1848: "Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right- a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world."
1861: "No state upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union ... I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states ... the power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government..."
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Monday, January 17, 2005
The War Reconsidered
Okay, we have this Republican U.S. President elected by a minority of the popular vote (39.9%, vs. 47.6% for the Democrats). He is generally considered to be pretty thick. His opponents engage in hyperbole about how he will pander to religious extremists, and go so far as to say they will leave the country if he is elected. He presides over an unprecedented destruction of civil liberties in the U.S. while engaging in a war of dubious legality, primarily to demonstrate that the U.S. is a big tough country that won't be pushed around. This war is cloaked in all kinds of extravagant rhetoric about freedom and wholesome American values, naturally. Millions of people die. And for all that they put him on the five dollar bill...
Sunday, January 16, 2005
One Giant Leap for Mankind
One clause in the grievously under-reported Sudanese peace-treaty stands out. In six years, there will be referendum on whether the South of Sudan remains part of the country or secedes. If this all happens, and they elect not to stay, this will be the first time the artificial borders drawn by the Imperialist powers are changed to reflect the facts on the ground! I am sure it will not be the last, and not before time. Nothing has probably screwed Africa up more than being cut into totally artificial countries, bundling ancient enemies together and dividing ancient cultures among several new nations. Eritrea and East Timor don't count, because they were just reverting to a different set of Imperialist lines on the map. It might not be Sudan first: I suppose it is possible that Puntland and the other fragments of the failed state Somalia might be recognised as independent countries before 2011, or Iraq might be split up, or an internationally-recongised border drawn between Israel and a state of Palestine: but one way or another, it looks like the lines made-up by people with funny mustaches back in the 19th century are finally being shifted to more sensible places...
Does God suck?
I notice that the post-Tsunami argument about God's benevolence continues to drag on in the letters columns of the newspapers- perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the vanishingly small percentage of the population who will have read my post on the subject.
If you balk at subatomic particles that are moral agents, I have thought of an intermediate case. It is unsatisfactory as a general argument, because it does not apply to planet-killing events like giant asteroids and gamma-ray bursts, but will do nicely for common or garden variety natural disasters. Maybe, if our ancestors had made all the optimal moral choices on our way here, we would have handy Web-Slinger-style super senses that would let us know when disasters were coming and let us get out of the way...
(Perhaps the only thing in favour of this bit of special pleading is that it is better than the "God works in mysterious ways" cop-out...)
If you balk at subatomic particles that are moral agents, I have thought of an intermediate case. It is unsatisfactory as a general argument, because it does not apply to planet-killing events like giant asteroids and gamma-ray bursts, but will do nicely for common or garden variety natural disasters. Maybe, if our ancestors had made all the optimal moral choices on our way here, we would have handy Web-Slinger-style super senses that would let us know when disasters were coming and let us get out of the way...
(Perhaps the only thing in favour of this bit of special pleading is that it is better than the "God works in mysterious ways" cop-out...)
Saturday, January 15, 2005
On Metaphors
What is it with, "like a tree that stands by the waterside, we shall not be moved"?
When I think of the waterside, I tend to think of the edge of a river, and when I think of a river, I imagine a thing that periodically rises up to overwhelm the countryside, sweeping away everything along its banks. So the waterside seems like the worst place to be if you don't want to be moved. I guess the song might suppose that humans, rather than nature, are doing the tree-removal, in which case it would make sense to keep the trees near the edge of the water to stabilise the banks. But it does seem to be a rather peculiar and dubiously-applicable metaphor.
Similarly, there is a hymn (which none of you might ever have heard) that says: "Peace is flowing like a river, flowing out for you and me, flowing out into the desert..." Now, having grown up somewhere where there actually were rivers flowing out into a desert, my experience is that they either: (1) Don't flow at all; or, (2) Flow in a seething mass of brown rapids, sweeping away unlucky motor vehicles and the aforementioned waterside trees. Thus, a river flowing out into the desert would seem to be a good metaphor for the pre-peace injustice-->justice transition, with much hanging of collaborators from lampposts and tracer bullets lighting up the sky over the besieged Ministry of Information, but is hardly very appropriate for peace per se...
When I think of the waterside, I tend to think of the edge of a river, and when I think of a river, I imagine a thing that periodically rises up to overwhelm the countryside, sweeping away everything along its banks. So the waterside seems like the worst place to be if you don't want to be moved. I guess the song might suppose that humans, rather than nature, are doing the tree-removal, in which case it would make sense to keep the trees near the edge of the water to stabilise the banks. But it does seem to be a rather peculiar and dubiously-applicable metaphor.
Similarly, there is a hymn (which none of you might ever have heard) that says: "Peace is flowing like a river, flowing out for you and me, flowing out into the desert..." Now, having grown up somewhere where there actually were rivers flowing out into a desert, my experience is that they either: (1) Don't flow at all; or, (2) Flow in a seething mass of brown rapids, sweeping away unlucky motor vehicles and the aforementioned waterside trees. Thus, a river flowing out into the desert would seem to be a good metaphor for the pre-peace injustice-->justice transition, with much hanging of collaborators from lampposts and tracer bullets lighting up the sky over the besieged Ministry of Information, but is hardly very appropriate for peace per se...
Thursday, January 13, 2005
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master, that's all."
Can church and state ever really be separate in such a way that one is not the master of the other? Or is it like the 'separate but equal' doctrine of the pre-segregation South? Separate, but one a little more equal than the other?
I don't like the idea of the Church being subordinate to the state (historical examples: Prussia, Russia...). I do like the idea of the state being subordinate to a supranational Church (historical examples: Christendom, the early Caliphate). But, this seems completely impractical and impossible to implement at the current time. So I have conceded that it is better for them to be separate, hoping that the State will not stomp all over the Church too much...
American-style separation of Church and State will work best if the Churches involved do not have any particular ideas about how the State should be run- if they assume that God will look after his own in this world, I guess. American-style separation of Church and State will work poorly if the Churches are opposed to the State, even to the passive degree of forbidding their adherent from participating in the workings of democracy- e.g., in Italy before Mussolini, Catholics were not supposed to vote or work for the government. If a Church has very strong ideas about what the laws of a country should be, it will cop flak for voicing them (e.g., from people like Kerry O'Brien), on the basis that the State is leaving the Church alone, so back off. Yet, voicing those ideas might be absolutely essential to what that Church is.
I am reading a book ("The Judgment of the Nations") which suggests that 'Western Democracy' is an indirect product of Calvinism. You probably know that I don't have much time for Calvinism, but when you think about which countries have been relatively democratic over the last few hundred years, it seems to fit. Here is a big long quote:
"In an age when the Papacy was dependent on the Habsburg monarchies and when Catholics accepted the theories of passive obedience and the divine right of kiongs, the Calvinists asserted the Divine Right of Presbytery and declared that "the Church was the foundation of the world" and that it was the duty of kings to "throw down their crowns before her and lick the dust from off her feet." But these theocratic claims were not hierarchic and impersonal as in the mediaeval Church, they were based on an intense individualism deriving from the certainty of election and the duty of the individual Christian to co-operate in realising the divine purpose against a sinful and hostile world. Thus Calvinism is at once aristocratic and democratic: aristocratic in as much as the "saints" were an elect minority chosen from the mass of fallen humanity and infinitely superior to the children of the world; but democratic in that each was directly responsible to God who is no respecter of persons. Calvinism is, in fact, a democracy of saints, elect of God, but also in a sense self-chosen, since it is the conscience of the individual which is the ultimate witness of his election...the great experiment of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, short-lived though it was, by the momentum of its religius impulse opened the way for a new type of civilisation based on the freedom of the person and of conscience as rights conferred absolutely by God and Nature. The connexion is seen most closely in America where the Congregationalist Calvinism of New England ... leads on directly to the assertion of the Rights of Man in the constitutions of the North American States and to the rise of political democracy."
"An elect minority chosen from the mass of fallen humanity and infinitely superior to the children of the world." Doesn't that sound like Americans to you? :)
Can church and state ever really be separate in such a way that one is not the master of the other? Or is it like the 'separate but equal' doctrine of the pre-segregation South? Separate, but one a little more equal than the other?
I don't like the idea of the Church being subordinate to the state (historical examples: Prussia, Russia...). I do like the idea of the state being subordinate to a supranational Church (historical examples: Christendom, the early Caliphate). But, this seems completely impractical and impossible to implement at the current time. So I have conceded that it is better for them to be separate, hoping that the State will not stomp all over the Church too much...
American-style separation of Church and State will work best if the Churches involved do not have any particular ideas about how the State should be run- if they assume that God will look after his own in this world, I guess. American-style separation of Church and State will work poorly if the Churches are opposed to the State, even to the passive degree of forbidding their adherent from participating in the workings of democracy- e.g., in Italy before Mussolini, Catholics were not supposed to vote or work for the government. If a Church has very strong ideas about what the laws of a country should be, it will cop flak for voicing them (e.g., from people like Kerry O'Brien), on the basis that the State is leaving the Church alone, so back off. Yet, voicing those ideas might be absolutely essential to what that Church is.
I am reading a book ("The Judgment of the Nations") which suggests that 'Western Democracy' is an indirect product of Calvinism. You probably know that I don't have much time for Calvinism, but when you think about which countries have been relatively democratic over the last few hundred years, it seems to fit. Here is a big long quote:
"In an age when the Papacy was dependent on the Habsburg monarchies and when Catholics accepted the theories of passive obedience and the divine right of kiongs, the Calvinists asserted the Divine Right of Presbytery and declared that "the Church was the foundation of the world" and that it was the duty of kings to "throw down their crowns before her and lick the dust from off her feet." But these theocratic claims were not hierarchic and impersonal as in the mediaeval Church, they were based on an intense individualism deriving from the certainty of election and the duty of the individual Christian to co-operate in realising the divine purpose against a sinful and hostile world. Thus Calvinism is at once aristocratic and democratic: aristocratic in as much as the "saints" were an elect minority chosen from the mass of fallen humanity and infinitely superior to the children of the world; but democratic in that each was directly responsible to God who is no respecter of persons. Calvinism is, in fact, a democracy of saints, elect of God, but also in a sense self-chosen, since it is the conscience of the individual which is the ultimate witness of his election...the great experiment of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, short-lived though it was, by the momentum of its religius impulse opened the way for a new type of civilisation based on the freedom of the person and of conscience as rights conferred absolutely by God and Nature. The connexion is seen most closely in America where the Congregationalist Calvinism of New England ... leads on directly to the assertion of the Rights of Man in the constitutions of the North American States and to the rise of political democracy."
"An elect minority chosen from the mass of fallen humanity and infinitely superior to the children of the world." Doesn't that sound like Americans to you? :)
Monday, January 10, 2005
What is Belief?
Quoth Jenny: There are exceptions (I believe) to belief being merely a habit. There are areas of study, such as Apologetics, where people have spent much time determining why they believe what they believe. Going back to first principles you might say, determining whether what they believe follows a logical train and whether it can be derailed. Of course, as in mathematics, at some point you have to have a first principle, something assumed to be true - possibly because it cannot be disproved - which must be accepted or assumed, because otherwise there is no possibility of any further thought. The trick is to know on what first principles you base your belief.
I should clarify that I didn't mention why people believe what they believe at all; I was just putting up a definition for what the word 'believe' ought to mean. Because idiomatically, when we believe something, we say 'X is so'; and if we don't really believe it, we say 'I believe X is so!'. I certainly did not intend to imply that there was anything mere about beliefs, just that words without actions can't be considered evidence for a belief...
You are quite right, the trick is knowing on what first principles to base your beliefs. Peirce goes on to elaborate four ways to figure out what to believe:
(1) Tenacity. Just keep on believing what you are believing, and don't let anybody change your mind.
(2) Authority. Trust what people you trust tell you.
(3) A Priori Argument. Agree that you are going to believe some things, and then believe all the logical implications of those things, like in mathematics or theology.
(4) Experiment. I have a prepared statement around here somewhere... here it is: When you are very young, you make observations of your environment. You manufacture a model of your environment based on these observations, and make predictions of the effect your actions will have on your environment. To the extent that you are capable, you act on your predictions and observe the effects. If they are not what you expected, you modify your model. Once you have made the inference that the large creatures around you are trying to communicate information which accords - as far as you can tell - tolerably well with the model you have already determined, you will increasingly abandon the method you have been employing thus far - known as science - for the method of authority.
Of course, in practice we all use all four of these ways all the time, and are right to do so: we cannot go around continually proving everything we need to develop effective habits by experiment. Did you do that course in third year on the History and Philosophy of Science, Jenny? This is all cribbed from there... :)
As far as specifically religious beliefs go, I would argue that in order to have any connection with reality our religious beliefs should ultimately be based on experiment- that is, on our own experience of God.
I should clarify that I didn't mention why people believe what they believe at all; I was just putting up a definition for what the word 'believe' ought to mean. Because idiomatically, when we believe something, we say 'X is so'; and if we don't really believe it, we say 'I believe X is so!'. I certainly did not intend to imply that there was anything mere about beliefs, just that words without actions can't be considered evidence for a belief...
You are quite right, the trick is knowing on what first principles to base your beliefs. Peirce goes on to elaborate four ways to figure out what to believe:
(1) Tenacity. Just keep on believing what you are believing, and don't let anybody change your mind.
(2) Authority. Trust what people you trust tell you.
(3) A Priori Argument. Agree that you are going to believe some things, and then believe all the logical implications of those things, like in mathematics or theology.
(4) Experiment. I have a prepared statement around here somewhere... here it is: When you are very young, you make observations of your environment. You manufacture a model of your environment based on these observations, and make predictions of the effect your actions will have on your environment. To the extent that you are capable, you act on your predictions and observe the effects. If they are not what you expected, you modify your model. Once you have made the inference that the large creatures around you are trying to communicate information which accords - as far as you can tell - tolerably well with the model you have already determined, you will increasingly abandon the method you have been employing thus far - known as science - for the method of authority.
Of course, in practice we all use all four of these ways all the time, and are right to do so: we cannot go around continually proving everything we need to develop effective habits by experiment. Did you do that course in third year on the History and Philosophy of Science, Jenny? This is all cribbed from there... :)
As far as specifically religious beliefs go, I would argue that in order to have any connection with reality our religious beliefs should ultimately be based on experiment- that is, on our own experience of God.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
The Grey Gromboolian Plain
I am beginning to feel as though this is the blogospheric equivalent of one of those lonely foreign legion outposts in the Sahara. I suppose I shall have to make a serious effort to become more interesting. I expect I am being too laid-back and non-confrontational. I wonder if I can declare the separation of Church and State discussion closed? Let's have a quick look through blogland to gauge the Zeitgeist- uh-oh, here's someone who agrees with Marco. Alright then, I concede.
Curses, this being confrontational thing doesn't seem to be working...
Here is a quote for today:
"The finding and fighting of positive evil is the beginning of all fun."
- G. K. Chesterton
Curses, this being confrontational thing doesn't seem to be working...
Here is a quote for today:
"The finding and fighting of positive evil is the beginning of all fun."
- G. K. Chesterton
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Pharmacological Minutiae
I shouldn't use so many big words, I know...
I didn't drink any coffee at all for two weeks over Christmas, and since them have been restricting myself to one cup a day. The strange thing is, that one cup of coffee seems to affect me the same way John Travolta's character was affected by the stuff he was taking in Pulp Fiction. After my cup of coffee I drive off to work in a strange state of euphoria. Hmmm, maybe I should have another look at the jar I am taking it from...
I didn't drink any coffee at all for two weeks over Christmas, and since them have been restricting myself to one cup a day. The strange thing is, that one cup of coffee seems to affect me the same way John Travolta's character was affected by the stuff he was taking in Pulp Fiction. After my cup of coffee I drive off to work in a strange state of euphoria. Hmmm, maybe I should have another look at the jar I am taking it from...
Friday, January 07, 2005
Another FAQ
Does the word ‘believe’ have a meaning?
I recommend the definition of belief that appears in the forward to “Essays in the Philosophy of Science by Charles S. Peirce” (viii, Vincent Tomas)
A belief is a habit, i.e., a readiness or disposition to respond in certain kind of ways on certain kinds of occasions.
It follows that a so-called belief that has no practical consequence for the believer’s behaviour can be nothing more than the readiness or disposition to respond “yes” when asked “do you believe in belief X?” I feel that a great quantity of the things that are argued about are of this kind. Their significance to the believer lies in the fact that they have come bundled together with other beliefs that do make a practical difference to the believer’s behaviour, and have been accepted as necessary corollaries on the recommendation of authority.
I recommend the definition of belief that appears in the forward to “Essays in the Philosophy of Science by Charles S. Peirce” (viii, Vincent Tomas)
A belief is a habit, i.e., a readiness or disposition to respond in certain kind of ways on certain kinds of occasions.
It follows that a so-called belief that has no practical consequence for the believer’s behaviour can be nothing more than the readiness or disposition to respond “yes” when asked “do you believe in belief X?” I feel that a great quantity of the things that are argued about are of this kind. Their significance to the believer lies in the fact that they have come bundled together with other beliefs that do make a practical difference to the believer’s behaviour, and have been accepted as necessary corollaries on the recommendation of authority.
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