Fortune Telling Goes Mainstream

Sometime in the past few years, the news-media picked a new favorite word: "tomorrow". Headlines read, "President to veto Children's Health Care tomorrow," or "Company expected to announce bid for contract tomorrow." The news-media practices a dual art: journalism and divination.

They're not the only entity eagerly foretelling the future. Bush favors the word "pre-emptive"; business analysts use "forecast"; weeklies like Newsweek and Time extrapolate "trends" decades into the future.

We, their audience, encourage them. We check the weather forecast as if a human or computer could actually predict a sunny day. They might guess correctly, but we can't call them accurate until we feel the deep warmth of the afternoon sun on our necks.

We increasingly trust these modern day diviners, repeating the news as if the anchor surely knows what will happen tomorrow. We accept their guesses like the ill wishing for a cure.

We are, like Dave Bazan sang in his "Priests and Paramedics", the hemmoraging wounded on the stretcher screaming to the paramedic, "Am I going to die?" We're happy to hear, "Buddy just calm down, you'll be alright."

Not that they, or anyone else, knows for sure.

I can only hypothesize why we're willing to trust people who clearly know as little about the future as we. Perhaps we've accelerated the availability of information so much that we now demand the news before it happens. Perhaps we want to know what will happen to us so intensely that we'll trust anyone who appears confident. Regardless of our reasons, we trust too much.

We live too dependently on our diviners. When some soothsayer predicts a housing bubble, we act as if they know certainly, thus fermenting a self-fulfilling prophesy. When our Presidents promise us we'll suffer if we don't invade weaker nations we acknowledge we can't know the future and thus can't prove them wrong; so we trust their vision for the future more than ours.

We abort potential works of art because they might not succeed. We scrap potential children because they might mature into criminals.

We have empirical data to support our predictions. Of course, our data occurred in the past and Hume among many others have shown that no past empirical data proves future causality. Every time you toss a ball into the air a miniscule probability increases that the ball will not descend. Just because an action caused an effect once, or a million times, does not mean it will the next time.

Further, I'm increasingly certain nothing is certain. So, if we have no certainty about the past or present, which we have seen and now see, how do we justify making certainty claims about the future? I don't think we can justify our modern divination. We make the future, but "we" contains 6.5 billion people each exerting their own influence, besides the influence of non-human forces. So many inputs make forecasting 99.99999% impossible. Of course, one may predict accurately, especially in controlled situations with far fewer inputs.

Yet, the risk of pre-emption -- of anticipating and then changing the future -- far outweighs the risk of letting que sera, sera.

Or does it? Does potential predicate a right or obligation to opportunity? Must a mother birth the fetus in their womb if they expect the potential child to suffer? Or may the artist discard that incomplete artwork because it may potentially fail? If no mind exists with a precise knowledge of what will happen, than does modifying the future pre-emptively make any difference -- if no one has a plan, then how can you wreck the plan?

It seems there is a general, universal plan infered from universal human rights. The plan entails in every case humans continuing to live. So we do wreck the plan when we trust the soothsaying media, analysts, presidents and economists so much that we will invade and murder other humans in reaction to the "experts'" predictions.

Can we call pre-emptive action "just"? If in hindsight we see certainly a diviner predicted accurately, can we justify our belief and our actions based on those predictions, especially if those actions harmed another in order to protect ourselves?

(I hereby predict someone will bring up Minority Report :P).

Mini-Jesuses thrive, even with their discredited name

Reading on Revolution in Jesus Land and Thom Stark's Semper Reformanda I find hope that Christians do not take lightly the hijacking of their name. Even when poison calls itself dessert, the dessert makes itself unmistakable.

Though some congregations shoot those who assail them, others choose Jesus' way. I'm specifically considering the Amish who last October suffered five deaths in their community. I'm sure they considered their response with excruciating care -- the public relations and news-media megaphone crouched over their shoulders, poised to trumpet the actions of the Amish to perhaps a large portion of the world. What a crucible in which that community chose.

The leadership at New Life Church in Colorado Springs certainly faced a similar gravity in their deliberations. Yet the two congregations chose divergent paths.

New Life Church shored up their defenses and then shot the single assailant who fired on them.

The Amish -- they stepped onto the world stage and forgave. Pardoned. Jesused. "Forgive them father," Jesus said of his assailants, "for they don't know what they do."

Wolves in Jesus' clothing

I'm a ballerina. No, I've never taken dance lessons, but I'm a ballerina. True, I've never danced in the Nutcracker or Swan Lake or any other ballet, but I'm a ballerina.

In English, as in many languages, entities are defined by what they do or what practical purpose they perform. Would you call a phonebook a knife? Of course not! If you did, you'd ask your friend for a knife and she'd hand you a phonebook (if she patronized your silly semantics). You'd have trouble making your sandwich.

We want our language as precise as possible for efficiency. Philosophers have spent the past century striving for a language refined enough to convey both the simple and the sublime. One, Wittgenstein, devised a method for ensuring each word in a language had only one meaning. He failed miserably, but we accuse ourselves if we fault him for trying.

It's clear, if I don't do ballet, I'm not a ballerina. In the same way, I'm not a Muslim, because I don't practice Islam. Nor am I a Christian, since I don't do what Christians do.

Now to my point: it is constantly apparent a number of people call themselves Christians who do not perform the actions of Christians (and a similar argument could be made for Muslims and Conservatives -- i.e. Bush). Perhaps I should rephrase that: maybe these "Christians" act just like "Christians" but they don't act like Jesus. Christian, I learned in my class on Shalom this fall, means in Greek, "little Christ". So it seems we may agree on a standard: that those who call themselves by the word "Christian" should fulfill the same role Jesus did. Maybe I'm asking too much.

Yet, the recent actions of "Christians" do not even closely approach in likeness to Jesus' admonitions, much less his acts. "Christians" ignore guidelines like 'Turn the other cheek' and 'Lay down his life for his friends' and 'Care for the sojourner in your land'. Instead, "Christians" shoot assailants in their churches. They obfuscate Jesus' clear teachings into complex, borderline gnostic doctrines, Melissa Scott-esque non-sequiturs, and prosperity "gospels" -- for profit! -- and they whip earnest humans into harnessed oxen by which they power political ideologies.

I feel sick to write of it. Oftentimes the conspiracy theories about the Masons and Knights Templar seem so credible -- they hover like locusts demonstrating irrefutably the devised nature of this monotheism -- and so tangible -- I know I can touch their modern day counterparts by dialing ten numbers on my phone -- that such obvious hogwash appears more plausible than a virgin birth and a resurrection.

I'm not in a place to make any predictions about these "Christians" and their relation to any God they claim to serve. Jesus said he himself did not come to judge. Wiser learners than I have argued to me any imperative extrapolated from Jesus' assertion applies only to eternal judgment. Their advice allows me the freedom to say I do not approve of those "Christians" who do the opposite of what Jesus did. I feel they discredit those who strive so intensely to live up to all the
responsibility associated with Jesus' name, just as I discredit all ballerinas when I claim a likeness to their grace.

Stranger to Oneself

I finished reading Camus' The Stranger a couple of days ago. He makes this eeriest point clear: whether you die at 30 or 70, you die. Which leaves a thoughtful person (such as myself) utterly confused. If death is the end, then there's little point in prolonging life. Nor do we feel compelled to act, whether murderously or altruistically. Yet, we do act altruistically and murderously. It seems clear why humans developed murder -- to defeat a threat to their lives. But why altruism? A recent article in the Atlantic argued altruism developed through typical adaptive cycles where communal, selfless species survived, thus reproducing philanthropic genes. Which seems to say, scientifically at least (and most religions would argue the same), we act kindly because we prioritize existence over non-existence.

So, if we murder and assist both in accordance to our belief that we prefer to exist, what do we do when life becomes entirely absurd, meaningless and death seems no different than life (for life and death mean the same)? Do we go on living? And if we live, in what manner do we live if we may die in another moment? As Pascal wrote: "Between us, and Hell or Heaven, there is only life between the two, which is the most fragile thing in the world."

Sartre posited an answer to the questioning of Camus' era (and ours): there's no compulsion to do anything, yet we're not dead, so we must choose. Even suicide is a choice. Even standing still, inactive, is choosing. There is no imperative to choose one way of life, say serial-killer, over any other, say philanthropist.

However, Sartre notes that when we choose, we choose for all people -- we demonstrate our preferred course of action and others may choose to follow it if it produces the sort of life they desire. So, Sartre essentially appeals to Kant's categorical imperative: Act as if all humans will be forced to act as you do. Another philosopher said similarly, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

I give away my disposition by setting murder and altruism in opposition. Clearly I pose a dichotomy that prefers generosity and service to totem-murder, incest and patricide -- Freud's three universal taboos.

As long as I recall, I have been biased towards altruism. Only recently have I learned words to describe my reasoning. John Rawls, another philosopher, proposed a thought experiment to help us decide how to act. He suggested when faced with a decision, we imagine a veil separates us from the situation, so we do not know what party we will play in the situation. We may be the king; we may be the pauper (there is equal chance). Since we may be the pauper, naturally we will ensure that should we be the pauper, we will be well respected, protected and happy. We want the most benefit for ourselves in the case we should be the least of the society. Rawls called his principle MiniMax: the maximum benefit for the minimum person.

My selfishness masquerades as altruism. I only act to provide an example I hope others will choose to follow. I want the least to be cared for in case I one day am the least. It's why I pick up hitchhikers: to build up my hitchhikers' Karma so I'll get picked up next time I'm thumbing.

I've laid out a couple of viable ways to a satisfying, altruistic life. However, I do not know if I live them, though I try.

Countless questions bother me. Here are two: first, if life is absurd and we evolved, why do we create? There seems no point in striving to make sculpture, music, epic photo montages, poetry and novels. Friendship and altruism are explained by the Atlantic article, but creativity has yet to receive much treatment in philosophy (please, if I overstate, direct me to a place to read).

Second, why does music affect some people so much? Past a philosophy of aesthetics (proportion is related to health and health to survival, so it seems explainable by Darwin's theories), music seems to have little evolutionary value. From my reading in philosophy of music so far today, it seems that music in recent years (enlightenment on) was intentionally developed to express emotions which words and other visual symbols could not, due to a veil of language and bias which separates us from what Kant called "das Ding an sich" and Wallace Stevens called the The -- reality.

But music precedes these theories, and even after these theories, practitioners adapted music to match the human ear, rather than modifying humans to appreciate the music. There are exceptions: it seems it took the human ear time to understand the meaning of compositions like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- people didn't understand innately. In the normal cases, when music was orchestrated to excite pre-existing biases in humans towards certain meanings for certain timbres of sound, where did those interpretations in humans develop?

I wish I could word this more simply but it's very complicated in my head and, of course, language is an ill-fitted tool to expressing deep pathos.

Oh. No.

I think I may be failing two classes. If I do fail them -- the two most detested classes I've taken at Whitworth -- I'll likely go to Poland and not return to graduate.

My friend Daniel noted tonight, Colleges are accreditation systems. I'm tired of vying for accreditation.

Increasingly I feel I've learned little academically here, though I have learned much socially and euecoicly. That's partly my fault, as I've not pursued my studies as rigorously as I could. But I was busy elsewhere, learning.

At it again

I'm blogging again, but over here.

I will likely begin writing on this blog again once I move to Poland. This and a travel blog? I don't know.

My interests right now: ecosophy, Herman Hesse, human collaboration.

As I finish at Whitworth, I feel ill-prepared to continue onto grad school. However, I feel ready to go.