains are merely processing machines (for anyone who reads Scott Adams, he calls us "moist robots", an apt term for this exercise) without anything to make them otherwise. Everything that is occurring next is merely the next logical result of everything that has happened previously. Up to that moment, your brain is merely reacting to its conditioning, its experience, and its current chemistry. You are not making a choice; you merely appear to be making a choice. In each moment, the decisions you think you are making are guided merely by the resultant effect of everything that has happened up to that moment. The appearance of making choices is far from real, just as the appearance of any trick-of-the-eye is far from being real as well.

Free Will can only exist if there is some kind of intermediating force, operating outside of the confines of reductionist science, giving us the ability to operate ourselves out of the confines of our own reductionist worldview. Either that, or we have to entirely reformulate the model which our scientific worldview is based upon where everything is not simply cause and effect, in order to bring Free Will into it. However, as it currently stands, without God, there is no Free Will.

OTHER CULTURES BLOW MY MIND

It's been a while since I've posted. In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of traveling. I really couldn't come up with a better title. It says exactly what I mean: looking at other people and cultures has completely changed my perspective on my own culture.

My first travel was to Paris. One of the things that struck me, interestingly, are the women in that city, who I could only describe as "classy." (I'm going to try and keep this from sinking into adolescent sexuality, so bear with me :).) The women were beautiful, well put-together, but not that overt, over-the-top sense that you get here in America. The women managed to pull off being "sensual" and beautiful in their own right without overly revealing. They did so with respect for themselves and their bodies that I found inspiring (and, in no uncertain terms, appealing).

I don't really know a lot about sex and sexuality in French culture, I'll be honest, but I did find this particular revelation to be very telling. American culture regarding sex is paradoxical: on one hand, our sexuality is very overt, revealing, and is used to sell all sorts of things in a way that I sometimes consider vulgar; on the other hand, there's an ongoing tension with society being too tense surrounding sex (and I would add sometimes myself included), and that any sexuality outside of carefully constructed situations is wrong and improper. However, underlying both of these seemingly-contradictory positions is a basic lack of respect for the human body: in advertisements, the body is exploited to sell; in religious circles, the body is a "sin-machine" that must be controlled in order to be a "good person."

I found in French culture, the way the women dressed was very indicative of an underlying respect for themselves and their bodies, something very lacking in today's culture. I do believe any underlying problems with sex and sexuality in our society (and probably in any society) has to do with an underlying disrespect for one's own body, and on an individual level, unhealthy sexuality is borne out of a lack of respect for either oneself or one's partner. Obviously, this is very fluid definition; what constitutes respectful sexuality is beyond my ability to elucidate, but I understand what I means for my own life.

Traveling next to Amsterdam, I found the most remarkable thing of all: a culture that finally had it's priorities straight. Amsterdam was beautiful, clean, had an amazing public transport system, powered by windmills, legalized and regulated drugs and prostitution, and managed to get the things working that needed to work, and chose not to waste money on things that aren't that important.

I don't mention these things because I'm some kind of raging pot-head or sexual deviant. I mentioned these things because I think these are the types of things our country is spending way too much time and money on, reducing the priorities of more important things, like promoting a good environment, a good education system, and an altogether more comfortable culture to live in. The people in Amsterdam are not uptight about the things that are legal in their country. They managed to put bicyclists, cars, trams, and pedestrians on the street together without having a ridiculous number of accidents and injuries (even with all the stoned foreigners wandering about). That alone is an achievement in itself.

Granted, I don't know a whole lot about the spending of the government. I do know they do spend a lot more money on harm reduction techniques and less money prosecuting harmless marijuana users. Basically, they care about the things that will make their country a better place, without getting all wrapped up in inflicting their individual morals on the populace.

Compare this to Italy, where I am now. Where the Dutch care about some things and don't care about others, the Italians don't give a shit about ANYTHING. This is the reason my internet doesn't run well, the government collapses every few months, and generally, the country is behind the rest of the industrialized world. It does have it's positive benefits: people sit in cafes and relax, take midday siestas, and generally just seem less worried about things. I think the Italians are generally a relaxed and laid back group of people, with I appreciate and respect to the utmost degree, but when that relaxation gets in the way of your country running smooth, then there's a problem. I think that would be my major criticism of this country: nothing runs well.

Obviously, this is just a brief summary of some the things I've seen. It's hard to put it all down in one place, but it gives you a completely new perspective when you see how other people do things. It's unfortunate that such a small percentage of the American population go abroad (granted, it's a lot more difficult for Americans to go to European countries than for Europeans to go to other European countries), but I think they might look at their own country, culture, and even their own lives differently if they managed to see how other people do it.

P.S. I don't claim to think the Dutch are perfect. I like their model the best so far, given my initial impressions of their lifestyle, but they, like every country, probably have things they need help on. For example, I don't understand the Dutch's constant desire to publish art so severely attacking Islam. The recent online release of Geert Wilders' video comparing Islam to Nazism seems simplistic and unnecessary. Regardless, my initial impression of their government and culture was very positive.

ADDENDUM TO "THE PROBLEM WITH SCIENCE"

I suppose one of things I've realized, having reread what I wrote about that, is that science is merely one way of looking at the world, and it most certainly isn't the only way. Another way of looking at and understanding the world is experiential, and the purpose of that article isn't to claim that science is "wrong" or "useless", but more that it's insufficient because it has bootstrap problems that it's unable to deal with. These problems are built into the foundation of what science is. Looking at something scientifically is a useful way of looking at something, but it isn't the only or singular way of doing so. I just wanted to make clear that I'm not advocating eliminating science as a method of understanding; I'm merely making clear that the models and methods that science comes up with need to be looked at with the idea that we are merely seeing through structures, and science cannot provide an entire picture of anything, especially in psychology, where models for the how the mind or brain works doesn't really say anything about what is actually happening, but are merely a framework to help understand what is happening.

RIPPED JEANS SELL NOSTALGIA

Everyone remembers the fad, back in the day, of selling jeans pre-ripped, with holes and wrinkles and fake-looking fades in the front. I never really understand where that fad came from. Part of me believed (and still does, to a point) that the fad was just another creation of the fashion industry required to consistently create new products in order to maintain profit margins, to cause people to believe that they need to buy what's "new" so that they can throw out what's "old" (which is probably only a year old). This is called perceived obsolescence. However, I think there might be another layer to what was going on with that fad.

Whenever you buy a new anything, the object is merely that to you: an object. It has no value to you beyond what you paid for it. When you buy a computer, it's just a computer. It has no files, no programs, no background, nothing to show anyone that this belongs to a particular person. As you use an object, you imprint yourself on it, and the object becomes "yours." You imprint your particular trademark. Your clothes fit your better, they go through things with you, and you now have an emotional attachment to that particular object. There may be a stain from a particularly lovely evening. You might save poems or songs on your computer.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the appeal of pre-ripped jeans. Unfortunately for the companies, the rips themselves never offer any particular emotional attachment. You don't remember a particular experience associated with ripping the jeans. However, getting them pre-ripped gives you the feeling (I guess) that these are old, these are "yours." Instead of having to actually go through the experience that causes the jeans to rip, you are merely given them with the experience already tied to it, the idea being that the company can now sell emotional attachment right off the bat.

They're selling nostalgia. They're selling the object "pre-mine", not as in "before mine", but as in "already mine", like "pre-shrunk." I don't know if this has any merit. I think, personally, that buying pre-ripped jeans is a circumvention of having to actually have the experience and spend the time wearing them to get them to look that way. In a society where 99% percent of the shit that's sold is thrown out in 6 months, there's an incredible desire to get things NOW, instead of waiting for them to happen. People don't want to have to break in a pair of jeans; they want the jeans to fit them, to have the nostalgia associated with them right now.

It's unfortunate that they got away with this. The fad has since passed (I presume; I haven't seen much of them in a while), but the concept of selling things for now hasn't. People still want things and experiences without having to work for them, and as long as that desire exists, companies will cater to it. So for now, the ripped-jean fad has passed, but the concept that supported it hasn't, and iterations of the same concept will continue until we get out of our short-term mindset.

THE ILLOGIC OF HEALTH INSURANCE

As the election season continues to roll along its merry way (if you can call it merry...), I've noticed that both democratic candidates are proposing pseudo-socialized health care reforms. The basics of these plans tend to settle on the idea that if everyone had health insurance, they would be able to pay their health costs, and we would be able to help the poor and less fortunate. Their plans are "95% similar", and they argue about silly nonsense like whether we should include a mandate that everyone have health insurance. But what of the idea the health insurance for everyone will make people better off? Anyone who has health insurance can tell you, insurance companies SUCK. So why are they advocating health insurance? Because given the current situation in our health care system, giving everyone health insurance is an easier way to make sure everyone at least has some kind of access to treatment without completely revamping the entire system. However, the premise of health insurance, at least to me, doesn't make much sense to begin with.

Think about this: the basics concept of how business works is that it is in both parties' (the producer/company and the consumer) interest to complete the transaction. The company wants your money. You want the company's product. Pretty simple, huh? It's the foundation of capitalism. However, in health insurance, the incentives for the insurance company have been perverted. In this case, you give your money to a company who's BEST INTEREST is to NOT give you the coverage that you're paying for and need. They do this by classifying treatments as experimental, or looking for omissions on your insurance application, anything to deny you coverage. Basically, they do whatever it takes to make sure that you don't get what you need to survive. The incentives in the health care system is no longer to provide quality health care, but to make as much money for as few people as possible. Wonderful.

I raised this concern to my professor the other day, and she told me this: "Health insurance isn't entirely illogical. The concept of health insurance is this: everyone pays monthly to a company, and the company takes on the distributed risk that if anyone of the customers get sick, they have a pool of money, so to speak, to draw on to pay for it, and the customers pay this company to manage this pool of money."

I seized on the term distributed risk. Setting aside the inherent inefficiencies of government (especially ours), doesn't this sound EXACTLY like something the government should be doing for all its citizens? We all put our money into a pool (through taxes), and the government takes money from this pool to give to its citizens to pay for their health care. The risk that one citizen will get sick is distributed to everyone, so that one person doesn't have to carry the burden. At least with this system, because the system is run by a government that is supposed to work in the interest of its citizens, it will for their interest. In a system where the citizens actually paid attention to what their government is actually doing, the citizens would make sure the government manages the system fairly and efficiently.

There is also evidence to show that countries with socialized health care spend more time and money on preventative medicine (you know, to make sure you don't get sick to begin with; saves the country a lot of money). Does anyone remember learning about nutrition in health class in high school? I don't. We learned about the food pyramid, I think (and does anyone know how fucked that thing is? I'm still flabbergasted they managed to sell that to the American public. It's a nutrition system designed by people who have an interest in selling you more wheat! That's why the Atkins diet works well. Grain isn't healthy for you!), but really, we're never taught how to take care of ourselves. I think if we were to stop and think about what a health care system would look like without having to deal with legacy systems and political power, it most certainly wouldn't look like this. I also don't think continuing with the basic foundations of the health care system and merely laying "universal health insurance" over top of it is going to solve the problem. Health care is not one of those things people take advantage of (i.e. fleece for their own benefit without actually needing it), and I do believe a system could be designed without some of the conceptual flaws of a socialized system. It's just a matter of getting the powers-that-be to realize they're trading the welfare of this country for their own personal wealth. I hope if we lay a theoretical foundation for socialized health care, we can realize that it's merely a matter of designing a system that actually works to make people healthier, because clearly our current system does not.

HOW TO WIN AN ARGUMENT
or Can we defend values?

Note: This writing comes off very pedantic, like I'm standing on high and telling you "this is how you should do things." I am aware of that, and I don't mean for it to come off as such, but I'm still trying to "find my voice," so to speak, so this is how I'm writing now. I'm sure at some point in the future I will revisit this topic, and it will be written better than it currently is. The idea is there, I'm saying what I want to say, just not how I want to say it. My apologies. - Nimh

Whenever you start an argument about something, listen very carefully to the way the individual constructs their argument, or in life generally, listen to what they're saying. When people say anything, hidden under the surface of what they're saying are going to be several underlying assumptions. An argument is constructed overlying several assumptions that are implicit in the statement, and the key to breaking down an argument (or understand what someone is ACTUALLY saying) is to understand what their assumptions are, and then decide for yourself whether those assumptions are valid or not. For example, regarding homosexuality:

Homosexuality is wrong because it is unnatural.

There are several assumptions implicit in this statement. First, that homosexuality is unnatural. A first step of response may be to argue about what defines "natural." You could point that homosexuality occurs in nature, and that animals engage in it all the time. There was an article I read recently about penguins at a zoo being engaged in a homosexual relationship. Second, that if it is natural, it is right. We could then ask if they would throw out all the technology they have because it is unnatural, assuming we'd define "natural" to mean something that would exclude technology and homosexuality. Lastly, you could then ask if it making it wrong means you shouldn't do it (although that assumption isn't implicit in the statement). You might be able to conjure up a few scenarios where no one gets hurt by doing what both of you agree is "wrong."

I want to go back to the second assumption (if it is natural, it is right, and vice versa). This is the underlying value in the statement. The first assumption is merely the result of a definition. It's rather objective, once you've defined your terms. However, once you move past that, you move into the rather shaky area of arguing values. How does one defend or attack values?

Well, if you're God-fearing, or your opponent is God-fearing, the argument is over. My belief is that there is no "all-seeing eye" that dictates its values to us and tells us how to live. People who believe that or claim that are misguided, in my humble opinion, and by doing so, they aren't taking the time to sit and decide for themselves what is really important. The only thing I believe we can claim is that the universe values all things equally. This idea is rather Buddhist in nature, but I'm not a Buddhist, nor do I really know that much about it. This is from my own experience. But where do you build a moral basis from that?

Philosophical (or really, any) arguments seems to bottom out at some difference of an underlying assumption. For example, I had an argument regarding sex and abortion, and our argument bottomed out, conceptually, how much personal responsibility a person should take for something occurring that has a very low percentage of happening, or how far into the future someone should be responsible for their decisions? Any decision to do anything has to be built up some from underlying assumptions, and lays the foundation for your entire life philosophy. So if we assume that the universe has no values, where do we begin? To truly begin, you need to identify your underlying assumptions of "how the world works", and set them aside. They may be useful later, but to start off, you need to eliminate them so you can look at them from an outside perspective, scrutinizing them, and truly deciding for yourself which are important and why.

But before that, how do we build a method for dealing with morality? We have to start somewhere, and build up. This is the problem I came upon and stumbled over several times before deciding what suits me. To give an example of what I mean by building a morality, I'll explain the thought process that went through my head as I tried to build my own.

When I began, I had a few things that I believed that I needed to be consistent. I believe, for example, that our fundamental relationship with the natural world is failing/flawed. So the next step was to figure out why. What is going on in our morality that would make what we're doing to the environment wrong?

I started with the idea that we're exploiting the natural world for our own benefit without benefiting the natural world at the same time. Whenever anything in the natural world works within its environment, it achieves a natural equilibrium with the surrounding habitat. (Yes, this sounds like The Matrix. Agent Smith is the man. Deal with it.) The species as a whole does its part to maintain itself, and the environment naturally corrects when things get out of balance. We've reached a point where we've so exploited the natural world that the natural world cannot self-correct. We are taking without giving back to the world around us. It was this realization that began to form the basis for my morality: anything that happens has to be mutually beneficial for those involved.

Obviously, anyone else can look at the natural world and pull a completely different morality from it. I feel comfortable with this idea because almost merely because I feel its a valid deduction, given what I see about our relationship to nature. However, that is the underlying assumption I use to try and build my morality.

By deciding on one underlying assumption upon which to build a morality, I hope to make what I feel is moral internally consistent, so I'm not unfairly applying different ideas to different situations, but ultimately, underlying all of it, I have to look at what is beneficial for those involved, and that's what I would like to choose as "right." What is "right" is really only relevant to the underlying assumptions of your world, your reality.

Most arguments will bottom out at certain assumptions, like my other assumption that people are responsible long-term for the results of their actions. The only way to really undermine these assumptions is to draw out their implications through analogy or "reductio ad absurdum." Or maybe try and get at other ideas and thoughts that they have, and point out internal contradictions. These are all rather weak techniques unfortunately, and if the person you're arguing with has pondered his or her set of ideas, you may find yourself hitting a brick wall. However, the initial idea of breaking down what assumptions they're working with and deciding if they make sense is the best way to proceed when making an argument.

(As an aside, as you're trying to break down an argument to its fundamental assumptions, give away as little of your own position and assumptions as possible. The less your opponent has to work with, the better position you are in. You can also seek to redefine the debate so that you're working with material that suits your argument. These are both useful debate tactics. However, the purpose of this was to ponder what underlying assumptions are useful or "true", in some sense of the word, and to talk about how I built my morality.)

THE PROBLEM WITH SCIENCE

This is something that has been bouncing around my head for a while now. As a person who's grown more spiritually, I feel that using science as the sole basis for one's knowledge seems narrow, and I've been trying to put my finger on exactly what it is that science lacks, so I am going to attempt to do that here. But first, I have to introduce some terms.

We generally interact with our world through mental structures or constructs. How we identify and interact with people, places, things, and ideas are through amorphous concepts of what the thing is. For example, I'm sitting here drinking a cup of milk from a cup. The only way I know what I'm actually interacting with is through the idea of what a cup actually is and what it is supposed to do. I know the cup is supposed to hold a liquid so that I may consume it. The cup is green and round. It is a plastic. It is a product of society.

Unfortunately, by adding all these "tags" to the cup (it's use, it's shape, it's color), it prevents me from actually interacting with the cup as it actually is. I'm not actually interacting, in my mind, with the cup itself, only with the idea of the cup. I am interacting with the mental construct of what the cup is and means to me.

Science has taken this "interacting with structures" idea and turned it into an art form. Science doesn't study things. It studies ideas of things. Again, for example, let's say I was a scientist studying frogs in the amazon. I would study that frog and I would learn all sorts of information about the frog: mating habits, diet, predators, etc. I could tell you its taxonomy (scientific classification system). However, I never actually get at the heart of what the frog is. I'm not studying the frog; I'm studying the idea of the frog. The very fact that science has developed a classification system for every living thing, then works as if this classification system is somehow naturally arising or the best way to work is evidence of what I mean.

If I want to know more about a person, I would interact with him or her as they actually are, setting aside what I think I know about that person, about men or women, about people, or about living things at all. Once you start interacting with that person as something other than what it actually is, you've created for yourself a block, a barrier, a structure that you now have to work through to interact with that person, and you now no longer interacting with them as they actually are; you are interacting with what you think they are.

The scientist isn't dealing with the frog as it is. It is dealing with the frog as a species in the subset of the genus of... This is not to say this isn't a useful construct with which to deal with the world. Our minds aren't entirely capable of dealing with everything on an individual level, but if we are to say our entire basis of knowledge about things is through the self-created structures, then we are interacting with nothing but ideas. We never interact with the substance itself that actually exists!

Science cannot deal with substance. It is not structured to deal with substance. It can only deal with ideas of substance, and that can be useful for navigating certain things. It helps break things down into smaller, more manageable parts, but the first thing you have to understand as you break them down is that the way you choose to break them down is entirely a structure and a product of your own way of thinking, NOT a naturally arising way to look at things. Science could have chosen to organize its taxonomy completely different, and our understanding of the world would have come out to be radically different.

Deciding that we could understand the world solely through breaking it down into its component parts is like believing we could understand a person by breaking down and studying each of his or her organs, and breaking down their personality into component parts, and breaking down their experiences into component parts, and categorizing all these things. Think about it: you would gain an understanding of the idea of what that person is, but you would never truly KNOW or UNDERSTAND that person until you've interacted with them, and worked with them on their level.

I think that's what I've been trying to put my finger on. I was questioning our "understanding" of evolution once, and I was told "Understanding of the components of a system give rise to understanding of the system as a whole". I don't believe that's necessarily true, and I think it takes interaction with a system as a whole, on it's own terms, to truly understand it.

P.S. I am not a creationist. I just think our current understanding of how evolution actually occurred (if it occurred as it did) is oversimplified, given the magnitude of what actually transpired.

ADDENDUM: There is another thing I wanted to quickly touch upon as well, regarding science. Science rests upon the idea that there are subjects and objects that can be separated from one another. It is based on the idea that you can study something without involved yourself in the existence of the thing your studying. This is a false dualism. There can be no object without a subject. There is nothing to study if there is no person studying it. Certain larger things, the idea that you can remove the subject is more plausible, and more useful, but when it comes to studying behavior of anything (which a large portion of science is), the only way we can interact with the behavior of something is through the way we see things. This ties into what I said earlier about interacting through structures. The structures that exist only exist in the minds of the subject doing the observing. The object does not exist the same way to everyone, and the only way the object can be observed is through the mind of the subject. The object and the subject are one, and the idea that you can separate the subject from the object is false.

THE BEGINNING

Today, I bought a pocket notebook. I've found, lately, that I see a few thoughts that I tend to churn over and over in my mind, and I thought it might be helpful for my mental health to write some of these down. I've been jotting down, in short quips, some of the things that my mind seems to find interesting. At the end (or the middle, as the case may be) of the day, I will sit down and write about one of the ideas.

The experience is meant to meditative in essence. I hoping to help clear my mind of the thoughts that distract me from enjoying the moment I am currently existing in. I haven't been keeping up with the seated meditation, and I can feel the difference in the way I think. I've felt very scatter-brained lately, and the hope is that by getting the thoughts out of my mind and onto paper, and later typed up, they will bother my mind less and I can enjoy my present time more.

I hope I can stick with this idea. There are quite a few things I've said I wanted to do and never did. I've stuck with (generally) meditation and evening workout, although both have suffered since I got to Italy. I do need to make an active effort to keep all the ideas I have in constant rotation.

Why do good ideas fade? Do we just lose energy? Motivation? Desire? Do we just forget? I meant to do quite a few things this afternoon, and I just completely lost track of time, and almost got to class quite late. Settling in has just been a mess, but it's getting back into being a fun mess. I hope this goes well.