Douglas Purdy

In every one of the higher religions, there is a strain of infinite optimism on the one hand and on the other, a profound pessimism. In the depths of our being, they all teach there is an inner light, but an inner light which our egotism keeps, for most of the time, in a state of more or less complete eclipse. If, however, it so desires, the ego can get out of the way, so to speak, can dis-eclipse the light and become identified with its divine source, hence the unlimited optimism of the traditional religions. Their pessimism springs from the observed fact that though all are called, few are chosen for the sufficient reason that few choose to be chosen [bold mine].

To me, this older conception of man’s nature and destiny seems more realistic, more nearly in accord with the given facts than any form of modern utopianism. In the Lord’s Prayer, we are taught to ask for the blessing, which consists in not being led into temptation. The reason is only too obvious. When temptations are very great or unduly prolonged, most persons succumb to them. To devise a perfect social order is probably beyond our powers, but I believe that it is perfectly possible for us to reduce the number of dangerous temptations to a level far below that which is tolerated at the present time. A society so arranged that there shall be a minimum of dangerous temptations—this is the end towards which, as a citizen, I have to strive.

In my efforts to achieve that end, I can make use of a great variety of means. Do good ends justify the use of intrinsically bad means? On the level of theity, the point can be argued indefinitely. In practice, meanwhile, I find that the means employed invariably determine the nature of the end achieved. Indeed, as Mahatma Gandhi was never tired of insisting, the means are the end in its preliminary stages.

Men have put forth enormous efforts to make their world a better place to live in. But except in regard to gadgets, plumbing, and hygiene, their success has been pathetically small. Hell, as the proverb has it, is paved with good intentions. And so long as we go on trying to realize our ideals by bad or merely inappropriate means, our good intentions will come to the same bad ends. In this consists the tragedy and the irony of history. Can I, as an individual, do anything to make future history a little less tragic and less ironic than history past, and present? I believe I can. As a citizen, I can use all my intelligence and all my goodwill to develop political means that shall be of the same kind and quality as the ideal ends which I am trying to achieve. And as a person, as a psychophysical organism, I can learn how to get out of the way so that the divine source of my life and consciousness can come out of eclipse and shine through me.

From: http://bit.ly/cD0edL

I read a variant of this story around ten years ago and it has continued rattle around in my mind (in that variant the challenge is to make the horse fly).

One day, while Nasreddin was visiting the capital city, the Sultan took offense to a joke that was made at his expense.

He had Nasreddin immediately arrested and imprisoned; accusing him of heresy and sedition.

Nasreddin apologized to the Sultan for his joke, and begged for his life; but the Sultan remained obstinate, and in his anger, sentenced Nasreddin to be beheaded the following day.

When Nasreddin was brought out the next morning, he addressed the Sultan, saying “Oh Sultan, live forever! You know me to be a skilled teacher, the greatest in your kingdom. If you will but delay my sentence for one year, I will teach your favorite horse to sing.”

The Sultan did not believe that such a thing was possible; but his anger had cooled, and he was amused by the audacity of Nasreddin’s claim.

“Very well,” replied the Sultan, “you will have a year. But if by the end of that year you have not taught my favorite horse to sing, then you will wish you had been beheaded today.”

That evening, Nasreddin’s friends were allowed to visit him in prison, and found him in unexpected good spirits. “How can you be so happy?” they asked, ”Do you really believe that you can teach the Sultan’s horse to sing?”

“Of course not,” replied Nasreddin, “but I now have a year which I did not have yesterday; and much can happen in that time. The Sultan may come to repent of his anger, and release me. He may die in battle or of illness, and it is traditional for a successor to pardon all prisoners upon taking office. He may be overthrown by another faction, and again, it is traditional for prisoners to be released at such a time. Or the horse may die, in which case the Sultan will be obliged to release me.”

“Finally,” said Nasreddin, “even if none of those things come to pass, perhaps the horse can sing.”

This variant from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Nasrudin.

Paint by numbers.
Exchange hollow greetings with someone who’ll do the same.
Smile appropriately for the right kinds of people,
with the right kinds of capital, financial or social.

Craft your character, rehearse your performance.
See which you sells the best and reinforce habits.
Walk to the altar, read from the prompter,
smile for your picture, and clap like a seal.

Is everyone looking at me?
Are they nodding their heads in approval?
Does this convince you? It never convinced me… it never convinced me.

Years don’t teach anything if you’re not listening…
or plugging your ears with bargain priced fantasies that are cheap to adopt,
but will surely break down right when you need a real understanding.

Choreography. Don’t think critically.
It’s all been figured out for you, and nothing means anything.

Is everyone looking at me?
Are they nodding their heads in approval?
Does this convince you? It never convinced me… it never convinced me.

I am a Buddhist.

I can tell you the Dharma, the history, etc. I can tell you all about zazen. I even practice it from time to time. I have all the books, videos, audiobooks, you name it. If it has the word “Buddha” on it I likely own it.

Has it helped me or those around me?  Absolutely not.

I still suffer.  I cause suffering.  I do not reduce suffering when I can.

Does this mean that Buddhism is false?  That I have been deluding myself in an attempt to flee Christianity?

No.  You see, I am hypocrite.

I know the doctrine and techniques, but it is not part of who I am, just another mask that I put on when it is convenient.

I even go so far to use my philosophical understanding of Buddhism and other traditions to excuse my own failings.

I drink, eat meat, foster conflict, etc. — all causing suffering to myself and others (which in Buddhism is the same thing).

In short, I know the Four Noble Truths, but do not follow the Eightfold Path.

But like so many of us that look into the proverbial mirror, I want to be true to my ideals, but the reflection tells a different tale.

I have joined the ranks of the other religious and philosophical hypocrites (I suppose this makes me human and an adult).

This is my catharsis (κάθαρσις) and I hope an epiphany (in a Greek sense, not Joyce):

Beings are numberless, I vow to save them
Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to end them
Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them
Buddha’s way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it.

I will fail again, but I am committed to self-surpassing (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Chapter 34):

And this secret spake Life herself unto me. “Behold,” said she, “I am that which must surpass itself again and again.”

I had planned on reading the entire The Baroque Cycle this week.

Judging from my notes in the book, I got through about 80% of Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) the first time I attempted to read it.

I don’t recall why I didn’t finish, but I have a good idea — I have book attention deficit.

While I am still making progress on Quicksilver, I read three different books on Greek and Jewish religion this past week:

• Dionysos: Good survey of Dionysos over the centuries, inclusive of Nietzsche, but it was a little preachy at the end around the potential of the Dionysiac to help with modern consumerism.
• Ancient Greek Religion:  Really enjoyed this overview of the Greek religion (largely from the point of a view of an Athenian).  Hit the main mystery-cults I was aware of in reasonable detail.
• The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus:  I have read this before if memory serves (during the development of “Indigo“).  The Gospel of Thomas is still my favorite (reminds me of a proto-Jefferson Bible).

Was there anything that bound these books together for me (beyond the obvious category of religion)?

Yes.

It is ignorance that is the cause of our downfall and suffering.

Religions can be (but often are not) a tool to address this ignorance; to remind us of our interconnectedness and reliance on nature/each other.

Nevertheless, religion is often used to separate.

Science fairs no better in this respect, should you think it is the “one true path”.

Science (actually Scientism) often dismisses the utility of ritual, myth, and religion in mediating the relationship of the individual to the greater whole.

That all said, one of these days, I am going to complete the The Baroque Cycle.

I am often asked what work of Nietzsche’s is the best place to “start”.

I have tried various recommendations, all of which have failed to ignite the level of understanding and interest that I believe this author is due.

I am going to try a new approach moving forward and I thought I would share it here as well.

In short, buy On Nietzsche (Wadsworth Philosophers Series).

It is 88 pages long.  It costs ~$16.00.

It contains the best summary I have read of Nietzsche’s views on key philosophical concepts.

It is simple, it is fast and you will come away understanding Nietzsche’s philosopy in enough detail to 1) decide if you want to read further 2) have a somewhat educated opinion on his views.

When you are a parent, defining the set of values to which your children will adhere is your greatest responsibility beyond keeping them safe.

It is something that I take very seriously and not something I have chosen to “outsource” to some existing religious or ethical system.

I have studied and/or practiced most of the major religions and ethical systems.

I find them mostly wanting for my children (and myself).

Above all things, I want my child to understand that they are the “value creator”.

If anyone has the power or authority to create what is “good” and “evil” it is them.

If you hear Nietzsche, you are more than correct.

I have yet to meet someone or a system with a monopoly on the truth, much less systems formed before the advent of the science (not that science is without flaws).

Most of my personal struggles have been brought about by me trying to break out of chains (of truth, no less) imposed by other men and society.

As Blake says: “I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s”.

I still continue this struggle daily and my greatest desire is that my children do not repeat my struggles and failures (I will fail).

The challenge is how to create a meta-system that forms a mutable foundation in which they can develop their own “value creation” muscles.

I have given them a set of “starter” axioms that form a motto that we repeat from time to time: Live, Love, Learn, Create.

You may think that this is close to the philosophia perennis (”perennial philosophy”) and therefore influenced by most of the systems that I disparage.

I can offer no other, for we are all creatures of our context.

That said, the key value is creation, particularly the creation of the unexpected, born of both Apollo and Dionysus, transforming what is old into the new.

I was thinking about how much I have flown this year while sleeping on the floor at the Newark airport (http://yfrog.com/eipunecj).

I often hear folks talk about 100k miles, but that is not all that tangible to me.

I was thinking that the circumference of the Earth (~40,000 kilometers/~25,000 miles) seems like a much better way to calibrate distance flown.

Two obvious names came to mind: Magellan or Eratosthenes.

Magellan it is.

It looks like I am going to end the year with around 4 magellans in the air.

How many magellans will you fly this year?

We all wear masks.

We wear a mask at work.  A mask that tells people we are serious, intelligent and worth whatever we are being paid (or more).

We wear a different mask when having drinks with our friends.  A mask where we want to be carefree, free from the weight of the mask worn at work.

We wear a different mask when we are all alone with our partner(s)/spouse(s).  A mask where we can sometime share our deepest desires and fears (and often a mask where we cannot).

We even wear a mask when we talk to ourselves.  The mask that says we are simultaneously both the greatest and worst person that has ever lived (the subject for a much longer post).

When I read about privacy on social networks, I can typically unwind the issue to really be about what projections of self (a mask) that the network supports.

Most only support a few masks (public and/or friends) and often poorly.  This causes people to “under share”, use a different network for that mask, or just opt-out completely.

An interesting observation is that these masks are often (roughly) organized in a subset/superset relationship.

This observation could help make this problem more tractable, although I do believe that a network needs to enable the same level of control that I have today — essentially the ability to construct a mask for each individual in the network.

I could spend several years talking about why these masks exist in the first place (religious, cultural, biological, etc.), but social networks like Facebook or Robert Scoble are not going to make them go away.

What we need is a social network that understands these masks and supports them in a first class way.

The first one that does will become the essessial platform (a utility) for the next generation of applications.

Nietzsche is, by far, my favorite philosophizer.

I tend to always be (re)reading something directly by him or something that is clearly influenced by him.

I found The Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer at a party at age 16 (I had an interesting mix of friends to say the least); I have been completely fascinated since.

Over the past few weeks, I have been rereading BGE (Beyond Good and Evil) with the help of a companion: Nietzsche’s Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil.

It has been incredibly helpful and recommended if you really want to get beyond a fairly cursory understanding of BGE.

In particular, this has been a big help understanding how to cope with the death of “God” in modern Western society.

This is been a long personal struggle of mine; the depth of despair that you reach when you really comprehend the capriciousness and indifference of “nature”.

I am not talking about atheism and the lack of immortality or the triumph of science.

I am talking about understanding that our Western world view, values, culture, morality, etc. are based on some notion of “natural law” and in many cases some notion of progress/improvement.

I am talking about the death of something more powerful than the death of “God”, the death of teleology.

Nietzsche provides the best answer that I have yet found to this struggle and Nietzsche’s Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil is a great help in understanding it better.

My rating:  Changed my life.

Graham Glass just posted an update to his Mental Models series.

I had an opportunity to have Graham explain his theory over lunch a few weeks ago and I find much to like about it.

Interestingly enough, I was rereading Leviathan the other day and the introduction had me thinking about Graham’s theory.

NATURE (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of Nature, man. For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin, CIVITAS), which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and punishment (by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty, every joint and member is moved to perform his duty) are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members are the strength; salus populi (the people’s safety) its business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are the memory; equity and laws, an artificial reason and will; concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly, the pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

Both Graham and Hobbes are worth reading…

I rapidly read The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Manhood last night.

Why rapidly?  I found that it merely iterated things (lists of gear, skills, books, movies, etc.) that I already owned or had (some) experience with.  In addition, it gave very light treatment to things that I believe can really help define virtue (not in the sense that you think, but in the Roman sense) like Cicero’s De Officiis (that said, perhaps the fact that it covered Cicero at all is something).

I am not going to give this a “Give me my money back” rating, however, for two reasons.

First, the introduction to the book that tells of the author’s experience at the Running of the Bulls was well written and (I thought) strangely profound.

Second, it gave me the best chuckle that I had in recent memory in recounting an (a somewhat off-color) Churchill story, which I have provided below.

Churchill entered the men’s room at the House of Commons to find his political rival Clement Atlee standing at the urinal.  Churchill took a position as far away as he could from Atlee, only to hear Atlee jab, “My dear Winston, I hope that despite being adversaries in the House, we could be friends outside of it.”  Churchill replied: “Ah, Clement, I have no quarrel with you, but in my experience, whenever you see something big, you tend to want to nationalize it.”

.

I just completed A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine.  Irvine is a professor of Philosophy at Wright State.

The goal of the work is two-fold: convince you to have a “philosophy of life” and that Stoicism is an ideal candidate for this philosophy.

Most of the book is taken up examining of Stoicism from a purely pragmatic standpoint, but it is all toward helping to frame what a consistent philosophy of life should entail.  It explores Irvine’s discovery of Stoicism, provides a very nice overview of various Stoic techniques and tales from his adventures as a practicing Stoic.

Above all things, this is a handbook for the budding modern Stoic.  It covers techniques like negative visualization (imagining that you will lose what is most precious to you), self-denial and daily mediation.

Using my rating system, I give it a fair trade.  If you are not familiar with Stoicism and it speaks to you, this book could enter “change your life” territory.

A couple of personal observations/insights…

One of the things that I enjoyed was the comparisons between Stoicism and Buddhism.  Many of the same principles and techniques are found in both.  I am beginning to think of Stoicism as a “Western Buddhism” in many ways.

I have found the techniques, particularly negative visualization, to be quite powerful.  Contemplating the loss of your children is a powerful way to appreciate them and generate personal joy no matter what your current circumstance.

This the key goal of Stoicism; to gain tranquility in the worst situations; to appreciate the things that you have today, rather than the things you want.

Typically this sort of self-denial is coupled with metaphysics hat justifies this denial for a reward after death (this is not the real world, the next one is).  Further, this sort of metaphysics (read: monotheist religions) often punish anyone that does not adopt the same self-denying world-view.

I jettisoned the shackles of that world-view long ago.  In the process, I viewed any philosophic system that taught self-denial as inconsistent with human nature and evolution.  This was always my complaint with Buddhism and the reason that I was attracted to Thelema.

What was so interesting about Irvine’s work was that he tackled the human nature and evolution issue head on.  He claimed that self-denial is unnatural. To over come this, he did not resort to the Platonic/Christian trick of claiming that the natural world is somehow debased.  Rather, he simply states that man can use his reason to overcome nature (which is the cause for our dissatisfaction with present circumstances) and in doing so achieve happiness.

Evolutionary forces have led us to a state of continued dissatisfaction, a state of unhappiness with our present circumstances.  That is the state of nature and is good (we are all here after all), but this state of nature is the cause for our unhappiness.  If we use our reason to temper our desires, it is possible for us to win a reprieve and experience joy with what we have right now.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/american-decline

I am repeatedly impressed with the writing in the Atlantic.  So much so, that it joins the Economist as the only two periodicals to grace my Kindle.

James Fallows recent article with the same title as this post is a compelling read.  Although the reasons may not be what you expect.

The first reason is summarized best in a John Adams quote found in the article.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

It is worthwhile to consider the track record of democracy as long-term governing mechanism.  If you decide to undertake that, decoupling individual “freedom/liberty” from “democracy” during the process could provide new insights.

The second reason is the policy point around the importance of the public sector as “capital collector and director” (my words).

Robert Atkinson, the director of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in Washington, has written that several times per century, a “transformational wave” of new technologies ripples through the economy and creates new opportunities and wealth. In the past, these have included mass-production systems, modern chemicals, aviation, and so on. Today the economically important technologies include genomic knowledge, information technologies like the Internet, and the geospatial information, from the GPS network, that is built into everything from dashboard navigators to the climate-change-monitoring systems that measure the size of glaciers or extent of forests. Private companies now create the jobs and wealth in each field, but public funds paid for the original scientific breakthroughs and provided early markets.

It couldn’t have been otherwise, Atkinson says. The scale of investment was too vast. The uncertainty of payoff was too great. The risk that profits and benefits would go to competitors who hadn’t made the initial investment was too high. The difference between promising and dead-end technologies was too hard to predict—especially decades ago, when work in all these fields began. So each started as a public program: the Internet by the Pentagon, the Human Genome Project by the National Institutes of Health, and the GPS network by the Air Force, which still operates it. The government could not have created Google, but Google could not have existed without government efforts to establish the Internet long before the company’s founders were born. This pattern—public investment and standard-setting, followed by private industrial growth—has been consistent through the years, Atkinson said, which is what worries him now. “Our companies and entrepreneurs are matchless in their power to adapt,” he said. “We lead in many categories the private economy can handle by itself. But where you need any public-private coordination, we’ve become handicapped. I worry that our companies can adapt, but our system can’t.”

This is a passage from Thus Spake Zarathustra (Chapter 14 — same title as this post) that resonated with me recently.

It is interesting to think about interactions with people that you either consciously or unconsciously wish to punish for a perceived slight.

Inspired ones they resemble: but it is not the heart that inspireth them—but vengeance. And when they become subtle and cold, it is not spirit, but envy, that maketh them so.

Their jealousy leadeth them also into thinkers’ paths; and this is the sign of their jealousy—they always go too far: so that their fatigue hath at last to go to sleep on the snow.

In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss.

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!

In the end, these interactions diminish you.

Nietzsche has a recommendation on how to ensure that you don’t fall prey to the above.

It can be found in Chapter 51 (On Passing-By): “Where one can no longer love, there should one—PASS BY!”

I normally tweet things like this, but I have been reading Thus Spake Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil for what seems the 21th time (they should be read together, I have found) and this post really spoke to me.

From EcoGeek.org

Lori Marino at Emory University is taking a scientific approach to determining how human dolphi[n]s are. She’s simply running them through an MRI and measuring the complexity of their brains. The result, unsurprisingly, is that dolphins are extremely smart. Their brains, according to Emory, are more complex than any other non-human brain, beating out Chimpanzees for the title.

The question that post raises is how this fact should impact the way that treat dolphins and the ethics associated with that.

My question is a little more in depth, as I would love to question the fundamental values that led us to believe that (generally) humans are more valuable than dolphins.

As absurd as it may seem, ask yourself the question, “Why am I more valuable than a dolphin?” and then follow the chain down to your axiomatic values.

You may think that has a simple answer, but under careful scrutiny you end up with a teleological question and those sorts of questions are very hard indeed.

That aside, I think it is wonderful that we are getting some quant that we can use to determine the intelligence of a given non-human species.

I just completed Stoic Warriors.

This book was notable for two reasons.

First, it was the first book at I read on the Kindle device.

I have read several books on the iPhone with the Kindle app, which I enjoy (small screen and all), but the reading experience on the device itself was great, modulo one thing — it needs a backlight for nightime reading.

Second, this is the last book that I will complete this year and it will likely have the most impact of any book in 2009.

In short, the book outlines Stoic philosophy through the lens of the needs of today’s military forces. For example, what does Stoism tells us about anger, grief, loss, etc. — all emotions and feelings that are most manifest in military situations where life and limb hang in the balance.

The book covers basic Stoic philosophical teachings, largely through Cicero and Seneca, but a sizable portion of the work covers ‘applied Stoism’ through military experiences in WWI, WWII, Vietnam and the Gulf Wars.

The book has flaws. The final chapter should have likely kicked off the work as the notion of a human community makes war and its horror much more profound. The points about Buddhism and Stocism should have been explored. I think there was maybe a paragraph on it throughout the whole book — but I think the connection is profound. Lastly, the author seems to be an Aristotlian but doesn’t come out and say it.

I wrote a big wrap-up paragraph here, but the Wordpress iPhone app ate it, so I will close by saying that I recommend the book, especially if you are one that holds (as I do), that practical philosophic inquiry is not about Truth (whatever that is), but about ways of thinking about the world that help us survive and even thrive in a hostile environment.

The true king can walk among his subjects unarmed, unguarded at night, so it is said.

Of this, I am of two minds.

My Romance, the desire for true brotherhood and love of the human family, wishes this to be true.

How long I have wanted such a world!

My Reason tells me that the king would be cut down in seconds.

How long have we lived in such a world and how much longer still?

Now, the real question is which world is best for humanity?

Every Communist must grasp the truth, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yenan has been created by having guns. All things grow out of the barrel of a gun. According to the Marxist theory of the state, the army is the chief component of state power. Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the “omnipotence of war”. Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic. Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the laboring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed. We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

To understand, Prometheus Unbound, it is important consider “Promethesus Bound”.

No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.

I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?

I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,

Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,

Heaven’s ever-changing Shadow, spread below,

Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?

Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!