Category: Human Predicament

The Childless as Anthropological Danglers

Herbert Feigl wrote about nomological danglers.  Mental states as the epiphenomenalist conceives them have causes, but no effects. They are caused by physical states of the body and brain, but dangle nomologically in that there are no laws  that relate mental states  to physical states.

The childless are anthropological danglers.  They are life's epiphenomena. They have ancestors (causes) but no descendents (effects). Parents are essential: without  them we could not have come into fleshly existence.  But offspring are wholly inessential: one can exist quite well without them.

There is a downside and an upside to being an anthropological dangler.

The downside is that it unfits one for full participation in the life of the community, removing as it does weight and credibility from one’s opinions about pressing community concerns. As Nietzsche writes somewhere in his Nachlass, the man without Haus und Hof, Weib und Kind is like a ship with insufficient ballast: he rides too high on the seas of life and does not pass through life with the steadiness of the solid bourgeois weighted down with property and reputation, wife and children.  What does he know about life and its travails that his say should fully count?  His counsel may be wise and just, but it won't carry the weight of the one who is wise and just and interested as only those whose pro-creation has pro-longed them into the future and tied them to the flesh are interested.  (inter esse)

The upside to being an anthropological dangler is that it enables one’s participation in a higher life by freeing one from mundane burdens and distractions. In another Nachlass passage, Nietzsche compares the philosopher having Weib und Kind, Haus und Hof with an astronomer who interposes a piece of filthy glass between eye and telescope. The philosopher's vocation charges him with the answering of the ultimate questions; his pressing foreground concerns, however, make it difficult for him to take these questions with the seriousness they deserve, let alone answer them.

Someone who would be "a spectator of all time and existence" ought to think twice about binding himself too closely to the earth and its distractions.

Another advantage to being childless is that one is free from  being an object of those attitudes of propinquity — to give them a name — such as embarrassment and disappointment, disgust and dismissal that ungrateful children sometimes train upon their parents, not always unjustly.

The childless can look forward to a time when all of their blood-relatives have died off.  Then they will finally be free of the judgments of those to whom one is tied by consanguinity but not by spiritual affinity.

This opinion of mine will strike some as cold and harsh.  But some of us experience more of the stifling and suppressive in our blood relations than the opposite.   I do however freely admit that the very best human relations conceivable are those that bind people both by ties of blood and ties of spiritual affinity.  If you have even one blood-relation who is a soul-mate, then you ought to be grateful indeed. 

Good, Better, Best

From the mail bag:

Is the way you interpret Voltaire's saying the way it was originally intended? I'm probably wrong here, but I always took the saying to mean this: a willingness to settle for what is "better" makes it likely that one won't acquire what is "good".
 
Good, better, best.  Positive, comparative, superlative.  "The best/better is the enemy of the good" means that oftentimes, not always, the pursuit of the best/better will prevent one from attaining the good.  The point is that if one is not, oftentimes, willing to settle for what is merely good, one won't get anything of value.  So I suggest that my reader has not understood Monsieur Voltaire's aperçu.
 
Example.  It will come down to Romney versus Obama.  If libertarians and conservatives fail to vote for Romney, on account of his manifold defects, then they run the risk of four more years of the worthless Obama.  Those libertarians and conservatives will have let the better/best become the enemy of the good.  They will have shown a failure to understand the human predicament and the politics pertaining to it.  He who holds out for perfection in  an imperfect world may end up with nothing.
 
You give the example of a spouse: try to hold out for a perfect wife, and you'll never marry at all. An example that would fit my reading would be, if one settles for a wife who's merely better than most of the available options, then one's apt to settle for a wife who isn't good. Sometimes it's better to refuse all the available options.
 
I agree that it is sometimes better to refuse all the available options.  If the choice is between Hitler and Stalin, then one ought to abstain! 
 
Maybe a better example would be, imagine I need to install plumbing in my house. Crappy plumbing is almost always going to be better than no plumbing. But should I (say, out of laziness) really settle for that, on the grounds that 'well, it's better than the nothing I had'?
 
Of course not.  Voltaire's point is not that one should settle for what is inferior when something better is available.  The point is that one should not allow the pursuit of unattainable perfection to prevent the attainment of something good but within reach.  Suppose someone were to say: I won't have any faucets or fixtures in my house unless they are all made of solid gold!  You will agree that such an attitude would be eminently unreasonable.
 
The Voltairean principle as I read it is exceedingly important in both personal life and in politics.
 
Perhaps you know some perfectionists.  These types never accomplish anything because they are stymied by the conceit that anything less than perfection is worthless.  I knew a guy in graduate school who thought that a dissertation had to be a magnum opus.  He never finished and dropped out of sight.
 
In politics there are 'all or nothing' types who demand the whole enchilada or none.  Some years back, when it looked as if it would be Giuliani versus Hillary, some conservative extremists said they would withhold their support from the former on the ground that he is soft on abortion.  But that makes no bloody sense given that under Hillary things would have been worse.
 
The 'all or nothing' mentality is typical of adolescents of all ages.  "We want the world and we want it . .  NOW!"

Peter Hitchens Remembers His Brother

Excerpt:

Last week I saw my brother for the last time in a fairly grim hospital room in Houston, Texas. He was in great pain, and suffering in several other ways I will not describe. But he was wholly conscious and in command of his wits, and able to speak clearly. We both knew it was the last time we would see each other, though being Englishmen of a certain generation, neither of us would have dreamed of actually saying so. We parted on good terms, though our conversation had been (as had our e-mail correspondence for some months) cautious and confined to subjects that would not easily lead to conflict. In this I think we were a little like chess-players, working out many possible moves in advance, neither of us wanting any more quarrels of any kind.

". . . and suffering in other ways I will not describe."  I understand and respect the reticence of the Englishman, a reticence we Americans could use a little more of; but that is one teaser of an independent clause!  One wants to know about that mental or spiritual suffering, and not just out of idle curiosity.  The moment of death is the moment of truth.  The masks fall away.  No more easy posturing as in the halcyon days of health and seemingly endless invincibility.  In wine there is truth, but in dying even more.  Ego-display and cleverness are at an end.  What was always hollow is now seen to be hollow.  Name and fame for example.  At the hour of death one hopes for words from the dying that are hints and harbingers and helps to the living for their own preparation for the hour of death. 

Peter's chess image is a curious one.  We work out many possible moves in advance the better to inflict material loss, or time-trouble, or checkmate  upon our opponents.  We are cautious, not so as to avoid conflict, but to render it favorable to ourselves.  On second thought, however, the chess comparison is apt:  in the end the brothers circled around each other 'keeping the draw in hand.'  Each could then withdraw from the fray feeling neither that he had lost to the other nor that he had bested him.

I am struck once again by the insignificance of blood-relations.  These two brothers in the flesh came to inhabit different planets.  As one of my aphorisms has it, consanguinity is no guarantee of spiritual affinity.

A second case in point: the flaming atheist David Stove and his Catholic son.

Socializing as Self-Denial

You don't really want to go to that Christmas party where you will eat what you don't need to eat, drink what you don't need to drink, and dissipate your inwardness in pointless chit-chat.  But you were invited and your nonattendance may be taken amiss.  So you remind yourself that self-denial is good and that it is useful from time to time to practice the art of donning and wearing the mask of a 'regular guy.'

For the step into the social is by dissimulation. Necessary to the art of life is knowing how to negotiate the social world and pass yourself off under various guises and disguises.

Politicians

Paul Brunton, Notebooks, vol. 9, Human Experience, p. 126, #520, emphasis added:

Politicians — more interested in their own careers than in sincere public service, ambitious to gain their personal ends, unwilling to rebuke foolish voters with harsh truth until it is too late to save them, forced to lead double lives of misleading public statements and contradictory knowledge of the facts, yielding, for the sake of popularity, to the selfish emotions, passions, and greeds of sectional groups — contribute much to mankind's history but little to mankind's welfare. 

Dead on in substance, but also stylistically instructive.  A good example of how to write a long sentence. Interesting because most of the content is sandwiched between the dashes.  The thesis flanks the dashes with the supporting considerations between them.

Few read Brunton.  But I read everything, ergo, etc.

Middle-Sized Happiness

The best of this blog is hidden in its vast archives, a fact that mitigates 'You're only as good as your last post.'  So there is justification for the occasional repost.  Think of a repost as a blogospheric rerun. It has been over two years since I ran Middle-Sized Happiness.  Having mentioned its topic  in the entry immediately preceding, here is the post again, slightly emended.

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Life can be good. Middle-sized happiness is within reach and some of us reach it. It doesn't require much: a modicum of health and wealth; work one finds meaningful however it may strike others; the independence of mind not to care what others think; the depth of mind to appreciate that there is an inner citadel into which one can retreat at will for rest and recuperation when the rude impacts of the world become too obtrusive; a relatively stable economic and political order that allows the tasting of the fruits of such virtues as hard work and frugality; a political order secure enough to allow for a generous exercise of liberty and a rich development of individuality; a rationally-based hope that the present, though fleeting, will find completion either here or elsewhere; a suitable spouse whose differences are complementations rather than contradictions; a good-natured friend who can hold up his end of a chess game. . . . 

All of these things and a few others, but above all: the wisdom to be satisfied with what one has. In particular, no hankering after more material stuff; no lusting after a bigger house, a newer car, a bigger pile of the lean green.

So much for middle-sized happiness. It falls short of true happiness for various reasons one of which is that one cannot be truly happy in the knowledge that many if not most will never have even the possibility of attaining middle-sized happiness.

Another reason meso-eudaimonia is not true happiness is that it is under permanent threat by impermanence, which argues the unreality of everything finite, as noted in an earlier meditation. But middle-sized happiness has an irrefragable advantage over true happiness: it is certain for those who have attained it for as long as they abide in it. And when it is over, there are the memories, and the knowledge that nothing that happens can change what was, which fact confers upon what was a modality the Medievals called necessitas per accidens, accidental necessity. True happiness, however, the happy life St. Augustine speaks of, is uncertain and for all we know chimerical. You can believe in it, of course; but I for one am not satisfied with mere belief: I want to know.

Perhaps it is like this: one day you die and become nothing for ever. Anyone who claims to know with certainty that death is annihilation is most assuredly a fool. But it still might be the case that the death of the individual is the utter destruction of the individual.

Well, suppose that is the case: you die, you are utterly dead, and that's it. All of that struggling and striving and caring and contending and loving and despairing come to nothing. You and all your works end up dust in the wind. Your fall-back position is this meso-eudaimonia I have been writing about. You have it in your possession; it is here free and clear and certain while it lasts. Part of it is the rational hope that there is some sort of completion unto true happiness if not here below (which is arguably impossible), then yonder. A hope exists whether or not its intentum is realized. So, immanently speaking, you have the benefit of hoping whether or not the goal is ever attained.

But take away the hope, and then what do you have? If you believe that it is all a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, then you ought to find life more difficult to construe as meaningful. Indeed, if you really believe this, can you live it without flinching, without evasion?

It is a curious predicament we are in. If you believe in this Completion of the fleeting present whether in a temporal eschaton or in eternity, and the Completion doesn't exist, then in a sense you are being played for a fool. If, on the other hand, you believe both that life is a tale told by an idiot, etc., and that it is nonetheless meaningful, then you are also being played for a fool: you are playing yourself for a fool. You are self-deceived, in despair without knowing it. (Kierkegaard)

To paraphrase Brenda Lee, "Are you fool number one, or are you fool number two?"

Short Views, Long Views, and the Feel for the Real

The long views of philosophy are not to everyone's taste.  If not bored, many are depressed by the contemplation of death and pain, God and the soul, the meaning or meaninglessness of our lives.  They prefer not to think of such things and consider it best to take short views.

Is it best to take short views? Sometimes it is. When the going gets tough, it is best to pull in one’s horns, hunker down, and just try to get through the next week, the next day, the next hour. One can always meet the challenge of the next hour. Be here now and deal with what is on your plate at the moment. Most likely you will find a way forward.

But, speaking for myself, a life without long views would not be worth living. I thrill at the passage in Plato’s Republic, Book Six (486a), where the philosopher is described as a "spectator of all time and existence." And then there is this beautiful formulation by  William James:

The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man. (Pragmatism, Harvard UP, 1975, p. 56)

I wrote above, "speaking for myself." The expression was not used redundantly inasmuch as it conveys that my philosopher’s preference for the long view is not one that I would want to or try to urge on anyone else. In my experience, one cannot argue with another man’s sensibility. And much of life comes down to precisely that — sensibility. If people share a sensibility, then argument is useful for its articulation and refinement. But I am none too sanguine about the possibility of arguing someone into, or out of, a sensibility.

How argue the atheist out of his abiding sense that the univere is godless, or the radical out of his conviction of human perfectibility? If the passages I cited from Plato and James leave you cold, how could I change your mind? If you sneer at my being thrilled, what then? Argument comes too late. Or if you prefer, sensibility comes too early.

One might also speak of a person’s sense of life, view of what is important, or ‘feel for the real.’ James’ phrase, "feel seriously," is apt. To the superior mind, ultimate questions "feel real," whereas to the shallow mind they appear pointless, unimportant, silly. It is equally true that the superior mind is made such by its wrestling with these questions.

Maximae res, cum parvis quaeruntur, magnos eos solent efficere.

Matters of the greatest importance, when they are investigated by little men, tend to make those men great. (Augustine, Contra Academicos 1. 2. 6.)

Of course, with his talk of the superior and the shallow, James is making a value judgment. I myself have no problem making value judgments, and in particular this one.

Although prospects are dim for arguing the other out of his sensibility, civil discussion is not pointless. One comes to understand one’s own view by contrast with another. One learns to respect the sources of the other’s view. This may lead to toleration, which is good within limits.  For someone with a theoretical bent, the sheer diversity of approaches to life is fascinating and provides endless grist for the theoretical mill.

As for the problem of how to get along with people with wildly different views, I recommend voluntary segregation.

A Contradictory Being Who Issues Contradictory Demands

We want a subordinate, a friend, a spouse to do our bidding, to embody in action our own intention, but also to show initiative, to anticipate our unstated wants and needs. Not content to command the other's body, making of it an extension of our will, we want also to command the other's freedom, making of  it an instrument of our freedom.

I say to wifey: Bring me back a case of Fat Tire Ale. Upon her return,  no ale is in evidence. Inquiring why not, I am told that it was unavailable. "Why then did you not fetch me a case of Sam Adam's Boston Ale?"

"Because that is not what you asked for, and had I brought back Sam Adam's you would have complained that it was not Fat Tire."

Different People to Different People

We are different people to different people, and different people are different people to us.

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No aphorism can comment on itself, or justify itself, on pain of ceasing to be an aphorism.  But what I am now writing is not part of the above aphorism.

What makes a good aphorism?  A good aphorism is pithy, one or two sentences.  Three at most.  It must lay bare an important truth. A saying clever but false is not a good aphorism. And the same goes for clever but unintelligible.  A good aphorism should have 'literary merit' whatever exactly that is.  I suggest mine does have some, though you are free to disagree.  Note the play on 'different.'  The formulation exploits the ambiguity of 'different' as between numerical and qualitative senses.  We are qualitatively different people to numerically different people, and numerically different people are qualitatively different to us.  Had I written the thing just like that it would have been clear but clunky and devoid of whatever literary value it has.

The thought expressed is not only true but important in the sense that bearing it in mind can help one negotiate the social world with equanimity.  We meet people who like us, people who dislike us, and people who are indifferent.  Some can't see our faults for our virtues; other are virtues for our faults.  One can be discouraged and even depressed at the hostility one arouses in others.  One better takes this all in stride if one never forgets that we are:

Different people to different people. 

How Did We Get to be so Arrogant?

Recalling our miserably indigent origin in the the wombs of our mothers and the subsequent helplessness of infancy, how did we get to be so arrogant and self-important?

In a line often (mis)attributed to Augustine, but apparently from Bernard of Clairvaux, Inter faeces et urinam nascimur: "We are born between feces and urine."  So inauspicious a beginning for so proud a strut upon life's stage.

The Social Dilemma

Either mix or don't mix. If you mix, you must move to the level of your companions, which is often to move down. If you don't mix, then they will hate you for being a snob. So you either degrade yourself or incur their dislike.

Mixing a little is no real solution, since they will resent you for not mixing a lot. Any attempted distancing will be perceived as a slight.

A social pariah does not face the social dilemma, but then neither does he reap any of the benefits of communal living.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but aloofness breeds the opposite, envious dislike.

Dilemma or false alternative?