A Note on Religion

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that God is dead and even suggested that we have killed God. The beginning of this phase in Nietzsche’s thought is at the end of Book IV of The Gay Science but its full development occurs in his poetic work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In this, Nietzsche goes on to say that Zarathustra teaches the “Overman” (Ubermensch). Thus, Nietzsche’s claim is not just that God has died but, in fact, that Western Civilization has matured beyond the possibility of belief in God and that, because of this, man himself will have to be overcome. In other words, human culture (what man is today) is so thoroughly involved in millennia of religious belief that it is now necessary to overcome this “man” by purging religious values. Hence, the supposed destroyer of all values, Nietzsche, is simply trying to free man from religious oppression to achieve his ideal human values in the Overman. “Once the sin against God was the greatest sin, but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing.” (Zarathustra, Prologue 3)

Rather unfortunately, Nietzsche, who wrote down these ideas in the late 19th Century was overly optimistic about the intellectual growth of his society and we find religion alive and well even in the 21st Century. One reason for this, I am absolutely certain, is because religion is a huge industry that makes big money and supports thousands of people. It is probably even more powerful than the gun lobby in America. When that much wealth, property, and income is involved, it is very difficult to put any institution down.

However, just as the gun lobby sustains itself because of a large membership of gun enthusiasts, religious institutions can certainly claim the allegiance of millions of people who give them support, if not full belief. The question is why do people in the modern world, a world in which science and technology have produced enormous change, still hold onto religious beliefs and support these institutions. I can see three possible reasons. First, many religious people have simply not questioned their cultural heritage and prefer to continue behaving as they were taught when youngsters. Second, another group of people who distrust almost everything happening around them in the modern world, from government to science and to technology, believe that Nietzsche’s enlightened world is a “liberal conspiracy” that threatens to take their religion away from them. Third, some group of people fall into the category of what I shall call “archaic thought” and I shall divide this group into two factions —- those who believe that the universe is all too enormous to be understood by human thought and must have been created by a powerful God and those who have never accepted personal death and must believe in some sort of God-managed personal immortality to save themselves. In contrast to the first group, these people have actually questioned their cultural heritage but have rejected the natural world as understood by scientific thought. The second group is simply a waste of time; most of them would prefer to live in the 18th Century, farming cotton with African slaves.

As I see it, the first group can be divided into two factions. The first faction is a largish group of people who simply do not want to question their habitual behaviors. For these people, Nietzsche’s heroic Overman is hard to understand. Why would you want to discard present values and strive to overcome your heritage in order to embrace new values? Aren’t things great just the way they are? For many younger people, college does the trick. But for the people already beyond college age, there is little hope for awakening in this group. The second faction is somewhat smaller, I would say, and it consists of people who no longer believe much of the doctrine taught by the church but who remain in the church because, for them, it is an important social institution that brings people together in helpful ways and often does good things. I am not sure we can still call these people “religious” but they do continue to support religious institutions. They continue to adhere to some Christian moral values but I would think they do not subscribe to those “values” that Nietzsche viewed as hateful toward life. They probably care little for sin and hellfire.

It is really the third group that bothers me. These are people who evidently devote some thought to who they are and what life is. Yet, even in this age of scientific thought they come to conclusions that support the religious industry. Let us take personal immortality first. Not all religions promise personal immortality but this seems to be one of the main and more spectacular promises of Christianity. From its earliest times, Christianity holds the hope of immortality for its practitioners. In fact, you can have it in either of two ways — eternity in hell or eternity in heaven. In effect, you live according to our rules and pay our salaries or you rot in hell fire for eternity — not a pretty picture (A Facebook friend posted a picture of a church sign: “Is touching yourself worth an eternity in hell?”). Do people really believe this stuff?

It is little wonder that religious power has dominated world politics for millennia. The monarchs of England declared their divine right to rule based on Christian heredity. And Hobbes’s monarch held the power of death over any and all Englishmen. Church and State were totally involved with each other in holding power and control over their people. Basically, your lives belonged to God and the King of England was God’s appointed legislator and judge as advised by the clergy. Even today we see similar types of absolute authority being exercised in various religions around the world.

The vague promise of eternal life in heaven, having rejoined one’s beloved friends and relatives in that hereafter, was enough to cause people to conform to everything the clergy desired. What Nietzsche saw in this was a culture built on hatred of natural life and specifically designed to keep people tamed under the authority of clerics, while contributing money to build elegant clerical cathedrals. Meanwhile, the actual image of heavenly immortality goes without much elaboration — e.g., will my body be old and diseased as it’s going to be or will I be young and viral as in the youth I have left behind? Will our pets join us? What about the house I love? How long really is an eternity? I’m not sure eternity would be that enjoyable. On some other earth somewhere maybe in another galaxy? Or in the clouds? Really?

Somewhat in-between these two groups are the folks who view “evil” as a “problem”. That is, if God is as perfect and good as we are told, why do people suffer bad fates. We pray for God’s protection and good works. Baseball players regularly send messages to God in thanks for being allowed a base hit while hundreds of people die in an earthquake in central Italy and a young Chicago mother is shot through the head walking home from taking her daughter to her first day of school. Either God is responsible for all of it or not responsible for any of it. But if the former, doesn’t that create an awful big puzzle about just what God means. Ah, yes, but the faithful want us to wrestle with this puzzle rather than give it up. What it is, of course, is an archaic way of viewing the world that has somehow managed to penetrate the 21st Century. Like native tribes of millennial times, we are still performing extravagant and elaborate dances to make the gods happy and look upon us favorably. 

But finally, in the third group, there are people who have seriously thought about the universe, even scientists, and who have been overwhelmed by the seeming enormity and impossibility of it. I will grant that the universe seems well beyond human understanding. If our universe is expanding, what is it expanding into, if space and time are all defined within our universal concepts of motion? What is time, really, other than movement of objects. In many ways, scientists have made the understanding of our universe much more complicated than it used to be. After all, if all you have to account for is the sun, earth, and moon, and the fixed stars, theories can abound. But now we have to deal with galaxies and light years and indefinite expansion and black holes, etc. Perhaps science will never develop a perfectly beautiful account of the universe, but that doesn’t mean that we have to place God in the midst of it all. Unless, of course, by “God” we just mean mystery. But if God is just mystery personified, then we are back to Nietzsche’s need to cleanse man of the values religions have foisted on him. 

More Reflections on Police

In the case of the St. Paul killing, the officer radioed that he was stopping a car because the driver looked like a suspect in a robbery. The suspect evidently was black and had a wide nose. That the officer could see the driver was black is probable but that he could see a wide nose (at what distance?) is far less probable. If the suspect had been white, how many white drivers would the officer have pulled over? Racial profiling is not a good thing and we must admit that it exists. I have seen local police pull over blacks and browns regularly in our community.

The officer pulled his gun and pointed it into the car. Police need to stop pulling their guns and pointing them at people. When you point a loaded and armed gun at someone, you intend to shoot them. Police need to keep their guns holstered until they actually intend to shoot someone. I once walked into a gas station in Mammoth Lakes only to find a policeman pointing his gun at a young hispanic man who was standing by the counter. I was perhaps three feet behind the officer. Think of how many different ways this scenario could have gone wrong.

The whole concept of the criminal justice system seems to have gone out the window. When a violent crime is committed, there is no concern about taking the criminal prisoner and putting him/her up for trial. Killing the criminal is the only option considered. How many cases do you remember when the police took one of these people into custody? How many, when they simply killed the person? In Dallas, they didn’t bother to wait him out; they rigged a robotic bomb and blew him up. So much for bringing people to “justice.”

And finally, when an officer does mortal harm to someone who was unarmed and innocent or who had just committed some petty offense, the officer ought to pass through a criminal justice system like any other person. But this is not the way things happen. The police community immediately comes to the defense of the officer and the court system is disposed to favor his/her version of the facts. In all the officer-involved deaths of black men, over the last few years, NO officer has ever been found guilty or been punished. Doesn’t that sound a bit extraordinary? One of the biggest things that the police community could do in order to establish a better relationship with the communities they serve would be to actually acknowledge that officers do occasionally commit criminal acts and that they should be tried and punished for this.

The great majority of police officers are good people who obey the law and serve their communities. Are they willing to say that the great majority of black people in their communities are also law obeying good people? Can there be some respect?

Reflections on Bernie Sanders

I have always had a great deal of respect for Bernie Sanders — the independent from Vermont. But I have lost some of that respect in the waning months of the primary process. His message was a good message, but the more threatened he became the more aggressively he tore into Clinton. That was not his “message” just raw ego and politics.Now that the California primary is over and Clinton has possession of more delegates than she needs, Bernie should do everything he can to unify the party and help to defeat Trump. Instead, he seems bound and determined to press onward with his campaign no matter what the consequences might be. But why should he care about the Democratic Party; he’s not really a Democrat anyway.

Bernie wants a revolution in this country, quite literally. And that is a good thing; we need a real revolution. But I do not believe a revolution will happen by just electing a Bernie-character as President. First and foremost, the President just is not that powerful. Secondly, you have to have a supportive Congress. But there is a far deeper issue resisting revolution and that is the american people themselves. The division between right and left is deeper than ever and it is becoming violent. There will be no significant revolution until the people are more unified.Bernie or no Bernie.

I believe in Bernie’s revolution —- getting money out of politics and out of government, getting real health care for everyone, funding education widely, elevating economic conditions for all and taming the ultra rich. And I would add to this making corporations responsible to our nation instead of taking advantage of “globalization” to escape responsibility, re-building our infrastructure, and giving our people work that can make them proud.

But the issue is convincing Americans that these are good ideas and attainable strategies. That is a really tough problem the way many Americans think today. Bernie can’t solve that problem, nor can Hillary. But Bernie has done one great thing; he has ignited the younger generations who may be able to advance these issues in the future if only they will hold to their convictions.

Trump, Hitler, and Fascism

After the Second World War, Americans all wondered how the German people could have been so foolish as to allow Hitler and the Nazi Party to take over the country and carry them into a devastating war.

Unfortunately, I think we are now finding out how for ourselves. But what is really, really dangerous is that, while Hitler required quite a few years to build up a sufficient military, Trump (if he becomes president) will inherent a living military of enormous proportions, ready for use at a moment's notice.

Hitler was just a single individual and could not possibly have done what he did without massive popular support. Likewise, Trump is just a single individual, but what is truly staggering about the American scene today is the massive amount of support that stands with him. In a serious way, the Republican Party is to blame for this. Trump has just harvested the jealousy, hatred, and violence that the Republicans have been fostering for decades.

Trump may lose the nomination or he may lose the election, if nominated, but what is left after that will not be a pretty sight. This nation stands at the brink of Fascism and, unless something happens to change that direction, someone, sometime is going to be able to tip the balance completely over.

Libertarianism

I have been reading “The Libertarian Mind” by David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute with the hope that I might understand what so-called Libertarians actually believe. I’ll confess they mostly sound like anarchists to me — that is, they seem to want no government whatsoever. So I was mightily surprised, only a couple pages into the book, to find Boaz quoting from John Locke.

“[T] he end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom: For in all the states of created beings capable of Laws, where there is no Law, there is no Freedom: For Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others which cannot be, where there is no Law: But Freedom is not, as we are told, A Liberty for every Man to do what he lists: (For who could be free, when every other Man’s Humour might domineer over him?) But a Liberty to dispose, and order, as he lists, his Persons, Actions, Possessions, and his whole Property, within the Allowance of those Laws under which he is; and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary Will of another, but freely follow his own.”

Boaz asserts that freedom is natural and primary and that “it’s the exercise of power, not the exercise of freedom, that requires justification.” What Locke asserted and Boaz apparently agrees with is that freedom cannot exist without laws because laws are designed to protect us and expand our freedom to act and possess. This is essentially the traditional belief of political philosophers, starting with Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, that a “state of nature” leads always to a “state of war” in which people have little freedom because of greed and intrusion of others.

I agree with Boaz that the exercise of power needs to be justified, and this is why government by the people is essential. Laws should have a purpose that the people accept. Government — the maker and administrator of laws — should be representative of the people’s will. Libertarians, after all, should not despise government but should work to make government better — granting that “better” may mean “less.”

It seems to me that the basic problem in this discussion is the fact that every American faces at least three forms of government. I pay taxes to local, state, and Federal agencies. I live under local laws that prescribe social behaviors and property rights and limitations (e.g., zoning laws). I live under state laws that dictate rules of the road, entrance to state owned properties, etc. Federal laws rule over export and import of goods, inter-state commerce, and civil rights. Generally, we understand that this distribution of powers relates to local, state-wide, and national “interests.” Automobile safety standards are a national interest because automobiles are used everywhere. On the other hand, boating safety guidelines may reasonably be maintained by the states or localities in which boats are used. [An interesting exception to this reasoning is Lake Tahoe, which being bounded by two states is under the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard.] There is always jealousy in a lower level of government against the next government higher, which seeks to intrude upon the smaller community’s interests. Am I a Claremonter first, a Californian second, and an American third? Or am I an American who happens to live in Claremont, California?

It is really the Federal government that sets the tone of what it is to be an American by defining American “interests” and guaranteeing our freedom to pursue those interests using appropriate laws. This is what gives me problems with the current Libertarian movement — namely, it seems wildly hostile toward the Federal government. Suppose that I am gay and married to a man whom I dearly love in California. Then, suppose that Libertarians have had their way and allowed individual states to define marriage as they wish and, in particular, to prohibit gay marriages. For me, there is no longer a sense of being American because my freedom of union has been restricted to California and some other states that allow gay marriage. Federal laws define national interests in the sense that they aim at making it possible to travel and live throughout the country and enjoy certain freedoms. Advocates of “states rights” want to create enclaves that suit local or state interests in spite of national concerns. The present chaos in gun regulations — and non-regulation — is a great example. Not every American can openly care a gun but, in Texas, you can openly carry your gun into a university classroom.

It seems to me that it is time for Libertarians to stop hating the Federal government blindly and start telling us which parts of being American they think are unfriendly to their pursuit of freedom. 

The Question of Wealth

I have been discussing the morality of Capitalism with a fellow philosopher for some time now, and in particular, “profit” has emerged as an important issue. In this discussion, I allege that profit is related to “wealth.” That is, I think that merely receiving more compensation for a product or service than one actually put directly into that product or service is not itself “profit.” There is a “thickness” to the issue of “cost” and the whole structure of “cost” must be taken into account. 

An example that has come up in this discussion is a small farmer who takes in more than the actual cost of seeds, etc. My point is that the farmer needs to stay in business and, consequently, he needs to put something aside for poor years, provide for his family, and make periodic repairs and upgrades in order to continue in competition. All of these contribute to the “thickness” of cost. In this sense, the Capitalist needs to sustain his livelihood. If we call this excess compensation “profit,” we need to realize that there is nothing immoral about it. 

It seems to me that where the Capitalist strays away from the moral high ground is where excess compensation is used to accumulate wealth. But why is wealth accumulation a moral issue? The biggest problem here is that the Capitalist is probably paying the lowest wages and prices for labor and raw materials so as to create wealth for himself. If wealth is to be created, the morally right thing to do is to share the margin of wealth with all of those who are involved in the productive chain. This goal is possible in relatively small operations where people and sources are known and in a relationship with the Capitalist. 

In the big corporations, today, enormous wealth is created and it is quickly swallowed up by executives, who are paid ridiculously huge salaries and other benefits, and by stock holders, under the prevailing myth that the corporation’s only moral obligation is to reward their stock holders. The more desperate ordinary people become, the easier it is for corporations to leverage lower salaries. So the distribution of wealth becomes extreme. With extreme wealth comes political and military power — the formula on which the United States proceeds today.

The Oregon Refuge Affair

The Bundy brothers, true to their father’s (Cliven Bundy) spirit, have called a bunch of like-minded and well armed folks together to take control of a Federal Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. The excuse was support for two ranchers who have been convicted of several unlawful acts involving the refuge. However, the majority of folks in the occupation are from outside the area, and the ranchers themselves do not support the intervention. But the Bundy’s mission is way more than support for the ranchers and is actually a long-term campaign against the Federal government, in particular, Federal land-use policies. 

The issue of land ownership and use in this part of Oregon — like many parts of the West — is historically long and complex. There have been several good articles in The New Yorker and in the New York Times that have articulated these issues with fairness (I think). There is nothing I could add to these. My interest is in the Bundy mission itself.

The Bunds want the land “returned to the people.” That, in itself, is enormously complicated since one has to wonder which people should have the land returned to them. The Paiute tribe of Native Americans has a particular interest in that plan. But the Bundy’s are thinking about the more recent occupants, namely, the current ranchers and farmers. The main idea is that Federal government should withdraw and leave the land to free public access. Of course, they don’t really want “free public access” (I suspect) since they don’t want anyone else to encroach on the land that they believe is theirs. 

In a sense, what the Bundy’s want is a Marxist system in which the state withers away and the people are left collectively in control. But even Marx believed that the people would have to regulate the economy in certain ways so that all would be served their needs. How would the Bundys have that done? They have no answer to that, at least none that I have heard. Cliven Bundy just wants too run his cattle on Federal land without paying the government anything. But if the government abandons the land how will Bundy manage to protect his cattle from theft and keep others from running their cattle on the same land? I guess that’s what all those guns are for. The whole argument takes us back to the “social contract” where we have to choose between a state of war and life in a commonwealth under the rule of laws and institutionalized justice. Private property does not exist under the state of war; private property exists only in a commonwealth. The Bundys can’t have it both ways.