In Support of MLK's Love of Enemies

We started off our class with King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, and I though I love King's rhetoric, I think it mostly serves to subtly warp his logic into emotive force for his point. Plato would have a problem here with King if he were to view, as I do, that King's dabbles in Sophistry from time to time and- even being a philosophy major- he tends to handicap his fierce logical mind with a pre-occupation with a particular locality of interest.

However, I recently read a speech that King gave about loving your enemies and I greatly agree with his intuitive insights.

Here, I treat King unto himself. In a later blog I will want to compare Aristotle and King in this area of loving your enemies.

King delves into his process for “loving thy enemy” as prescribed by Christ in the Book of Matthew. His method starts with self evaluation citing that loving an enemy is intrinsically related to self analysis. This is the type of self analysis that is introspectively aware, delicately yoked and honest enough to admit that it may be responsible for the very actions that have incited the contempt of an enemy. Starting from this vantage, it is easy to see where King is moving with this and how his model of “love” has global implications especially in context of the tumultuous political and social conditions of his era. King’s next step is to contend that it is inherent to contain goodness being created in the image of God, and that to overcome the obvious hurdles involved with loving an enemy, the individual must seek and dwell upon whatever shard of goodness lies within the enemy as it is “within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good”. Now, essentially, we are to put this love into practice by proving our heartfelt understanding of “goodwill for all men” by “refusing to defeat any individual” when the opportunity presents itself. This has a parallel in the modern, mainstream religious maxim: “love the sinner, hate the sin.” For King, this is accomplished though his highest form of love: “love of others for God’s sake”, which he borrowed from Plato and “Bernard of Clavicaux.” Though it is agreeable that this is a plausible plan for transforming perspective into humanistic love, the problem of its obvious lack of modern application lies within the tendency to be abstract and paradoxically objectifying of the actual individual. When the individual is loved for the sake of something else, it is causal that the individual is not loved for his reasons alone. Most anything becomes lovable in the abstract where an idea of the person is conjured to take the place of his existential qualities. Though King’s system requires much adherence, the objectifying and abstraction of love for people stands as an obvious impediment to its universal presence today. King does not stop here. The impact that hate has on the “hater” is described by King as to turn inside out the very perspective and values of the individual. And it makes experiential sense that a preoccupation with things that an individual hates is really more telling of that individual than it is of those things. King contends in his speech that even what was ugly to the person turns beautiful and what was hailed as bad becomes the good. Conversely, it appears true that love has the power to build individuals. This provides sounds experiential reason for finding ways to avoid hate and to love your enemy. The anecdote posited by King referring to Abraham Lincoln seems to embody King’s philosophy of love here while cleverly (though it may not have been his intention) turning the popular phrase “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” into a fanciful oxymoron.

Freud and Nietzsche: Where's the Vulnerability?...that other 1/2 of our Nature?

Where Nietzsche sees the perversion of the authentic human instinct to express its will as occurring at the moment where individuals subjugated their autonomous powers in the form of contracts with each other, the psychological insights of Sigmund Freud become relevant. In Future of an Illusion, Freud sites that such a contract between individuals would constitute a society and that all societies are “built up on coercion and renunciation of instinct.” As implied by Nietzsche, and made explicit by Freud, societies, by their very definition, force their constituents to renounce their instinctual drives by subjugating personal autonomy to an external will. Freud’s psychoanalysis contends that the act of subjugation by society is accomplished through a “prohibition,” which is a regulation that disallows the “satisfaction of an instinct.” When an instinct is not allow to be satisfied, it “frustrates” the individual leading to conditions of “privation” which are internalized as “kernels of hostility toward civilization.” Though Nietzsche’s polemic devices are intended to warn humanity that it risks sterilizing its own will to power, thus providing for its own extinction, he can also be seen as agreeing with Freud in that, underneath the centuries of synthetic moral practice, the future health of humanity depends on the ability for a generation of human animals to “conquer God” through the work of the same psychological devices that subjected us to him. Freud and Nietzsche essentially want the same thing. Freud, too, would like to free humanity from its slave-like adherence to religious morality by absolving the human psyche in the realization that religion, and god, are psychological illusions.

Some Frustrations with Hume

As the semester closes, I find myself making a summary of several Philosophers. And it has been with Kant and Hume, (even though I largely agree with Hume's empiricism)-- that I find my objections standing out most. Specifically in reference to the beginning chapters of Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals:"

Hume begins, on page 73, with a forceful ad hominem directed at those who do not share in his idea that there are such things as moral distinctions. Plainly, why must it be a “blind adherence” to some supposed (straw-man) myopic dedication that is the only option out of Hume’s depiction of morals as being discernable through reason and made effectual by sentiment? Hume will say on page 74: “Truth is discernable; not taste.” He seems to allow the first part of this causal to stand for the logical faculties present in reason for the discovery of truths (presumably the ‘truth’ that there are indeed such things as morals). Here it is as though Hume has said that because there is reason there are morals. In rushing so far ahead of himself with his supposed powers of reason (reason is also somehow attributed, without reason, with the “standard of our judgment”), Hume has only managed to stipulate the inherited ideas of moral (from ancient philosophers, etc) by performing no rational deconstruction of the nature of the term “moral.”

Hume moves on in his unexamined assumptions to assert that the reason for “moral [speculation] is to teach us our duty.” The function of this speculation serves to mold the “habits” of humans to want an association with virtue and an avoidance of vice. Here, Hume says that reason is not sufficient to mold human behavior if sentiment does not make one feel compelled to move into certain, assumed and favorable speculations of morals. This is where Hume finds his marriage between reason and sentiment. Reason to discover (or, produce as he gives no definitions prohibiting this equation of terms) morality and sentiment to make it compelling when reason produces “indifferent” truths.

This may be a fine mechanistic/empirical depiction of how morality is produced in a state where duty-to-conform holds a value even higher than the constructs of morality which were made for it, but where is the truth Hume promised concerning reaching “the foundation of ethics.” It is not foundational to say that we will strive hard to get to the bottom of what morals are by assuming some version of their popular/inherited constructs and mechanisms. Foundational to the discussion of this topic would look something like Nietzsche’s etymology, where he posits that the very term “moral” has been added to and elevated, over time, through effort and sacrifice to produce an unnecessarily complexed term, which is purely synthetic and no longer represents anything authentic about human nature. Even if Nietzsche’s critique is found to be flawed and not conducive to the edification of a community as it is wanted to exist, Hume promised to “consider every aspect of the [human] mind” for these fundamental answers, and instead he only floats on a surface analysis of popular moral application and function.

Some Frustrations with Kant

Given the mental effort Kant expends on the separation of rationality into one (pure speculative reason) that can only relate to the formal, and the other, it’s fraternal twin (pure practical reason), which is limited to the anthropological, or material— We can see Kant is engaging in the redefinition of human reason by compounded abstraction so as to allow for the validity of his opening thesis: “It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will.” Reason, in these two parts, is then conflated by Kant and is said to have the ability (and almost an insinuated teleological purpose) for somehow shaping the human “will” into something that cannot be exceeded in its resultant moral worth. Here, Kant’s assumptions alone place reason in this capacity, imbuing it with strange metaphysical powers which can somehow make other abstract concepts (i.e. the “will”) contain an infinite amount of yet other abstract terms (“good”) so that this mental concept of “will,” now confounded by abstraction upon abstraction, is made, as a purely artificial construct, to reveal itself to the constituents of the empirical domain as being that thing of the greatest possible worth for them. It is only within the border of Kant’s abstract playground that ideas can be fantasized into containing infinity of anything. As soon as an “unlimited” notion of “good” crosses the empirical threshold, it must shed all infinity that was metaphysically attributed to it. So, in our finite actuality, no thing can be “good in itself.” “Good in itself,” is a purely rational concept and may be postulated and played with in the playground of the mind, but it will always remain a potentiality within this mind as the term is held together by circular reasoning, is defined entirely by abstractions and is fashioned together by Coherentism.

When it comes to the moment for Kant to offer a convincing, fundamental truth (whether through the critique of a pure practical reason, or that of a pure speculative reason; we would not begrudge Kant his own tools) about how we might come to see, or even want, ourselves as necessarily linked to his subjugating duty-action theory of morality, Kant honestly replies that he cannot “see what [his] respect” for the Universal Law “is based upon.” It may be that he cannot see the principal which animates respect because he has forgotten that, for it to be intelligible within the constructs of his normative system, he must first, and separately, construct its value and meaning in the abstract chamber so that its definition and function end up being precisely tailored per what is needed for the Categorical Imperative to gain increased favor over the human being. For Kant, the subjugation of humanity to a “pure” moral philosophy is obviously preferred over efforts made in search of the fundamental truths about morality.

Science and Identity; I am in Want of a Functionalist's Mechanism

This will be a slight detour into the value of Scientists in our contemporary search for a unified vision. It may be arguable to some that the most meaningful task of the contemporary Philosopher is to find some avenue into reconciling our human identity with the material world. Dr. Baird has quoted the following to death all semester, but the intense relevance and action-shaping power of the quote to follow never looses its grasp on my beginning into every thought and every action.

“The most important question in contemporary philosophy is this: How, and to what extend, can we reconcile a certain conception that we have of ourselves as conscious, mindful, free, social and political agents with a world that consists entirely of mindless, meaningless particles in fields of force? How, and to what extent, can we get a coherent account of the totality of the world that will reconcile what we believe about ourselves with what we know for a fact from physics, chemistry and biology?” (Searle, Freedom & Neurobiology, 26)

I will not be able to say anything more poignant than that, and I will not attempt my own reconciliation though I have thoughts on how we may try this. I will keep my thoughts general and get into the particulars later if time allows...and maybe even if it doesn't.

We can only stand on the shoulders of giants . . . Giants who loved their work knowing that for as long as there are questions their work remains open. The history of science is littered with love-tortured souls whose furious dedication to the minute was fueled by the idea that this life may not live to see the synthesis of the most pertinent questions. So from one Giant's truth, to the page, to your eyes, from your lips? If words truly build understandings within you, it would be your experience to which those words attach-- it would be the truest thing you have lived that came pouring from you. You wouldn't be able to help this. We are always telling others what we don't know when we are saying the things we think we know. When we have lived, it is our lives that illuminate, ask questions of and wrestle with a reading, a new person, new philosophical perspective. But only when added to education can our minds build crucial understandings out of phenomena whose only promise is to remain suspended in the abstract.

There will always be new information. And there are no such things as "hypocrites" except for those who use the word to indicate that they wish to stay as they are. In our common tongue, we use the word hypocrite as nothing more than a condemnation of one who subscribes to a particular system, which we have inherited and have been conditioned to find palatable, in the hopes that we may shame them from any and all deviance that, as copies, might make us feel inadequate by relation. Both stability and ignorance are sustained by this informal constraint so popularly employed.

An Agnostic's Application of a Bible Passage, Or "Noted While Reading"

first chapter of proverbs starting with verse 19

"So are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof...How long , ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
Because I have called, and ye refused; I have streatched out my hand, and no man regarded;
But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof...
When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
For they that hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord;
They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
Therefore they shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices."

Noted while reading:
What struck me here is that it seems especially tragic, and poignantly bleak for our country's future, to find so many pursuers of "higher education" mired in a paradigm that confounds "greedy gain" with lifelong habits of self justification. Choreographed conversations that dance to gimmicky tunes characteristic of power plays and "who's who" gossip, these leverage games are symptomatic of a bed-ridden people, a people made so sick by the putrid cloud of inherited ideas, that most will never see that their lives were spent lying down boasting of bedsores. And what sort of contribution is this?
This is not to discount the value of ambitious people hungry to put good information to better uses . . . I am one such person. It just so happnes that "Lovers of simplicity" and the haters of Knowledge are made so by a betrayal of their own ambitions. Ambition and good intention have always been tools available to the inept and confused in order to make very large messes. Their tradegy is one of details: Their greed is a love of systems, their useful information is pulled from synthetic ideas-- shadows on the wall of a cave-- and their hatred is for you and me. We are the living Knowledge, a fleshy counterpoint to technological convieniance, the foil of every carefully constructed appearance; we are what they passionately construct out of surrogate materials having wrestled the reality from none of us. Lovers of simplicity pay us homage in this sense; frustration is the mark of the latter while the former boast of their comforts.
Sustained on the fruit of their own ways, the fruit born of critical human examination burns as it disagrees in the stomach. Devices, which always succeed in reducing the world into manageable parts, neatly dice and cube our flesh with precise edges. As a function of something's or someone's utility, humanity can only be as human as hierarchically stacked flesh. Those that inherit their thoughts and methods, never to consider them beyond the promise to yeild certain results, end up disfiguring the best of all possible contributions to our world when they choose quick understanding over the more painful and careful pursuits of self examination.
When the quicker becomes the better, satisfaction is planned around and through the inconvieniances that other people offer, and a deep knowledge of ourselves suddenly seems mysterious if not completely irrelevant to how we've decided a life should be constructed. Soon, we will not recognize ourselves because we will no longer seek the window to knowledge in another's eyes where the truest and most painful of our reflections wait.

Rough Notes for Framing a Discussion of FEAR

Thinking that I may have flogged the point of certain aspects of Vulnerability, and wholly ignored some other of its functions....I want to go into what it is that Fearis.....and from some general thoughts, see some interplay and relationship with the value of Vulnerability.

rough notes and ideas:
...the grand utility of forming the will, against all prejudice and fear, for the purpose of understanding our fellow human being is that we may gain access to ourselves through another even when the condition exists that we are both blind to particulars within ourselves.

The unknown is dark, and so we prefer to play in the light of those things we think we know. Fear is the dark; a mechanism within acting to scare us away from that place we "know not what." It is the boundary of our current identity, whatever that may be per individual. We prefer to play in the safety of light; as the oldest children in the Universe, we still do not see how Fear may contain an autonomous belief-structure of its own.

Compelling us always to action for self-preservation, Fear pervades even within the most willful constructs and about even the strongest ideas we can make of ourselves. The words "Honor," "Hypocrisy," "Heros" and "Hurt" are all made per generation and are kept relevant only as long as certain fears preserve the boundaries of a greater awareness. Can we now preserve against Fear, with awarenesses of it, to seek access to an ever-evolving progress within this human project? Do we dare share ourselves at this depth, to become filthy in another's truths and to have this become our common religion? It shows that we are still not ready for this evolution: "Life is comfortable, yes, but it could be more so . . ." " . . . " " ." And our technologies tell us that we are much too smart and advanced for need to wish upon ourselves a daily migration into a better education of the individual and her natural circumstance. So, either we will see ourselves in scale with the cosmos and invite that new religion, or we will go on imbued with cravings for safety and comfort-- synonymous with a craving for Fear-- staying swathed in illusions as children while thinking of ourselves as having already broken into a great status.