Tell them stories
Sep. 2nd, 2010 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Day 09: Your beliefs
I am an atheist and, apart from a couple of years in my mid-teens when I considered myself an agnostic, have been all my life. This means that I do not believe in any higher power or powers, I believe that this life is all there is, that there is no afterlife, and that 'We must build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere'.
That is not to say that I am amoral or immoral; I find the suggestion that one needs to draw his or her morality from a belief in a deity or deities to be deeply offensive. I have similar opinions on the belief among some religious people that atheism comes from a mean-spirited hatred or a dissatisfaction with life: I love being alive, I love this world and I love being conscious.
What else do I believe in?
I believe in public education, and I believe we need to do more to improve and sustain it.
I believe in a barter economy, but recognise that it is impractical, and so believe that social democracy is the least imperfect form of government. I believe in public health, public education, government ownership of public transport, utilities and so on. I believe refusing to vote is extremely insulting to those who fought and died for the right to vote, and I believe (informed) voting and paying taxes are the absolute minimum political engagement that people should undertake.
That being said, I believe that the current political culture means that almost everyone who holds positions of power is very badly suited to doing so.
This shouldn't need saying (as everyone should believe it), but I believe no one should face discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, ability or gender identity.
I am probably overly utopian, but I believe that fandom, and the internet more broadly, offers the best examples of social-democratic communities based on barter economies - 'from each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her need'. I stress that this only happens when fandom/internet community is done right, and that the internet is just as full of examples of cruelty and selfishness as the 'real' world.
I believe that community should be based on shared interests and values, and be something that we opt into, rather than being based on geographical proximity or arbitrary national identity based on accidents of birth.
I believe, above all, in learning from every single experience of your life, in constantly examining and reevaluating your beliefs in the light of your experiences. I believe 'the unexamined life is not worth living'.
Day 10 – An inspiration
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – Your mode of transportation
Day 14 – Where you live
Day 15 – Something you love about yourself
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations
I am an atheist and, apart from a couple of years in my mid-teens when I considered myself an agnostic, have been all my life. This means that I do not believe in any higher power or powers, I believe that this life is all there is, that there is no afterlife, and that 'We must build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere'.
That is not to say that I am amoral or immoral; I find the suggestion that one needs to draw his or her morality from a belief in a deity or deities to be deeply offensive. I have similar opinions on the belief among some religious people that atheism comes from a mean-spirited hatred or a dissatisfaction with life: I love being alive, I love this world and I love being conscious.
What else do I believe in?
I believe in public education, and I believe we need to do more to improve and sustain it.
I believe in a barter economy, but recognise that it is impractical, and so believe that social democracy is the least imperfect form of government. I believe in public health, public education, government ownership of public transport, utilities and so on. I believe refusing to vote is extremely insulting to those who fought and died for the right to vote, and I believe (informed) voting and paying taxes are the absolute minimum political engagement that people should undertake.
That being said, I believe that the current political culture means that almost everyone who holds positions of power is very badly suited to doing so.
This shouldn't need saying (as everyone should believe it), but I believe no one should face discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, ability or gender identity.
I am probably overly utopian, but I believe that fandom, and the internet more broadly, offers the best examples of social-democratic communities based on barter economies - 'from each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her need'. I stress that this only happens when fandom/internet community is done right, and that the internet is just as full of examples of cruelty and selfishness as the 'real' world.
I believe that community should be based on shared interests and values, and be something that we opt into, rather than being based on geographical proximity or arbitrary national identity based on accidents of birth.
I believe, above all, in learning from every single experience of your life, in constantly examining and reevaluating your beliefs in the light of your experiences. I believe 'the unexamined life is not worth living'.
Day 10 – An inspiration
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – Your mode of transportation
Day 14 – Where you live
Day 15 – Something you love about yourself
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 03:54 pm (UTC)As I believe they say in these here parts: THIS.
--Matthias
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 11:07 pm (UTC)It seems like the more you encourage people to define their own communities, the more you can end up with insular self-supporting groups made up of people with too much confidence in their world view... to caricature this problem: for every 'enlightened atheist' group of people, there's a counterbalancing fundamentalist Christian group, and neither are forced to properly consider the others' perspectives.
This is part of why I think public education is a social good: because it forces people to interact with those from different backgrounds, at least to some extent.
- James H
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 08:15 am (UTC)I was actually commenting more on my problems with the concept of 'nationality', but your comments have raised a point that is actually very important and something I hadn't considered, so thank you.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 08:31 am (UTC)Unfortunately, to counterbalance that, there is the problem that evidence which contradicts a persons worldview can, seemingly, cause them to become more narrow minded, not less:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/
What we don't have a good understanding of AFAIK is how people come to accept new ideas and change their minds; that's critical for understanding the healthiness, or otherwise, of using the internet as a vehicle for socialising with largely "like minded" people.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 09:47 am (UTC)I agree with James that a certain degree of community participation can have its upsides, but education is just about the only example I can think of. I think people should be forced to consider several branches of knowledge during their education and also be forced to participate in a community together. But this is a very special case. If we're talking about the post-education adults of our utopia, then opt in/out communities seem like a good idea to me. So ignoring the education case, I think we should enable the formation of voluntary communities and impair the formation of forced communities.
In future, James, if you want me to come out the woodwork it's best to email me :)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 05:11 pm (UTC)Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-03 08:58 am (UTC)This doesn't describe a barter economy, but rather a socialist or communist economy.
Barter just means a free market economy where there isn't a common medium of exchange like gold or government banknotes. Its still "to each according to she has that others want, from each according to what she has that others want"; its just that if I have oranges and want bananas, I have to go and find someone who has bananas and wants oranges. The reason we use money instead of barter is that its much easier to find one person who has money and wants oranges, followed by a person who wants money and has bananas, since pretty much everyone both has and wants money.
Also, I think that this:
"This shouldn't need saying (as everyone should believe it), but I believe no one should face discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, ability or gender identity."
probably does need saying. Its a little hard to tell precisely what you mean to convey, but I'm pretty sure I don't believe it, for example.
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-03 09:02 am (UTC)That's ok though because I should probably correct the mess I made of the sentence in which I describe market economies:
"to each according to what she has that others want, from each according to what she wants that others have"
- Jordan
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-03 10:17 am (UTC)I don't understand what you find confusing about my beliefs on discrimination, but please feel free to correct me if I've said something wrong.
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-03 05:16 pm (UTC)The long answer to this is... well, I'd guess a 3 page philosophy essay. Which I started writing and am happy to finish if you'd actually care to read it.
The short answer is: it seems to me that under most plausible definitions of the word "discriminate", your statement would be either circular, meaningless, or false (with respect to my moral framework, at least.)
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-04 08:18 am (UTC)Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-03 11:11 pm (UTC)Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-03 11:12 pm (UTC)(sorry, that was James again)
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-04 08:15 am (UTC)James' comment does get to the heart of much of why I think it is likely I disagree with your statement. It is incredibly broad; for such a broad statement to still be true, I think you need to be using the word "discriminate" in quite a narrow sense. The meaning of the word has become quite muddled because of the trend towards using it in this way; people often seem to have their own, subtly different definitions in mind.
Given the presence of "ability" as one of the criteria you don't think should lead to people facing (any?) discrimination, I think your definition has to look quite different from the one must people would use in making broad statements along the lines of "we should not discriminate on the basis of gender".
Should sports teams be able to discriminate between the athletes they employ, on the basis of gender - or should non-mixed sports be illegal?
Should we discriminate between people when choosing whether to socialise with them on the basis of whether they are friendly, or any other aspect of their personalities?
Should we discriminate in offering employment/education/societal approval/etc to murderers, or to Nazis?
What do you mean by "discrimination"; what do you mean that people "should not face it"; and how are you determining what qualities go on the list alongside age, gender identity, ability, etc?
These are the kinds of issues I think merit an essay length response to the statement. Certainly, I don't think your statement, without clarifying very carefully what it means, is something so obviously right that everyone should believe it - unless you mean to convey something actually circular. If by "discrimination" you mean "unfair/unjust/arbitrary discrimination", and you think it is morally wrong that people face such unfair discrimination, sure, I'd agree with that, well of course that's true. But under this reading its very confusing that you feel the need to list certain qualities for which unfair discrimination is unfair (since unfair discrimination is, of course, always unfair); you could have equally said
"I believe no one should face discrimination on the basis of criminal history, the number of letters in their surname, hair colour, dietary preference, height, arrogance, sanity, etc" and it'd still make perfect sense.
If you picked gender, race etc because in the real world a lot of unfair discrimination happens to be on the basis of these things, again, I wonder how ability ended up on that list.
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-04 08:21 am (UTC)The short answer is I agree with what you're saying re: wording.
If you picked gender, race etc because in the real world a lot of unfair discrimination happens to be on the basis of these things, again, I wonder how ability ended up on that list.
I mean physical or mental disability - something which also causes unfair discrimination.
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-04 01:38 pm (UTC)But consider this comment a correction.
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-06 09:30 am (UTC)Wouldn't it be easier to just say,
'I believe no one should face unfair treatment at any time'?
Or better still,
'I believe everyone should always be treated fairly'?
Is discrimination particularly special that it requires extra fairness?
If it does not, the whole fragment would read:
'This shouldn't need saying (as everyone should believe it), but I believe everyone should always be treated fairly.'
I dare say this is true for most people, but not everyone has the same definition of fairness.
Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-06 05:11 pm (UTC)Re: Forgive my nitpicking, but I can't help myself...
Date: 2010-09-07 09:15 am (UTC)> [B]eliefs and ethics are too fluid to be contained with absolute statements like the ones I was making.
Yes, but I think they can, for the most part, be articulated, although you have to play some semantic games in the process because communication is hard. This post has sparked people's curiosity and they want to know what you mean, which is a good thing.
Atheist / Agnostic
Date: 2010-09-06 09:50 am (UTC)Your Facebook info says you're an agnostic, FYI :P
Re: Atheist / Agnostic
Date: 2010-09-06 05:05 pm (UTC)