1/31/2014 The Shape of a Life

by Brandon Sides

Recall the life of O.J. Simpson: a talented young boy grows up to dominate the American professional football scene. But allegations of murder soon ruin his reputation, and he’s sentenced to decades in prison for an unrelated charge. We’ll stipulate that Simpson rots behind bars and dies an unhappy person.

Now reverse such a life and meet J.O. Nospmis, a troublemaker who at first leads a life full of mischief. He shoplifts, lies, and commits various morally blameworthy acts. Soon he’s sentenced to a few decades in juvenile detention and, later, prison. But Nospmis finds God, works out every day, and plays football with his fellow inmates. Upon release he tries out for the National Football League (à la Mark Walhberg in “Invincible”) and is selected to play. Nospmis wins superbowls for his team, earns MVP awards, and later commentates for ESPN until he passes away as a happy person.

Who has lived the better life? Here we’ll stipulate that both lives contain equal amounts of pleasure; their trajectories are simply exact opposites. The former begins well, turns for the worse, and concludes on a low note. The latter begins poorly, changes for the better, and ends with a bang. Does the fact that one life contains an upward trajectory render it better than its opposite?

Some philosophers propose that the trajectory of a life does matter. A few claim that an upward trajectory is intrinsically valuable. Others appeal to the value of a life’s narrative. They might prefer Nospmis’ life because the events of his life culminate in a desirable narrative arc.

I’ll address these views this Friday in the Campus Center. I hope you’ll walk away from the lecture believing that, all else being equal, different trajectories fail to change the value of lives. 

11/2/2012 Responses to the Absurd

by Benny Mattis

Have you ever stepped back from what you were doing, stepped back from your day-to-day life, and wondered Why?  Have you ever found yourself at a loss for answers to this question?  Maybe you've come to the conclusion that your life is...absurd?

The Absurd is the manifestation of a tension between aspiration and reality; we take our lives seriously enough, but they may seem quixotic or downright futile when gazed upon by an outside observer.  Importantly, an outside observer is not even necessary for this effect, as we are more than capable of recognizing the absurdity of our own lives--for example, when you ask yourself "why" and find yourself at a loss.

Some philosophers think that the absurd is something to be avoided, some think it is something to be embraced, and some think it is simply another fact of life.  One's response to the absurd indubitably affects the way they view themselves and others, which in turn affects their actions.  This week, we will be examining two popular and influential responses to the absurd: that of Albert Camus, and that of Thomas Nagel.

Camus sees the absurd as a conflict between man (in the broadest sense), who has hopes, dreams, & aspirations, and the world, which is totally alien to man, ultimately incomprehensible, and indifferent to his survival.  Thus, the absurdity arises in man's attempts to find order or meaning in a meaningless world.  Nagel, on the other hand, sees the absurd as an internal conflict between two of man's own perspectives on himself--the perspective which takes life seriously, and the "backwards step" to a view on which such seriousness appears "gratuitous" in the face of its ultimate insignificance.  Which of these writers are more accurate in their account of the absurd as a phenomena?  Which of their responses are most effective in reconciling people with their absurd existences?  These are the things we will be discussing on Friday.

---

A video of the meeting held on 11/2/2012 can be found here.  There were various responses to Camus' and Nagel's respective responses to the absurd.  A few of us agreed with Nagel's description of Camus' response as overly "dramatic."  A few people agreed with Nathan in dismissing the absurd as a "first world problem" that results primarily from a disconnect from the suffering of one's neighbors.  There were also doubts about the verity of the premise that life is, in fact, absurd.  Overall, the majority of those who attended on 11/2/2012 tended to sympathize with Nagel's conception of the absurd, as Camus seemed to be self-defeating, both in making claims about a supposedly unknowable world, and in failing to appreciate the absurdity of revolt itself.

9/29/2012 Christian Atheism and Radical Theology

by Benny Mattis

In 1882, with the publication of his book The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche declared the death of God through the words of a character called "The madman."  The death in question was not the literal death of a being who was once alive, but rather the shrinking ability of foundational belief systems to help people make sense of the world they live in.  The Enlightenment showed us the various discoveries to be found by asking, "Why?"  However, when unmitigated skepticism undermines foundational belief systems without providing acceptable alternatives, a nihilistic sense of meaninglessness may take hold.

It may seem that when everything is questionable, nothing is sacred.  However, it is the case that, especially following the Enlightenment, everything is indeed questionable, regardless of whether one personally resolves to question everything or anything.  But don't humans need the sacred?  Isn't nihilism a problem that ought to be solved?  Those who answer "yes" to this question have come up with various responses, which include merely negating meaninglessness ("meaninglessness itself is meaningless, therefore it doesn't matter that life is meaningless!"), positing a "hidden meaning" ("things may look terrible and chaotic at first glance, but from a God's-eye view everything is just fine"), and attempting to return to a pre-skeptical state (taking foundational beliefs back, and keeping them "on faith").  But there is a group of theologians who are trying to find religious symbolism in meaninglessness itself--these include the proponents of what is called "Death of God theology," which will be the topic of discussion this week.

***

On 9/29/2012, the discussion of Christian Atheism went as planned.  We discussed an excerpt from Slavoj Zizek's Only a Suffering God Can Save Us.  Discussion questions included:

-Is it possible to be both a Christian and an Atheist?

This question garnered varied responses from people of different backgrounds--some said that the word "Christian" implies a specific set of beliefs about the supernatural, whereas others suggested that, as it sufficiently resembled traditional Christian culture, Christian Atheism could well be considered as such.

-Is any system of beliefs capable of justifying itself?

This question was not discussed as much as the others, but Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem was brought up as evidence against this possibility.

-Does Zizek succeed in finding meaning in meaninglessness?

Because of Zizek's dependence on religious imagery, some of us concluded that the inspirational power of his ideas are somewhat confined to ex-Christians.  A more critical view suggested that Zizek is actually worsening the nihilism that results from a death of God--if God is suffering, as opposed to just us humans, then things may seem to be even more truly hopeless than before.  A more analytic perspective offered the notion that this question--as well as the question of the "meaning of life"--is essentially meaningless itself, i.e. nonsensical.

-What is it that belief and value systems derive motivational power from?

Responses to this question included an evolutionary-biological explanation (beliefs hold people together, which helps them survive) as well as the idea that motivational power is produced primarily by vigorous and charismatic religious leaders.

Despite the rain, a decent turnout showed up to the meeting this week.  We concluded with an announcement that ideas for future discussions should be brought to Quimby.  The meeting was followed by dinner at Worcester Dining Commons and several rounds of "Cards Against Humanity" afterwards.

9/14/2012 The Non-Bullshit Life

by Tyler Blevins

Hey guys, just going to outline what happened in class to prompt this question and I will give the complete response I gave to submit to the teacher. Hopefully we can expand on that.

The concept of a bullshit life came from a TV show clip where a man is going to a date, but he gets attacked by a homeless man. The homeless man run at him, misses him, keeps running into the street due to momentum, and a car hits him and he dies. The man goes to his date and goes on a monologue about how our lives can be erased at any second, and therefore, all human action is “bullshit.” Our teacher challenged us to come up with answers to “What isn’t a bullshit life?” The answer I gave is below:

I have thought about this question during a few intellectual discussions with some of my colleagues, and I believe I have come up with a satisfactory answer, at least in my own life. I will attempt to explain my position in this essay.

The Romans had the deity Hilaritas, who was the goddess of good nature and humor. This was also an extension of the Greek concept of Hilarita, which simply acknowledged the inevitability of death for all human beings, and that the passage of time would lead to the collapse of all things that humans have ever built, dreamed, and thought. While this immediately may seem pessimistic and nihilistic on the surface, if analyzed, this can lead to the realization that all worrying is ineffective and without merit. In effect, this philosophy can eliminate all worry because all causes of human worry will eventually be nonexistent in the grand scheme of things. This allows for an upsurge in humor in the largest case of dramatic irony possible so that the person experiencing this realization finds humor in everything in existence and is able to communicate that quality to others that want it. This, I think, is one of the greatest ways for a person to find legitimate meaning in life: finding humor in this great game of life and transferring that good nature to others.

My own personal philosophy of what gives my life meaning is to be as happy and compassionate as possible to everyone I come into contact with. I always try to help anyone whenever I can and going the extra mile all the time, and I get great joy out of doing that. I suppose I could measure the success of this principle by considering how many people will show up at my funeral and what they will have to say about me after I am gone. Yet despite all of this, I try to remain as humble as possible, yet I realize that even that statement pumps up my sense of self-worth. In essence, I suppose one could say I try to be as happy and helpful as possible.

To close, I wish to use Horace Mann’s statement: “We should be ashamed to die until we have made our mark upon humanity.” I think that statement adds tremendously to clarity in what we should be striving for in our day-to-day lives. This, in essence, wraps up my philosophy on this subject based on what I currently know. I plan to read Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” at some point very soon, so I may have more to say on it later. But for now, this encompasses my position, as flawed or as solid it may be.

In essence, I think a non-bullshit life consists of leaving a mark on humanity that transcends your own death. I will expand on this more in the club, and I hope we can get a good discussion going from this. Cheers!

There Is Such A Thing as an Ethical Suspension of the Teleological

by Benny Mattis

Johannes de Silentio, a pseudonymous personality of Søren Kierkegaard, explores in Fear and Trembling the ethical problems raised by Abraham's binding of Isaac as described in Genesis chapter 22.  He does this "in order to see what a tremendous paradox faith is, a paradox which is capable of transforming a murder into a holy act well-pleasing to God...which no thought can master, because faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off" (55).  And while "this paradox cannot be mediated" or understood through reason (58), de Silentio nonetheless praises Abraham as an admirable servant of the Judeo-Christian god.

A Climactic Paradox

But how can a man be considered admirable for his attempt to slaughter his own son?  As de Silentio notes, 

The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which may be expressed from another point of view by saying that it applies every instant.  Whenever the individual after he has entered the universal feels an impulse to assert himself as the particular, he is in temptation, and he can labor himself out of this only by abandoning himself as the particular in the universal (56).

Surely, Abraham was in violation of the ethical-universal in his act of attempted filicide, and de Silentio agrees.  Why, then, does Abraham deserve any respect or admiration?  de Silentio suggests that Abraham's predicament was an instance of the "teleological suspension of the ethical."  In such a suspension of the "universal" ethical, Abraham's duty to God is set over and against the ethical injunction to love his son; the ethical actually becomes a temptation that Abraham must overcome in order to fulfill his duty to God.  "Faith is precisely this paradox," explains de Silentio,

That the individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified over against it, is not subordinate but superior...it is the particular individual who, after he has been subordinated as the particular to the universal, now through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal. (57)

 De Silentio realizes that, observed rationally, a teleological suspension of the ethical is no different from an egotistical suspension of the ethical, i.e. sin.  After all, such a rational appraisal of one's actions can only be performed "by virtue of the universal," which is precisely what must be transcended in order for Abraham to fulfill his duty (57).  Yet it is the very courage to supersede the ethical, and to overcome his love for Isaac, that makes Abraham a "Knight of Faith" in de Silentio's eyes.  Abraham does not bind Isaac with reason, but in total unquestioning faith.

Will the Real Paragon Please Stand Up?

The knight of faith is to be viewed in contrast with other types of hero, one being the "tragic hero" who also supersedes an aspect of the universal, but only through a greater appeal to the universal.  One example of the tragic hero is the mythological figure of Agamemnon, the king who was told that he had to sacrifice his daughter for the greater good.  Unlike Abraham, Agamemnon is understood and sympathized with in his difficult decision to sacrifice his daughter; it is, after all, for the greater good of the country.

Abraham, on the other hand, is not justified even by an appeal to the "greater good;" in attempting to slaughter Isaac, he is in fact taking the entire promised nation of Israel in his hands ("Descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky"-Genesis 26:4 NIV).  Abraham's knowledge of these descendants make the sacrifice of Isaac tantamount to genocide; viewed through the lens of the ethical-universal, Abraham is committing an unjustifiable sin with which no rational person would sympathize.

Thus, the path of the knight of faith is an isolated one, overwhelmingly alienating in its absurdity:  

The tragic hero gives up the certain for the still more certain, and the eye of the beholder rests upon him confidently.  But he who gives up the universal in order to grasp something still higher which is not the universal--what is he doing?...The tragic hero has need of tears and claims them, and where is the envious eye so barren that it could not weep with Agamemnon; but where is the man with a soul so bewildered that he would have the presumption to weep for Abraham? (61)

Agamemnon's predicament suddenly seems trivial compared to that of Abraham, a true knight of faith and a hero of Judeo-Christian myth.  But how does this heroism relate to a Christian in the twenty-first century?

The Knight of Love

To ask of Abraham's relation to the Christian is to ask of Abraham's relation to Christ, which has generally been overshadowed by the similarities between Christ and Isaac--both were sons, both were to be sacrificed, both stories historically involve the concept of substitution, etc.  But what if there is an even more important relationship with Abraham, the so-called knight of faith?  Upon comparing the two, it seems like Jesus's life could be seen as a fulfillment of Abraham's knighthood--a fulfillment, as that of the Law, that is so extreme that it may appear in many ways to be an abolition.

This apparent abolition is evident in the movement of incarnation: Abraham "through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal," whereas Jesus, through the incarnation, becomes the deity who as the particular is subject to the universal.  Abraham may "give up the universal in order to grasp something still higher which is not the universal," but Christ gives up that higher "something" for the mere universal!  Is this not even more absurd than Abraham's transgression?  Agamemnon may give up the universal for the more universal, and Abraham may give up the universal totally for a sacred Absolute, but Christ gives up the Absolute--divine bliss in direct union with God Himself--for love of the universal, the ethical, and the incarnate--even an incarnate that does not return his love, abandoning him to die on a cross.  In this way, Christ is even more of an absurd hero than Abraham--a fulfillment, even.

In fact, this fulfillment makes it clear just how much of a tragic hero (rather than a knight of faith) Abraham actually was.  Agamemnon had comfort in the reasonable universal when he went to kill his daughter; Abraham may not have had comfort in the universal, but he still had comfort in God.  The tragic hero sacrifices their child for the nation and God, and Abraham sacrifices child and nation for a relationship with God--Christ, the true knight, gives up his immediate relationship with God ("My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?") for the salvation of all nations and their children--even when they themselves condemn him to death on a cross.  He does this not out of "fear and trembling," but out of love (the core of the ethical-universal) for its own sake.

It appears that there are actually two types of knight of faith:  the Knight of Fear (Abraham) and the Knight of Love (Jesus).  The knight of love is the fulfillment of the knight of fear, virtuous by virtue of the absurd and alienated from the absolute through an absolute dedication to the ethical.

Indefinite Suspension

Christ's absolute dedication to the ethical is not limited to the movement of incarnation; it is, in fact, an over-arching theme of the Gospel.  Consider, for example, the teleological role of a messianic warrior-king, expected to bring perfect justice and liberation for oppressed Jews: 

He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the earth...They will swoop down the slopes of Philistia to the west; together they will plunder the people to the east.  They will lay hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them. (Isaiah 11:12-14 NIV)

With verses like these, the expectations of a warrior-king messiah--popular in the time of Christ--are hardly surprising.  Surely, if anyone's teleological role conflicted and superseded their ethical obligations, it would be a messiah chosen to carry out divine justice:

The Lord is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies.  He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter.  Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will send up a stench; the mountains will be soaked with their blood...For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion's cause. (Isaiah 34:2-8 NIV)

Yet Jesus does not carry out this murderous retribution!  Such a year of judgment would, in fact, also end up destroying the corrupt Pharisaic priesthood of Zion itself, finally completing Abraham's initial sacrifice of Isaac.  No, Christ does not sacrifice the nations through a teleological suspension of the ethical, but rather saves the nations himself through an ethical suspension of the teleological.  

This is, I think, what the true calling of the story of Abraham is for the Christian: that one ought not to stop at Abraham's tragic heroism in a teleological suspension of the ethical, but to go even further than Abraham in faith, choosing ethics even over a duty to God, in an ethical suspension of the teleological.  But are there any knights of love who follow this imperative today?  They may be found in the most unexpected of places...

Profanity - A Perfectly Ethical Adjustment to Living With a Criminal Sacred

"If I was told to do what all monotheists are told to do, and admire the man who said, 'Yes, I'll gut my kid to show my love of God,' I'd say, 'No, fuck you.'"

In these words, immortalized in one of many anti-theistic YouTube videos, Christopher Hitchens expresses his opinion on Abraham's attempted sacrifice of Isaac.  Hitchens likely meant for this statement to demonstrate his moral superiority over "all monotheists," but in light of the ethical suspension of the teleological, it would seem that his response is actually profoundly Christian.  Is this not similar to the response of Jesus to the teleological option of global retribution?  Christ's message of forgiveness and and love is, in effect, a big middle finger to the fetishization of divinely commanded murder.

Which brings us to a second aspect of the Knight of Love made apparent in the lives of many an antagonistic atheist:  like Jesus, they do good out of love for the good itself, rather than fear of divine retribution.  In the film "Collision," wherein Hitchens and pastor Douglas Wilson debate on whether Christianity is good for the world, Wilson informs Hitchens that "You have a very fine house, with no foundation...It's just sand under there.  I want to know not what you denounce, but why you denounce it."  Douglas here misses a key message of Christianity: the good is good regardless of whether it appeals to one's natural biological drives.  The good is justification for itself; there is no need for a "why" that appeals to more base desires.  In fact, the pursuit of virtue usually entails a good deal of suffering--as Christian philosopher Brian Glenney remarks in an interview with Gordon College's Tartan, Christianity "Does violence to the self, more violence than suicide."

The thoughtful atheist, however, is not surprised in the least at this message, and yet many of them strive to do good anyway.  Consider Penn Jillette's address to the freethinkers at Reason Rally 2012: "We are doing good because it's good, and we are doing right because it's right, and not for reward or punishment...If you are doing something for reward or punishment, you do not have morality."  Once again, it seems that many an atheist are more Christian than Johannes de Silentio.

The Godly Godless:  Chickens or Eggs?

In an article entitled "Atheists for Jesus," outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins suggests that Jesus "Was a theist because, in his time, everybody was."  This may seem like supreme blasphemy, but we have seen that atheists can, in many ways, be even more Christian than their theistic counterparts.  Or is it the other way around--are Christians actually more atheistic than the atheists, since the New Testament is so forward in acknowledging the suffering of a good life?  In any case, there are curious connections between these philosophies, many of which have been explored by Christian Atheists such as Thomas J.J. Altizer, Paul van Buren, and Slavoj Žižek.

Returning to the topic of Kierkegaard's work, it seems to be incomplete in its narrow focus on Abraham's particularity.  Kierkegaard was fascinated with the life of religious enthusiasm; his preoccupation with the religious, however, may have obscured the more irreligious aspects of Christianity.  Nonetheless, these facets remain at least as crucial to the attainment of spiritual well-being and the full affirmation of an ethical life.  

Sources

The Holy Bible, New International Version.  Ed. Barker, Kenneth L.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.  Print.

Kierkegaard, Søren.  "Fear and Trembling."  Existentialism: Basic Writings.  Guignon, Charles, and Derk Pereboom, eds.  Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.  Print.

Christopher Hitchens on the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac

Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson - Collision of Lives

The Chalk Smoker: Dr. Brian Glenney

Penn Jillette Reason Rally Address 2012

Atheists for Jesus

A Crappy Post

by Benny Mattis

"What is of the meaning of life?"  Various groups will have their own answers to this question, many of which are locked in seemingly eternal conflict with each other.  An equally important question, however, is "What is meaninglessness?"  I have some thoughts on the subject, but it will help to explore some themes in existentialism beforehand.  As Brandy Burfield understood when I took her course on these topics last semester, this is best done by watching an episode or two of South Park.

The Other

In the episode entitled "You're Getting Old," Stan celebrates his tenth birthday, and one of his friends give him a "Tween Wave" CD as a birthday gift.  Stan's birthday joy, however, is abruptly cut off by his mother, Sharon, who who forbids him from listening to it because it "Sounds like crap."  Stan is frustrated by this maternal censorship, which continues even through his new age of double digits.

Sharon here plays the part of what Jean-Paul Sartre calls "the Other."  Stan sees himself as a free individual who understands the coolness of Tween Wave, whereas Sharon's gaze reduces his personality to an object and his music to excrement.  He cannot ignore this judgmental perspective once it enters his awareness, and the conflict between Sharon's view and his own self-perception (from the moment before she interrupted him) is manifested in his defensive response: "Mom, I'm ten years old now!"  The objectifying gaze of the Other, and its tension with one's own experience of freedom and responsibility, leads Sartre to hint in No Exit that "Hell is other people," and in Being and Nothingness to write that "My original fall is the existence of the Other" (352).

The Death of God

Despite the fact that he and his friends are forbidden to listen to Tween Wave, Stan takes out his iPod at night and sneaks a listen while his mother isn't looking.  Expecting to hear some new beats from his favorite genre, however, he is confronted with an aural assault of farting sounds.  It literally sounds like crap.

Stan goes to the doctor to see what's wrong with his tastes.  The doctor diagnoses him with "A condition called 'being a cynical asshole.'"  "You see, Stan, as you get older, things that you used to like start looking and sounding like shit, and things that seemed shitty as a child don't seem as shitty," explains Stan's pediatrician.  "With you, somehow the wires have gotten crossed, and everything looks and sounds like shit to you."  

Thus, Stan is confronted with what Nietzsche called the "Death of God."  The death of God is not the literal death of a living being per se, but the cessation of a value-system's contemporary relevance and inspirational power: "What are these churches anymore, then, if they aren't the crypts and catacombs of God?" (The Gay Science 142).  The difference between mere change of tastes and the death of God is that a mere change of tastes is usually dependent on a wider framework of values that remain intact; Stan might have found a new genre, for example, that just made Tween Wave sound shitty by comparison.  The death of God is the destruction of that very framework itself; Stan doesn't just think Tween Wave is shittier than some other music he found, but he has entirely lost his whole system of differentiation, and the value of everything is reduced to that of fecal matter.  Stan seems to be overwhelmed by nihilism.

The Absurd

Throughout the rest of the episode and into the next one, Stan becomes depressed.  "I just want everything to go back to the way it was," he confesses to Mr. Mackey.  "When all the things that made you laugh just make you sick, how do you go on when nothing makes you happy?"  He eventually becomes acquainted with the Secret Society of Cynics, who explain that "The world around us actually has completely turned to shit, but aliens are putting out a brain wave that keeps most people seeing a false reality...Or robots from the future, whatever."  Despite the Society's enthusiasm, Stan continues to experience a tension between a desire for meaning and the inability to find it--this tension is the absurd.

The absurd isn't just the lack of experience of meaning; it is the experience of a lack of meaning, i.e. meaninglessness.  Albert Camus elaborates in The Myth of Sisyphus:

This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said.  But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart.  The absurd depends as much on man as on the world...It binds them one to the other as only hatred can weld two creatures together.  (21)

The absurd is the sense of futility, of meaninglessness, when one finds oneself unable to find an ultimate meaning or all-encompassing purpose authenticating one's daily routine:  "Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm" (12).  Upon viewing one's own life in the light (or darkness, rather) of the absurd, a failure to decipher ultimate meaning can make everything seem like shit.

Yo Dawg, I Heard You Like Negations...

The doctor may have said that there's no cure for "Being a Cynical Asshole," but Stan nonetheless finds a way out of his rut.  When he nearly gets killed on a mission for the Secret Society of Cynics, he tells them that they are "Full of shit."  Stan realizes that, yes, he may not be interested in the things he used to be interested in, but now he can start finding new friends and hobbies.  "For the first time in a long time," concludes Stan, "I'm really excited."

So, in the end, Stan escapes cynicism by becoming cynical about cynicism itself.  In a Hegelian dialectic, Stan can only find meaning by passing fully through its opposite:  general shittiness loses its shittiness when it is itself realized to be nothing but shit.  This is somewhat reminiscent of Thomas Nagel's response to the absurd: "If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that doesn't matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair" (727).  As it turns out, neither the Secret Society of Cynics with their dramatic missions nor Stan with his plague of despair were truly living in nihilism--they were just basing their lives on a practically religious philosophy of insignificance that would inevitably negate itself in the end.

The Abyss

In fact, I don't believe that anyone in the episode was a true nihilist.  Stan was incapable of making any practical value judgments, but he still wanted to be happy as before; he had found meaning, albeit entirely negative, in the loss of his former interests.  The Secret Society of Cynics was in the opposite situation:  They also were incapable of making any practical value judgments, but they were determined to make everyone else see like they do.  They were only worshipping the empty space left open by the absence of their preceding frameworks of evaluation.  

If "Hell is other people," then it seems to follow that the Other, as a judge, in some way plays the part of God.  But if "the absurd is sin without God," this suggests that the absurd can best be thought of as a gaze without the Other.  It is the invasive experience of a universal negation that would negate itself were it ever carried to its fulfillment in the mind of a thinking person.  So, as Nietzsche noted in aphorism 146 of Beyond Good and Evil, "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."  Meaninglessness is the gaze returned by that abyss stumbled upon in a dissatisfied search for clarity and ultimate purpose.

Sources

"Ass Burgers."  South Park Studios.  Viacom, 5 October 2011.  Web.  3 July 2012.  <http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e08-ass-burgers>

Camus, Albert.  The Myth of Sisyphus.  New York: Vintage, 1955.  Print.

Nagel, Thomas.  "The Absurd."  The Journal of Philosophy 68.20 (21 October 1971): 716-727.  JSTOR.  Web.  5 July 2012.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm.  Beyond Good and Evil.  Public Domain.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm.  "The Gay Science."  Existentialism: Basic Writings.  Guignon, Charles, and Derk Pereboom, eds.  Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.  Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul.  "No Exit."  VTheatre.  Theatre UAF, 2007.  Web.  3 July 2012.  <http://vtheatre.net/script/doc/sartre.html>

Sartre, Jean-Paul.  "Being and Nothingness."  Existentialism: Basic Writings.  Guignon, Charles, and Derk Pereboom, eds.  Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.  Print.

"You're Getting Old."  South Park Studios.  Viacom, 8 June 2011.  Web.  3 July 2012.   <http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e07-youre-getting-old>

Free Materials

by Benny Mattis

It is overwhelmingly evident that human beings are made entirely of physical material.  I think it's also safe to assume that physical material is made of molecules, which in turn are made of atoms, which in turn are made of subatomic particles, which operate in accordance with the laws of physics.  Consequently, reason leads one to believe that human beings operate according to the laws of physics.

Many people find this conclusion disturbing.  They notice that there's "no room" for something called "free will," and if they don't find evidence for this phantasm they may take personal issue with the way the world works.  If they've already boxed themselves into a naturalistic worldview, they might twist the usual meaning of "free will" in a sort of reverse-Wizard-of-Oz tactic: "Don't worry, everyone!  Despite what Newton told you, there's still a mind behind the curtain of deterministic interactions!"  But even Heisenberg's uncertainty principle doesn't save free will; as various commenters on Michio Kaku's YouTube opinion noted, mere uncertainty of action is clearly not the same as freedom of will.

What, then, is it that would really count as free will?  If any being had a will transcendent of material forces, it would be God.  The Catholic Encyclopedia, however, states that God is incapable of choosing evil.  This is further backed up by James 1:13 ("God cannot be tempted with evil" [NIV]) and Hebrews 6:18 ("It is impossible for God to lie" [NIV]), at least for Bible-believing theists.  So God would be bound by his perfect nature.  But how is this any different from the material human, who is free to do anything within his or her natural constraints?  A human is free to try whatever they want--that is, whatever actions to which their neurons are disposed.  They are not free to act contrary to their own neurologically-embodied desires, and they are not free to transcend the laws of physics.  It seems like the search for ideal freedom only leads back to some form of determinism; as Schopenhauer noted, "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."

But does this mean that we are totally helpless passengers on a runaway train of atoms?  Does this mean that, as Sam Harris claims in The Moral Landscape, "Each one of us is like a phenomenological glockenspiel played by an invisible hand" (104)?  I don't think it's quite that simple, though I do appreciate Harris's use of funny words to illustrate his point.

I think Harris's incompatibilist view of determinism is incorrect precisely insofar as it is dualistic--and it actually is dualistic.  He compares the brain and the mind to the musician and their instrument respectively, but this analogy subtly separates the brain and the mind into two separate objects capable of existing independently.  If Harris's own monistic view is valid, it is nonsensical to claim that we are being played by our own neurons, because we are our neurons.  We are ourselves agents of change in the deterministic machine.  There is no glockenspiel.

Some Thoughts on Prometheus

by Benny Mattis

[SPOILER ALERT]

I saw Ridley Scott's amazing Prometheus today, and it was as thrilling as I expected.  There was, however, an unexpected theme--that of faith and its relationship with science.

Scott made sure we saw that the heroine, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, had faith.  She was one of the very few people on the expedition who weren't completely cynical in the beginning, and held an attachment to her cross necklace despite scorn from the android David and patronizing disbelief from her boyfriend Charlie.  But was this a message specifically endorsing Christianity?  Has Ridley Scott started taking cues from Focus on the Family?  I don't think so.  The faith that Dr. Shaw acted on in the movie had nothing to do with Jesus in particular, but was placed in the mission she was on.  I think her cross necklace was just a reminder that there is a faith shared by naturalists and supernaturalists alike--faith, that is, in the interpretability of reality.

Science itself is not justified by mere science.  As shown in the movie, it can lead to disastrous consequences, and there is no guarantee that answers will be obtained.  In fact, inductive reasoning--the cornerstone of a naturalistic worldview--would lead one to doubt the efficacy of any kind of scientific investigation.  Take DNA, for example:  Up until the structure of DNA was first discovered (presumably by Crick and Watson), nobody had ever before succeeded in doing such a thing.  Every discovery, every new invention of humanity, is a violation of the inductive premise that what has never happened in the past will continue not to happen in the future.  To put in so much work towards something that may not even be possible to achieve requires great faith in one's own ability to discover the truth.

Even more important than one's own ability to discover the truth is the discoverability of truth itself.  This is where science and religion share the faith that is missing from Nietzsche and others who say that "There is simply no true world."  "Not all perspectives are equally valid," say the scientists.  "We strive for objective truth."  And what is the religious call to compassion and love for all but a call to view things from God's eyes, being fully aware of the suffering of others around the world?  In a way, the scientist and theist (I know they aren't mutually exclusive categories) are both just trying to submit their own perspectives to a God's-eye view of the world.  The theist thinks that this perspective has been instantiated in at least one existing mind already; the atheistic scientist, on the other hand, in a way believes in God without believing that God exists.  It's the faith shared by these people--the belief without evidence in the potentiality of an obtainable "true" perspective--that separates Dr. Shaw from David the android, who doesn't understand why she keeps seeking answers in the face of unimaginable horror.

However, it was also faith which led the decrepit Peter Weyland to awaken the evil aliens in hopes that they would grant him eternal life.  Weyland, a perfect foil to young female Shaw, exemplified the dark side of faith.  He was not engaged in an analysis of evidence, but a flight from it--the whole mission is a result of his inability to accept death, and he ignores Shaw's warnings about the violent intentions of their newfound extraterrestrial Engineers.  Like the religious fanatic who 'wouldn't want to live in a world where [holy book X] was not true,' Weyland's insatiable lust for eternal life leads him to bring about the destruction of his ship and almost of the entire human species.  Living in what Jean-Paul Sartre called "Bad Faith," Weyland is continually in a state of lying to himself.

But where does Prometheus come into all of this?  Prometheus was the Titan who tried to bring fire from the gods to the humans, putting them on equal ground.  Is Dr. Shaw Prometheus in this story, saving Homo sapiens from its very creators and forever seeking forbidden truths with the faith she has in humanity's potential?  Or is Weyland the typical Prometheus, who tries to get fire from the gods but ends up being brutally punished by them (and rightly so)?  Maybe the two of them are supposed to be representative of Prometheus as a noble hero and Prometheus as an arrogant fool--two possible spins on the original story.  In any case, I thought the movie was worth a watch.