ESG (environmental, social and governance) and CEI (corporate equality index) are smokescreens for corporations who do not give a damn about their customers, products, suppliers, employees, neighbours, regulations, regulators and anyone else with a legitimate interest in the company's activities.
They don't give a flying toss about Trans rights, Gay rights, Taiwanese rights, Aboriginal rights or anyone else's rights. They aren't supposed to. They are supposed to make products that don't come back to customers who do, treat their employees well, pay their suppliers a fair price and on time, and pay a decent dividend to investors while following evermore complex laws and regulations. In reality they do the exact opposite of that, and they need a whole lot of smoke to blow at the public and their own staff. We can't be a**h****s, look, we have an Inclusivity Director and a sticker from a CEI agency saying we have 5-stars for Equality.
Nobody has any idea who the certifying agencies are, how they are financed, who runs them, what qualifications they have, and so on. All anybody needs to know is that the hedge funds will accept a particular agency's certifications. We-the-public assume these agencies must be okay. I mean, look at their client list. Would all those big companies sign up if the whole thing was one huge con-job and grift?
Hell yeah.
These companies pay their fees to the grifters, tick some boxes, and get to put the claim that they are some kind of virtuous something on their corporate literature, and so stay on the good side of Black Rock and all those other ESG-pushing hedge funds.
Those hedge funds are only doing it because they can wave the ESG / CEI certifications to prove that they are not really investing in Bad Companies who make firearms, kill endangered species, or hire contractors who hire contractors who use children in Lahore to make masks for Western nurses. Even better, they use these ESG / CEI certifications to create special funds of "Good Companies" for which they then charge a premium fee.
Follow the money.
This is why the companies whose donations to BLM were used to buy multi-million dollar properties don't care about that. They paid BLM so they could say they support BLM. The corporate donors don't care what BLM did with the money: they were buying the publicity.
There's also this: a company dips its toe into Woke Marketing. If it works, they do more, but most importantly, if it doesn't, they can stop any further attempts dead in their tracks. We tried that and it didn't give us the results we needed. Thank you for coming in and sharing your ideas with us. Gillette is still solvent, last time I looked, despite alienating every man in the Western World with its toxic masculinity ad in 2019. They don't do it now. Anheuser-Busch will survive what may very well be the episode that finally makes senior management understand that social media and influencers are as important as TV and poster ads. Right now the older guys don't really get it. In the meantime, their CEI certification for this year is a shoo-in.
There's no doubt that some corporations do not choose their ESG / CEI grifters well. Some are extremists with ultra-minority causes, a talent for guilt trips and moralising invective, and useful connections in social media, journalism and the big-name management consultancies. As a result, an unsuspecting corporate finds itself co-branding with an organisation that offers their children puberty-blockers at school. Not a good look, but fortunately most of the public will never know that level of detail.
The final point is this. Managers, Head Teachers, sports teams, record labels, publishers and other such are always on the look-out for reasons to get rid of people, preferably at a really low cost, whom they don't want for whatever random reason. MeToo dispatched many an unprofitable artist or under-performing executive: it was hi-jacked for exactly that purpose. Trans rights are just another such excuse.
We take inclusion seriously at ABC Corp, unless you're a fifty-something white man who can be replaced at half the cost by a Gen Z diversity hire, when we will sack you for not using someone's pronouns (which you are going to do at least once by accident in the next three months). That's what we at ABC Corp mean when we say we take pronouns seriously. We don't give a s**t about anyone's rights, but we love a BS reason for cutting costs.
Follow the money.
Tuesday, 18 April 2023
Tuesday, 11 April 2023
7 Philosophy Books For Beginners (4)
In the previous post, I suggested that Western Philosophy is an attitude. It does not accept authority, and reserves the right to examine anything at any time for any reason. It also commends that attitude to all of us.
How realistic is this, how does it differ from scepticism and outright cynicism?
The law says that at eighteen we become adults, and are deemed to be competent moral decision-makers, except in certain cases of reduced capacity. An allowance is made for the ignorance and recklessness of youth, but only for minor offences. Most children know when they are doing something their parents might not approve of, which is why they are very quiet when doing so. People know what is right and wrong for most of the eventualities of ordinary life. It's at the edges that the judgements can become ambiguous.
Making moral decisions is something human beings (mostly) seem to be wired for. Making judgements about matters of non-everyday facts, or about the plausibility and verisimilitude of theories, seems to require technical knowledge and skill that only a few people might have. At some point, don't we ordinary people need to defer to the "experts"?
How does someone who left school at eighteen judge if String Theory or Quantum Gravity are plausible theories? Surely this is something only suitably-informed physicists can do? Not at all. Anyone who understands that the test of a scientific theory is that it makes new predictions that are confirmed, can ask one question to determine the value of String Theory. What has it predicted that has been confirmed? When? Where? What was the experiment? What was the prediction and what was the result? If an ordinary person is faced with evasions and odd-sounding claims that physical theories should be judged by different criteria, they will and should conclude that someone, somewhere, is hiding something.
One tactic is to reduce what looks like a highly technical issue to something within one's understanding. Some lawyers are very good at doing this, as they know they will need to explain the core issues to a jury. In the case, perhaps, of pollution by a chemical company, nobody needs a detailed understanding of organic chemistry. They need to know that a) many people suffered symptoms A, B and C; b) those symptoms are consequences of poisoning by substance X; c) substance X was found leaking into the groundwater from the abandoned drums which had the defendant's logo on them, and which the records in Exhibit A show were dumped by the company’s drivers. Nobody needs to know how substance X causes those symptoms, only that it does, and reliably and frequently so. Experts and specialists are not allowed to hide behind gobbledy-gook, and indeed, sustained use of gobbledy-gook and protests that, for instance, the law of financial fraud is too complicated for ordinary folk, are usually and mostly rightly taken as a sign that something is being hidden.
Another tactic is to examine the credentials of the "experts". In some cases, such as ballistics, these can be demonstrable and convincing. In others, such as virus-based pandemics on a supposedly "novel" virus, by definition there can be no experts, since it is "novel" and experience from previous viruses cannot be transferred. In these kinds of cases, expect "expert" status to be justified via the Fallacy of Misleading Credentials: a recital of impressive-sounding official positions, academic awards, research papers and previous appearances as an "expert', which on closer examination have nothing to do with whatever is happening now.
This sort of thing requires an understanding of how the world works. Philosophers in earlier centuries had plenty of this, as they were often advisors and private secretaries to members of the ruling class, and sometimes appointed to public office in their own right.
Nobody can question everything all the time. I can't, and neither could Descartes and Hume. Both recognised that ordinary life has to be supported by a web of beliefs held without question for the time being. However, one should always be prepared to question any of those beliefs if a cause arises.
One does not need to be sceptical or cynical to embrace the spirit of Western Philosophy, but one does need a healthy caution towards the claims of the established, the powerful, the dogmatic, the over-confident, those who claim to have Just and Right Causes, anyone trying to sell anything, and above all, never to have any dealings with anyone or any institution which makes money as long as they don't solve the problem. Anyone who brands an argument or idea with a word ending in '-ism' is not arguing but throwing mud. Mud may be dirty, but it is not an argument. One should always remember that propaganda is what they want you to believe, news is what they don't want you to know.
How realistic is this, how does it differ from scepticism and outright cynicism?
The law says that at eighteen we become adults, and are deemed to be competent moral decision-makers, except in certain cases of reduced capacity. An allowance is made for the ignorance and recklessness of youth, but only for minor offences. Most children know when they are doing something their parents might not approve of, which is why they are very quiet when doing so. People know what is right and wrong for most of the eventualities of ordinary life. It's at the edges that the judgements can become ambiguous.
Making moral decisions is something human beings (mostly) seem to be wired for. Making judgements about matters of non-everyday facts, or about the plausibility and verisimilitude of theories, seems to require technical knowledge and skill that only a few people might have. At some point, don't we ordinary people need to defer to the "experts"?
How does someone who left school at eighteen judge if String Theory or Quantum Gravity are plausible theories? Surely this is something only suitably-informed physicists can do? Not at all. Anyone who understands that the test of a scientific theory is that it makes new predictions that are confirmed, can ask one question to determine the value of String Theory. What has it predicted that has been confirmed? When? Where? What was the experiment? What was the prediction and what was the result? If an ordinary person is faced with evasions and odd-sounding claims that physical theories should be judged by different criteria, they will and should conclude that someone, somewhere, is hiding something.
One tactic is to reduce what looks like a highly technical issue to something within one's understanding. Some lawyers are very good at doing this, as they know they will need to explain the core issues to a jury. In the case, perhaps, of pollution by a chemical company, nobody needs a detailed understanding of organic chemistry. They need to know that a) many people suffered symptoms A, B and C; b) those symptoms are consequences of poisoning by substance X; c) substance X was found leaking into the groundwater from the abandoned drums which had the defendant's logo on them, and which the records in Exhibit A show were dumped by the company’s drivers. Nobody needs to know how substance X causes those symptoms, only that it does, and reliably and frequently so. Experts and specialists are not allowed to hide behind gobbledy-gook, and indeed, sustained use of gobbledy-gook and protests that, for instance, the law of financial fraud is too complicated for ordinary folk, are usually and mostly rightly taken as a sign that something is being hidden.
Another tactic is to examine the credentials of the "experts". In some cases, such as ballistics, these can be demonstrable and convincing. In others, such as virus-based pandemics on a supposedly "novel" virus, by definition there can be no experts, since it is "novel" and experience from previous viruses cannot be transferred. In these kinds of cases, expect "expert" status to be justified via the Fallacy of Misleading Credentials: a recital of impressive-sounding official positions, academic awards, research papers and previous appearances as an "expert', which on closer examination have nothing to do with whatever is happening now.
This sort of thing requires an understanding of how the world works. Philosophers in earlier centuries had plenty of this, as they were often advisors and private secretaries to members of the ruling class, and sometimes appointed to public office in their own right.
Nobody can question everything all the time. I can't, and neither could Descartes and Hume. Both recognised that ordinary life has to be supported by a web of beliefs held without question for the time being. However, one should always be prepared to question any of those beliefs if a cause arises.
One does not need to be sceptical or cynical to embrace the spirit of Western Philosophy, but one does need a healthy caution towards the claims of the established, the powerful, the dogmatic, the over-confident, those who claim to have Just and Right Causes, anyone trying to sell anything, and above all, never to have any dealings with anyone or any institution which makes money as long as they don't solve the problem. Anyone who brands an argument or idea with a word ending in '-ism' is not arguing but throwing mud. Mud may be dirty, but it is not an argument. One should always remember that propaganda is what they want you to believe, news is what they don't want you to know.
Friday, 7 April 2023
Happy Easter
Notice how the Woke troublemakers go after Christmas, but not Easter?
Is that because Christmas costs money and has a pile of obligations around presents and visiting family, but Easter has chocolate eggs?
Tuesday, 4 April 2023
7 Philosophy Books For Beginners (3)
My 7 philosophy books for beginners, along with the back-up reading, is pretty hardcore. It's also definitely Dead White European Male, and none of it is post 1960's except the books on logic and argument.
Why?
The central tenet of Western Philosophy is that human beings have free will, agency, and rationality, and hence that we are responsible for our actions and decisions, and in particular for our decisions about the plausibility and verisimilitude of a theory or the practicality and desirability of a social, political or economic policy.
We cannot lay off those responsibilities to any temporal, spiritual, legal or transcendental authority. Such an authority can impose a decision by legal, physical, social, or economic force, but while that is an excuse for our compliance, it is not a reason. And we may have to behave in accordance with the authority, but whether we choose to accept their propaganda is our decision. Neither does “expert opinion” remove the responsibility: we have to use our experience to decide for ourselves whether the “experts” are credible.
Western Philosophy goes against the natural human tendency to want to form and join in-groups, to work within a cosy consensus, and to lay off as much responsibility as possible on (possibly self-appointed) "authorities". The majority of people prefer to live in that way, and that includes the majority of people working in the philosophy departments of universities. (Academics did not cover themselves with glorious dissent in 2020-2022.) This shows in the way much modern philosophy is written. In Anglo-Saxon (UK, US, Australia and New Zealand) academic philosophy, one does not discuss a problem directly, but indirectly through a rehearsal and criticism of previous philosophers' views. The modest philosopher typically presents their views as a modification or updating of the views of one of a handful of Big Names, or better still, someone quite obscure. It's all a bit... cloistered.
Whereas the foundational works were written by men of the world who often had some expertise in the science and mathematics of the time, as well as sometimes occupying positions of political influence. I have said that "mathematics was created by clever people busy doing something else", and the same was true of philosophy. So I wanted to suggest books of that calibre, not tidy textbooks with a bunch of cute arguments about the existence of God, Free Will, Right and Wrong, the existence and nature of the soul and / or mind, and whether Damien Hirst is really an artist. Philosophers have discussed those questions, and still do. (The only thing more embarrassing than philosophers discussing those questions, is non-philosophers discussing those questions.)
Books with dogmatic intent, that push a single line and vilify all who dare disagree, were never going to get a look in. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an argument for consensus and groupthink - even though Kuhn says he never meant it to be - so it would never be on the list. Neither were books full of clever arguments from dubious principles to even more dubious conclusions (Peter Singer, Practical Ethics), since that sort of sophistry gives philosophy a bad name.
Why?
The central tenet of Western Philosophy is that human beings have free will, agency, and rationality, and hence that we are responsible for our actions and decisions, and in particular for our decisions about the plausibility and verisimilitude of a theory or the practicality and desirability of a social, political or economic policy.
We cannot lay off those responsibilities to any temporal, spiritual, legal or transcendental authority. Such an authority can impose a decision by legal, physical, social, or economic force, but while that is an excuse for our compliance, it is not a reason. And we may have to behave in accordance with the authority, but whether we choose to accept their propaganda is our decision. Neither does “expert opinion” remove the responsibility: we have to use our experience to decide for ourselves whether the “experts” are credible.
Western Philosophy goes against the natural human tendency to want to form and join in-groups, to work within a cosy consensus, and to lay off as much responsibility as possible on (possibly self-appointed) "authorities". The majority of people prefer to live in that way, and that includes the majority of people working in the philosophy departments of universities. (Academics did not cover themselves with glorious dissent in 2020-2022.) This shows in the way much modern philosophy is written. In Anglo-Saxon (UK, US, Australia and New Zealand) academic philosophy, one does not discuss a problem directly, but indirectly through a rehearsal and criticism of previous philosophers' views. The modest philosopher typically presents their views as a modification or updating of the views of one of a handful of Big Names, or better still, someone quite obscure. It's all a bit... cloistered.
Whereas the foundational works were written by men of the world who often had some expertise in the science and mathematics of the time, as well as sometimes occupying positions of political influence. I have said that "mathematics was created by clever people busy doing something else", and the same was true of philosophy. So I wanted to suggest books of that calibre, not tidy textbooks with a bunch of cute arguments about the existence of God, Free Will, Right and Wrong, the existence and nature of the soul and / or mind, and whether Damien Hirst is really an artist. Philosophers have discussed those questions, and still do. (The only thing more embarrassing than philosophers discussing those questions, is non-philosophers discussing those questions.)
Books with dogmatic intent, that push a single line and vilify all who dare disagree, were never going to get a look in. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an argument for consensus and groupthink - even though Kuhn says he never meant it to be - so it would never be on the list. Neither were books full of clever arguments from dubious principles to even more dubious conclusions (Peter Singer, Practical Ethics), since that sort of sophistry gives philosophy a bad name.
Friday, 31 March 2023
7 Philosophy Books For Beginners (2)
Western Philosophy is a group of thinkers, problems and attitudes: it divides into three main groups: the pre-Christian, Christian, and post-Christian. There are other traditions, of which an extensive literature has been generated by the Indian, Muslim, Chinese, and Japanese cultures. We're not talking about those book lists.
With that in mind, here's my suggestion.
John Locke's Essay Concerning The Human Understanding. In the same way that modern science starts with Galileo and Newton, modern philosophy starts with Locke and Descartes. The French start with Descartes, the British with Locke.
K R Popper's Conjectures and Refutations. Irascible, insightful, full of himself and full of ideas and learning, Popper was (allegedly) a tyrant in the lecture theatre and a champion of dissent and criticism in his books. This volume covers a wide range of subjects and points to even more.
Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. The first encyclopaedic and systematic philosopher, and the inventor of formal logic, Aristotle used to be called The Philosopher by the medieval theologians. His thoughts on personal conduct and the organisation of the State remain relevant. He wrote for aristocrats, but they seemed to need the same lessons the rest of us do. In a modern translation, it is highly readable.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith was a philosopher who thought about economics. As a result, a lot of what he has to say is still insightful now. You will learn a fair amount about the economic conditions of the time as well, which is no bad thing.
Machiavelli, The Prince. Often thought of as the ultimate Bad Boy of Philosophy, Machiavelli has long since been out-Badded by Saul Alinsky, Rules For Radicals. But reading that made me feel ill.
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws. Influenced by Locke's Two Treatises on Government, modern European political constitutions descend from Montesquieu.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. Utterly different from anything that came before or since, this is a record of a philosopher working through his thoughts on language, meaning and many other things. I can't think of another book that shows the messy process of almost arriving at conclusions so well.
As accompaniments, add...
...a history of philosophy. The classic is Frederick Copleston's eleven volume(!) set. A more recent one is Anthony Kenny's four-volume A New History of Western Philosophy. I'd suggest ordering one volume of each through your local library and deciding which style you prefer.
...a textbook on Logic. Try Siu-Fan Lee's Logic: A Complete Introduction
...a book or so on the arts of argument and detection of fallacies. Try How to Win Every Argument: The Subtle Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer, and How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic by Madsen Pirie
...a book about the use and abuse of statistics.
Some random remarks:
Plato. Yes he was the first to go into print. Yes a lot of his arguments are set-ups. Try it, and if you like it, by all means read more.
The Stoics. Seneca was the Roman equivalent of Jeff Bezos. You're going to take life advice from Jeff Bezos?
Kant. More people read about Kant's ideas, than read Kant's ideas. He's a tough read. One for later.
Hegel and the German Idealists. These guys could not write clearly, and that's being polite. After you have dealt with the idiosyncratic vocabulary, you have to deal with the idiosyncratic ideas. Ones for later.
Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Jaspers, and the other phenomenologists. Read these guys after you have read the empiricists. Then you will understand the problems they are trying to solve.
Zizek and the cultural theory guys. This isn't strictly philosophy, but if you're in the mood, it can be fun.
Any pop-culture book. No. Just no. These are the equivalent of McDonalds or Mars Bars. Quick hit, no lasting effect. Your brain cells will rot.
Books in series from Routledge (publishers) and others. These can be useful introductions, but tend to present the subject as a neatly-wrapped package of ideas and arguments. What we don't get is the sense of someone thinking about the underlying concepts and problems at first-hand, and that's what we are after.
With that in mind, here's my suggestion.
John Locke's Essay Concerning The Human Understanding. In the same way that modern science starts with Galileo and Newton, modern philosophy starts with Locke and Descartes. The French start with Descartes, the British with Locke.
K R Popper's Conjectures and Refutations. Irascible, insightful, full of himself and full of ideas and learning, Popper was (allegedly) a tyrant in the lecture theatre and a champion of dissent and criticism in his books. This volume covers a wide range of subjects and points to even more.
Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. The first encyclopaedic and systematic philosopher, and the inventor of formal logic, Aristotle used to be called The Philosopher by the medieval theologians. His thoughts on personal conduct and the organisation of the State remain relevant. He wrote for aristocrats, but they seemed to need the same lessons the rest of us do. In a modern translation, it is highly readable.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith was a philosopher who thought about economics. As a result, a lot of what he has to say is still insightful now. You will learn a fair amount about the economic conditions of the time as well, which is no bad thing.
Machiavelli, The Prince. Often thought of as the ultimate Bad Boy of Philosophy, Machiavelli has long since been out-Badded by Saul Alinsky, Rules For Radicals. But reading that made me feel ill.
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws. Influenced by Locke's Two Treatises on Government, modern European political constitutions descend from Montesquieu.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. Utterly different from anything that came before or since, this is a record of a philosopher working through his thoughts on language, meaning and many other things. I can't think of another book that shows the messy process of almost arriving at conclusions so well.
As accompaniments, add...
...a history of philosophy. The classic is Frederick Copleston's eleven volume(!) set. A more recent one is Anthony Kenny's four-volume A New History of Western Philosophy. I'd suggest ordering one volume of each through your local library and deciding which style you prefer.
...a textbook on Logic. Try Siu-Fan Lee's Logic: A Complete Introduction
...a book or so on the arts of argument and detection of fallacies. Try How to Win Every Argument: The Subtle Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer, and How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic by Madsen Pirie
...a book about the use and abuse of statistics.
Some random remarks:
Plato. Yes he was the first to go into print. Yes a lot of his arguments are set-ups. Try it, and if you like it, by all means read more.
The Stoics. Seneca was the Roman equivalent of Jeff Bezos. You're going to take life advice from Jeff Bezos?
Kant. More people read about Kant's ideas, than read Kant's ideas. He's a tough read. One for later.
Hegel and the German Idealists. These guys could not write clearly, and that's being polite. After you have dealt with the idiosyncratic vocabulary, you have to deal with the idiosyncratic ideas. Ones for later.
Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Jaspers, and the other phenomenologists. Read these guys after you have read the empiricists. Then you will understand the problems they are trying to solve.
Zizek and the cultural theory guys. This isn't strictly philosophy, but if you're in the mood, it can be fun.
Any pop-culture book. No. Just no. These are the equivalent of McDonalds or Mars Bars. Quick hit, no lasting effect. Your brain cells will rot.
Books in series from Routledge (publishers) and others. These can be useful introductions, but tend to present the subject as a neatly-wrapped package of ideas and arguments. What we don't get is the sense of someone thinking about the underlying concepts and problems at first-hand, and that's what we are after.
Tuesday, 28 March 2023
7 Philosophy Books For Beginners (1)
Okay. The title is silly. But I took it from a YT video. So there's that. It's by an American PhD who has since left the academic world. He regards philosophy as a body of arguments, ideas and texts with which a student must become familiar so that they can join the Philosophers Union Local 305. and take their place as a socialised member of the profession. That's a fairly recent conception of philosophy, which fits in with the bureaucratisation of the academic world.
By contrast, the Big Names thought of themselves as trying to answer a bunch of questions, both constructively by creating new theories, and critically by examining previous theories. Those questions are (roughly):
What Can We Know? (Epistemology)
By contrast, the Big Names thought of themselves as trying to answer a bunch of questions, both constructively by creating new theories, and critically by examining previous theories. Those questions are (roughly):
What Can We Know? (Epistemology)
How Should We Live? (Moral Philosophy and Wisdom Thinkers)
How Should the State be Governed? (Political Philosophy, Legal Philosophy)
What is Beauty and Art? (Aesthetics / Philosophy of Art)
What is the World Made Of? (Metaphysics)
How do we argue correctly (Logic) and how do we spot bad and deceptive arguments (Rhetoric)
Free Will
The Existence of God(s)
Minds and Bodies
Freedom, Rights and Obligations
All of those are still open questions. There may never be "final answers". The point is the development and criticism of (preferably ever-improving) theories about those things. Physicists resort to epistemology and metaphysics when the going gets tough. Lawyers debate the justification for laws, and what kind of things can or should be subject to law. Standards of beauty have changed throughout history, and today are politicised, or perhaps, marketing-ised.
In addition, there are "philosophies of": attempts to describe and understand the assumptions, practices, knowledge-claims, and justifications of a number of subjects: for instance, Art, Science, Mathematics, Law, Politics, and Language.
If you don't see why these are problems, or if these don't sound interesting, then feel free to leave philosophy alone. I'm not interested in chemical reactions, so I didn't do a Chemistry degree.
There are four types of answers to these questions
Classical Greek and Roman: Aristotle, Plato, St Augustine... Theological / Medieval Philosophy: St Anslem, St Thomas Aquinas, Abelard... Worldly: Descartes, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Karl Popper, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Bachelard, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty... Political: Foucault, Derrida, Judith Butler, Karl Marx, Lenin, Avatal Ronell, Slavoj Zizek...
None of these are definitive. All contain assumptions we can produce reasons for disagreeing with, or arguments that don't quite compel the conclusion. Examining the assumptions and arguments, and developing one's own answers, is what creative philosophy is about.
The philosopher’s tools are propositional and predicate logic; statistical inference; rhetoric; and the myriad frauds, deceptions and fallacies used to befuddle and confuse us.
A philosopher can never have too much knowledge of the societies and economies of the world and their history. St Thomas Aquinas' thesis of the just war needs to be read in its historical context: there were no atomic bombs, drones, and sniper rifles that could kill at two miles available then. But war was still bloody, and killed at about the same daily rate as a modern conventional war. Philosophers who don't brief themselves on the historical circumstances of a writer are doomed to make some silly comments.
All of those are still open questions. There may never be "final answers". The point is the development and criticism of (preferably ever-improving) theories about those things. Physicists resort to epistemology and metaphysics when the going gets tough. Lawyers debate the justification for laws, and what kind of things can or should be subject to law. Standards of beauty have changed throughout history, and today are politicised, or perhaps, marketing-ised.
In addition, there are "philosophies of": attempts to describe and understand the assumptions, practices, knowledge-claims, and justifications of a number of subjects: for instance, Art, Science, Mathematics, Law, Politics, and Language.
If you don't see why these are problems, or if these don't sound interesting, then feel free to leave philosophy alone. I'm not interested in chemical reactions, so I didn't do a Chemistry degree.
There are four types of answers to these questions
Classical Greek and Roman: Aristotle, Plato, St Augustine... Theological / Medieval Philosophy: St Anslem, St Thomas Aquinas, Abelard... Worldly: Descartes, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Karl Popper, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Bachelard, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty... Political: Foucault, Derrida, Judith Butler, Karl Marx, Lenin, Avatal Ronell, Slavoj Zizek...
None of these are definitive. All contain assumptions we can produce reasons for disagreeing with, or arguments that don't quite compel the conclusion. Examining the assumptions and arguments, and developing one's own answers, is what creative philosophy is about.
The philosopher’s tools are propositional and predicate logic; statistical inference; rhetoric; and the myriad frauds, deceptions and fallacies used to befuddle and confuse us.
A philosopher can never have too much knowledge of the societies and economies of the world and their history. St Thomas Aquinas' thesis of the just war needs to be read in its historical context: there were no atomic bombs, drones, and sniper rifles that could kill at two miles available then. But war was still bloody, and killed at about the same daily rate as a modern conventional war. Philosophers who don't brief themselves on the historical circumstances of a writer are doomed to make some silly comments.
Thursday, 23 March 2023
Lockdown: The Third Anniversary
On this day in 2020, the British Government made it illegal for people to leave their houses without excuse, shut schools, closed hospitals for regular operations and consultation, shut down small businesses, kept families from visiting their elderly relatives, and spent billions of future taxpayers' money on the failed Track-and-Trace project, sub-standard PPE, and furlough payments and business loans that were often fraudulent.
To enforce this it filled the media and news with fear-mongering propaganda, confused the public and the Police with ever-changing conflicting and vague instructions, and provided incomplete and misleading statistics based on implausible definitions. At one point, it reached the absurdity of outlawing sex between people who were not living together. Not one of its policies was based on facts. Even more absurd was that just under half the UK workforce was still leaving the house five days a week to go to work, even in the Spring 2020 lockdown.
And then in February 2022, it vanished into thin air.
Leaving behind troubled children, spoiled educations, ruined businesses, a backlog of medical treatment that will beggar the NHS for years, creaking public services, massive debts, and double-figure inflation.
The Daily Telegraph has been doing a good job of bringing all the issues to the front pages. The WhatsApp messages it obtained prove that the Government and civil servants were making up rules in an absence of facts, to promote a policy that was only made possible by improvements in the internet infrastructure since the mid-2010's. Working from home would have been impossible in 2010 at the FTSE 100 company I worked for.
I was not scared of the virus. Even by the end of March 2020 we knew that almost everyone who got it survived, and the few who died were very old, obese or had a number of other conditions. Some people would go on to have long-term effects. That happens with any viral infection.
I was scared of getting quarantined. I would have starved, for one thing. I don't have two week's supply of food in the house, and the supermarket delivery services weren't taking on new customers. So I took all the actions and inactions necessary to decrease those chances.
I was scared of a Government and State that had clearly lost its grip, if not its mind; of the powers devolved to unaccountable local councils and other bureaucrats, who could (and did) make up rules from thin air; and of the license it gave to every snitch, crazy person, control freak and busybody. It was a crisis that many, many people could and did exploit, from swindling the Government to re-igniting family feuds.
I did not want to find out that anyone I respected actually believed any of it, because they would be lost to me. Falling for the Lockdown propaganda was a litmus test: if you did... well, there's that.
My deepest fear was that I had fallen for the hype, and was just putting a defiant face on it. After all, look at how I behaved. Did I go along with the Lockdown? What choice did I have? There was nowhere to go, except for a thirty-minute walk round the local park. The job kept me indoors, or in the garden, since the weather was fine. Outwardly I was behaving like a True Believer. Inwardly, and after June 2021 outwardly, when I finally revolted (!) and declared myself mask-exempt, none of it ever made sense. As we get further from it, Lockdown will enter into history as another Extraordinary Popular Delusion and a Madness of the Crowd.
To this day, I'm not sure about why everyone rolled over for it at the start. At the time, I suggested that life in 2019 had become ridiculous for many people: too crowded, too expensive, too hectic. They saw the chance to take a break: after all, it was only three weeks to flatten the curve. What they did not know what that the Minister of Health and the Civil Service had other plans. Those three weeks turned out to be a bait-and-switch.
There are many people who assume that the 2020-22 Lockdown has proved itself so awful in its consequences that it will never happen again. On past form it will, and sooner than 2041. Every year potentially deadly viruses appear, mostly in animals, and every year there is a brief fluster about what might happen if this one crosses over to people. Any of these could be promoted to Lockdown status using the same techniques used in 2020. All that's missing is the money to pay for it, and the wrong people in the wrong jobs making the wrong decisions.
Not sure? 1914-18 was supposed to be the "War to end all Wars". Which is why they had another one twenty-one years later in 1939-45.
To enforce this it filled the media and news with fear-mongering propaganda, confused the public and the Police with ever-changing conflicting and vague instructions, and provided incomplete and misleading statistics based on implausible definitions. At one point, it reached the absurdity of outlawing sex between people who were not living together. Not one of its policies was based on facts. Even more absurd was that just under half the UK workforce was still leaving the house five days a week to go to work, even in the Spring 2020 lockdown.
And then in February 2022, it vanished into thin air.
Leaving behind troubled children, spoiled educations, ruined businesses, a backlog of medical treatment that will beggar the NHS for years, creaking public services, massive debts, and double-figure inflation.
The Daily Telegraph has been doing a good job of bringing all the issues to the front pages. The WhatsApp messages it obtained prove that the Government and civil servants were making up rules in an absence of facts, to promote a policy that was only made possible by improvements in the internet infrastructure since the mid-2010's. Working from home would have been impossible in 2010 at the FTSE 100 company I worked for.
I was not scared of the virus. Even by the end of March 2020 we knew that almost everyone who got it survived, and the few who died were very old, obese or had a number of other conditions. Some people would go on to have long-term effects. That happens with any viral infection.
I was scared of getting quarantined. I would have starved, for one thing. I don't have two week's supply of food in the house, and the supermarket delivery services weren't taking on new customers. So I took all the actions and inactions necessary to decrease those chances.
I was scared of a Government and State that had clearly lost its grip, if not its mind; of the powers devolved to unaccountable local councils and other bureaucrats, who could (and did) make up rules from thin air; and of the license it gave to every snitch, crazy person, control freak and busybody. It was a crisis that many, many people could and did exploit, from swindling the Government to re-igniting family feuds.
I did not want to find out that anyone I respected actually believed any of it, because they would be lost to me. Falling for the Lockdown propaganda was a litmus test: if you did... well, there's that.
My deepest fear was that I had fallen for the hype, and was just putting a defiant face on it. After all, look at how I behaved. Did I go along with the Lockdown? What choice did I have? There was nowhere to go, except for a thirty-minute walk round the local park. The job kept me indoors, or in the garden, since the weather was fine. Outwardly I was behaving like a True Believer. Inwardly, and after June 2021 outwardly, when I finally revolted (!) and declared myself mask-exempt, none of it ever made sense. As we get further from it, Lockdown will enter into history as another Extraordinary Popular Delusion and a Madness of the Crowd.
To this day, I'm not sure about why everyone rolled over for it at the start. At the time, I suggested that life in 2019 had become ridiculous for many people: too crowded, too expensive, too hectic. They saw the chance to take a break: after all, it was only three weeks to flatten the curve. What they did not know what that the Minister of Health and the Civil Service had other plans. Those three weeks turned out to be a bait-and-switch.
There are many people who assume that the 2020-22 Lockdown has proved itself so awful in its consequences that it will never happen again. On past form it will, and sooner than 2041. Every year potentially deadly viruses appear, mostly in animals, and every year there is a brief fluster about what might happen if this one crosses over to people. Any of these could be promoted to Lockdown status using the same techniques used in 2020. All that's missing is the money to pay for it, and the wrong people in the wrong jobs making the wrong decisions.
Not sure? 1914-18 was supposed to be the "War to end all Wars". Which is why they had another one twenty-one years later in 1939-45.
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