Diogenes' Lamp

Diogenes of Sinope is not a name one often hears. Even in the world of Professional Philosophy his name is not among the most studied minds. By way of short summary, Diogenes was a Cynic, a word which does not quite carry its contemporary meaning of a cynical and bitter person. In the ancient world a Cynic was one who repudiated - in word and deed - the entire culture of normalcy and "fitting in" that dominates the lives of most of us. For the Cynic culture is filled with injustice, exploitation, and inhumanity.

The basic idea is that social conventions and the desire for status that arises from them enslave us. Insofar as we attempt to conform to the ideals and patters of the dominant society, we are in bondage. And not only are we in bondage, but we exploit and demean one another. Only a rejection of the norms of society as binding on us can liberate and empower us.

This often took extravagant forms. Cynics frequently eschewed property and social standing - Diogenes himself was said to live in a barrel - they damned titles and any official power. Wealth, fame, and worldly success was frequently anathema to them. The logic of the cynic is that the world corrupts, society corrupts, we must return to nature and free ourselves of such corrupting influences.

One need not look far to see they have a point. The amount of hurt that has come from human beings' need for power, wealth, status, position, and comfort is truly staggering. The degree of violence, death, and needless tragedy that results from our struggle to succeed in the social world is so vast that I cannot begin to enumerate it.

Perhaps the most famous story about Diogenes is the tale of his wondering about town in broad daylight with a lantern. Asked why he was behaving in such a manner, he declared "I am only looking for a human being." The implication is that he had not found a human being. We, all of us, have failed to live up to our humanity. What can that mean? How have we failed? The injustice and villainy that fill the world may be our despairing answer to these questions.

In a world where the rich continue to prosper at the expense of the poor, a world where violence is the norm, discrimination an every day occurrence, injustice, brutality, anger and hate commonplace, have we yet to find a human being? Have any of us lived up to what we might be?

Need we light the torch brighter? Or does Diogenes' lamp merely reveal that there is nothing to find?

The Truth about Grad School

Grad school, at least in the Liberal arts and Sciences, cost a fortune, forces one to live in poverty for many years, and has a very low probability of resulting in a job. AND I MEAN VERY LOW.

Finally The Simpsons reveal the truth, in the following video clip:



This is only a very slight exaggeration, it's nearly this bad.

Fighting our inner racist

The title of the blog post should surprise no one. We are still a very racist society. Sadly, much current racism is not seen as such.

Chris Matthews was so moved with glee at Obama's state of the union address that he proudly proclaimed that "I forgot he was black." This statement can only mean one thing, Matthews does not associate great intellect and articulate vocabulary with black people.

Yes, I am sure that Matthews is not an "old-time bigot." I am sure he believes in civil rights, and thinks of himself as anti-racist. I have no doubt that in some ways he is. But his remark has brought to the surface a truth that we all must face: racism lives in us still.

It is not merely that our society still has racists in it. We are often racist in ways we do not perceive. Sadly those we are racist against perceive it, and it hurts and offends this.

This was brought home for me with great force. One of my courses is equally dividing between African-American and Caucasian students. I showed them the following clip from The Daily Show:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-28-2010/speech-therapy---post-racial

The Caucasian students found the clip to be a humorous look at race. The African-Americans felt otherwise. They were deeply offended by this clip and did NOT find it the least bit funny. These students were wounded afresh by Matthews' foolish remarks and thought that The Daily Show made matters far worse by turning it into a joke.

For African-American students, who have experienced a great deal of discrimination and unjust treatment all their lives, there is nothing but pain and sorrow in racism. It is not a matter to jest about.

This experience has caused me to think. Those who experience oppression, discrimination, exploitation, are wounded and offended in ways that I cannot even dream of. I am a white male, with all the privilege and immunity that brings with it. I cannot fathom their pain.

We who are from groups which do no experience this discrimination are often shocked to learn that words, gestures, and actions that we think harmless are received with great offence and pain and anger from groups that are oppressed.

We had better learn to look more closely. We had better seek to understand our wounded fellows. We had better become more aware of the many ways that racism still lives, unconscious but all too real, in each of us.

I cannot ever really understand what African-Americans go through. But I can reach out to be sensitive to their sorrows and do all in my power to learn from and truly open myself to their perspective.

This black history month let us all promise to try and look more deeply and our unconscious racism and see if we can change some of it.

The Horror of the Dinner Plate

NOW interviews the director of Food, Inc.

Another Shameful and Disgusting Catholic Sex Scadal

A report has been issued about sexual abuses in Irish Catholic Schools. Child abuse, both physical and sexual has been "endemic" in these schools for decades. This video from the BBC explains the situation:



It seems obvious to me that the reason these abuses are hushed up is because the Roman Catholic Church is a rigid hierarchy that insists upon absolute obedience to those above you. In other words, things are hushed up and people are told to silently and humbly obey. The only way then to stop these scandals is to loosen that Hierarchy. The church structure must be fundamentally altered in radical ways.

This is NOT by the way to condemn Catholicism as a whole. This is merely a criticism of the power and structure of a hierarchy that is so constituted that it's natural reaction is to hush up and conceal thousands upon thousands of physical and sexual abuses.

Star Trek on Class Struggle, Torture, and Terrorism

Very relevant clip from he original Star Trek Series. We learn in this episode that exploitation an oppression breeds desperation and therefore violence, and that torture is never permissible.



The entire episode is worth watching, check it out here.

The Causes of Piracy

At the request of my friend and colleague Arun Iyer, I looked into the causes of piracy in Somalia.

Historically piracy is the direct result of poor working conditions, dire poverty, and systematic economic exploitation of the lower classes. As the following quote makes clear:

In an honest Service, there is thin Commons, low Wages, and hard Labour; in this, Plenty and Satiety, Pleasure and Ease, Liberty and Power; and who would not balance Creditor on this Side, when all the Hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sower Look or two at choaking. No, a merry Life and a short one shall be my Motto

—Pirate Captain Bartholomew Roberts

This does not mean Pirates are nice simple folk. Indeed, they are usually a rough and criminal type. But what gives them the final push into piracy is the economic despair they find themselves in. Take that away and you take away the root cause of piracy. Try simply to fight them or execute them and you just create heroes and martyrs to inspire more pirates.

Check out the following clip from Democracy Now after doing so, I highly recommend reading Two Piracies in Somalia



What is very clear from this interview and this essay is, just as in past centuries, Piracy is the direct result of economic exploitation and dire poverty. By all means arrest and punish pirates for their crimes. I think, however, the crimes that lead to piracy must also be stamped out if we are actually to end it.

The Summers/Geithner Plan

Keith is mad as hell and he has had ENOUGH

Olbmermann slams Corporate Villians!

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Empowerment or Exploitation?

Lately I've been pondering the rise of explicit sexuality in our culture over the last 15-20 years. In particular, things like stripping and porn have become somewhat mainstream; take for instance cardio striptease classes.

Many claim that this is empowering for women, that they are expressing their sexuality. I'm doubtful. In a recent book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, journalist Ariel Levy, proclaims that there is something profoundly un-liberating about this phenomenon.

Her central thesis is that today's "raunch culture" is not an encouragement of personal sexual expression and healthy sexual appetite, but a highly commercialized and mass produced "commodity" that strips us and our sex lives of all particularity and fulfillment.

There is some video of Levy discussing this claim.

Here is Levy on the "Girls Gone Wild" phenomena:



and here she is on Playboy:



I think she raises some fascinating questions. And I wonder, when is it healthy sexual expression and empowerment, and when is it exploitation? How can we establish a clear criteria? Can we? Should we?