Ape Lives Matter

Deuteronomy Blues*

The events in Paris last Friday have prompted me to write some thoughts on the so-called New Atheists . I should state at the outset that i find their views for the most part, compatible with my own, and will not waste space here discussing that part. I will rather concentrate on a couple of the points where i differ in my worldview.

"Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness."

Richard Dawkins

"Natural selection will not remove ignorance from future generations."

Richard Dawkins

"While liberals are leery of religious fundamentalism in general, they consistently imagine that all religions at their core teach the same thing and teach it equally well. This is one of the many delusions borne of political correctness."

Sam Harris

"Moderates want their faith respected. They don't want faith itself criticized, and yet faith itself is what is bringing us all this - this lunacy.

Sam Harris

I guess what I object to in the New Atheism, or at least in its prime spokespeople, is their fervor

 Given the scientific background present to its most published proponents, this surprises me. I would wager that many who agree with them, would also think it archaic to hold the position that being gay is learned, not genetic. So their apparent lack concern about the biological origin of what they decry, and how difficult it would be to eradicate "religion", troubles me. That, with their apparent inability to see anything good in the liberal/moderate people of faith, is a little to absolutist for me.

As i have written about before, religion and spirituality is are in the essential sense, biologically based, and the actual expression by a phenotype is the result of learning. It is also well supported that the belief in an unseen powerful being is a cultural/human universal, which denotes an instinct.

Given that the tendency towards religion/spirituality is in the wetware, and the early environment plays the biggest role in the type of later belief (not unlike the often related in behaving badly, socially obligate boundary condition of pseudospeciation) any change ultimately has to be based upon:

• Changes made in the social environment of newbies
• Geared to alter, over a very long period of time, sexual selection patterns

We also know the the following conditions tend over time, to liberalize people's religious views, and in many cases, surpress them:

• Abundant food
• Comfortable shelter
• Personal safety
• Absence of violence in daily life
• Perception that one's children are safe, fed, happy 

And then availability of education, especially that which includes science and critical thinking.

I define behavior, as a relationship between a phenotype and its environment, that is in a constant state of change. I would posit the natural selection can , in a given world line end religion / spirituality. But it would require very different social conditions and a long expanse of time to do so. Given the economic and status socially obligate boundary conditions, that aint't happening any time soon on ths planet.

So New Atheists, why beat up on the liberal/moderate faithful so much? 

I agree that they are philosophical enablers of the white supremacy wackos, abortion clinic bombers, jihadists, West Bank Settlers, etc. I agree that the liberal folks of faith are the result of the principles of the Enlightenment and the advance of science being internalized, and the resulting selective reading / or ignoring of their own scriptures.

I have read the scriptures of all the Abrahamic faiths. Islam is not unique in the dangerous scripture content department. I also agree that the current right-wing Islamists are a cultural clusterfuck. But I thank the gods ( :) ) that for example, that most Christians and their Mormon spin-offs are not the "holy warrior" Christians of the middle ages through the Thirty Years War, or the ones that invaded the Western Hemisphere.  Daesh had nothing on them.

Can you imagine some flavor of each of Abrahamic religions spawning  an Daesh equivalent? There is stuff in the scriptures of choice of the people of faith around me that could support it, but for what the New Atheists call hypocrisy, and I prefer to think of my neighbor's abandonment of worshiping the hairy thunderer for the cosmic muffin, and have a least a little of a sense of humor.

Can you imagine the Thirty Years War with modern chemical weapons available?  I am glad my Christian neighbors are for the most part, housebroken. As Jesus said, "With God all things are possible." History is in part a story of how belief makes possible horrendous atrocities.  It is clear that with belief in God, the worst behavior is possible, and is periodically probable.

"... first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."                            Matthew 7:5

The really dangerous part of revealed or fath based religions is actually not unique to religion. That part is teleological thinking. Each of the Abrahamic faiths claim in their scripture at least, to have an exclusive lock on the true purpose or goal of the whole enchilada. That makes for a troubled voyage in calm weather. 

But, the teleologic fallacy has appeared outside of religion and has spawned some pretty impressive body counts. How about Maxist- Leninism under Stalin?1

Teleology kills.

If you base your view of reality on one ultimate purpose, and another group bases theirs on a different one, (even if they differ only slightly in their respective contingent altruism tags), in a perceived condition of resource/energy scarcity, you can get pseudospeciation to birth behaviors which can require a stock pile of body bags and disinfectant. 

So stop calling out and dissing the moderate/liberal faithful. Do you actually want the laity to really look at all their scriptures? If they start doing that after years of belief, human nature being what it is; get ready to be burned alive. 

Right now, all the religions, well with the possible exception of one 2, are teleological.

Sit on your tongue and encourage their good works. With luck, those works will , with the passage of time and a continued scientific enterprise help build a future worth having sola, a very distant future without fide.

*"And the Lord our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain: Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took. "                                           

King James Bible Deuteronomy 2: 33-35

1 Nazism was a teleological philosophy but its historically famous leaders also has a spiritual streak, (the belief in a literal battle between the Volksgeists in a Wagnerian like realm of struggle). But both the Nazis and Stalinism rejected evolution by natural selection, since it is not telological, and their belief systems were (master race/eventual creation of communism, respectfully). They both favored Lamarckism .

2   

Some see Buddhism in its core, as telling people to be autotelic, and many
would label its core as non-teleological. But it too has spawned occasional teleogenic monsters .

Words, North, and Glenn Gould

The Idea of North
http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2110370208 

See other word pieces by Glenn Gould towards bottom of page.

Well Put

On Wisconsin

My state legislature in this session and since early 2011 has been essentially eliminating many policies and laws that were firsts in the United States. This has been the final stage in a wholesale shift from Wisconsin tradition and  early Republican, progressive values.

 Some critics of Governor Walker and the current state government often look at this process as going backwards, and returning to the past. I do not agree. 

I think Wisconsin is following its traditional role in the United States. Wisconsin is still on the cutting edge (no pun intended, some would say the bleeding edge) of a transition that is afoot in the United States as a whole.
As the founders and their mentors (Aristotle, Cicero, Cincinnatus, Montesquieu, etc.) believed, a republic is in a historical sense, a fragile creature, dependent upon certain conditions. History teaches that absent those conditions, it transitions.
The Republic of the United States was well on its course of transition before i was born. Humorously though, it still maintains the trappings and solemn words of its youth, much as the Romans retained the trappings of their august republic until the very end of the empire. But i digress.

.

It is not news anymore that the particular form we transitioned to was the oligarchic form called a Plutocracy. But Wisconsin is plowing the road towards a philosophical destination fit for the form and our time, Neo-Fuedalism .

The literature on the subject neo-fueldalism is in its nascent stages  (here is a fun example  and another ), and, here is a Google Scholar search string .
So, Wisconsin is in the forefront of innovation, you may not like the privatization of "public" education, parks etc. Wake up and smell the market opportunities bucko.  

Mooom, Daaaad! But that not Fair!

The recent study on the "important" families, those of  "quality" (as they used to say before our revolution), and the spending on investment in presidential candidates, made me think of the early years of Saturday Night Live. I cannot really write dialogue, but here is a skit idea. Maybe you can flesh it out.

Setting: A nice mansion "cabin" high in the French alps.
Time: The afternoon of American Thanksgiving, dinner time.
People: A mother and father with their son and daughter have just sat down to eat, servants waiting on them.
Cast:
Chevy Chase,  father
Jane Curtin, Mother 
Gilda Radner, Daughter
Bill Murray, Son

Waiters: Laraine Newman. Garrett Morris, and that week's music guest, Patti Smith)

From the beginning to the end of the skit, the Son's is ignored by all, while he spends all his attention in a vigorous interaction with a game on his smart phone.

Mother to Daughter: Dear, what do you want for Christmas this year?
Daughter: I want my own president!
Mother and father chuckle and say what do you really want?
Daughter: I WANT A PRESIDENT! AND HE WILL BE JUST MINE AND YOU CAN'T TELL HIM WHAT TO DO!
Mother: What would you ever do with a president?
Daughter: HE WOULD DO ANYTHING I ASKED HIM TO DO. First he would make sure that where ever i looked, i saw ponies, and...ah unicorns!
Father: Sweetly, you know that it is very hard to get a president. We have to work with other families, for a couple years for to get one.
Daughter: THAT NOT FAIR! YOU AND MOMMY ALWAYS GET YOUR OWN PRESIDENT WHEN YOU WANT ONE!...

Take it from there...

No Trigger Warning

My favorite trigger warning

A follow up question about behavior if SB 338 passes

A reader of my previous post emailed me with a question. 

She said she likes to go to a bar in the town she lives in for happy hour after work. But during the annual recreational deer killing season, it fills up with "hunters" .She asked if she should just stay away from that bar for the season, being that if she went, she would be "maintaining a proximity"?

Good question. 

My suggestion would be to just not go in, out of respect for these sensitive souls. 
Other cultures have similar rules. Just consider that bar a "Zenana "of sorts. In Islamic Culture in some parts of South Asia there is a place reserved for the women of the household only. The literal meaning of the word zenana is "of the women" or "pertaining to women". The safest route is maybe to think of it like that.

Averting my eyes at the necessary moment*

A friend called me this a.m. and told me a story that i thought was a joke. But darned if it was not a joke. It was about a bill that had been introduced into the Wisconsin Legislature. I guess when your state's government has fallen to the hands it has, well, you really should not assume something is a joke, no matter how Onioneqsue it may be.

     2015 Wisconsin Senate Bill 338 has been introduced to amend Wis. Stats. 29.083 which makes it a crime to  Interfere with hunting, fishing or trapping.      SB 338 states in part: 

(from that portion of the bill entitled, Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau)

"The bill also expands the types of conduct prohibited to include  ...maintaining a visual or physical proximity to the person, approaching or confronting the person, or photographing the person."

(person means hunter/fisher).

Granted, its passage with that wording while comical, is unlikely, due to the language being unconstitutionally overbroad;

"Overbreadth is closely related to vagueness; if a prohibition is expressed in a way that is too unclear for a person to reasonably know whether or not their conduct falls within the law, then to avoid the risk of legal consequences they often stay far away from anything that could possibly fit the uncertain wording of the law. The law's effects are thereby far broader than intended or than the U.S. Constitution permits, and hence the law is overbroad." Wikipedia

But i digress.

The first thing i thought of when i read the language was actually, traveling in the more conservative areas of the Mideast. 

"maintaining a visual or physical proximity to the person, approaching or confronting the person, or photographing the person"?! WTF?

  Does that mean i cannot look at a hunter, or if one comes with in my field of view, i need to avert my eyes, look away or leave the area? 

 Is this some kind of cultural sensitivity thing? Kind of like the not looking at women in the Mideast. True, people who kill for recreation are such sensitive souls. But geez. Blaze orange = Burka?

So if this passes i guess to be on the safe side, we should treat hunters, trappers and fishing people at least like etiquette in some Muslim countries dictates we treat Muslim women in public, right?

 So here are a few basic things to remember, that i learned as a sprout, if 2015 SB 338 passes. People from other states or countries traveling to Wisconsin should be warned about this. For example:

Caution Traveler

You are entering the State of Wisconsin during a season when people are allowed to kill animals for recreation. You should treat these people in public, in a manner similar to how you would interact with women in public, if you are a unrelated man, in conservative Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. 

We recommend receiving special training since recognizing recreational killers in Wisconsin can be difficult, and their activity, and a state of serenity for them is guaranteed by law.

If you are in Wisconsin in the Autumn or Winter, it is somewhat easier at least as to those killing land animals, since they my law must wear specially colored garments, often referred to as "blaze orange". So here is some general advice for autumn travel in Wisconsin, to avoid prosecution under state law.

1. They like to be referred to as "hunters".

2. If you see one look away.

3. Do not talk to one. If it is an emergency, or your job requires you to talk to one, avoid eye contact, and speak to them by directing your statements to the nearest other person near them not wearing orange.

4. Unlike women in the Muslim countries mentioned, they customarily drive and many consume alcohol. The latter is done preparatory and following the "hunt" that is protected by law. So, if you see a vehicle with people in it in blaze orange, do not stare, but pay careful attention to your driving behavior. Always give them right of way, so your normal driving behavior is not mistaken as improper and therefore, harassment punishable by law.

5. It is perfectly legal for a "hunter" to initiate conversation, stare at you, and within normal social boundaries, "confront you". If this occurs, avert your eyes, look down, and lower your voice, and follow #3 above.

One question often asked, is if a "hunter" enters a room, is the best thing just to leave because of the law. I would suggest that you do what you feel is necessary for you own ability to comply with the law at that point. But if you do suddenly decide to leave, you do not want to have others think that by your leaving you are harassing the recreational killer by implying you do not approve of their activities. So as you leave, we suggest you voice in English, "I hope the hunt is going well."

*Averting my eyes at the necessary moment (the title comes from a line in this film.

Speculations of a Spectator at the Blame Game

"Scapegoating (from the verb "to scapegoat") is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame as a scapegoat..."

"A medical definition of scapegoating is:

"Process in which the mechanisms of projection or displacement are utilized in focusing feelings of aggression,hostility, frustration, etc., upon another individual or group; the amount of blame being unwarranted."

Scapegoating is a tactic often employed to characterize an entire group of individuals according to the unethical or immoral conduct of a small number of individuals belonging to that group. Scapegoating relates to guilt by association and stereotyping."

"The concept comes originally from Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert with the sins of the community. Other ancient societies had similar practices."

We in the U.S. are fully into scapegoating season,* (or the powerless version). While driving to work today i listened to brief mention on the "news" of our Governor's interest in the destruction of the Government Accountablity Office and his support for bills to essentially remove all remaining restrictions on campaign contributions in Kochistan (the state formally known as Wisconsin). 

That and a gestalt of my country's present world line, made me wonder upon the following query:

When the GOP &/or Dominionists &/or 1% &/or etc. get to that Jennifer Government reality they so pine for, and the life experience/style of the vast majority of people still sucks, who will their blame the problems on?

They could of course keep blaming the same and tie it to creating work camps etc. A common historical direction once you go down this route.

I kind of consider at this point that Atwoodian creation:

"CorpSeCorps is the brand name of the Corporation Security Corps, a private security firm that assumes the respondsibilities of the state in a libertarian society in Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Year of the Flood, ...

(actually, they are a prominient player in the fist novel of hers in this series, Oryx & Crake -this writer) 

...Notably it assumes those responsibilities which generate licit and illicit streams of income."

http://concord.wikia.com/wiki/CorpSeCorps

What path will be taken, do you think?

If you are interested in this topic, here for your browsing pleasure:

Google Scholar search of "scapegoat"

and

Google Scholar search of "out-group"

*I must add to the salon list:

The poor

Poor women (the descendents of Eve after all :)

teachers

scientists

public employees

Gay people

"Liberals" (whatever that means now)

Socialists (a label for, in our politics, an empty set)

and... 

Lynn Margulis & Dorion Sagan, interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-KHzsvomWc

Travesty in Kentucky

Contrary to the current media circus, County Clerk Kim Davis's refusal to issue a wedding license is not a matter of principle nor religious freedom. It is a well publicized example of abandonment of an oath of office and malfeasance of a public official. 

Her county government nor her office have 1st Amendment rights. The people of her county do. The correct behavior by a county clerk anywhere my country, when faced with being compelled by law to act in a manner contrary to her personal conscience, and if unwilling to comply, is to resign the office.  Period. 

Upon relinquishing the burden of office, Davis would be no longer under the duty of her oath and position, and could echo to the media hills the reason for her resignation. Of course, the correct, honorable and traditional path would not continue her 15 minutes of fame, launching her onto the GOP stage, at least as an extra.

Any elected public official, or aspirant to that status, who does not agree with the above, is unworthy of public office, and nothing more than an opportunistic panderer and lickspittle.

Misogyny, Eve and Khadija bint Khuwayl

Most readers are familiar with the role played by the concept of original sin and the view of Eve in the history of Christian culture as it relates to Misogyny in "western" culture.

“The formalized doctrine of original sin was first developed in the 2nd-century by Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons, in his struggle against Gnosticism.  Irenaeus contrasted their doctrine with the view that the Fall was a step in the wrong direction by Adam, with whom, Irenaeus believed, his descendants had some solidarity or identity.  Irenaeus believed that Adam's sin had grave consequences for humanity, that it is the source of human sinfulness, mortality and enslavement to sin, and that all human beings participate in his sin and share his guilt” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

This concept would be tied to Eve's actions by Augustine, among others and well, the rest is literally history. 

The doctrine is not an element of mainstream Judiasm, wherein Adam and Eve’s punishment is tangible and immediate, including the loss of immortality for themselves and their descendants, having to work for a living, painful childbirth, fear of snakes, etc..

Islam also does not have original sin as an element. In Islam, the burden of a sin is born only by the sinner. But wait, there is more...

Khadija bint Khuwaylid

She was a 40 year old widow who became the young Prophet Muhammad's first wife and the first convert to Islam.

The tradition in many arab speaking Moslem countries of the laity having the Koran read to them, has given men a real leg up, and their own misogynistic edge.

 “Khadija became a very successful merchant. It is said that when the Quraysh's trade caravans gathered to embark upon their summer journey to Syria or winter journey to Yemen, Khadija's caravan equalled the caravans of all other traders of the Quraysh put together.”…Khadija entrusted a friend named Nafisa to approach Muhammad and ask if he would consider marrying. At first Muhammad was hesitant because he had no money to support a wife. Nafisa then asked if he would consider marriage to a woman who had the means to provide for herself. Muhammad agreed to meet with Khadija, and after this meeting they consulted their respective uncles. The uncles agreed to the marriage, and Muhammad's uncles accompanied him to make a formal proposal to Khadija.  It is disputed whether it was only Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib or only Abu Talib or both who accompanied Muhammad on this errand. Khadija's uncle accepted the proposal, and the marriage took place. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadijah_bint_Khuwaylid

Can you imagine a young woman in Afghanistan, who has learned to read, and decides to read a Koran? Talk about a WTF moment! 

strange women lyin’ in ponds dis¬trib¬utin’ swords is no basis for a system of government.*

"In recent years, psychologists have come to understand religion and paranormal belief as resulting, in most people, from simple errors in reasoning...."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-hutson/all-paths-lead-to-magical-thinking_b_3942656.html

Also
" Once you’ve accepted that the brain constructs reality, and
that the brain has evolved like any other organ to help its owner survive
and reproduce, it follows that the brain constructs reality in the
most useful way possible for its owner. The key word here is useful,
which is not to say accurate. The brain doesn’t care so much what’s
really out there; it just needs to stay alive and be replicated, which
might involve telling us a white lie now and again."

http://magicalthinkingbook.com/ 

 

 http://www.jeffsextonwrites.com/?s=magical

*  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOOTKA0aGI0

A Brand of One

 https://nygeek.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/jennifer-government/

"The term branding has long been relegated to companies, but today almost every individual has a personal brand" http://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2014/08/18/7-things-you-can-do-to-build-an-awesome-personal-brand/

What was that called when i was a kid? Personality? Cannot remember. An interesting aspect of the ongoing commodification  of people.

" the blurring of the two entities - or are they even separate? With this sort of language play, a person's "character" is renamed as their "brand". 
An interesting article on the subject:  http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/archives/Commodification/5.2EDavis.pdf

 

http://americanfront.info/2012/06/18/paul-goodman-commodification-in-the-modern-world/

BTW: After reading the Joseph Davis paper (The Commodification of Self ) I think it may in the first 1/3 of the paper, have provided the best answer to the question; how did my counter-culture generation turn into the Generation of Swine?

Essentially, you take the 60's "rebellion" and leave its participants imbedded within the Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition...(that term is in my  "book", linked on the right...

"I am surprised and embarrassed to be part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it."

Hunter Thompson

  Well, at least i am not surprised anymore...

Thinking out loud about the use of the word “spirituality”

Courtesy of the folks at:

http://www.nerduprising.co/dotgrid/12

I am wrestling with my use of the term “spirituality”, as I use it in my personal writing, such as

In Air Water Ground (see link to document in the side bar), and in particular; and the post Human Socially Obligate Boundary Conditions and Related Cultural Universals http://airwaterground.blogspot.com/2015/07/human-socially-obligate-boundary.html  And  Regarding the Development and Fitness Value of Spirituality, http://airwaterground.blogspot.com/2015/03/regarding-thedevelopment-and-fitness.html

The definitions of spirituality are wide, varied and unsettled. They range from the the plethora of  “new age” views to the newer secular variants, such as in the writings of  Ursula Goodenough or Sam Harris .

The term religion is I think, much simpler to define. My take on that is that it:

Is a term denoting a group of individuals

That group self identifies around a spiritual schema

Exhibits expression of the Pseudospeciation Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (PSOBC)

Exhibits expression of the Vertical Dominance Hierarchy Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (VSOBC)

I am wondering if I should substitute for spirituality a term such as superstition or supernatural. This would thereby exclude / clarify that the secular spirituality concepts such as those expressed by Ursula Goodenough /Sam Harris are not included.

My reason for using spirituality as I do is simply, its etymological roots.  Which for my purposes, seems well, appropriate.

“The term spirit means "animating or vital principle in man and animals". It is derived from the Old French espirit which comes from the Latin word spiritus (soul, courage, vigor, breath) and is related to spirare (to breathe). In the Vulgate the Latin word spiritus is used to translate the Greek pneuma and Hebrew ruah.  …The term "spirituality" is derived from Middle French spiritualité, from Late Latin "spiritualitatem" (nominative spiritualitas), which is also derived from Latin spiritualis.”   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality , citations omitted.

Supernatural, given the very existence of the concept, may be a better term for my use? “The supernatural (Medieval Latin: supernātūrālis: supra "above" + naturalis "nature", first used: 1520–30 AD) is that which is not subject to the laws of physics or, more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural citation omitted

Or perhaps superstition? It is perhaps too narrow of a term for my application? “Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality—that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events—such as astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, prophecies, etc., that contradicts natural science.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition