MaxedOutMama
Friday, July 22, 2005
The Science Of Freedom
I found The Art And Science of Freedom by Sigmund, Carl and Alfred extremely interesting. It's sort of philosophical and an excerpt doesn't do it justice, but:
So does Ilona at True Grit, and in this post she makes some very astute observations about Bob Ferguson and the idea of extending state control over religion:
There has to be a real commitment to freedom and active participation beyond the rhetorical level. Issues need to be understood and discussed openly and freely. Truth has to be arrived at in a fair and empirical manner. Hearty debate and opposition is good-- but it has to be arrived at by thorough discussion and understanding. Deceit cannot be part of the equation and the influence of special interest groups cannot be allowed to subvert the needs of the community at large.Carl at No Oil For Pacifists has reached a glum conclusion that runs against his instincts and prior arguments - and Carl takes his arguments very seriously indeed. So I am taking his glum conclusion very seriously.
We are in the situation we find ourselves in today, because we've allowed freedom to become an art form, devoid of the science of freedom- that there are ultimate truths that are inviolate. We are in an environment where schools teach that anything goes and everything is just a matter of expression and relativism has become the de facto standard of measurement.
So does Ilona at True Grit, and in this post she makes some very astute observations about Bob Ferguson and the idea of extending state control over religion:
There is a certain form of displacement taking place here. Can't get at those fundamental Muslims. scared to take them on? ...well, how about bringing the boot on those Christians with the like label? How about that for distraction of the masses and furthering the agenda at the same time? How about funneling all that mindless anger that terrorism drums up on the Christians in your midst.There is some justice to what she is saying. People are afraid to rebuke terrorists for their acts, for fear of producing more attacks - so instead they attack the Jews, Catholics, etc. Freedom is not, and never will be, compatible with abject cowardice. It requires honesty, courage, self-scrutiny, a belief in personal and societal responsibility and the willingness to accept imperfection - which brings me back to SC&A's post.
And when done with them, look around ...who is next? Well, there will always be the Jews. Losing ever so slowly the margin of protection that the slaughter under Hitler gave them in the mind of anti-religionists. Anti-Semitism is already on the rise.... it is only waiting for a few opportune doors.
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All religions or ethical systems do have such a list of truths, Boomr. So do legal systems. All communities must be founded on some sort of agreements.
The reason why SC&A insists that all cultures and political systems are not equally valid is because their list of inviolable truths differs.
As for ours, the ones we have agreed upon are encapsulated in our Constitution and laws. And of course, as our society has changed, so has our Constitution and laws.
My belief is that the founders thought that a system of substantial freedom would operate to create a more advanced, virtuous and rational society. I know some of them wrote precisely that.
Thus the idea of individual freedom of conscience and substantial freedom of action is axiomatic to our way of life. And that consensus is what distinguishes our legal system (and culture) from some others. We have agreed to allow disagreements within certain practical limitations.
So the atheist can't toss the rabbi into a prison, or vice versa - and being a Roman Catholic or Buddhist is not grounds for having your political rights taken away. A radical demanding that the slaves be freed or that women get the vote is supposed to be allowed to advocate that point of view without reprisal.
If we look at things like voting rights, abolishing slavery, equalizing the status of women, etc, it is clear that political change is something of a constant.
SC&A's point is that since we have changed the rules and will continue to change them, a willingness to debate facts and find agreement is a necessary component to maintain our way of life. It is intended to be consensual, and that requires a willingness to reach consensus (which should be possible because of protections of individual rights).
However, as you wrote in your comment on the other post, our current official dialogue often seems less focused on finding agreement than generating controversy. It's a striking contrast to the debates that go on between ordinary people, who are largely interested in pragmatic solutions.
The reason why SC&A insists that all cultures and political systems are not equally valid is because their list of inviolable truths differs.
As for ours, the ones we have agreed upon are encapsulated in our Constitution and laws. And of course, as our society has changed, so has our Constitution and laws.
My belief is that the founders thought that a system of substantial freedom would operate to create a more advanced, virtuous and rational society. I know some of them wrote precisely that.
Thus the idea of individual freedom of conscience and substantial freedom of action is axiomatic to our way of life. And that consensus is what distinguishes our legal system (and culture) from some others. We have agreed to allow disagreements within certain practical limitations.
So the atheist can't toss the rabbi into a prison, or vice versa - and being a Roman Catholic or Buddhist is not grounds for having your political rights taken away. A radical demanding that the slaves be freed or that women get the vote is supposed to be allowed to advocate that point of view without reprisal.
If we look at things like voting rights, abolishing slavery, equalizing the status of women, etc, it is clear that political change is something of a constant.
SC&A's point is that since we have changed the rules and will continue to change them, a willingness to debate facts and find agreement is a necessary component to maintain our way of life. It is intended to be consensual, and that requires a willingness to reach consensus (which should be possible because of protections of individual rights).
However, as you wrote in your comment on the other post, our current official dialogue often seems less focused on finding agreement than generating controversy. It's a striking contrast to the debates that go on between ordinary people, who are largely interested in pragmatic solutions.
MoM, I always like the way you are able to synthesize things... and I mean that in a good way. You are a big picture person ( my favorite;)
Anyway, One has to give Boomr his point. How about this..since the idea of science has come up... how about that there are certain truths which act as law in social interaction and institutions? They tend to always produce certain outcomes as far as we can judge in history.
Like it tend to be good to give individuals as much freedom as an orderly society can manage, things like that.
Could you go with that, and flesh it out?
Anyway, One has to give Boomr his point. How about this..since the idea of science has come up... how about that there are certain truths which act as law in social interaction and institutions? They tend to always produce certain outcomes as far as we can judge in history.
Like it tend to be good to give individuals as much freedom as an orderly society can manage, things like that.
Could you go with that, and flesh it out?
# posted by 
: 1:01 PM
: 1:01 PM
BTW, I would really like the phrase "equally valid" to be elaborated upon and defined.
It's been a sticking point with me and SC&A and I realized that I am not sure what he means by it.
MoM- you used the phrse, how do you define it as a useful comparison?
what is the standard for valid if not a circular reasoning that it is what we say it is?
It's been a sticking point with me and SC&A and I realized that I am not sure what he means by it.
MoM- you used the phrse, how do you define it as a useful comparison?
what is the standard for valid if not a circular reasoning that it is what we say it is?
# posted by : 1:07 PM
: 1:07 PM
Boomr- you want an inviolate truth? How about the one that proclaims that all lives are equal?
How about the one that says people are free to worship or not worship as they please?
There are lots more, but just using these an example highlights the difference between us and them- those truths alone set them apart from us- an no, they are not our moral equals.
How about the one that says people are free to worship or not worship as they please?
There are lots more, but just using these an example highlights the difference between us and them- those truths alone set them apart from us- an no, they are not our moral equals.
Ilona - it works for me! There are certain rules of human interaction that do seem to hold true throughout time.
Tf we could all be honest with each other, we would concede that in the history of mankind we don't have an example of a moral utopia that worked. Communism is such a construct. Take Calvinist Geneva - bzzzzt.
But we also have a countervening rule, which is that virtuous societies with concepts of duty and justice have strengthened and gained power while societies that had no rules governing the individual's responsibility to the society have fallen into decadence and collapse.
It seems to me that the founders tried to design the opposite of a moral utopia (which dictates both crimes and comprehensive positive rules of conduct). They tried to use criminal law to get rid of the most negative behavior, but for the rest tried to set up a system in which positive rules of conduct would be determined by personal choice and society's view of personal choices but by law, could not be codified as a set of constraints.
IMO, such a system can only work if it preserves the individual's right to believe his own ideas and follow his own path. The moral principles in such a society emerge from many individual observations of the effects of different doctrines. So over time, relatively workable ideas of practical morality emerge in as abstract a form as possible. Furthermore, they are practical and adaptive. Consider it cultural evolution in action.
Because of the natural change in life and conditions, these rules don't get time to ossify into a suffocating social moral dictate. Or, when they do, people start exercising their freedom to defy those rules. The net result is probably to evolve a maximum of workable freedom, and also subsegments of different rules of conduct for groups of individuals with different general directions.
This is a very different vision from what Old Europe is pursuing, for example. It is a very different vision from Canada's current social ideas. It is not multi-cultural, but a society that thinks it does have an ethos of its own - but also maintains that such an ethos can't be legally imposed on an individual.
Instead, our system relies and has relied upon social pressure and incentive to promote the positive and aspirational elements of our culture. And it can only do that when individuals do suffer real penalties for unwise choices - but not criminal penalties. Life penalties.
There can be no freedom without human accountability.
Tf we could all be honest with each other, we would concede that in the history of mankind we don't have an example of a moral utopia that worked. Communism is such a construct. Take Calvinist Geneva - bzzzzt.
But we also have a countervening rule, which is that virtuous societies with concepts of duty and justice have strengthened and gained power while societies that had no rules governing the individual's responsibility to the society have fallen into decadence and collapse.
It seems to me that the founders tried to design the opposite of a moral utopia (which dictates both crimes and comprehensive positive rules of conduct). They tried to use criminal law to get rid of the most negative behavior, but for the rest tried to set up a system in which positive rules of conduct would be determined by personal choice and society's view of personal choices but by law, could not be codified as a set of constraints.
IMO, such a system can only work if it preserves the individual's right to believe his own ideas and follow his own path. The moral principles in such a society emerge from many individual observations of the effects of different doctrines. So over time, relatively workable ideas of practical morality emerge in as abstract a form as possible. Furthermore, they are practical and adaptive. Consider it cultural evolution in action.
Because of the natural change in life and conditions, these rules don't get time to ossify into a suffocating social moral dictate. Or, when they do, people start exercising their freedom to defy those rules. The net result is probably to evolve a maximum of workable freedom, and also subsegments of different rules of conduct for groups of individuals with different general directions.
This is a very different vision from what Old Europe is pursuing, for example. It is a very different vision from Canada's current social ideas. It is not multi-cultural, but a society that thinks it does have an ethos of its own - but also maintains that such an ethos can't be legally imposed on an individual.
Instead, our system relies and has relied upon social pressure and incentive to promote the positive and aspirational elements of our culture. And it can only do that when individuals do suffer real penalties for unwise choices - but not criminal penalties. Life penalties.
There can be no freedom without human accountability.
And Ilona - I define it in a religious and pragmatic sense. By their fruits you will know them. That is an excellent rule of thumb. You and I can look at history and see what works and what does not, and we can look at the bombings of children and women in Iraq and know that that is evil.
It is bad to destroy what is unique unless driven to do so in self-defense. (Terrorism, in my view, therefore can never fit within the concept of a just war.) It's bad to break the golden rule, which demands an individual adopt the best reciprocal standard of which each individual can conceive.
God exists and is the absolute reality. To constrain an individual's ability to examine reality is obstructing that individual's ability to encounter and question God. Thus we don't mark off lines of inquiry - but we do pass along our collected and historical codified observations of that reality and warn individuals.
I can only make a religious statement when explaining the core of my beliefs. God created the world in all its changing variety. God loves that variety. God created our freedom and our responsibility in the world. I can't override God's will.
Anyone or any society that does will end up destroying more than creating. You might as well tell people not to breathe because it messes up the atmosphere. We can teach and help and guide and reprimand socially - but we should be terribly careful to avoid unnecesarily constraining the freedom of the individual.
This is because God acts within the world by agreement with each individual who accepts God's guidance and by consensual pleas from groups of men who are both listening to God and asking God for assistance.
So to break the freedom of the individual prevents the individual from truly accepting God (you never make the choice if you don't have the option in the first place) and blocks God out of the world.
It is bad to destroy what is unique unless driven to do so in self-defense. (Terrorism, in my view, therefore can never fit within the concept of a just war.) It's bad to break the golden rule, which demands an individual adopt the best reciprocal standard of which each individual can conceive.
God exists and is the absolute reality. To constrain an individual's ability to examine reality is obstructing that individual's ability to encounter and question God. Thus we don't mark off lines of inquiry - but we do pass along our collected and historical codified observations of that reality and warn individuals.
I can only make a religious statement when explaining the core of my beliefs. God created the world in all its changing variety. God loves that variety. God created our freedom and our responsibility in the world. I can't override God's will.
Anyone or any society that does will end up destroying more than creating. You might as well tell people not to breathe because it messes up the atmosphere. We can teach and help and guide and reprimand socially - but we should be terribly careful to avoid unnecesarily constraining the freedom of the individual.
This is because God acts within the world by agreement with each individual who accepts God's guidance and by consensual pleas from groups of men who are both listening to God and asking God for assistance.
So to break the freedom of the individual prevents the individual from truly accepting God (you never make the choice if you don't have the option in the first place) and blocks God out of the world.
Science as defined by Karl Popper (and I'm a Popper partisan, without rejecting all of Thomas Kuhn), is simple: that subject to critical testing but (at least after some reasonable interval) cannot be falsified. Science, thus, excludes God--and global warming.
Truth includes science, augmented by prolonged and intelligent inductive reasoning. A non-falsible proposition is true if it explains the past and predicts the future--a causal connection. That marriage promotes societal stability is one example. Capitalist economics is another.
Though both concepts are perpetual drafts -- qua Kuhn -- science is what can't be disproved and truth is what works. That GM foods feed more for less is science; that they're not harmful is truth on its way to science. The notion that individual rights and democracy best foster human happiness is truth. That Western Civ. is superior is truth (If Muslims fight for the right to wear veils, why won't they fight for the right not to wear them?).
As defined, some say modern Christianity is truth, for utilitarian reasons. Along those lines, I offer a related inductive argument: I've listed to Shinto, Confucian, Hindu, Islamic and Jewish serious and sacred music--and it all sounds like alley cats on a fence. Compare with Western sacred music: from J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 140 to Arvo Part's Te Deum, powerful forces enabled many to experience, transcribe and perform epiphany. And Western Civ. allows us to sing along at any time.
Truth includes science, augmented by prolonged and intelligent inductive reasoning. A non-falsible proposition is true if it explains the past and predicts the future--a causal connection. That marriage promotes societal stability is one example. Capitalist economics is another.
Though both concepts are perpetual drafts -- qua Kuhn -- science is what can't be disproved and truth is what works. That GM foods feed more for less is science; that they're not harmful is truth on its way to science. The notion that individual rights and democracy best foster human happiness is truth. That Western Civ. is superior is truth (If Muslims fight for the right to wear veils, why won't they fight for the right not to wear them?).
As defined, some say modern Christianity is truth, for utilitarian reasons. Along those lines, I offer a related inductive argument: I've listed to Shinto, Confucian, Hindu, Islamic and Jewish serious and sacred music--and it all sounds like alley cats on a fence. Compare with Western sacred music: from J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 140 to Arvo Part's Te Deum, powerful forces enabled many to experience, transcribe and perform epiphany. And Western Civ. allows us to sing along at any time.
Carl - I don't despise induction (as a guide), combined with testing. Your particular line of induction might be due to cultural factors. Listening to China's national anthem makes me laugh hard, for example.
On the other hand, when I listen to The Messiah I say to myself "Exactly!"
On the other hand, when I listen to The Messiah I say to myself "Exactly!"
M_O_M:
As to China's anthem, it's a bit too isolationist for me: "With our very flesh and blood Let us build our new Great Wall!" And it buries the individual rights lede: "Everybody must roar his defiance. Arise! Arise! Arise! Millions of hearts with one mind."
As to Handel, "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" is pretty impressive evidence of the Christian savior.
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As to China's anthem, it's a bit too isolationist for me: "With our very flesh and blood Let us build our new Great Wall!" And it buries the individual rights lede: "Everybody must roar his defiance. Arise! Arise! Arise! Millions of hearts with one mind."
As to Handel, "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" is pretty impressive evidence of the Christian savior.
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