Number 91 : March 1998 |
At the behest of a mob, the Roman authorities crucify Jesus. Accepting defeat gracefully, Jesus forgives his executioners before dying. Fast forward three centuries where the Roman emperor Constantine adopts Christianity in order to keep his armies under control, since most of the soldiers were both Christian and Germanic. Once the emperor has decided and has arranged the various institutions, it does not take long for society to follow, even though it is essentially the same society that killed Christ in the first place (in any case, monotheisms seem much more fitting to the imperialist mentality than polytheisms; it legitimises the centralisation of authority. There is a Socratic dialogue at the beginning of 'The Last Days of Socrates' which highlights the difficulty of defining virtue when there are many gods). Another couple of centuries later Rome is sacked by those same Germanic tribes and Christianity is carried off as part of the booty. With further nurturing by the Roman Catholic Church, including such cynical acts of power-mongering as the Donation of Constantine, Christianity becomes the dominant religion of the Western world and the Ten Commandments becomes the basis of its morality. (For those fans of the Ten Commandments I would like to pose a multiple choice question. When Moses came down from the mount and found all those people worshipping the Golden Calf did he :-
First of all in answer to Rick Street( C90/29.2 ), does the above seem much like an evolution either of society or morality? If by evolution you mean adapting to new circumstances then yes. If you mean improvement then no. The social and moral systems that we find ourselves in are the result of historical accident; there are no evolutionary or dialectical processes involved, only the long-term effects of decisions by those in power. The lion and wildebeest analogy, which seemed rather tenuous to me in the first place, I have concluded to be totally unsound.
Rick Street goes on to say (also in C90/29.2 ) "an ethical system which focuses on the perfection of the individual ... (has) to rely on a set of rules to define right and wrong actions". On the contrary, most of the prescriptive ethical systems are also objectivist, while the descriptive ethical systems are usually subjectivist. My personal ethical system is basically existentialist.
Michael Nisbet says (in C90/12.1 ) "It is not necessarily the conscious purpose of religion to promote social order". I have written pages arguing that this is entirely the purpose of religion, but it would not be practical to go into them here. I will only say that if you look at how social structure has developed and how concepts of divinity have developed there is a remarkable similarity between them, of which the monotheism/empire equivalence is only one example. Could there be any better training for social order than the antiphonies of religious ceremonies? Isn't the concept of nirvana a mystical version of the commune? I refer anyone credulous enough to believe that the Church has much of anything to do with holiness back to the Donation of Constantine. The two Borgia popes. The Arian, Pelagian, Sabellian, Nestorian and Monophysite heresies. The last two are particularly amusing since they are opposite to each other. Who wants to talk now about the timeless values of religion?
Michael Nisbet also says (in C90/11.2 ) "Individualism is only meaningful within the context of a social system which it seeks to enhance". How does the social system repay those individuals who have enhanced it? Let’s see: Socrates, Jesus, Bruno, Galileo, Darwin... does a pattern seem to emerging yet? Enhancing your social system is a very dangerous (not to mention futile) exercise. While it is possible to improve the standard of living, it seems impossible to improve the standard of those living it.
I would like to make a brief comment on assassination, since there is a sense in which the last named were all assassinated, albeit with the sanction of the establishment and of the people. Galileo avoided the stake by recanting and escaped with confinement for the rest of his life. Darwin never had to cope with the kinds of methods beloved of the Inquisition. For this he has to thank the greater influence of the media. These days it is no longer necessary to go to the trouble to assassinate the person himself, one can merely assassinate their character through the media. Therefore assassination, which was a common political weapon in Renaissance Italy, for example, is simply out of date. One can never overestimate the power of suggestion.
Finally I would like to ask Theo what he means by living 'efficiently’ ( C90/6.2 ). Surely he doesn't mean our use of natural resources which are being consumed at high speed. Eat a few berries, kill the odd passing animal (or human!)... in what way is this mode of living less efficient than ours? Also, your argument seems to be getting very close to the so-called Anthropic Principle - "the universe exists in order for us to observe it".
Couple of last things :-
Dave Botting
Previous Article (in Commensal 90)
Dave : it’s a good idea to respond quickly ... gets you first in the queue in the next edition ! Given the contents of your contribution this time round, are you pining for SceptiSIG, by any chance ?
I thought Rick Street’s wildebeest analogy quite pertinent, but I’ll leave it to him to sort you out on the matter. What do you mean by saying that your personal ethical system is basically existentialist ? Existentialism, and existentialist ethics, hasn’t come up for discussion yet, so maybe you could enlighten us ?
I think you’re too one-sided on the interrelationship between the state & religion. Religions, in general, seem to have developed as counter-cultures because their founding individuals perceived there to be something wrong with their society or its perception of / relationship with God (or the gods). Religions that are, or become, conducive to social order may be adopted by the state, as you demonstrate, but they commence as radical movements, as Christianity did. It may be that the political structure of the current state is used as a picture of the heavenly court (or whatever), or suggests itself to the religious thinker, for lack of imagination, as a pale reflection of the way heaven must be organised. Religions may become the instruments of the state, as you suggest, but radicals are always arising to call the faithful back to the faith’s roots.
Your comments on holiness in the church are also one-sided, and also more at home in SceptiSIG than PDG. It’s no good just selecting the blackest moments. What’s your objection to the heresies you mention. The fact that they were accompanied by an unseemly rumpus, or the fact that Christians disagreed ? From a philosophical viewpoint, what are these timeless values of religion ? There’s much disagreement here, even within Christianity, and (Cardinal) John Henry Newman wrote an influential book on the subject (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine).
On Ayn Rand (courtesy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) :-
(b. Feb. 2, 1905, St. Petersburg, Russia--d. March 6, 1982, New York, N.Y., U.S.), Russian-born American writer who, in novels noted for their commercial success, presented her philosophy of objectivism, which held that all real achievement is the product of individual ability and effort, that laissez-faire capitalism is most congenial to the exercise of talent, and that selfishness is a virtue, altruism a vice. Her reversal of the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic won her a cult of followers.
After graduating from the University of Petrograd (1924), Rand went to the United States in 1926 and was a screenwriter in Hollywood. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1931. The Fountainhead (1943), her first best-selling novel, depicts a highly romanticized architect-hero, a superior individual whose egoism and genius prevail over timid traditionalism and social conformism. The allegorical Atlas Shrugged (1957), another best-seller, combines science fiction and political message in telling of an anticollectivist strike called by the management of U.S. big industry, a company of attractive, self-made men. Rand also wrote a number of nonfiction works expounding her beliefs, such as For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1961), and she edited two journals propounding her ideas, The Objectivist (1962-71) and The Ayn Rand Letter (1971-76).
Universal egoism is based on the principle "Everyone should do what is in her or his own interests." This principle is universalizable, since it contains no reference to any particular individual and it is clearly an ethical principle. Others may be disposed to accept it because it appears to offer them the surest possible way of furthering their own interests. Accordingly, this form of egoism is from time to time seized upon by some popular writer who proclaims it the obvious answer to all our ills and has no difficulty finding agreement from a segment of the general public. The U.S. writer Ayn Rand is perhaps the best 20th-century example. Rand's version of egoism is expounded in the novel Atlas Shrugged (1957) by her hero, John Galt, and in The Virtue of Selfishness (1965), a collection of her essays. It is a confusing mixture of appeals to self-interest and suggestions that everyone will benefit from the liberation of the creative energy that will flow from unfettered self-interest. Overlaying all this is the idea that true self-interest cannot be served by stealing, cheating, or similarly antisocial conduct.
There are, of course, numerous Web sites referring to or dedicated to Ayn Rand.
One final quibble - I think that some of our readers might find your title unnecessarily offensive.
Theo