Philosophy is for losers!

I shared with a few colleagues the higher-education related ethical issue that K.A. Appiah discusses in his NY Times column.

In his reply, one colleague wrote:

I am exceptionally pleased to discover that "The Ethicist" for the New York Times is finally employing an actual ethicist!

For almost three years, Appiah has been doing a phenomenal job discussing real-life ethical issues that we lesser mortals are often confused about.

There is a popular perception that philosophers tell us what to think.  If only!  Martha Nussbaum addresses this, too, when she says "I don’t like telling other people what to do."

Nussbaum, who is one of the sharpest intellectuals in my life, helps me out about my anti-trump emotions:

I think that the president has deliberately set out to feed fear of immigrants, racial minorities and of Islam and Muslims. These are ignoble fears, because they target large groups of people for sweeping condemnation without asking precisely who we are talking about and what the real issue is. They feed our ugliest tendencies—to scapegoat, to demonize, rather than to solve the real problem or even to ask what it is.

It is not that other politicians do not tap into our emotions.  They do.

The question is not whether politicians should appeal to emotions, but which emotions, and when, and in connection with which arguments. During the New Deal, FDR needed to convince Americans to accept a group of radical new proposals. He thought long and hard about how he could move voters to endorse the programs of the New Deal. We have Social Security because of the crafty ways in which FDR appealed to emotions. Similarly, we made much of our progress in civil rights through the ability of Dr. King to summon up positive emotions of hope and love in grim times. So it seems to me wrong-headed for liberals to say that we should not appeal to emotions. Imagine if Dr. King had spoken in the style of John Stuart Mill or John Rawls. He would have failed in the job he undertook.

I don't know how Nussbaum calmly states all those without getting emotional about trump!  Oh well ... but then it makes me feel good that even Appiah has taken to Twitter to vent about trump!

With Appiah and Nussbaum talking philosophy, it does not take much for any sensible person to understand the importance of philosophy.  If it were up to me, I would even make Appiah's columns a required reading for undergraduates.  But then, yes, there are all those people in the real world who believe that philosophy courses should not be required.  If people want to study philosophy, they should do that on their own dime.  Philosophy has no use.  We need welders, not philosophers!

I wonder when we will get out of this black hole!

Am mad as hell ... and ... am gonna talk with myself!

Anger is everywhere these days.  From what I read, I understand that cable television news is pretty much about anger and hate. 

We humans are strange.  We are easy with public demonstration of negative feelings like anger and hate, but find it difficult--even in the privacy of the home--to tell another with that same ease how much we love and appreciate the other.

I get angry, of course. The anger when wronged means that I neither forgive nor do I forget.

But, the anger does not mean that I seek payback.  I do not care for any just punishment.  Because of a very simple reason: The punishment to the one who did me wrong will not bring back what I lost.  Time moves only in one direction and the wrong deed permanently alters the sequence of events later on.

Martha Nussbaum--yes, that polymath public intellectual--writes:

Aristotle says that anger is a response to a significant damage to something or someone one cares about, and a damage that the angry person believes to have been wrongfully inflicted. He adds that although anger is painful, it also contains within itself a hope for payback. So: significant damage, pertaining to one’s own values or circle of cares, and wrongfulness. All this seems both true and uncontroversial. More controversial, perhaps, is his idea (in which, however, all Western philosophers who write about anger concur) that the angry person wants some type of payback, and that this is a conceptual part of what anger is. In other words, if you don’t want some type of payback, your emotion is something else (grief, perhaps), but not really anger.
Is this really right? I think so.

So, if I don't care for payback, then I am not really angry?  How interesting.  It makes sense to me. Maybe that's why my blood pressure is normal!

As a kid, I wanted payback whenever I got angry.  But, at some point, I saw the merit in my mother's approach to life--if you don't like a person's talk or action, then simply move away from them.  Of course, moving away from people who wronged me is also how I have ended up with a nearly lonely life.  Even my cyber-interactions have come down to me talking with myself!

Nussbaum writes:

The struggle against anger often requires lonely self-examination. Whether the anger in question is personal, or work-related, or political, it requires exacting effort against one’s own habits and prevalent cultural forces. 

Lonely self-examination.  Aha, the story of my life!

If lonely self-examination is all that it takes, then why don't more people do that?

Every religion has even structured that into the life of a believer in the form of prayers.  Prayer is not about uttering mumbo-jumbo believing that it will cause some effect.  Prayer is nothing but a time for honest self-assessment against the ideals, the perfection, that is represented as god.  A true believer can then make appropriate course corrections in life.  Seems so simple to me.  But then what do I know; am not a believer!

After discussing Nelson Mandela as a case study of sorts, Nussbaum concludes:

Whenever we are faced with pressing moral or political decisions, we should clear our heads, and spend some time conducting what Mandela (citing Marcus Aurelius) referred to as ‘Conversations with Myself’. When we do, I predict, the arguments proposed by anger will be clearly seen to be pathetic and weak, while the voice of generosity and forward-looking reason will be strong as well as beautiful.

I can relate to that.  I often kid around in my classes that I have plenty of conversations with myself when I am driving to/from campus.  Turns out that I am merely following the trail blazed by towering giants.

This day ... three years ago (1)

(Re-posting from 2012)
Jon Stewart had a funny comment a couple of days ago (I think it was in the segment immediately before this one) when he did a satirical "USA!, USA!" When the audience joined in the chant, Stewart laughingly noted that he had become like a Mussolini.

There is a lot more to that quip: democracy doesn't work well, perhaps doesn't work at all, if all we do is merely chant a few slogans, repeat what the great leaders tell us, and not think for ourselves.  Martha Nussbaum wrote about this in the context of higher education and citizenship:

The first is the capacity of Socratic self-criticism and critical thought about one's own traditions.  As Socrates argued, democracy needs citizens who can think for themselves rather than deferring to authority, and who can reason together about their choices rather than simply trading claims and counterclaims.

Nussbaum then adds:

We will have a chance at an adequate dialogue across political boundaries if young citizens know how to engage in dialogue and deliberation in the first place.

One can easily see then that societies that do not want democracy will perhaps even make sure that their approaches to education will not encourage students to think.  Aha, you say, as you think about the old Soviet Union or even contemporary China.  But, here in the US, commentators routinely cite the "success" of students in China or any number of other countries where education is for completely different goals. For goals that have very little to do with democracy and what Nussbaum writes as "human development" because:

The student's freedom of mind is dangerous, if what is wanted is a group of technically trained docile technicians to carry out the plans of elites who are aiming at foreign investment and technological development.

What a tragic irony then that we want to change our education systems in order to compete with the likes of China!  We want to institute national testing.  We want to focus on how education will immediately translate to jobs and economic growth. And, therefore, the "wasteful" expenditures on the arts, and the humanities, and the social sciences, ought to be diverted to more "useful" ones!

Doesn't work to improve and build on the dream of democracy, does it? 

Overlay this situation with slick marketing by politicians.  Well, I will leave it Calvin to remind us that ignorance is the ultimate expression of patriotism :)

Democracy is about critical thinking, not about cheering and jeering!

Jon Stewart had a funny comment a couple of days ago (I think it was in the segment immediately before this one) when he did a satirical "USA!, USA!" When the audience joined in the chant, Stewart laughingly noted that he had become like a Mussolini.

There is a lot more to that quip: democracy doesn't work well, perhaps doesn't work at all, if all we do is merely chant a few slogans, repeat what the great leaders tell us, and not think for ourselves.  Martha Nussbaum wrote about this in the context of higher education and citizenship:

The first is the capacity of Socratic self-criticism and critical thought about one's own traditions.  As Socrates argued, democracy needs citizens who can think for themselves rather than deferring to authority, and who can reason together about their choices rather than simply trading claims and counterclaims.

Nussbaum then adds:

We will have a chance at an adequate dialogue across political boundaries if young citizens know how to engage in dialogue and deliberation in the first place.

One can easily see then that societies that do not want democracy will perhaps even make sure that their approaches to education will not encourage students to think.  Aha, you say, as you think about the old Soviet Union or even contemporary China.  But, here in the US, commentators routinely cite the "success" of students in China or any number of other countries where education is for completely different goals. For goals that have very little to do with democracy and what Nussbaum writes as "human development" because:

The student's freedom of mind is dangerous, if what is wanted is a group of technically trained docile technicians to carry out the plans of elites who are aiming at foreign investment and technological development.

What a tragic irony then that we want to change our education systems in order to compete with the likes of China!  We want to institute national testing.  We want to focus on how education will immediately translate to jobs and economic growth. And, therefore, the "wasteful" expenditures on the arts, and the humanities, and the social sciences, ought to be diverted to more "useful" ones!

Doesn't work to improve and build on the dream of democracy, does it? 

Overlay this situation with slick marketing by politicians.  Well, I will leave it Calvin to remind us that ignorance is the ultimate expression of patriotism :)

India v. China: Yet another take

I have blogged often about the Chinese approach to development, Gandhi, and Narendra Modi (question, like, and hate in that order.) Which is all the more the reason for me to quote this from Martha Nussbaum's essay:

India has bypassed Narendra Modi by energetically reasserting its commitment to free speech and a free press, in the refusal to ban Great Soul at the national level and in a general commitment to freedom of expression. Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar disagreed on some things, but on one point they were of the same mind: uplift for the poorest would be worthy of the dignity of the human spirit only if pursued within the context of constitutional rights for all and the zealous protection of civil and political liberties. The political vision of the Hindu right mars the insight that has made India, sixty-four years after its founding, a thriving democracy that honors human dignity in a way that its rival China has not.

When Nussbaum and Hitchens, to name a few, write, it is such a pleasure to read even if there are observations that I don't agree with.  I have watched them both on different occasions on C-Span's  three-hour in-depth conversations series.  These writers are gifted talkers and debaters too.  I would, therefore, think that Nussbaum's classes and seminars would be wonderfully rich experiences. 

Back to Nussbaum's observation on democracy and human dignity in India.  Yes, of course, I cannot imagine a life other than in a free society.  But, to the poorest of the poor, who number in the millions in India, and who have been poor for generations, will they be willing to give up a little bit of that freedom and dignity if they can get access to water supply and sanitation and living space and ... Where is the dignity in living life on a sidewalk, or defecating by the railroad tracks?

Did government kill liberal education?

As I noted in an opinion piece a few weeks ago:

Education, for the longest time, was not about credentialing for the trades. As one looks back to the days of gurukula in India or Plato's academy, it becomes clear that education was simply about knowing. Preparations for the trades and professions happened elsewhere.

The broadening of higher education opportunities, through state involvement, for a lot more in society--not merely to the affluent--was, of course, the right thing to do.  Not for the instrumental and utilitarian logic that it delivered economic benefits, but because having a population that thinks a lot more is better than otherwise.

However, did this cause, or at least hasten, the death of liberal education?

A few decades ago, when higher education was not linked to explicit training for the professions, As John Armstrong notes, one might have studied:

the classics at Oxford and Cambridge and go on to be a merchant banker because the institutions have such prestige that being educated there is seen as a sign of high calibre; also, the guy hiring at the bank went to Oxford.

In this approach to higher education, academics didn't have to worry about the liberal education they lived and breathed.

The involvement of the state, however, means that taxpayer subsidies have to be justified.  It does not take a doctorate in logic to figure out how quickly then we descended into a utilitarian framework on the worth of higher education, resulting in colleges and universities becoming centers for job skills.

The net result is that we seem to be less interested in developing thinkers and creative people, and more "invested" in producing worker bees.

It has been an unfortunate unintended consequence.

Martha Nussbaum provides a succinct response in this context:

The world needs commerce, science and technology more than the humanities. Right or wrong?
Wrong! Even for commerce and technology to succeed, they need the humanistic imagination and the ability to think critically and rigorously.
Science at its best is closely allied to the humanities because it is creative, highly rigorous and critical. So what the world needs is an alliance between the humanities and creative basic science to foster the skills that produce good citizenship and healthy business cultures.

Armstrong seems to believe that there is a way out of this increasing marginalization of liberal education:

I am suggesting a change to well-entrenched systems; I say we have a shortfall in speaking to the public

More from Armstrong:

"If you believe something is important you should try to take it to everyone," he argues. "The humanities don't belong to the elite."
And this means presenting ideas and arguments in ways people who aren't academic experts can grasp, of ideas-merchants selling the ideas they stand for, not just talking to each other.
"The marketplace of ideas is a marketplace," he says.

Indeed!

Obama opposes same-sex marriage. Awful.

Yet another instance when I wonder why Faux Noose always refers to President Obama as a liberal, when he consistently and loudly distances from what would truly be liberal.

Here we have conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents ruling in favor of gay marriage, and a Democratic President opposes gay marriage?  How twisted is this scenario?  I understand that it is all politics at a presidential level.  But, come on ...

Senior adviser David Axelrod said the president supports "equality" for gay and lesbian couples, but did not address directly Obama's position on Wednesday's court ruling, which struck down as unconstitutional California's Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage in the state.
"The president does oppose same-sex marriage, but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples, and benefits and other issues, and that has been effectuated in federal agencies under his control," Axelrod said on MSNBC.

The last Democratic President before Obama, Bill Clinton that is, signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, according to which the federal government recognizes marriage as only between a man and a woman.

Personally, as I have blogged earlier, I believe that a government has no authority to "recognize" marriages.  The government's job is to merely ensure that the contractual agreement that two adults enter into is faithfully carried out.  The government is not in the job of making the contract a holy sacrament--for those who need that recognition, well, we have all kinds of religious institutions that provide that.  In my world, whether it is heterosexuals or homosexuals, we all get the same "civil union" contractual registration filed with the government.  End of story.

Update (Aug 6th) David Harsanyi writes:

In the 1500s, a pestering theologian instituted something called the Marriage Ordinance in Geneva, which made "state registration and church consecration" a dual requirement of matrimony.
We have yet to get over this mistake. But isn't it about time we freed marriage from the state?
Imagine if government had no interest in the definition of marriage. Individuals could commit to each other, head to the local priest or rabbi or shaman—or no one at all—and enter into contractual agreements, call their blissful union whatever they felt it should be called, and go about the business of their lives.

And, to quote, again, Martha Nussbaum (ht):

Should the state be in the business of dignifying certain unions? The answer would be no. If we were starting over again, we'd want to go back and look at the privileges associated with marriage--tax benefits, immigration status, etc.-- and ask, Who do we want to give those benefits to? What do we want to do? That kind of thorough rethinking would be ideal, but it's also not likely to actually happen. How do we get from where we are to there? In the short run, I think the best thing is just to push on the equality issue and say, So long as marriage is offered by the state, it should be offered with an even hand.

I have said this before, and I bet I will say it many time over in the future:  the law is a ass--a idiot :)

Quote (excerpt) for the day!

Hysterically funny, if only this weren't true!

New Hampshire state Rep. Nancy Elliott, at a recent state Judiciary Committee meeting on a proposal to repeal the state's same-sex marriage bill, described the issue of gay marriage as follows: "taking the penis of one man and putting it in the rectum of another man and wriggling it around in excrement." Rep. Elliott continued, irrelevantly, "and you have to think, I'm not sure, would I allow that to be done to me?" (Elliott has since apologized for the portion of her remarks in which she falsely claimed that because gay marriage had been legalized, New Hampshire's fifth-graders were being taught to have anal sex in the public schools.)

This is the best introduction, I have read in a long time, to an essay .... in this case, the essay is by my favorite legal issues commentator, Dahlia Lithwick, writing about Martha Nussbaum's book From Disgust to Humanity

Time and again, Nussbaum argues, societies have been able to move beyond their own politics of disgust to what she calls "the politics of humanity," once they have finally managed to see others as fully human, with human aspirations and desires.

I can relate to one of the examples of disgust cited there--that of untouchables in India.  My grandmothers grew up in a world where they believed that they ought not to even accidentally touch one, or be touched by one .... and, it was fantastic to watch them go through a transformation and they shed that thought.  It was wonderful in fact that the doctor who treated my grandmother--this was back in the late 1970s--when she was in the hospital was not a person whose physical touch would have been appreciated fifty years prior .... this doctor later was elected as a member of the Parliament as well.  With the other grandmother, the moment I knew she had let go of the old ways of thinking was when we were watching on television a movie (can't recall the name!) about the very caste issues--it featured a phenomenal actress, Sharada, who was a Meryl Streep in her own ways.  Somewhere along in the movie, I heard my grandmother comment very sympathetically towards the lower caste character.  That empathy for the lower caste character in a movie meant a lot to me ... I think this is the humanity that Nussbaum refers to ....

We might have our own biases--because of the contexts within which we grew up.  I suppose the key is what happens when we are presented with evidence to the contrary.  It is those folks who refuse to discard their biases who worry me--not any bias by itself.