Thought is disempowering. This is something everyone who believes that we should think harder and more seriously about issues we face should ponder, because it’s not what we would like to believe. The link between thinking and power is straightforward enough. Thought leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to secrets, and secrets to power. Those who have the knowledge have the power, and those who don’t, don’t. What can be uncomfortable is realizing that thinking is never a solitary activity: you always depend on the thinking that others have done, and your thoughts are henceforward available for others to use in their own projects. You inevitably end up giving up more power than you get. Vulnerability is not a bad thing, so this is not an argument against thinking. But if we believe that the point of using our minds is to empower us we’re likely to be disappointed.
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When I was younger I was bothered by contradiction. Not just a little bit, I mean really bothered. It may seem a bit strange that I got so upset about it, but to me finding a contradiction meant I was being lied to. Sometimes it was my teachers who were lying to me, in an effort to simplify the material they were teaching so that I could understand it. Other times, like when I started learning about quantum physics, I couldn’t pin the lie on anyone in particular. It was as if the universe itself was lying to me. What bothered me most of all was when people told me not to get so upset about it. The world was the way it was, and if we couldn’t figure out how it was the least we could do was not paper over the fact by spouting off about mystery and paradox. I was an absolutist down to my bones. As far as I was concerned people who rejected the simple absolutes of “yes” and “no” were at best muddle-headed defeatists who didn’t have the energy and conviction to take the world as it is, and at worst they were intellectual con-men who enjoyed confusing people with high-sounding paradoxes. I don’t totally disagree with my younger self, I think there are people who fall into both of those categories. But I’ve also come to believe that contradiction is unavoidable, it begins the second we put thought into words. This may not be the standard interpretation, but I see the same combination of absolutism with an acceptance of contradiction in the work of Parmenides.
It’s funny how you can believe something without realizing that others don’t necessarily agree with you. Maybe it only happens to me, but sometimes I’m in a conversation and I’m suddenly brought up short because I realize that something I thought was uncontroversial is actually very controversial. In this case it’s something that I consider to be a fundamental virtue: engagement with others. For me this is a concept that underpins moral values like honesty, compassion and respect for others, as well as more specialized things like listening and reading charitably (i.e., trying to put the best and most reasonable spin on what someone says). The concept of engagement provides a framework within which I can make sense of the sometimes conflicting demands of other virtues. You’re probably pretty skeptical of the notion that engagement is some kind of primal virtue when words like “honesty” or “compassion” sound much more virtuous. The word “engagement” just doesn’t have the same kind of moral overtones that those other words do. Virtues like compassion and honesty resonate powerfully with us because we hear about them again and again in the stories we’re told about people behaving well or badly, and all the times we’ve been told things like “be honest” as kids (and as adults). When we hear these words a red flag goes up in our heads telling us to pay attention: something is being said about the worth of the person being described. We don’t even have to think about what these words mean, we know it instinctively because it’s been drilled into us from the time we were very young. The word “engagement” doesn’t have that kind of resonance and there’s no way for me to change that. It’s a fact about how we use words that I have to live with. But that doesn’t mean I that I have to admit defeat. If the word isn’t built into the way we think about people that just means I have to work harder to explain it. So the first question to answer is: what is engagement? At the most abstract level engagement means having an impact on others and encouraging others to have an impact on you: it means being part of the system of people working together. But on a more visceral level engagement means being vulnerable. Engagement isn’t just about being friendly and helping people out when they need it, thought that is important. It’s also about putting that which makes you who you are, your self, on the line. It’s about being willing to change the way you think and what you believe, not just the way you behave. continue reading…
In part one of this series I suggested that religion is usually discussed in terms of whether or not it’s true and that instead we ought to try talking about how well it delivers the goods. As a start to that conversation I asked whether Christianity has an account of death that appropriately addresses our anxieties. I concluded that merely promising eternal life isn’t enough. A life that goes on forever isn’t necessarily a good thing, and in fact it’s really quite hard to imagine how it could be anything but miserable.
Heaven is supposed to be a state of bliss. We’re supposed to be totally and absolutely happy, full of a joy that consumes us entirely. If we’re that happy we’re not going to get tired of eternal life. Nor are we ever going to decide we want to throw in the towel and die for good this time, if only that were possible. If it were just ordinary happiness there’s nothing to say we couldn’t also be unhappy, since it’s quite possible to be unhappy and happy at the same time. Just because you’re glad to see a friend at a funeral doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten why you’re there. Bliss is the kind of thing that, if you have it, it dominates you. You can be a little bit happy, but not a little bit blissful. So heaven is a place, or a state of being, where you just can’t be unhappy. It’s not just unlikely or against the rules, it’s impossible. That’s a good thing, because if you’re going to be there forever you’d better never get tired of it.
But what does that mean? It’s one thing to say, oh yeah, in heaven you can’t possibly be unhappy. I can also talk about round squares but that doesn’t mean anyone’s going to understand me. If I were guaranteed bliss would I still be me? I can have bliss now in a way, just drug me into a stupor. If I were given the right drugs I’m sure I’d have no complaints. I may not live very long, but that wouldn’t be a problem if I were already dead. Is that what heaven is supposed to be: a drugged stupor that goes on forever, a high with no crash at the end?
One of the depressing facts about Christianity today (maybe other religions too, but Christianity is what I know best) is that discussion of whether or not to join the club rapidly becomes an argument about epistemology. It’s unfortunate because discussing epistemology is a terrible way to actually convince anyone of anything. It’s a great defensive move: choose your epistemology appropriately and no one can ever prove you wrong. But as a way of actually engaging with others it’s terrible. You get trapped in a morass of evidence claims and arguments about what constitutes evidence, and you never actually discuss the subject of the disagreement. Eventually one side or the other stalks off enraged or gives up in exhaustion.
But epistemology isn’t the only discussion to have about a religion. One important question is: as it is represented does it actually address the human condition? If the resolution it provides for the difficult problems people face is genuine that’s a powerful reason to take it seriously, whether we’re talking about a particular religion or religion in general. On the other hand, if that resolution is merely a smokescreen that causes people to forget about and ignore their problems then maybe Marx was right when he said that religion is the opiate of the masses. A religion’s claims could be quite true, but if the resolutions it provides to life’s problems turn out not to resolve those problems then it is still an illusion and even more damaging than if it were false.
