I have only recently come to appreciate what a great song this Jackson Browne number from 1976 is. After the 'sixties faded, I gave myself an education in classical and jazz and lost touch with the rock scene. The video presents the thoughtful lyrics. The Gary U. S. Bonds cover from 1981 is also unbelievably good.
Month: March 2020
Some Comments End Up in the Spam Corral . . .
. . . so I have to remember to look there to see if any good comments have been sent there to languish unread. My apologies to Kevin Kim, et al. whose comments have now been published.
Howler of the Day and a Warren Post-Mortem
"Warren gets particularly exorcised in the more recent book when talking about President Donald Trump."
One could only hope for the exorcism of the hysterical intersectional demons in the fake Indian.
It is a good post-mortem, though, of a very capable woman whose lust for power drove her to suicide by political correctness.
One gets the sense that Bernie Sanders doesn’t know any better. He’s not thoughtful enough to understand how much he overstates government’s ability, disciplined enough to lay out the costs of his grand proposals, or self-reflective enough to catch the irony of his own capitalistic practices. But based on her first book, it is patently clear that ElizabethWarren does understand. And that’s probably more troubling. Ignorance with self-righteousness is one thing. Knowing better and then arguing otherwise is a different sort of evil.
So what happened to Warren? My best guess—and, I think, the most gracious interpretation of her hypocritical flips—is that “the fight” became everything. And so principles, wisdom, and insight became the casualties. The ends slowly began to justify the means. Maybe losing the “bankruptcy war” to Hillary and the lobbyists embittered her. Or maybe “subsidizing the wrong people”—through the Troubled Asset Relief Program and banks that were “too big to fail”—sent her over the edge. In any case, the cause made it acceptable to strive for power.
The Opium of the Redistributionists
A re-post from April 2016 that targets the hypocrisy of Sanders the Socialist.
……………………………….
If religion is the opium of the masses, then OPM is the opium of the redistributionist.
Bernie Sanders, the superannuated socialist, "and his wife, Jane, paid an effective tax rate of 13.5 percent, or $27,653 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $205,271." This is for 2014. That is less than Mitt Romney paid, percentage-wise, in 2011. But Romney paid more dollars and thus did more good than Bernie, if you assume that Federal taxes do good for 'the people' and not just for state apparatchiki.
For Sanders, a legitimate function of government is wealth redistribution so that the government can do good with other people's money (OPM). So why did Bernie take so many (legal) deductions? Why didn't he pay his 'fair share,' say, 28% of his AGI? Why didn't he fork over 50%? Surely an old man and his wife can live on 100K a year! Why doesn't Bernie practice what he preaches?
Because he smokes the opium of OPM: it is the other guy's money that is to be confiscated, not his. By any reasonable standard, Sanders is a 'fat cat.' But he doesn't see himself as one. And no doubt he thinks he earned his high senatorial salary when he produced nothing, but merely spouted a lot of socialist nonsense while acting the pied piper to foolish and impressionable youth.
Four Senses of ‘Absurd’
Clarity will be served if we distinguish at least the following senses of 'absurd.' The word is from the Latin surdus, meaning deaf, silent, or stupid. But etymology can take one only so far and is no substitute for close analysis. And beware the Dictionary Fallacy.
1) Logico-mathematical. The absurd is the logically contradictory or self-contradictory or that which entails a logical contradiction. Absurdity in this sense attaches to propositions or sets of propositions. A reductio ad absurdum proof, for example, is a reduction to a contradiction. It is a way of indirectly proving a proposition. One assumes its negation and then derives a logical contradiction thereby proving the proposition.
2) Semantic. The absurd as the linguistically meaningless. Meaningful words can be strung together in meaningless ways, or meaningless words can be strung together. Example of the first: "Quadruplicity drinks procrastination." (Russell) Example of the second: "The slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe." (Lewis Carroll). There is nothing syntactically or logically wrong with these sentences.
3) Existential. The absurd as the existentially meaningless, the groundless, the brute-factual, the intrinsically unintelligible. The absurdity of existence in this sense of 'absurd' is what elicited Sartre's and Roquentin's nausea. The sheer, meaningless, disgusting, facticity of the chestnut tree referenced in the eponymous novel, for example, described by Sartre as de trop and as an unintelligible excrescence.
4) Ordinary. The absurd as the manifestly false. To be precise, 'absurd' as it is mostly used in standard English by non-philosophers refers to that which is both factually false and manifestly false. "Pelosi's assertion that there is no border crisis is absurd!" In other words, Pelosi's assertion is factually false, and plainly so. What is manifestly false as a matter of fact needn't be logically or semantically objectionable.
Item for further rumination: In Christianity construed along Kierkegardian lines, the apparent absurdity of human existence is redeemed by the Higher Absurdity of the God-Man on the cross.
Cultural note: the hipster depicted below is a parody of the beatniks of the late 'fifties and early 'sixties. It is what Joe Average imagined an 'existentialist' must look like: a goateed cat with a beret, dressed in black, smoking a cigarette, preferably a Gitane or an unfiltered Gaulois.
Autobiographical addendum: Things didn't work out with an early girlfriend. She complained that I was an 'existentialist' who was "down all the time." I did read a lot of Camus and Sartre in those days, but my favorite existentialists were the Dane, Kierkegaard, and the Russian, Nicholas Berdyaev. Lev Shestov came later. Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger are only loosely classifiable as existentialists.
Popular ‘Phlegm Theories’ of Consciousness
Michael Graziano demolishes several of them and then proposes his own which consists of hand-waving and promissory notes and is no better than the ones he dismisses. See if you don't agree.
Up with Free Speech! Down with the History-Erasing and Deplatforming Left
Reader Considers Converting to Islam. Would Christian Unitarianism Satisfy his Scruples?
Here is the beginning of the letter he sent me:
I've been considering converting to Islam.
You've had a big part in this, though I know it won't please you to hear it. Your arguments against the coherency of the Incarnation are hard to get past.
My arguments against the Chalcedonian, 'two-natures-one-person' theology of the Incarnation may or may not have merit. In any case, this is not the place to rehearse or defend them. What I want to say to my young reader is that it would be a mistake to reject Christianity because of the problems of the Trinitarian-Incarnational version thereof. Someone who rejects Trinity and Incarnation as classically conceived might remain a Christian by becoming a Unitarian. My friend Dale Tuggy represents a version of Unitarianism. You will have no trouble finding his writings on the Web.
There are any number of better choices than Islam if one wants a religion and cannot accept orthodox — miniscule 'o' — Christianity. There is, in addition to Unitarian Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, all vastly superior to "the saddest and poorest form of theism" (Schopenhauer) . . . .
I will conclude this entry by posting some quotations from William Ellery Channing, the 19th century American Unitarian. These are from Unitarian Christianity (1819). (HT: Dave Bagwill) Bolding added.
In the first place, we believe in the doctrine of God's UNITY, or that there is one God, and one only. To this truth we give infinite importance, and we feel ourselves bound to take heed, lest any man spoil us of it by vain philosophy. The proposition, that there is one God, seems to us exceedingly plain. We understand by it, that there is one being, one mind, one person, one intelligent agent, and one only, to whom underived and infinite perfection and dominion belong. We conceive, that these words could have conveyed no other meaning to the simple and uncultivated people who were set apart to be the depositaries of this great truth, and who were utterly incapable of understanding those hair- breadth distinctions between being and person [substance and supposit?], which the sagacity of later ages has discovered. We find no intimation, that this language was to be taken in an unusual sense, or that God's unity was a quite different thing from the oneness of other intelligent beings.
We note here a similarity to Islam: "There is no god but God."
We also note that unity is defined in terms of 'one' taken in an ordinary numerical way. Reading the above and the sequel I am struck at how similar this is to the way Tuggy thinks. God is a being among beings, and his unity is no different than the unity of Socrates. There are of course many men, and Socrates is but one of them. But if Socrates were the only man, then he would be the one man in the way God is the one god. Unity in classical Christianity has a deeper meaning: God is not just numerically one; he is also one in a way nothing else is one. God is not the sole instance of deity; God is his deity; God does not have (instantiate) his attributes; he is his attributes. God is not only unique, like everything else; he is uniquely unique unlike anything else. God is not just the sole instance of his kind; he is unique in the further sense that there is no real distinction in God between instance and kind.
We object to the doctrine of the Trinity, that, whilst acknowledging in words, it subverts in effect, the unity of God. According to this doctrine, there are three infinite and equal persons, possessing supreme divinity, called the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Each of these persons, as described by theologians, has his own particular consciousness, will, and perceptions. They love each other, converse with each other, and delight in each other's society. They perform different parts in man's redemption, each having his appropriate office, and neither doing the work of the other. The Son is mediator and not the Father. The Father sends the Son, and is not himself sent; nor is he conscious, like the Son, of taking flesh. Here, then, we have three intelligent agents, possessed of different consciousness[es], different wills, and different perceptions, performing different acts, and sustaining different relations; and if these things do not imply and constitute three minds or beings, we are utterly at a loss to know how three minds or beings are to be formed. It is difference of properties, and acts, and consciousness, which leads us to the belief of different intelligent beings, and, if this mark fails us, our whole knowledge fall; we have no proof, that all the agents and persons in the universe are not one and the same mind. When we attempt to conceive of three Gods, we can do nothing more than represent to ourselves three agents, distinguished from each other by similar marks and peculiarities to those which separate the persons of the Trinity; and when common Christians hear these persons spoken of as conversing with each other, loving each other, and performing different acts, how can they help regarding them as different beings, different minds?
For Channing, Trinitarianism is indistinguishable from tri-theism. His too suggests a comparison with Islam. From the point of view of a radical monotheist, Trinitarianism smacks of polytheism.
Having thus given our views of the unity of God, I proceed in the second place to observe, that we believe in the unity of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus is one mind, one soul, one being, as truly one as we are, and equally distinct from the one God. We complain of the doctrine of the Trinity, that, not satisfied with making God three beings, it makes; Jesus Christ two beings, and thus introduces infinite confusion into our conceptions of his character. This corruption of Christianity, alike repugnant to common sense and to the general strain of Scripture, is a remarkable proof of the power of a false philosophy in disfiguring the simple truth of Jesus.
According to this doctrine, Jesus Christ, instead of being one mind, one conscious intelligent principle, whom we can understand, consists of two souls, two minds; the one divine, the other human; the one weak, the other almighty; the one ignorant, the other omniscient. Now we maintain, that this is to make Christ two beings. To denominate him one person, one being, and yet to suppose him made up of two minds, infinitely different from each other, is to abuse and confound language, and to throw darkness over all our conceptions of intelligent natures. According to the common doctrine, each of these two minds in Christ has its own consciousness, its own will, its own perceptions. They have, in fact, no common properties. The divine mind feels none of the wants and sorrows of the human, and the human is infinitely removed from the perfection and happiness of the divine. Can you conceive of two beings in the universe more distinct? We have always thought that one person was constituted and distinguished by one consciousness. The doctrine, that one and the same person should have two consciousness, two wills, two souls, infinitely different from each other, this we think an enormous tax on human credulity.
There are closely related difficult questions about how one person or supposit can have two distinct individualized natures, one human and one divine.
And so I say to my young friend, "Don't do anything rash!" First consider whether there is a less deadly form of religion you can adopt that will satisfy your intellectual scruples.
The Stock Market is Tanking. Do Nothing.
Good advice. I learned the lesson back in '87. New to the game, I freaked out on Black Monday. Of course you remember the 508 point drop in the Dow. I got out, locking in losses, but then took too long getting back in. Now I am older, wiser, and if truth be told, a tad wider.
Here is an old post of mine from 2008 that stands up well: Some Principles of a Financial Conservative. Agree or disagree, but if you disagree you won't budge me from views only reinforced by my experiences since aught-eight. The main, thing, however, is to think hard, critically, and for yourself.
And another thing.
Don't say that money is the root of all evil. That's just silly. Say something that is true:
The inordinate love of money is the root of some evils.
Point proven in Radix Omnium Malorum.
Benjamin Jowett on Grace
A stunning formulation for your delectation from the translator of Plato and the don of Balliol College:
Grace is an energy; not a mere sentiment; not a mere thought of the Almighty; not even a word of the Almighty. It is as real an energy as the energy of electricity. It is a divine energy; it is the energy of the divine affection rolling in plenteousness toward the shores of human need.
An observation magisterial on all counts, combining as it does truth, economy of expression, and literary beauty: "the energy of the divine affection rolling in plenteousness toward the shores of human need." Could it do with a bit of paring? How about this:
. . . the energy of God's plenary affection rolling shoreward toward human need.
Companion posts:
Memo to Trump Haters
The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.
St. John Cassian on Anger
The Philokalia, vol. I (Faber and Faber, 1979, p. 83):
If, therefore, you desire to attain perfection and rightly to pursue the spiritual way, you should make yourself a stranger to all sinful anger and wrath. Listen to what St. Paul enjoins: 'Rid yourselves of all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking and all malice' (Eph. 4:31) In saying 'all' he leaves no excuse for regarding any anger as necessary or reasonable.
[. . .]
Our incensive power can be used in a way that is according to nature only when turned against our own impassioned or self-indulgent thoughts.
We are at first told that no anger is "necessary or reasonable" and then told in effect that some anger is, namely anger at our own impassioned or self-indulgent thoughts.
In a charitable spirit, we may take the second bit of text as correcting, rather than contradicting, the first.
There is righteous anger the object of which is oneself. I take it a step further: there is righteous anger the objects of which are others.
But is contempt for others ever justified? I go back and forth on this question.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Robbie Robertson and the Band
True 'sixties veterans will enjoy the Band documentary Once Were Brothers. And if you don't, then you are not a true 'sixties veteran. (This is known in the trade as the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. I prefer to call it the No True Muslim Fallacy.)
New Yorker article about the movie.
The Weight. Robertson sat down one day to write a song and peering into his Martin guitar read, "Martin Guitars, Nazareth, Pennslylvania." This inspired the line, "I pulled into Nazareth, feelin' about half-past dead."
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Nothing hippy-trippy or psychedelic about these '60s musicians. Pure Americana. Rooted, autochthonic.
I Shall Be Released. The synergy benefited both the Bard and the Band. They helped him move farther from the mind and closer to the earth.
Bonus Cut: Rick Danko and Paul Butterfield, Java Blues
Our Pyrrhonian Predicament
It is widely admitted that there is something deeply unsatisfactory about the human condition. One aspect of our wretched state is recognized and addressed by the Pyrrhonists: we want certain knowledge but it eludes us. And so we must content ourselves with belief. But beliefs are in conflict and this conflict causes suffering which ranges from mental turmoil to physical violence.
Ours is a two-fold misery. We lack what we want and need, knowledge. We must make do with a substitute that engenders bitter controversy, belief.
Skeptic solution? Live belieflessly, adoxastos! But that is no solution at all, or so say I.
For details, see the following meatier entries:
Does Divine Immutability Entail Modal Collapse?
That divine simplicity entails modal collapse is a controversial thesis, but one for which there are strong arguments. Does the same hold for divine immutability? I don't think so. That immutability should entail modal collapse strikes me as based on a simple confusion of the temporal with the modal.
Modal Collapse
In the state of modal collapse, there are no contingent propositions, where a contingent proposition is one that is possibly false if true, and possibly true if false, and where there are no contingent beings, where a contingent being is one that is possibly nonexistent if existent and possibly existent if nonexistent. So in the dreaded state of modal collapse, every proposition is either necessarily true or necessarily false, and every being is either necessary or impossible.
Although one philosopher's datum is often another's (false) theory, I take it to be a datum, a Moorean fact, that, for example, I exist contingently and that many of the propositions about me are contingently either true or false. For example, it is contingently true that I am now blogging, and contingently false that I am now riding my bike, where 'now' picks out the same time.
I take it, then, that we should want to uphold the modal distinctions and that it is an argument against a theory if it should fail to do so.
Divine Immutability
In a strong form, the immutability doctrine states that God does not undergo any sort of intrinsic change. We distinguish intrinsic from relational changes. If Hillary becomes furious at Bill's infidelity, that is an intrinsic change in her. But there needn't be any corresponding intrinsic change in Bill. He will change, but relationally by becoming the object of Hillary's wrath. (And perhaps only relationally if Bill is unaware of Hillary's discovery of his infidelity and the onset of her wrath.) If, however, her rage should vent itself in her conking him on the head with a rolling pin, then intrinsic changes will occur in both parties to this famous marriage.
Similarly, if I start and stop thinking about God, I undergo an intrinsic change, but this intrinsic change in me is a merely relational ('merely Cambridge') change in God, and is insofar forth compatible with God's strong immutability.
Strong immutability, then, is the claim that God is not subject to intrinsic change.
Confusing the Temporal with the Modal
If God is strongly immutable, then any intrinsic property that he has at a given time he has at every time. But if a thing has a property at every time at which it exists, it does not follow that it has that property necessarily. I'm a native Californian. I always was and I always will be. But that is a contingent fact about me: I might have been born in some other state. So the property of being born in California is one I have contingently despite my having it at every moment of my existence. The same goes for intrinsic properties. Suppose the universe always existed and always will exist. That is consistent with the universe's being contingent. What is always the case needn't necessarily be the case.
Now suppose God always wills the existence of our universe. It does not follow that God necessarily wills the existence of our universe. Nor does it follow that what he wills– our universe — necessarily exists. This consideration puts paid to the threat of modal collapse. Tim Pawl in his IEP article puts it like this:
Divine immutability rules out that God go from being one way to being another way. But it does not rule out God knowing, desiring, or acting differently than he does. It is possible that God not create anything. If God hadn’t created anything, he wouldn’t talk to Abraham at a certain time (since no Abraham would exist). But such a scenario doesn’t require that God change, since it doesn’t require that there be a time when God is one way, and a later time when he is different. Rather, it just requires the counterfactual difference that if God had not created, he would not talk to Abraham. Such a truth is neutral to whether or not God changes. In short, difference across possible worlds does not entail difference across times. Since all that strong immutability rules out is difference across times, divine immutability is not inconsistent with counterfactual difference, and hence does not entail a modal collapse. Things could have been otherwise than they are, and, had they been different, God would immutably know things other than he does, all without change . . . .
Three Theses
First, the divine simplicity doctrine entails modal collapse. This was argued earlier.
Second, divine simplicity is not to be confused with divine immutability. The first entails the second, but the second does not entail the first.
Third, divine immutability does not entail modal collapse.