change of address, change of heart.

hello,

i've gotten tired of the all lower-case look. rather than change format mid-stream, and have new, properly capitalized posts stand in stark contrast to all the previous ones, i'm starting a new blog. same name. it's located here: http://citizen-nihilist.blogspot.com/

thanks for reading.

love,

graham

can't fly

(pictured above: the enemy of our enemy is our friend...i guess)

may history be judge of this statement: i support the intervention in libya. i haven't supported a military intervention in my life so this is all rather new for me. i am, however, familiar with being on the other side. i spent my formative years watching neo-con bell-ends muck about in iraq, learning the value of good CI strategy the hard way after spending years denying that there even was an insurgency (you know what's the best CI strategy? don't occupy cities).

of course, they couldn't admit that iraqis might not be pleased with an occupying force because that negated the central premise of their narrative, which is that everyone in the world is an iowa rotary club member deep down inside and wants to be exactly like us. i don't want to be like us, and can sympathize greatly with people who have an actual culture that they don't want to trade in for strip malls and golden corrals.

that being said, benevolent tyranny doesn't seem to exist, most people prefer not to be oppressed and killed, muammar gaddafi is extremely obnoxious, libya has oil, the italians finally might get something to do, and a no-fly zone is something the u.s./nato can get off the ground without that many civilian casualties (especially compared to the number of casualties one would expect from a brutal tyrant retaking a rebel stronghold). bombing selected military targets, tank columns, and satellite installations? the u.s. military is pretty good at that. occupying cities? not so much, which is why we should never do it ever again. let local troops/militias/guerillas/irregulars/insurgents/bored teenagers trade pot-shots with each other for undisputed mastery over whatever burned-out slum means the world to them. that's not the u.s.'s fight for the most part.

as much as his reputation took a deserved hit under bush 2 due to his preposterous war-mongering, colin powell was really onto something in the early 90s. the powell doctrine explains how a modern war should be run: quick, precise, clear objectives and targets, good exit strategy. libya isn't being run exactly like this. it's not clear exactly who's going to run the show, or whether gaddafi is a legit target (i think he should be because...why the fuck not, right?), but if obama follows what seems to be his current trajectory, the u.s. is going to try to minimize its role as soon as possible. won't guarantee a win for the rebels, but it gives their hopes for freedom, democracy, and the american way an extra boost. if they even want that. and it's fine if they don't.

+mc

todging off

(pictured above: a satyr blowing off some steam)

masturbation...is a glorious past-time. in addition to being (ahem) loads of fun, it is also an interesting and underappreciated avenue of theological inquiry. theological ethics, broadly speaking, fall into two categories: divine command and natural law. divine command--what can really be said? it's vile and base. it represents the lowest form of thought about god, turning a good source of insight and contemplation into polytheism-but-with-one-dude:"why should i not wank? because god will hurl a lightning bolt/plague/roving band of mesopotamian sadists in my direction." such rules are rationally opaque, senseless, and, thankfully, very untrue.

i like natural law better, particularly when it causes able-minded thinkers to do backflips and cartwheels in order to uphold certain elements of canon law that are obviously contrary to the basic desires of human nature. in my conversations with christians of the natural law bent, i have heard that sex is supposed to be generative and uniative. of the two, uniative is much more intuitive. yes, we have sex to feel close to people. generative intercourse is obviously desirable in some cases, but doesn't seem as universally desirable as a uniative interaction. aquinas doesn't even bother explaining why generative is added to the list, probably because he knew he couldn't give a very satisfactory explanation (because no one can).

of course, without the generative component, sex is left pretty open to a wide variety of arrangements (as it should be). since monotheists have a great, well-documented history of antipathy toward human happines, an open, relatively non-judgmental view of sex is naturally out of the question. so: generative stays.

...which brings us to why christians tell people not to masturbate: either out of fear of violating one of yahweh's arbitrary commands or out of a tortured, counter-intuitive understanding of human nature and happiness. the misapplication of natural law is a greater tragedy because the essential goal of natural law is to get people to lead a good life, which is one of philosophy's oldest charges. right now, young men and women are being told not to whack it, are told that it is sinful and impure, and all the while they are expected to keep their sexual urges completely in check till their 20s at the earliest. athens groans from its very foundations.

+mc

the city

i've been thinking about politics a lot these past couple days. it started when some humorless libertarian accused me of gross immorality b.c. i refused to take his lumpen-philosophical, randian paean to will-to-power-as-american-capitalism seriously (it didn't help that i was feeling particularly nihilistic and combative, and also refused to humor the 'foundational precepts' of liberalism as being all that great. i know, i know: i wouldn't last a second under any other regime/system, but sometimes i wonder how much was lost when we gave up drunkenness and violence for 'civility').

why does someone like me even care about politics? the current level of american political discourse makes me wish that the natives had been just a little more bloodthirsty, or at the very least, that reagan's would-be assassin had been a better marksman (in the same week as his 100th birthday: edgy). hope, no that's probably not the right word--curiosity remains. maybe, just maybe all the interesting-ness has not been bled out of the species, that possibly a few more good ideas remain after christianity, liberalism, marxism, fascism and all that other nonsense have proven to be dead-ends.

marx is probably closest to my heart: he showed that society is not an expression of some eternal truth, but is very much a contingent thing. contingent on what? well, that's where me and him (well, more specifically: me and the cretins known as his followers) begin to part ways. i'm suspicious of anyone who tries to propose a universal logic for human behavior or history, not because of some irrational belief in the inscrutability of man's character, but rather because these sorts of things tend to be adjusted all too easily to fit any and all circumstances. you know what i mean: 'we swear to god the revolution is going to be for real this time.'

doesn't really matter. no one in the u.s. cares about marx anymore. calling oneself a socialist is to be instantly marginalized (not that one should really shed all that many tears over not being able to have a respected opinion as to which politician is slightly less atrocious than the rest). what is to be done? at this point, i would say that the u.s. should temporarily suspend the presidency and be broken up into 6 regional blocs. i am incredibly sick of people from kansas having a say in my life. i shouldn't have to know about what sarah palin is doing or thinking, or how close she is to getting her hands on nuclear launch codes (anyone who voted for mccain in 08 was one clogged aorta away from being a full-fledged species traitor for this reason). the senate bothers me. there are like 20 states that have a combined population less than california, and they're given 40 votes. that's bullshit.

the over-reach of people who have nothing to do with me is particularly irksome given how my native city has been gutted by the arbitrary totalitarianism of the war on drugs. people from kansas don't have to watch as post-industrial wretchedness swallows lives whole (they have other types of wretchedness to worry about), but their politicians make sure that junkies are treated like the scum of the earth, that entry-level drug dealers are thrown into the soul-grinding terror of prolonged incarceration, and what stable communities remain are under constant assault from police brutality and cartels of drug-peddling psychopaths.

there is nothing innate about any of this. the constitution doesn't say much of anything about narcotics, and even if it did, the constitution, contrary to popular opinion, was not brought down from heaven by the divine lawgivers sometimes called the 'founders.' there have been a few moments in the history of the west when people realized that they are the creators of their own society, that laws can be nothing more than the opinions of the collected people. this, regrettably, is not what we have today. instead we have a large mass of (for good reason) suspicious, cynical people who have virtually no input on anything and have a vague sense that they are being continually screwed by forces they can't quite see or comprehend, and a small minority of elites who are given extraordinary entitlements as to the use of force and capital.

take egypt: demonstrations and riots. people taking to the street to overthrow a repressive autocrat. americans, many of whom in their hearts instinctively oppose authoritarianism, sided with the egyptian people. but wait: how many of them knew that hosni mubarak had been the recipient of american military aid for the last 30 years? that he is a key ally? i knew, but then again i'm a boring layabout who fills the void in his soul by reading articles on the internet for 9 or 10 hours a day.

to wrap this up: the question is whether you want an open society, in which people realize that laws and rules are nothing more than what they create for themselves and are subject to debate, criticism, and revision, or a closed society, in which people accept the authority of something outside themselves: tradition, holy scripture, race, reason, history, capital. the ancients had an expression: 'think like a mortal.' once one has finished dispensing with whatever consoling lies one has been told about the nature and destiny of humanity, all one is left with is one's fragility, mortality, finitude, but also with one's creative ability to control the future. make it an interesting future.

+mc

breath-taking conviction

"a casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows faith does not prove anything."

--f.w. nietzsche: philosopher, head-case.

in conversation with christians, i've encountered two related talking points that strike me as especially useless. the first is argument that christianity is true or more likely to be true because of the speed and extent of its proliferation (i.e. "the prosperity gospel" argument). what could possibly be wrong with this? let's see:

1. many of the people in the world who call themselves christians had ancestors who either converted out of convenience or were converted at sword-point (argumentum ad baculum: good strategy, or the best strategy?).
2. speaking of sword-point conversions: islam did the same thing. muslims were just more on the ball so it happened earlier in their history.
3. the mormons, while relying less on forced conversion, also managed to have a large rate of expansion.

...now, this may explain how the three religions were able to expand, but how were they able to survive in the first place? it's mentioned that christianity was able to survive despite intense instances of persecution (the key word here being "instances"--it's important to remember that early church history was not one long marathon of christians v. lions, and that roman attitudes towards christianity fluctuated). while early christian history takes the cake in terms of the perseverance of its persecutors, people were initially hostile to muslims and mormons, as well. there were quite a few people in and around mecca who thought the world would be a better place if mohammed was somehow made to no longer be in it. this resulted in at least one assassination attempt, and a few military engagements, but mohammed managed to survive it all and marry himself into practically every tribe and family in the region (the arabs being then unified were able to channel all of their hatred outward--and the rest, unfortunately for most of the people living in the surrounding areas, is history). as for the mormons, everyone hated them. the early history of that group is more or less a list of places where they tried to settle and were kicked out. in missouri, it got to the point where the governor issued executive order no. 44 (also known as the "extermination order"), in which he says: "the mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state as necessary."

nevertheless, early christians most likely handled more abuse than the muslims or the mormons. so: given that they were able to hold onto their beliefs despite many of their co-religionists being burned alive or fed to wild animals, that must mean something right? well, no. this brings me to the second point, which is the argument that christianity is true because many people have been and are willing to die on its behalf (i.e. "the martyrs for the cause"argument). this argument is patently ridiculous because it ignores the millions of people who have died on the wrong side of history--all the national socialists and imperial japanese who offed themselves rather than surrender to the allies, all the communists who died in human waves, the sikhs who probably have more suicidal last stands per capita than any other group on the planet--not to mention suicide bombers the world over. if a guy is willing to strap dynamite to his torso and blow himself up in the middle of a crowded area, all i can say is that he must have felt pretty strongly about whatever point he's trying to get across. that doesn't make him any less full of shit, just committed. psychotic and committed.

+mc

moral relativism again

frequently, the lower the stakes are, the more ridiculous people become. take philosophy. no one cares about this stuff--yet if philosophers were to be believed, you'd think the whole world was waiting on bated breath for us to figure out anything. the way i look at it, philosophy is not in the business of changing the world, and doesn't have much of a responsibility to describe it correctly (although that helps). philosophy is fun. that's why i keep coming back. if you're into this stuff b.c. you think arriving at the "correct" understanding of the big questions is going to make the world a better place, i humbly suggest becoming involved in something else: medicine, science, counseling, ministry, law, social work, art, journalism. anything else really.

despite philosophy's general commitment to uselessness and irrelevance, people occasionally seem to come to the conclusion that philosophy is the source of various troubles and problems. you know what i'm talking about: "the west's problems are rooted in the teaching of post-modern theory in the humanities." are you serious? i can think of plenty of reasons why things might not be going so well around these parts, but derrida is certainly not one of them (as much as i wish he was so i could have more of a reason to dislike him). oh well. as jesus would probably be able to tell you, everyone needs a scape-goat.

the reason why i'm bringing all of this up is that i was watching the daily show the other night, and sam harris was on there promoting his new book. according to him, moral relativism is a problem. it's preventing us from being able to look at places like afghanistan and, without any reservation, condemn whatever it is they're doing over there as backwards and unenlightened. again: seriously? what planet are these people living on? how many moral relativists even exist? there's me, but i rarely leave the house, and when i do i'm rarely sober. your problems in afghanistan have very little to do with people like me telling 4 or 5 friends that we think morality is contextual, and a lot more to do with everyone else misunderstanding how war, bullets, and "hearts & minds" seem to work.

sorry, sam, but people like me just don't matter. you failed b.c. you are not very good at what you do. you don't seem to realize that simply aspiring to make war cohere with enlightenment notions of progress and human rights doesn't miraculously make that the case. moral certainty only makes you more certain, not more competent.

+mc

natural lawl

last year, i read about a book that allegedly proves that the so-called internet generation is more narcissistic and self-centered than previous generations. naturally, this book was a hit with pre-web 2.0 dullards b.c. it gave them license to shit-talk all those ungrateful youths. as for the central premise of the book, i'm not sure how one would go about demonstrating such a thing scientifically since you can't go back in time and interview people to see if they fit into a recently-invented ambiguous psychological construct, although i suppose you could point out that "kids these days" spend a lot of time taking pictures of themselves and posting them online. starting wars with other people to make them "more like us" is of course un-narcissistic.

whenever you find someone talking about something that is both "new" and "terrible," what is really going on is an appeal to the "natural order of things." this disheartens me, primarily because i despise nature and try to spend as much time as possible in a supine position looking at nifty things on my smart-phone with the TV on in the background and a decent bottle of liquor somewhere on the premises, but also because these sorts of appeals are almost always dependent on how an individual perceives the natural world and human nature, and these perceptions are almost always self-serving, narrow-minded, and factually incorrect.

i've rarely heard someone invoke natural law in a way that did not directly justify whatever it was he or she happened to be doing. the reason for this is that for most people whatever happens to be going on around them at any particular time tends to just seem "natural:" i have private property. ergo, it is the natural state of man to have/want pieces of land that belong exclusively to him. i believe that there is an invisible world behind/above the visible one. ergo, it is most assuredly the case that all men have a faculty oriented toward the experience of the divine. i like reason. ergo, man is rational (note: the sophists were right. plato was wrong. it's taken philosophy ~2500 years to almost figure this out). change? but things were going so well.

to tie this into a recent event: the script-writer for "the social network" (you know, the facebook movie) went on the colbert report and said that facebook interactions were inauthentic performances and that people should strive to do more genuine socializing (you know, IRL--that place we all spend as much time as possible avoiding). this is how the appeal to "nature" always works: everything is going along just fine, and then some boring prick shows up and tells us all that what we're doing is "inauthentic" or "unnatural" or "weird."

as nietzsche may have said, by the time something becomes encoded in language it's already old news. natural law and tradition-centric morality are always going to be a step behind what's happening on the ground. all it can do is rage impotently as the world keeps spinning.

+mc