CCIV - the nature of evil

I was just thinking to myself today, having kind of allowed myself a lull in between work, that the number one evil in life was boredom. But upon a moment's reflection I thought, no, the number one evil must be temptation, so that the number two evil must be boredom.

I hate being bored. I hate it with a passion. I take the malaise of being bored very personally. But I suppose doing evil is worse. So if temptation flows from desire, then if one does not desire, perhaps one can avoid evil.

What is evil? I think the logical or theoretical definition of evil might be, the opposite of good. And of course, the corresponding definition of good is the opposite of evil. This might not take us very far but it does not seem to me a deficient understanding of these concepts. If we use the terms "good" and "evil" purely as descriptions of fact or opinion, i.e. in their linguistic sense, as adjectives, then yes, they are opposites of each other. However if we want to use them in their thick sense, as in a value-laden judgment of something, well, perhaps something more is needed than this sort of circularity.

After some deliberation I thought, well, evil is the infringement of some inherent (or indivisible) necessary element of human life or flourishing, without appeal to a universal maxim. There's a bit of Hart's "minimum content" theory (which of course has its roots in natural law, re Fuller and Finnis) and the second proviso has a lot of Kant's "categorical imperative". It's also a little open-ended, in so far as it's not specifically fixed to human agency (at least as far as the first proviso goes). Whether this is correct or not, well, we shall see.

As far as dictionaries go, evil comes from yfele in ye Olde English and means immoral, wicked or harmful. But that does not necessarily take us much farther than my own short definition. Relatedly, malum is the Latin cousin of the word and basically represents the same idea, if with a little less sinister connotations.

Take then my long definition. It would appear to include forces of Nature, wouldn't it? So if a meteorite smashes into and annihilates a part of the Earth, that would be evil? If a toad dies and poisons a well used by a village, would that be evil? But then, could Nature be capable of having an evil nature, or put more accurately, are the acts of Nature properly to be described as being good or evil? How far can we, collectively taking the natural movements of individual ants, trees and stars, anthropomorphise Nature? Is Nature a sort of "being" insofar as certain types of physical consequences can be conveniently ascribed to it where beyond the power of man? You know, once upon a time, cows were put to death for goring men - over time, it was the owners of these cattle that were made to compensate victims where they had been negligent in herding. But let's leave aside acts of Nature - it benefits our analysis little to label such acts as being good or evil. I suppose also that for us and for our evolutionary ancestors who have been weaned for millenia on the fantastical conditions of this earth, gravity, nuclear forces, the sun's fusion, the chemical properties of oxygen and nitrogen, etc., it seems a little incongruous to begrudge the universe a meteorite or two. After all, it is generally perceived that the great reptiles would still roam the earth were it not for one or two of those types of extinction event.

Let me refine my definition thus: evil is the infringement of some inherent (or indivisible) necessary element of human life or flourishing, without appeal to a universal maxim, provided that there exists a causal nexus between the infringement and the agency of some moral being.

But perhaps this misses attempts. So for example a person might attempt to injure another by repeatedly wishing bad consequences to be visited on him, and believing that wishes come true. So the definition should include attempts, whether workable or not. Of course, for a man to pray for the deliverance of his enemies into his hands is not necessarily evil, depending on the sort of holy writings he subscribes to. Not to say that everything should properly be viewed as being relativistic, but I think as far as this analysis goes we should only properly allow appeals to universal maxims. Anyway for now it suffices to take the word "infringement" as being shorthand for "infringement (or attempted infringement)".

What then is a "universal maxim"? I don't even know if Kant ever had such a list. For Kant, he proscribed that one should only do that which one could, at the same time, will it a universal maxim. So, for example, love your parents if it is universally a maxim that one should love one's own parents. Don't kick the cat if it is not universally a maxim that one should kick cats, or if somewhere out there someone might disapprove of cat kicking behaviour. Kant also went on to say that one should always treat humanity, whether your own or that of others, as an end in itself, and not only as a means to an end. This is interesting, if a little difficult to pin down precisely. Perhaps as an example, if one happened to have slaves for labour, one should imagine that those individuals might benefit from being paid for their labour.

So let's say there is a plot of land and someone wants to hire a labourer for fair wages. Two such labourers for hire turn up. Is it evil not to find some way to hire both? For in hiring only one, we would necessarily be denying the other the benefit of pay. While we do not deny him the possibility of finding alternative labour, let us assume that there is no other means of self-provision available. Would it then be evil? Well, I don't think so. I think in this case we can appeal to a universal maxim, which is this: it is fair for men to compete, within legal bounds, for resources in a free, egalitarian and competitive society.

What about omissions? Should I, seeing a child floundering in a pool of water, reach out a hand to right the child? Perhaps I should, but I think the universal maxim in this case would probably have an element of reasonableness. If there were two thousand such children within a hundred kilometers of me I could not possibly be expected to help them all. So here we find echoes of the Atkin's neighbour principle.

Should then all evil, according to this definition, be avoided? What about an argument for efficiency? Suppose pee splashing outside the urinal is evil - it forces one to clean the floor, which is definitely an infringement along the lines postulated above (and even though it is probably a negative externality in so far as generally the hired cleaner does the cleaning). But can one always pee cleanly within the urinal? From my own anecdotal (but substantial) experience, I rather doubt it. So it is generally efficient to use the urinal standing up and going full blast, even if it results in say 0.05% of all discharge ending up outside of the urinal. Then there must be a utilitarian argument for the universal maxim, which might be posited as this: One should not avoid evil where it is extremely inefficient to do so. But that seems to offend the senses in a quite primary way: shouldn't that be exactly when evil should be avoided, i.e. when it is the most inconvenient? And also, who gets to decide on the balance of cost of evil vs cost of avoidance? Does this not then bring on the spectre of well, option A which kills 1 and option B which causes the death of 2?

Let's discuss that last part for a minute. If we were compelled to take the lesser of two evils, should we still be considered to have performed an evil act? This perhaps is where the dichotomy of the "justification" and "excuse" theories come into play. If we kill an armed robber in self-defence, we say we are justified. If under gunpoint we allow a robber to take someone else's gold, we say we are excused. Where justified, presumably, we have committed no evil, or perhaps we say we have committed good, which presumably whitewashes the base act. Where excused, conversely, we say that the evil committed was reasonable (if internally consistent) given the circumstances. Does that make sense?

I think this analysis has more or less canvassed what evil is generally thought to be. For my part I think that very often when people do use the word "evil" they tend to base it on or around maxims which are far short of universal, and that sort of looseness gives them free reign to apply the label, and with it, the sorts of dark connotations that the word carries. I think this could be the kind of demagoguery that Orwell warns about in his Politics and the English Language. But you know we are so accustomed to our own societal mores and values that given a certain consensus we often neglect stopping to think about the underlying nature of our ideas and concepts, not to mention I think the possibility of our own personal characteristics. But that would go a couple of steps beyond the scope of the present essay.

CCIII - gotta live your life

I usually don't sleep very well in the days leading up to certain occasions.

As much as I hate the feeling of waking up groggy, it's interesting as well, in the sense that the ideas that seem to take fleeting shape in dreams reveal a little about the things that motivate us.

Of all that remains of the things that I thought of and imagined as a child, of all the child-person that I used to be, my dreams remain the only direct connection to that strange, fearful and colourful world. I often miss that person. I wonder what he would think of the things in this life, what he would say, whether he would laugh, whether he would be afraid.

I have a book by Freud which is titled the Interpretation of Dreams. I didn't manage to finish it when I was about sixteen or seventeen. Writers in the German language, and I'm sure Freud is quite an example, tend to write in very long sentences, and perhaps that is how they think as well. I will give it a shot again, hopefully soon. From what I recall of it, dreams are a kind of reflection, a wish-fulfillment. And so I think there is something to be said about dreams having a certain theme of self-consolation.

I found myself in a supermarket the other day, thinking about things that I could offer to my old friends, guests of my home. I find it a little funny that even today I still don't know what to think of it all.

Patience? I've been single for twelve years, man. I'm a monk. I don't need patience, I'm good.

CCII - in the afternoon glow

I found myself today staring out of the twelfth floor office windows, rehearsing these lines in a soft voice.

I have long ago given up on the idea that I might have joy in the sense of romantic love. The joy that I have comes with ... living with the faith that I have, and in the moments of each day. Surprised by each moment of joy, being wholly alive at each frame, each window, me, in this marvelous world, realising all these marvelous things.

The joy that I had wished for was in some sense narrow, perhaps arbitrary, even self-deceiving.

Look at me now. Twelve years have passed, and my feelings for you haven't changed. They will not change as long as sunshine passes down through warm, summer streets.

I now live in the steadfast belief that for you this joy has become a reality.

I wish I had gone for your wedding, so that instead of believing I could instead know that to be true. I wish the younger me had gone. But all the same I wish and believe that this is true.

And so, goodbye, goodbye forever.

CCI - on to Bedok

Boy, it’s hard work buying a house.

It starts for me with living alone, renting. I liked it, in a way. It’s just like the idea of lodging, which adds an air of workingman respectability to it. A little room, a door, a place to hang your hat; just the basics. Not counting my time in the army, that’s nine years I’ve lived in rented places, and some of those were on borrowed time, from my dad’s old friends. The thing with renting, well, the things with renting, are chiefly that the old stuff I had had to be stored in various places in between, and then there’s all this tedium of moving from one place to another. But this is not very interesting. What I think about the renting situation is that I never thought it beneath me, I never did. There was a song by Albert King, the great blues guitar player. He played a flying V upside down, with the bass strings below. Boy he had thick fingers. There was a song he wrote called Match Box Blues, and in it he goes, could a match box hold my clothes? And so I never thought renting was beneath me. I had way more stuff than a match box could hold, and that’s all there was to it. I think often of my time travelling in Vietnam with some of the army boys when I think about the things we have. Once upon a time my fathers and mothers would have lived just the way they did, and no one could ever think poorly of them. I remember coming back right then and having a hamburg steak with some friends for thirteen dollars and thinking it was just unreal how much things cost. And so I never feel sorry for myself. But the thing I remember most about the places I’ve stayed in are the running routes around the area. Hell I can remember the running routes on holiday, like in Johannesburg when it was so cold I had to breathe through my gloves, and the ryokan we stayed in in Takayama, when I went running with a shirt tied around my head. Of all the ways to get a feel for an area, to get in touch with a place, running is the best. I remember everything, all the thoughts, everything.

The house part, well it also has to do a girl, who I fell in love with. But it didn’t work out, and I think today I might admit, with a little reluctance, that it would have never worked out. The truth about it was that there was often something about me that didn’t quite impress her, all things that I think meant very little when weighed against, well, the sum of their parts. After that I wrote a little more in my book and that became a part that I am still proud of having written. I also started looking for a place again, and that rather quickly turned into Bedok. So you see, there’s that, too. I just needed a little time, that’s all. But fuck it.

Anyway, buying a place takes money. I realised that by having, all things considered, just enough. Any more and I’d be reaching, and I’d have to be lucky with things past completion. As things stand, I’m two pizzas from being pretty much maxed out. It’s a little mind boggling that I can afford quite all these things, a little exhilarating, and certainly, it makes me feel a little small. I get the same kind of feeling when I look at the stars, the grand scheme. I think of the springs from whence my water comes, all the men and women I do not know. I think of the families that lived in this place, the men who imagined this town, and built it. So there is a lot to live for.

Looking for places is usually equal parts interesting and tedious. All neighbourhoods have something interesting about them, and it’s always a little exciting when sifting through stuff and determining value. At the range I had and with the criteria I employed, it was interesting to see that the places offered had pretty high variance. I don’t remember being too impressed with most places, until Bedok. It had just the right everything, and I don’t mean that frivolously. I’ve lived here for two weeks and I still think it’s wonderful. High, windy, in a really amazing estate, accessible from next year onwards, near to two really nice stretches of park and the reservoir, goodness. Anyway I closed the deal and bought the place the next day. I remember wondering if the family had to move. Anyway, it had to be: just bin’ness.

The loans and the lawyers and all that stuff, pretty standard. The renovations I got my guy to help, a pro. In exchange, his expenses and a dinner with his family. The furniture was pretty fun, actually, but I’m pretty sick of ikea for now.

On the day of the moving in I dropped my fucking piano. I know by now that the only way to get over losing something is to get something to replace it, but dropping that fucking piano is going to cost me a thousand dollars. It doesn’t only happen in cartoons, kids, I actually dropped my fucking piano. All that trouble, and I fucking dropped it.

Anyway the house was in decent shape when I got it. Sure, I had to put in a lot of elbow grease to spiffy up the place, but nothing a guy couldn’t handle. I mean, all the cleaning and scraping, all the assembling, the thing works, you know what I mean? The thing’s alright. I had a mean budget and I put it to work. Except the fucking sofa that went on sale a week before it was due for delivery; three hundred bucks I’ll never get back. I got pretty lucky with some of the stuff though, so I guess that evens out. But anyway, from a bare place with that god-damned sealant on the kitchen tiles to a pretty groovy set of digs, most things in their place, I mean, it turned out pretty good.

I remember moving in the first night and sleeping on the cardboard from one of the self-assembling chairs, using the chair cushions as pillows. I heard cardboard wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t. I’ll take cardboard any day. The next day, when the mattresses came in, I was too busy doing stuff to get set up, so I slept on the mattresses with the plastic still on it. That was a mistake. Plastic wrapping is very uncomfortable. The next day I slept without the plastic wrapping, and with a towel instead. That was much better. By the Monday that followed I slept in a bed, with sheets and all. Golly, I’m such a baby.

Anyway it’s actually really fun owning a place. I’m figuring out my meals, figuring out my patterns, figuring out my neighbourhood, figuring out what I like. I’m pretty much dialled in, except a couple things which should be coming in fairly soon. I figure I’ll set up my guitars as well. More importantly, though, I’ve got a grand total of seventeen, count ‘em, books coming in through the mail. Boy, that’s exciting, that’s always exciting.

Life should be so easy. But you know, for some reason or other, it’s usually extremely frustrating. I feel like my ire has been raised to dangerous levels three times a week for the past month or so. Oh they call it Ireland for some religious reasons. Anyway that life is so frustrating is a theme that is a little beyond me. I know why I get frustrated, but I find it hard to believe that there are so many stupid people in the world that piss me off. It’s unbelievable. I can’t change anything, I know, but all I’m saying is that like everybody who is a certain level of stupid should stay away from me. I think that’s all I’m asking. Is it me? You know, it’s possible. Maybe I can’t be into something for the long term, given the usual distribution of stupid people one is likely to meet in the middle to long run. I mean, I’m alright, I’m alright, except when I find that one little shit that does it and all of a sudden bang! I’m losing my fucking mind over here. Anyway perhaps living by myself like this is good for me. Is it me? Yeah, it is.

Anyway moving is such a pain in the ass I don’t think I ever want to do it again, not with all that elbow grease to go. And looking at it, the value of the place, too, is I think off the charts. It’s worth way more than what I got it for, way, way more. Just way more. I think it’s one of the best estates I’ve ever been in as well, which is saying quite a lot. Everything is just settled, laid back and expansive. I love it. I’ll take it.

CC - Ye Pharisees / O Jerusalem

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, saying,

The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.  For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

CIC - wonder

I was thinking today, lying down, looking at the stars, about three exceedingly grand statements.

The world, and all its marvellous phenomena, can be described in atomistic* terms.

There is a metaphysical essence we call the human soul, given that cogito ergo sum.

There is a God out there.

In my mind, I wonder what this all means.

*(well, the fundamental forces have been investigated quite impressively, but some of the quantum stuff remains a mystery).

CIIC - On abortion

I was reading today the Catholic Pope’s 2016 Amoris Laetitia, or “The Joy of Love”, his post-Synodal apostolic exhortation (you can find it here). Boy, what a phrase that is. I will call him “Pope” for short, although I think in the movies they generally prefer to call their ministers the more familiar (indeed jocular) “Padre”. This Pope, an Argentinian named Jorge Mario Bergoglio (and this rolls off the tongue so well) took his papal name as Francis, after an Italian saint, Francis of Assissi (1181 to1226), whose back story is rather gruesomely one in which he received, perhaps miraculously, the wounds that the Christ endured at his death. Anyway, Francis, as far as appears to me, seems to doing a wonderful job, and in some ways the world has taken respectful, even admiring attention. And I have found his exhortatory letter to be quite well written, and I mean this exceedingly well. Of course, it tends to take the conservative view of things, but I think, sensitively, and intelligently. And simply, to be sure. So, for instance, he respects a relationship which is stable and well-meaning (my own words), but he thinks that a family must be centred on one which is able to “transmit” life. Of course, I would think that this does not go quite far enough in terms of even-handed treatment of the topic, but I will accept that for him the conversation has not yet been shuttered off.

I pause here to acknowledge that there are inherently some differences in what the average Catholic is said to believe and what the average Christian, or in my case, a (flakily) self-professed liberal Methodist (a neo-Wesleyan, if you like) might be said to believe. However for my purposes I think that one who accepts the Christ belongs properly to this wide concept of what a “believer” is and so I think that sufficiently disposes of this for now.

Exploring many facets of a life modelled on Christ, one of the things Francis wrote on concerned abortion. Without mincing words, the Catholic church is quite well-known for its stance against permitting contraceptives, and of course the darker corollary of permitted abortion. In this vein, Francis follows:

“Here I feel it urgent to state that, if the family is the sanctuary of life, the place where life is conceived and cared for, it is a horrendous contradiction when it becomes a place where life is rejected and destroyed. So great is the value of a human life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life, which is an end in itself and which can never be considered the “property” of another human being. The family protects human life in all its stages, including its last. …”

I think this is inherently an undeniably valid argument. But on the other hand stands an equally valid argument, and I will put it simply as this: No woman (or man) should be forced to do something which she/he does not wish to do, within reason. Of course, the fundamental premises of either point of view devolve entirely (if not under duress) from the deepest beliefs one holds: if one believes in a benevolent monotheistic figure, one might believe that any little human being (no matter the circumstances of his conception) is equally created and/or equally to be treated as any other; conversely, one might instead believe that there are certain circumstances in which no one could possibly expect (and here I sigh mightily in writing) a little human being to be given the benefits of physiological independence (a deeper sigh follows). You know, when I think about it, if one takes the strong Christian view that we are all born in sin, the former argument (of equal creation) takes on truly formidable strength.

Of course, there are also the thorny issues: what if the life of the mother is at stake? (sigh) what if the child is in a bad way? (sigh) what if the poor woman was forcibly taken? (deep sigh) Well, no one knows. These are awful, awful questions. You know, it could come down to anyone, and the answer could differ depending on the circumstances. And then there are further considerations for after the birth of the child. It seems to me that taken on the whole these are (and must be) deeply personal choices, and it matters a lot how one is involved in that choice. Even abstract questions become cornered into realist concerns: what is human dignity? can one’s posited understanding of human dignity survive one’s choice whether to abort or not? It is daunting, an impossible task.

Somewhere down the line, it’s inevitable: the choice will haunt a person. And you know, the line that separates what it is to “murder” and to “kill” is not really a clear, black one – one need only compare the categorisations in sections 299 and 300 of the Penal Code (and all the exceptions!). Take again an argument which could flow from natural law: in certain circumstances, even animals eat their young. Or look at it again in this way: if you had a computer which could, if given certain data about one’s circumstances at birth, simulate the life that person would have, life to death, and if you ran that simulation ten thousand times and out of all those, six thousand five hundred and eighteen tended on balance to be rough (including that person’s indirect effects, e.g. further children) wouldn’t there be some argument that, you know, not living might be predictively better? Like you know, if someone from the future could go back and have Hitler aborted, wouldn’t that be grand? Boy, oh boy.

In the end, I’ll say this: I think it’s OK for a woman to select abortion, but I sure hope she thinks about it (obviously, she’d also have to deal with all the general biological instincts at self- and child-preservation). So I don’t agree that a blanket view either way could ultimately be right (with full apologies to all).

My admiration and gratitude, Jorge, Pope Francis. Salut.