There is something deeply disturbing
about the Hunger Games phenomenon, and it goes beyond the
grotesqueness of the violence. What has bothered me most about it --
and the movies, board games, and licensed merchandise haven't helped
-- is that it is a action-adventure thriller about children killing
children that children are supposed to read that is
supposed to constitute a critique of our society's tendency to
desensitize itself to violence.
It's
hypocritical. You don't criticize the glorification of violence in a
culture by coming up with the most disturbing form of violence you
can and glorifying it. What you should do
is write a satire. But for a satire to be effective it must
constitute a philosophical argument, and be funny. A true satire of
the glorification of violence, in the spirit of Voltaire's Candide
or Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's
Travels, might go something like
this:
On
her way home from seeing Hunger Games II in
the theater, Heroine is accidentally shoved in a cryogenic freezer to
find herself waking up a few decades later to an interesting new
America, where the Hollywood entertainment industry has become so
disgustingly wealthy on its action-horror-adventure bloodbaths, that
it has successfully lobbied Congress to legalize the
fight-to-the-death of underprivileged children who are going to
starve to death anyway, and give a fraction of the money made from
this TV show to the District where the winning child came from, and
justify it by saying "Hey, before you had twelve children who
were going to die, but we're going to make sure one of them lives and
becomes wealthy to boot." Since Heroine's family is long dead,
she is an orphan and considered poor and ends up in the games, and
now regrets ever having bought that movie ticket to Hunger
Games II that helped bring these
bastards to power.
That's,
more or less, what a satire of our culture's glorification of
violence should look like.
We
Americans have forgotten how to think deeply about things. I could
multiply examples of this, citing Tarantino's Oscars, the banality of
higher education, or the decline of academic philosophy itself. But
things are still worse than this: we have become -- not just
non-philosophical -- but anti-philosophical.
Take
the so-called Culture Wars, the supposed fight to the death between
science and religion over things like prayer in school and evolution.
The fight over evolution is particularly interesting. In most cases
you've got a Christian on one hand saying, "Look, I just don't
see how something so complex could come about by chance," and an
atheist on the other saying, "There's mountains of evidence for
it, this is a stupid debate, and I'm going home."
Hold
on a second. First of all, the question of how complex adaptations
came about by variation and natural selection was exactly the
question Charles Darwin set out to answer in a 502-page book called
On the Origin of Species.
These debates really should go something like this:
"Look,
I just don't see how something so complex could come about by
chance."
"Fantastic!
I have just the book for you. Have you read Charles Darwin's On
the Origin of Species?"
"Well,
actually I have."
"Really,
that's awesome! Just where did his argument seem to go wrong."
"Well,
on page 230 he argues . . ."
Ah.
Music to my ears. I have never in my life heard an evolution debate
go anything like that, and it's because we've become
anti-philosophers who say things like, "This debate is stupid,
creationists are idiots." No, they're asking questions. They're
doubting. Many brilliant evolutionary theorists became so because
they started out as curious creationists. People born atheists
rarely take the time learn the ins and outs of Darwin's theory
because they've never had occasion to doubt
it in the first place. Disagreements are opportunities for both
parties to learn. Most of what I know about evolution comes from one
of three periods in my life:
(1)
When I was making the transition from creationist to evolutionist
personally.
(2)
When I was debating evolution with creationists and actually took the
time to read some creationist literature.
(3)
When I was trying to decide among alternate theories of evolution.
[Note: scientists don't like people to think that evolutionary theory
is still being developed, but like any good theory, it is.]
Everything
that I've learned about evolution, or about anything for that matter,
has only come when I
have taken the time to doubt.
And the art of doubting is dying in our culture (though I sometimes
wonder if it's ever really thrived on American soil).
I can
prove beyond a doubt
that America is the most anti-philosophical civilization ever to
reach any prominence. (Rome would beat us out for that title, but for
two names: Cicero, St. Augustine.) Here's how: the most highly
regarded American philosophers are Henry James, Charles Pierce, and
John Dewey. Each of these philosophers described themselves as
Pragmatists (though
both Pierce and James had their qualms about what the term came to
mean), and in fact they gave rise to the most influential American
school of philosophy -- Pragmatism.
This is the view that philosophy should jettison any thought,
belief, or idea that has no practical use.
The pragmatic method is
primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise
might be interminable. Is the world one or many?--fated or
free?--material or spiritual?--here are notions either of which may
or may not hold good of the world; and disputes over such notions are
unending. The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret
each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What
difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather
than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can
be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and
all dispute is idle. (Henry James, "Pragmatism:
A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking.")
Philosophy
is about how to live your life in the most meaningful way possible.
"What is the meaning of life?" is the perennial
philosophical question, and it has occupied every great philosopher
from Confucius to Emerson. By "meaning" I don't mean the
definition of words. I mean meaningfulness, as in ultimate purpose or
highest good.
Practical
utility is the opposite of meaning. The most useful things in WWII
were planes, tanks, and guns, and the factories that made them. But
planes, tanks, and guns weren't the meaning
of the war. The meaning of the war had to do with freedom, power,
and sacrifice. It had to do with our deepest values.
Henry
James was actually a fairly deep philosopher, and would have granted
that the pragmatic method isn't really applicable to questions of the
highest good. The problem is not that his thinking was wrong, but
that he failed to give it a cohesive form beyond the notion of
pragmatism, and this crippled later incarnations of his philosophy.
(The problem of passing down philosophical knowledge is a deep and
important one that needs more attention.) But if you ask a
contemporary pragmatist about
the "highest good" I guarantee they will answer something
like, "I have no need for such an hypothesis." That was
pretty much what happened to me studying for my Ph.D. in Philosophy.
I asked Socrates' favorite question and got a blank stare. That's
why I decided to quit with my Masters and do a little thinking on my
own.
Anyway,
my point is: even our philosophers are anti-philosophers in this
country.
***
This
blog post is a call to action. It's a call to philosophy. And
philosophy is not pragmatism; it's not the dismissal of all
impractical questions. It's actually the opposite of that; it's the
embrace of the most impractical question of all:
How
do I live my life in the most meaningful way possible?
This question has
led people to do very impractical things: quit school, quit their
job, spend hours a day staring off into space. I speak from
experience, because I've done all these impractical things and more
in my own personal pursuit of this question.
Most contemporary
Americans that call themselves philosophers are a special kind of
philosopher called an "analytic" philosopher. There's
nothing wrong with being an analytic philosopher. They are experts in
analyzing language, definitions, and scientific methods. But an
analytic philosopher is usually not really a philosopher.
They don't care to apply their insights to the question: "How
do I live my life?" Their insights are applied to scientific
practice, psychology, linguistics, and legal theory. Analytic
philosophy is largely irrelevant to the task of traditional
philosophy. Worse that this, it causes all kinds of confusion when
we send our young men and women off to college to learn the meaning
of life, and they come back spouting logical technicalities.
Again, logical
technicalities are fine and good, but they are not the meaning of
life. To think that they are is another example of American
Anti-Philosophy. It's like thinking that guns and bombs are the
meaning of war.
Here's another
example. Many an art film has run off into an abyss of
meaninglessness because it is hip to think that "Life doesn't
really have a meaning." You know, the American Beauty kind
of meaninglessness. (Incidentally, if you watch the American
Beauty DVD with commentary you will get a few hours of the
director saying things like, "I used rose petals in this scene
because I like rose petals.") Nihilism is hip, and a movie with
a moral has a tendency to anger critics, because critics, more than
anyone, hate to doubt what they think they already know. A good
example of this is Avatar: critics hate the plot because there's good
and evil and the good guys win. I think the public can actually be
trusted more on this one: people love it because in the real world
whenever big corporations chasing a profit have teamed up with a
cynical military you get a hell of an evil villain. And in the
recent past it's usually been us, America. The success of Avatar
proves that most Americans do have a philosopher deep inside
that craves doubt. We want to doubt that our way of life is the
best, and the deepest movies are the ones that give us an excuse to
do this.
Imagine that you've
got a prosperous kingdom, so wealthy from trade that the king decides
that the kingdom can afford to have ten kings. So he hires on ten
more kings, and they all live the luxurious kingly life. Since the
kingly duties are split, it gives all these kings more time for
philosophy, art, and science. This causes their science to advance
quickly, and they discover how to breed a new kind of hay that makes
the horses of the kingdom run extremely fast. They send these horses
off to every corner of the world to trade, and bring back even more
knowledge and more wealth. And now the kingdom can afford to have a
hundred kings. You see where this is going? More knowledge,
more power, until finally you have an entire kingdom where almost
everyone is a king or queen.
Now in this
kingdom, because they've got such fast horses, their food can be
grown in other kingdoms and shipped in. So you've got kings and
queens who are born and die and never in their lives see the peasants
that support them. Can you imagine how complacent such a culture
would get? How inane their philosophy? How empty their
entertainment? You've even got some kings who imagine that, one day,
everyone in the world will be made a king, and suffering will be over
forever. Of course, these kings are forgetting that 95% of the world
is peasants, and this percentage has never really changed.
If you haven't
caught on, I've just described the history of America (and of Europe,
and Rome, and every high civilization ever). Maybe it should be
obvious why very few civilizations ever manage to produce any
interesting philosophy. Europe did, because it rose from the ashes
of Rome. Rome did, because it imitated Greece. Greece did, I
suppose, because it had Socrates.
Socrates did not
care for riches or fame. He didn't care much for science or poetry.
Even better, he did not care to flatter the priests or politicians in
power. The was one thing that he philosophized about, and one thing
only, and that was the individual human heart and its relationship to
the Good. His philosophy has survived a dozen dark ages of war and
poverty because it does not glorify high civilization -- it glorifies
the individual.
What do American
philosophers want to do? They want to disprove religion, or prove
religion. They want to feed the world, cure poverty, cure cancer.
All of these goals presuppose that the culture of kings that we live
it will reign forever and everyone will become a king. All of these
goals glorify high civilization. And high civilization is a
collective, it is not an individual.
When our
civilization finally collapses (and all civilizations are mortal),
democracy will pass away, welfare will pass away, medical science
will pass away, and our wealthy cynicism will pass away. If people
remember anything that our philosophers say, it will be the things
that strengthen the individual human heart.
When Socrates was
accused of corrupting the youth of Athens by asking too many
questions, and threatened with execution, he did not run away. He
stood his ground, and continued to doubt, question, and argue until
the moment he was put to death. I know of no philosopher who has
ever shown greater intellectual courage (unless we count Jesus as a
philosopher, and maybe we should). It is no wonder that for over
2,000 years Socrates has set the standard for rationality.
If America wants to
accomplish anything lasting in the realm of thought, we need to take
our cue from the Greeks.
The Greeks saw
philosophy as an art. You find a master and become an apprentice.
Plato was Socrates' apprentice, and Aristotle was Plato's apprentice.
The art of thinking can be taught, and it must be taught well if we
are to give rise to any lasting sort of tradition.
Given that we are
not yet teaching philosophy well in this country, what do we need to
do?
***
I have no doubt
that all the successful intellectuals, writers, and professors in
America have a working theory of rationality that they use
when they think about things. But of all the dozens of such thinkers
I've met in my life, not one has really cared to teach it. I
understand why. Teaching takes work, it takes planning and time, and
you have to find the right students. And if you wanted to teach your
entire system of rationality you would first have to work out what
that theory is, and it's surprisingly hard to uncover your own
methods of thought. (Try it: next time you think about something
complex, go back and try working out every rational step in your
reasoning. Even if you've been trained philosophically, it's hard,
and you'll usually end up with gaps.)
We need to go back
to the Greek idea that philosophy should be broken down into a
teachable craft, like jewelry-making or Buddhism. The main problem,
though, is lack of teachers. So until someone starts an academy, the
only way for us to learn is by reading.
By reading I do not
mean academic textbooks. Precious few textbooks are written from the
heart, and fewer still will pass the test of time. Alas, the same
goes for popular philosophy bestsellers. Now if only there were some
way to take a time machine in to the far future and see which books
they'll be reading in 2,000 years . . . Hold on a second, that gives
me an idea! Why don't we just read the textbooks from 2,000 years
ago that have survived to today? The Greeks, Romans, and Chinese
wrote countless textbooks on philosophy, haven't we yet determined
which of those were best?
We have, and here's
the list:
1) Tao Te Ching,
by Lao Tzu
2) The Confucian
Analects
3) Plato's
Dialogues
4) Aristotle
5) St. Augustine
As far as teaching
one how to think philosophically, the most well-rounded of these is
Aristotle. He covers everything from logic, to tragedy, to ethics, to
politics. If you want to learn how to think, start with him. But
don't be fooled into thinking that Aristotle will be fun -- he is
actually the most boring of the five. At one point in college I
remember resolving to read Aristotle straight through. It was so dry
I didn't get through three pages. It wasn't until grad school that I
managed to read most of Aristotle's works, and only because I had the
time and motivation.
This brings me to
the next essential thing that is needed if American philosophy is to
thrive: motivation. You must crave the truth. And nothing will
ignite this passion more than a healthy dose of doubt.
Before there can be
philosophy, there must be doubt. If you do not truly doubt -- your
religion, your science, your art, your spirituality -- you cannot fix
any of these things. To fix something you must take it apart. To
take a belief apart is to doubt it. "How do I know this is
true?" "What if this isn't true?" etc. If you do not
doubt deeply enough, you will produce ideas that merely confirm what
everybody already knows. Books like that are unhealthy. If you need
some help doubting, seek out the master doubters in recent times.
Read Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, read all of Emerson,
read Wittgenstein's Investigations.
Start with
doubt. Move on to reason, but always keep your highest values and
goals in mind. Find the answer. Once you have the truth, learn to
express it clearly.
When you find
yourself doubting enough that you crave meaning, seek out the masters
of building belief back up again. (If you do not build back up, you
risk becoming one of those artsy movie directors that don't know how
to reassemble their story, or Continental Philosophers who can't form
a cohesive argument to save their lives, or postmodernist literati
that drift way in a sea of ennui and unjustified snobbery -- you get
the point.) The masters of re-constructing belief are, as far as I'm
concerned: Aristotle and St. Augustine.
Proper
philosophical thought takes time and effort. You must go all out, no
holds barred. Meditate. Read. Find quiet time every day. Think.
Suffer. Feel your problem. Give yourself weeks, months, years if
needed. Be tough-minded. Stand up to critics. Do not back down from
an argument you believe in, but always be willing to lose an argument
if you are wrong.
Strive for a goal
or an end in your thinking. Find answers to your questions or
show why they are not answerable or not important.
Once you've found
your answer, come back to reality. Find a way to show people what
you've found. This is often the most difficult step. Express your
insight so that they can actually make use of it in their lives.
Create something -- Art, Science, Religion, Literature -- that will
make individuals into better individuals.
Great post Sam!!
ReplyDeleteSam: this is a wonderfully rich post and indicates that you take after the great philosophers....I resonate deeply with this: Start with doubt. Move on to reason, but always keep your highest values and goals in mind. Find the answer. Once you have the truth, learn to express it clearly.
ReplyDeleteThat is what I am doing with my life right now -- you hit the nail on the head -- and it ain't easy -- the fat lady sings in the trees outside and sometimes i shiver.
All good things to you -- Mira
Thanks for the kind comments! I've gotten a lot of valuable and eloquent feedback on this post, by email and otherwise.
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