First Quarterly Review of 2015

Many a blogger has in their time provided a list of New Years Resolutions; many a blogger has quickly forgotten of such Resolutions or pretended that they were never made.


This is the cynical and ritualistic mockery of self-help that takes place at the beginning of every year. January rolls around and we make a host of promises which we know we will never make good on and everyone else pretends that these promises were made sincerely and not as part of a perfunctory process of promise making and inevitable violation.


By contrast, being the edifying figure that I am, I have deemed it necessary to review my progress and show you "how it's done".


Here I will list the attempts I have made to improve the rather sorry state of affairs that I seem perpetually locked in and briefly muse on their efficacy. This will be a positive blog post focusing on my sucesses. What I will not mention is all the other promises, not made on this blog, which I have broken that would otherwise vitiate a perfectly good opportunity to wax so smugly.

#1 - All Non-Fiction Makes Jack a Dull Boy.


My reading schedule is quite eratic. Primarily because I am often left with the impression that I am not as well read as I should be. The crux of it is that there is a list of classic literature (both fictional and non-fictional) which one is sort of "expected" to have read and an ever expanding set of literature that comments on these classics. Upon encountering this ever-growing scholastic mountain I tend to adopt a rather sporadic style of reading that involves switching between wildely different time periods and genres. As a side note, I often fear that this denies me the benefits conferred by a specialised familiarity with a particular area or theme.


The catch being that the more time I take to read the extensive list of classics the less time I have to keep on top of the things written about the classics, or worse still I miss out on the birth of potential new classics.


Irrespective of this little quandry I have managed to branch out more. Franz Kafka, Albert Camu, William S. Burroughs have all been added to my list and completed in some small way and I have enjoyed it so far. The past couple of months of fiction reading has piqued my interest and I look forward to familiarising myself with and experiencing first hand the various waves and styles of literature that I have heard so much about.


Most of what I have read in terms of fiction has been "modern" rather than "contemporary" as at the moment that is where my interest is but I might start searching further afield. As with poetry I will probably need to ask some friendly afficionados for recomendations on contemporary work.

#2 - Get Up! Get on Up! Get on the Scene! Like Some Sort of Machine!


Started running regularly, drastically reduced my smoking habit to the point where it is almost non existant and re-vamped my diet. Things are going well in the health department. A couple of strategies have worked particularly well. Cooking healthy food in large quantities and freezing it in tupperware containers has made healthy eating a breeze. Also when quitting smoking do not make the common mistake of adopting an absolutist "never smoking again" purge style approach, the negative suggestion and accompanying psychological pressure will get you everytime.

#3 I Need to Get More Boom Ba Doom Doom Boom Ba Doom Doom Bass.


I have been listening to more swing music, mainly ripped straight from Fallout series, but also  I have been hunting out more electro-hip hop and rock stuff. Turns out the 90's were really good for alternative music. I also went back and listened to some of the stuff I used to listen to like Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon... it made me cringe with embarresment. Black metal is so pathetically camp at times and the worst part of it is that most of the musicians are completely oblivious to this fact. Still, it makes for good listening when travelling by Bus through the Highlands.

Defending Dionysus: Putting the Art in P"art"y.

Looking over interviews with comic book writers like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison one could be led to believe that there is an overlap between brilliant artists and practitioners of new-age "magick".

As a secular person I take Moore and Morrison's metaphysical ramblings with very little seriousness but both of them bring attention to an interesting analogy between art and magick*

According to the above authors, Magick is like art in that it is the practise of arranging symbols to produce profound emotional responses. Art at its root is just the manipualtion of the mind via our secular senses. When building a cathedral, a 15th century architect might install a high-roof to inflict a sense of awe onto onlookers. Songwriters likewise will scribe in a minor chord to match their dirge's lyrical content. We could spend all day discussing the various "cause, effect" relationships that underpin arts ability to move us: my point has been made..

There is something distinctly magical about any kind of creative endeavour that achieves its desired effect. Take for instance the preparation of a pepper-corn sauce. The chef burns off some whiskey, mixes in cream, adds gravy, allows the mix to reduce in the pan and finally chucks in a fistful of peppercorns. The result is a sauce that through the combination of its individual components, achieves a qualia greater than the sum of its parts.

I am quite fond of this definition of art and accordingly I will now use it to discuss party planning as a serious artistic medium.

While the act of enjoying a party is often a relatively dumb activity**, the act of designing a party has the potential to be a highly cognitive and artful process. As someone orchestrating a connoisseurs revel you control the refreshments,  the dress code, the music, the ambient noise, the spatial layout, the whole visual, gastronomic, social and auditory aesthetic is yours to act on, adjust and perfect.


What's more, you can design and select activities to take place at the party. You can use a party to play host to party games.

Indeed the prime contribution that video games have made to artistic understanding is the mediums emphasise on interactivity. Video games have helped us to think of active doing, as opposed to passive listening or watching, as a way to communicate with audiences and at the very least the principles at play in video games can be carried across to party games. Afterall they are both games, just with differing forms of simultion.

For anyone curious, I am thinking along lines less cliche than spin the bottle: though that might actually work as a sort of semi-ironic nostalgia peice. An alternate example would perhpas be a party with the theme "Intrigue" which includes a game where guests try to outwit eachother to accomplish their own competing clandestine objectives, perhaps with booze as an incentive.

If art is the arrangement of symbols to invoke experience then what medium offers the artist a more immersive and developed platform upon which to work their magic, than a party?***



*I use the "magick" spelling to specify it as a religious/spiritual practise distinct from "magic" which denotes the practise of deceiving small children and boring your family members at wedding receptions.

** In fairness the same is true for experiencing music, film or any other medium of creativity.

*** It goes without saying that there are many limiting facets at play here which I have not mentioned. Parties are generally held for fun and so one may struggle to justify a party that explores depression or the horrors of war. Unless a cultural revolution takes place and artists begin to orchestrate and direct parties in unusual ways we may not be able to progress past partying as having "a grande old time".

Consent as a Foundation of Justice: It's not as straight-forward as some would think.

Consider these five examples.



Example A:

Kirsten the store clerk is working late at a petrol station one evening when an armed robber comes through the door and points a gun at her head. The armed robber tells her to hand over the cash or she will be killed.

Kirsten agrees to hand over the cash.




Example B:

Paul gets lost walking in the desert and, through no fault of his own, is bitten by a rattlesnake. He runs to get help and after an hour of desperate searching comes across a man who sells rattlesnake anti-venom.

The salesman informs Paul that the salesman is the only one around for miles and it is an absolute certainty that without the purchasing of anti-venom Paul will die.

The salesman tells Paul that Paul must not only pay the market value for the anti-venom (100$) but Paul must also allow the salesman to urinate in Paul’s mouth.

Paul chooses the latter.




Example C:

Mark is a right-wing libertarian. Mark despises the fact that he is taxed by a government which he deems to be incompetent and injust.

One day a friend mentions to Mark that there are large areas in the Antarctic wilderness where no government influence is present. Mark is then left with a choice. He can either pay for the travel costs (Mark is very wealthy) and live a life free from government or he can choose to continue living with governments that tax him and misallocate what is, in Marks eyes, his money.

Mark chooses to stay put.


 
Example D:

Sam and Mick are co-workers. Mick is offered the opportunity to work in the same office space as Sam where Mick will have access to better facilities that will make his work more productive. However Sam has a personal vendetta against Mick and is liable to make rude comments and act in a dismissive or insulting manner towards Mick, making Mick's work life more stressful.

Mick declines the offer to work in the same office space as Sam.



Example E:

Sally likes Rose and wants to go on a date with her. One day Sally asks Rose if she would like to get coffee with her next saturday.

Rose says yes.

————

All five of these examples present situations in which an actor provides some form of consent or non-consent, in the sense that they agree to co-operate or not co-operate with another actor or proposal that has been offered to them.


Obviously, that is not to say that all five examples are examples of "genuine consent". It would seem that. at the very least, in one or two of the examples consent was obtained by nefarious and immoral means that would, depending on your moral outlook, invalidate the given consent.


The tricky question is what is genuine consent and when does it happen?

Often, especially when it comes to sex, genuine consent is characterised as "enthusiastic and informed consent" but I do wonder how far the addition of "enthusiasm" really gets us.

I mean sure in the bedroom if someone is not enthusiastic about the sex which their partner aims to initiate with them then that is a pause for concern, but outside of the bedroom how realistic is it to equate legitimate consent with enthusiasm?


Surely in an economic context, or even of the context of house-hold chores, it's reasonable to presume there are some arrangements which I can legitimately consent to despite not being enthusiastic about their undertaking. I can agree with flat-mates to hoover the lounge on a sunday, mop the kitchen on a wednesday and not play music without headphones after 10pm without actually enthusiastically wanting to do any of those things.


So what are the factors that go into making consent genuine outside of enthusiasm?
Well what seems to be important when judging the five cases above is context: Is there a threat of violence? What penalties will the agent incur if they do not consent? Are the penalties proportionate/reasonable?

The individual speech of act of consent, the mere utterance of "I agree" or "I will", is morally neutral. We can't discern whether or not that act of consent is respectable until we are given information about the context in which it was uttered.  


That is not to say that consent isn't important. Even as a utilitarian I hold to the idea that providing people with the ability to choose (or consent) between various options is the best if not most pragmatic method available to facilitate other peoples happiness.


All of this is just to point to the problem with taking a prima facie approach to consent as it relates to justice. Just social and political relations include consent. To say that a just world is a world in which we all consent to the institutions that affect our lives seems fairly straightforward. However the specification of what kinds of economic, political and social contexts are capable of giving sufficient grounds to consent requires a great deal more theorising.

Poetry, You Have One Last Chance!

In many ways I feel somewhat foolish writing this. Not long ago I was happily harping away about the heady heights of ethical hedonism and why it does not require us to sacrifice intellectual pursuits. Now having been recently reminded of poetry, I'm beginning to have second thoughts.

Whenever I read an essay and see vagueness in the concepts being employed, my philosophical training assumes the worst. For the most part of my intellectual growth I have considered vagueness to be the antithesis of carefulness; it was drilled into me by lecturers and tutors alike that the only time you write vaguely is when you are talking nonsense.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm trying to figure out exactly what it is about poetry that I don't get and I'm trying to provide poetry with a face-saving answer because the alternative isn't that nice. If I'm brutally honest, I just don't see the point in poetry. If you want to write with hidden meanings then go join MI6 because your fascination is with espionage, not art. 

The real irony here is that I love minimalism and poetry is supposed to be the monarch of the minimal. Unfortunatly I find that poetry, due to its coy attempts at brevity, often ends up achieving the very opposite effect of minimalism. Instead of saying what needs to be said simply it says what it wants to say shortly and in turn becomes obscurantist, defeating the whole point of minimalism which is to cut through pomp.


However....

I generally intend to approach most activities with the attitude that if someone else can enjoy X then so can I.  

 Accordingly, and in corroboration with my previous resolutions regarding the expansion of my cultural vistas, I will spend some more time reading poetry. I will dutifully force myself to explore the possibility of finding joy in a hitherto un-tapped pleasure and succesfully disrupt the treadmill.

Hopefully with some discipline and effort I will break through to the other side where I can love poetry, care for it or at least think it worthwhile. Maybe Stockholm syndrome will win out or maybe I'll be left in the cold wondering why everyone keeps changing the line they are on mid-word....

Poetry is a dying medium, so far I have been staunchly in favour of putting it out of its misery by shooting it in the face with a cannon filled with manure... it has one last chance to convince me otherwise.

Schopenhauer, Sushi and Choice

Permit for now the metaphysical absurdities contained below but I think it will suffice as an entertaining in-road to today's topic.

Consider the following:
1. I am Cut-Throat and Clueless.
2. Cut-Throat and Clueless has the property of loving sushi.

3. If Cut-Throat and Clueless lived in 1920's England would Cut-Throat and Clueless like sushi?

Again, to those of you who deal primarily in modal realism and temporally located identity problems I beg of you to stay your hands from the comments section. This doesn't need to end the way that you think it should!

Of course I do like sushi but part of the reason I enjoy sushi is that I tried it in the year of 2010 and discovered that I loved it. Up until that fateful day when my train home was delayed and I decided to pop into a "Yo! Sushi" Restaurant, I had no real opinion on it other than it was some sort of japanese food using fish and rice.

One way to approach the question of whether I would like Sushi while living in 1920's England is to take a hard nominalist approach and just say that I cannot be the same person as someone existing in 1920's England; I possess no abstract identity that can be properly carried across parallel universes and therefore the question is pointless.

Now I am sure that if I were better educated on the topic and more motivated to write about meta-physics then all sorts of interesting things could be said here; however that is not the case so I will drop this line of thought here and leave with a take away:

"I would not like Sushi if I lived in 1920's England because I would have no idea what Sushi is. Even if I knew what sushi was I wouldn't be able to form a desire for it as no one will offer it to me."

Let's elucidate further....

Schopenhauer in his essay "On the Freedom of the Will" explores the idea that while humans can be free to pursue what they want, they cannot choose what they want in the first place. The question then becomes "What then is it that decides what I want in the first place?".

Now, there are a whole host of different answers to this question, with varying levels of saliency. Biology, for example, would be one factor to consider but what I want to discuss is more rooted in our environment. 

By environment I'm not necessarily talking about nurture but about the broader possibilities and experiences that are offered to us as a result of our material conditions. That is to say that while you may want a whole host of things you can only demonstrate a desire, in the measurable economic sense, for what is materially possible for you to consume or attain.

It's a combination of factors that decide whether or not a product, in the concrete sense, is desired by consumers. 

We all want jet-packs, presumably also ones that are safe, but since they are neither available, or at least not to everyone, we don't go around actively desiring jet-packs. We have an abstract want for them but no real measurable desire that can be observed in our consumer behaviours. If you just looked at what people bought you would have no idea as to whether or not designing recreational jet-packs was worthwhile or something that people would like to see happen. Hell, you might not be able to tell even once you started asking people considering all the potentially unforeseen consequences of a jet-pack based society.

In the context of parentalism in the market place I think this influence that the market has on shaping our choices is very important to acknowledge. Putting aside the unfortunate "parental" connotations of parentalism there is a huge potential for re-imagining human freedom by recognising the way in which an environment shapes our choices.

Another example:

While studying in Sweden I ate McDonalds almost every day. In a crude fashion one might come to the conclusion that that means I was perfectly happy eating McDonalds*. In truth the reason I managed to sample almost every meal offered by Mr Ronald McDonald was not out of loyalty to the brand but because I often worked late into the night and the only place serving food at 4am was the 24/7 McDonalds that I passed everynight on my walk home. 

In many ways if I could click my fingers and swap the McDonalds with a 24/7 Salad bar I would; I knew that McDonalds was killing me and at one point it even put me in hospital after sending my stomach acidity sky-rocketing (another story for another day). 

Even if I wouldn't click my fingers at 4 in the morning while craving calories I might acknowledge that although 4am me will want McDonalds, I shouldn't be allowed to have it and indeed both future hopstial-bed-ridden me and current me want to stop him from having McDonalds.

The choices we make in life are not just the product of our innate desires. They are also shaped and directed by what products are on offer and our flawed perceptions of them**.

A big part of launching a new brand of "whatever" isn't just proving that it satisfies a want but in convincing prospective buyers that they want it in the first place. This is more often than not done by controlling the consumers exposure to it in such a way that its presence becomes ubiquitus and then desirable.

  

Parentalism often gets a bad rap as the tool of the nanny state. It's hallmark seems to be removing our right to choose as a part of interventions dreamed up by faceless bureaucracies. I would suggest alternatively that this notion of acknowledging the effects of accessibility and marketing on who we are and what we choose presents a whole new radical way of thinking about choice. 

Advocating for some form of parentalism, though maybe not one that is exercised through the authority of the state, could offer a whole new host of freedoms including "the freedom to choose what you want to choose".

* Incidently ,there is nothing more morbidly entertaining than catching yourself chewing over the evils of global capitalism with a Big-Mac between your jaws.

** I swear there is no better counter-argument to the assertion that markets naturally weed out bad products than pointing to the existence of homeopathy.

Defending Dionysus: The Hedonic Treadmill. Part II of II.

I have started so I will finish but first I will give a short recap so that people don't have to skip over to part one of this little literary duet for context.

The driving point of "Defending Dionysus" is that hedonism is not necessarily something which we should shy away from and the idea that it degrades our humanity is largely a claim made from a position of hysteria. Someone skilfully pursuing hedonism has very little incentive to avoid winding up in hospital having their stomach pumped, as per the worries of the epicureans, and every incentive to practise "higher" arts as per the worries of... well... snobs.

So I knew when I wrote part one that I would have some more thoughts on this topic, and what do you know? I did.

There is one issue regarding hedonism that has been tumbling around in my brain or at least jogging around; I am referring to, of course, the hedonic treadmill.

The hedonic treadmill describes a psychological process in which a person adapts to changes in their overall wellbeing establishing a general baseline of happiness that all other experiences are measured by. If you have heard of the hedonic treadmill then you will have no doubt heard of the study conducted by Brickman et al on Lottery winners. The study found that after winning the lottery, in the long run, happiness did not increase; there was a brief spike after which the winners acclimatised and were no longer perceivably any more happy than people who had never won the lottery.

This would seem to raise the question:

If lottery winners have money and the ability to satisfy their desires better, why aren't they happier? What does this mean for hedonism?

It means that simply being capable of satisfying desires is not necessarily the goal of a skilful hedonist. It may be that a skilful hedonist is a hedonist that is aware of the hedonic treadmill and in turn looks to pursue eudemonia not by pursuing a constant maximisation of pleasure but by pursuing the right pleasures in the right doses.

In fact the idea of "maximising pleasure" may be misleading. After all, humans long for a number of qualitatively different pleasures. These pleasures cannot be easily compared or tallied up using a single over-arching metric and so being a good hedonist may indeed involve taking advantage of different kinds of pleasure to offset the treadmill.

Variety is the spice of life and by changing between pleasures it may, and of course this is all speculation at this point until the evidence is in,  be possible to seek out and switch between pleasures that our minds have not become accustomed to and thereby escape the monotony of a "baseline level of happiness".

So, why discuss hedonism anyway?

 Is it because I believe hedonism, on its own, can function as a moral system? No.

Do I think practising a skilful form of hedonism may actually lead to a good life? Maybe.

The more germane reason for writing these pieces has its roots in my more existential and physicalist streaks. If we are going to construct a theory that can provide a comprehensive explanation of what it is that humans live for in a godless, spiritless universe then it is going to have to be suitably secular in its groundings. If we do find a sober and suitably atheist account of purpose it is going to have to be rooted in our most basic biological motives which are to seek pleasure and avoid pain.*

*For those of you about to claim that reproduction is our prime motivator I refer you to this little piece on sex. ->   http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201204/why-do-we-have-sex

While reproduction is the "goal" of all biological entities, for humans at least, pleasure takes precedent when it comes to our actual motives (even when pleasure is weighed against reproductive goals). That being said the attached article distinguishes between sexual pleasure and comfort/attachment which I don't think can count as a criticism of my position as long as we aknowledge that comfort is a form of pleasure.