Is Secularization a Good Thing?

This post was thanks in part to both things I had been thinking about earlier, and thanks to an anonymous comment whom i promised I'd credit. The topic is pretty straight forward: is secularization a good thing?

I argued earlier that religion is a placeholder for the unknown. As science's explanatory prowess grows, the role of religion will inevitably shrink. We're facing an inevitable march toward secularism. What I was wondering, and discussing with my friend and the anonymous comment, is if this is a good thing or not.

I've studied both in my sociology classes and in last semester's anthropology of religion class how religion has many beneficial functions in society. It defines a society's common identity and promotes solidarity between it's members. This is beneficial, both psychologically for the individuals of the society as well as for the society's survival as a whole.

As i said in response to the comment, knowing what I know now I simply can't go back to believing in a religion for it's psychological and sociological benefits. I would be living a lie. What I could believe in though, is an informational vault of common societal morals subject to debate and change without ridiculous myths attached to it. Arguing that the miracles achieved in holy writ actually happened is several centuries out of date, and is borderline ridiculous. I'm pretty sure that the dogma of religion is one of the things that has held it back in our time, and led to the rise of agnosticism and atheism.

One of the closest things I could think of to this would be interpreting the bible solely metaphorically, although i do have problems with some of those subsequent interpretations. Maybe what we collectively need spiritually is not a king-like bible whose rule is forever set in stone and unchanging, but rather a modern constitution of morality, subject to debate and amendments.

As I mentioned in response to the comment, maybe I'll write my own morality constitution one day, and watch as the whole world bends to my will. muahahahaha. just kidding. but not really.

Oh and if you want to see the original anonymous comment, its under Religion Part 2.

Various Updates/ Remembering Tom Gilliam

This isn't a typical blog post of mine, although I do have a new topic I will be writing about shortly.

First, some updates:

1) apparently on the default settings for this blog you have to be signed into something in order to leave a comment. I changed it so that anyone should be able to leave a comment. Go crazy.

2) I was thinking that it'd be cool to start up a think tank-like group around grounds that discusses random topics in depth, maybe over some honey barbecue wings or something. Who knows, maybe we could get our own T-shirts. Anyhoodles if you're a UVA student interested in joining something like this, either leave a comment here, or leave a post on a forum thread that ill start up (but not both because I'd like an honest head count). I tried using a poll, but the settings only allowed for people signed up to vote. Also, note that I/we'd be totally open to people of all ideologies, so if you hate everything i'm writing feel free to show up and tell me why, although i'd like to keep it civil, if possible. Also, whatever topic you want to discuss as random as it may be would be totes open for the group. So yeah, I thought this'd be cool and enjoyable, and I hope it ends up working out.

EDIT 3/31

3) apparently the site that hosts my forum is down... so i guess the forum is too. Ill be working to see either how to fix it or how to get a new one up there.

The last is much more sobering. This past sunday night, Tom Gilliam fell from the roof of the Physics building here around grounds and later died from his injuries in the hospital. Urban exploration is popular past time here around grounds (steam tunneling, getting ontop of roofs), and this is the first fatality from it. I read on a news article that the university will be cracking down on urban exploration.

I was fortunate enough to know Tom personally, but not fortunate enough to say I knew him well. We had hung out a couple of times through mutual friends; we went sledding in a group last semester, and we were in a study group together last week for the international relations class we shared. Each time we were in a group together, I was always struck by his humorous good nature, by the way he was quick to laugh and make jokes, to bring smiles to other people's faces. As I said I didn't know him well, but the times I was with him I can say I greatly enjoyed.

As I eulogize him however, I am reminded of other people who have done the same. My econ professor, Prof. Coppock was a friend of the Gilliam family and also talked about Tom before our last lecture, saying that he had a light in his eye. I can't help but think about how... insufficient our words are in attempting to describe who Tom Gilliam was. Our words can never truly encompass who a person was in life, their triumphs, tragedies, and everything in between, even the thoughts in their heads that we'll never know.

Maybe thats one of the great tragedies in life, that no matter how hard we try, our words can never bring back the person taken from this earth.

Rest in Peace, Tom

Labeling Deviance

For those of you who dont know about this, i'll sum it up quickly then post what specifically i was thinking about. Labeling theory is a part of sociology thats usually applied to deviants. It holds that nothing is inherently deviant, rather that society itself defines what is deviant. Those who act in a minority way are labeled as deviants by society, and eventually begin to internalize the label and act as deviants. It goes along with the idea that there is no permanent identity for a person, but rather that people have different identities bestowed upon them by society. It's really interesting stuff, and I suggest that you look into it if you're not familiar with it already (i love me some good sociology).

What I was thinking about was how this specifically relates to the international drug trade which im writing my PLIR memo about. Nothing is inherently morally wrong about using drugs, rather we as a society have defined it as such, and that has specific repercussions for all of us.

I read a quote online that marijuana literally grows like a weed, and if it was legalized would sell for way less on the open market then it does today on the black market. By making certain drugs illegal and limiting the supply, we have artificially increased demand and profit margins for suppliers. This is an economic incentive for them to continue in the drug trade. By defining it as deviant within our society, we have ensured that it will persist.

From my limited experience, I'm pretty sure that penal law does little if anything to eliminate deviance within a society. Rather, we should either institute restitutive law or have none at all regarding deviance. Perhaps the punishments for engaging in deviance should simply be the social stigma that follows.

What is Terrorism?

I just got back from a great international relations discussion, most of which we spent debating what terrorism actually is. I thought i'd share my thoughts here.

To start, the US legally defines terrorism as:

-An act of violence

-perpetrated by a sub-national group

-targeted against non-combatants

-is politically motivated

-is intended to influence an audience

The main portion of our discussion revolved around debating these legal rules of terrorism. For example, these rules rule out the KKK's lynchings as terrorism, because they're not politically motivated (or at least not all are). There was also a problem brought up about only targeting non-combatants. For example, the USS Cole bombing was defined as our government as an act of terrorism, and yet as it was the bombing of a US Navy ship, was against combatants.

Defining terrorism is a difficult thing to do, because it's meaning is so subjective.

My thoughts, were that the more rules you use to try and nail down a subjective thing like terrorism, the more arbitrary distinctions you get between what is terrorism and what isn't. I defined terrorism as "inflicting terror". Because what is terrifying is inherently subjective, using "terror" in the definition encompasses all of the problems brought about by subjectivity. Anything that inspires terror is terrorism.

Hence, 9/11 was terrorism, black lynchings were terrorism, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrorism, the Boston Tea Party was terrorism, your face was terrorism. Just kidding about that last one. But not really.

I think this is the best possible definition. One of the possible implications of this, is that I think there can be degrees of terrorism based on how much terror an act inflicts. Although in practice this would be very difficult to quantify and should remain more of a philosophical construct. For example, holding an elementary school hostage (which actually happened in Russia by Chechyen separatists) can be said to be greater terrorism then the USS Cole bombings. The reason for this, is that soldiers are trained to be hardened to terror, and know that at any moment their lives are at stake. Hence, the amount of terror inflicted is less in the USS Cole bombing then in the elementary school hostage crisis, where unwitting teachers, parents, and children (all of whose emotions run wild) were the victims. I guess this part of my idea relates a lot to utilitarianism, which is funny because I don't really like utilitarianism haha.

Anyhoodles if anyone else has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Middle East Current Affairs/US Foreign policy

I recently purchased a book by Michael Scheuer called Osama Bin Laden that raised some interesting points on whats currently going on in the middle east. Scheuer was the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, so he's an authority on the subject. It really struck me how his view of osama bin laden really fits in with whats going on right now.

First, it's useful to draw parallels to the mujahideen of afghanistan when they fought against the Soviets, where Bin Laden was first blooded in battle. In a quick summary, what happened was that the mujahideen were able to bog down the soviet invasion with a guerilla/insurgent style warfare. Eventually, their incursion into afghanistan dragged down the russian economy until public support in Russia dropped like a rock, so they pulled out. Although the circumstances aren't exactly the same, the parallels to the wars in Iraq and afghanistan are uncanny. The insurgency has proved very difficult to eradicate, our economy recently dropped like a bomb, and we're working on plans to pull out.

The second phase of bin laden's plan (according to Scheuer) is the fall of US-backed tyrannical regimes in the middle east. Sound familiar?

I think the third phase is something along the lines of an all-out war between the US and muslims world wide, although I havent gotten to that part of the book yet haha

As to other parts of US foreign policy, I really think that it's to the US's benefit to distance itself from Israel and Taiwan. In the case of Israel, I dont think that the state is legitimate in the first place. The land it's on was unjustly taken. Yes, jewish people have been historically brutalized, but wrong + wrong doesnt make it right to take their land. Support for Israel is also against the US's oil interests. We're in the middle east for it's oil, and it so happens that everyone who has oil hates israel. It makes no sense for us to support them.

For taiwan, I think it's in the US's interests to support a peaceful reconciliation between mainland china and taiwan. Domino theory is defunct, supporting Taiwan means placing an unnecessary source of tension between US and mainland China. And the economic benefits of backing mainland china are enormous. As part of negotiations, the US would be able to win tons of concessions from the Chinese, for a promise of not going to war. And it should be peaceful reconciliation simply because I dont think itd be right for all of taiwan to be slaughtered.

Forum

Added a cool new forum feature to this blog. Theres a link in the top right corner. Ill try to pitch in with my 2 cents to whatever gets discussed, and moderate it as best as i can. Lets try to be civil, yo. Enjoy.

Is law really just?

Recently in my Law and Society class we've been studying, well, law. It's been disturbing stuff. I was raised with and I still am holding onto the idea that our law is just and good. A lot of the reading we've been doing seems to contradict this.

For one, law is not evenly applied to everyone, even in our society. In theory, law is used most extensively in a socially downward direction, meaning that those of higher social status (rich people, politicians, holy people), are subjected to less law then social pariahs, like homeless people or people who engage in activities that the majority doesn't like. An example of this was given by Donald Black, who studied the activities of modern police in the field. He found that the homeless found on skid row are frequently subjected to a level of brutality that would never be seen in a middle or upper class neighborhood. I think the most disturbing thing was that the homeless were frequently arrested for infractions that were covers for "we dont like you, and we dont want you to be here", like vagrancy and public drunkenness (some arrested were drunk, but not all). Clearly if the law is being applied like this, it's not the just and angelic tool that I had thought it to be.

On a broader theoretical level, law is essentially the way for a group to keep it's members in line. Law is the legitimization of violence against those who act in a way that the majority doesnt like. Sometimes this is good thing like when its used against rapists or murderers, but it's also not, like when its used to restrict the freedoms of racial groups, homosexuals, and vagrants who don't conform to what the ruling majority (typically white males in our society) wants their society to be like.

If a society is ever to be truly free, can it's members ever be compelled to do something? Even things that are perceived goods like compulsory education, are still compulsory via economic sanctions, jail time, etc. Being compelled into an action (or deterred from it) is a violation of our personal freedoms.

I'm left wondering if the use of violence should ever be socially sanctioned by a society against it's members. I'm not sure if anarchy would have morally better outcomes, but like the Joker said, the thing about chaos is that it's fair.

Politics and Whatnot

Politics is a difficult subject for me to approach, since it has so many different facets and I had no initial plan in mind. This'll be a very disjointed post with no real overall flow to it, I guess.

Affirmative action. It doesn’t matter if there was racism in the past, "good" racism does not cancel out "bad" racism. Because affirmative action is government sanctioned racism (valuing the education/employment of some ethnicities more then others), it has no place in our society. That being said, there is a program I have in mind similar to affirmative action that is just and allowable in our society. (disclaimer: this wasn’t my idea, somebody else told me about this but I can't remember who, sorry). Instead, we should have affirmative action based solely on income level. This takes race completely out of the equation as it should be, while still giving many minorities (many of whom are poorer due to past injustices) the chance to better education or a better job. Income level is the single greatest factor in determining college acceptance. There's a reason why Ivy leagues are full of kids that have been prepped their whole lives through private educational institutions. Some from lower incomes do manage to make it to elite schools, but those people have to be truly extraordinary, or football players. This is just compared to our current affirmative action, because it seeks to rectify the skewed circumstances that we are brought into the world under (how much our parents make). Race-based affirmative action leads to too many other injustices, like one kid's SAT of 1200 being valued more highly then a score of 1300, when the former is a lower-represented minority, even if the former is from a $200K+ background. Life chances that affirmative action seeks to nullify are income based, not race based. It just so happens that income and race are closely tied together due to historical injustices.

I am for the legalization of all drugs and alcohol within certain restrictions like age limits. On alcohol, the age should be lowered to 18. I'm not saying this because I want to get wasted whenever I can. I'm saying this because I can be drafted into the army, to go off and fight and die defending my country half way around the world, but I can't do it with a drink in my hand.

For drugs, I think it's pretty obvious that prohibiting a substance doesn’t mean that it's users will stop using it. Everything should be legalized. So it can be regulated by the FDA, so that medical care can be given to users without fear of prosecution, so that it will lower our collective tax burden of keeping all the millions of drug users in jail. It will inject billions of dollars and jobs into our economy as a regulate-able industry, while defunding drug cartels in Mexico, Coloumbia, and Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan (opium). Most of all, it should be legalized because the government has no right to tell an adult what they can and can't put into their bodies. They should be warned and informed on what theyre doing, but the ultimate choice is not up to the government.

On abortion I don’t really have anything that exciting to say. I agree with Roe.

On immigration, I think that we should put very stringent measures on illegal immigrants, while at the same time streamlining and expanding the rate at which legal immigrants can come in. I'm totally happy with people immigrating to the US, as long as they do it legally so that we know who they are, and so that they can be taxed just like everyone else. Too often, I think ant-illegal immigrant fervor is kindled by anti-hispanic prejudices, and that’s not right.

The last thing I have to say for now will be about some Republican 2012 Presidential contenders. If John McCain was elected (albeit with a different running mate), or if Mitt Romney was elected, or if Rudy Giuliani was elected, I might hate policies they pose and totally disagree with them on stuff, but at least I could rest assured that the country was under competent leadership. Sarah Palin, and to a certain extent Michelle Bachmann, are simply not competent enough to lead our nation.

Religion part 3 (I promise this won't be an all-religion blog)

In light of recent events, I thought id make another post. And by recent events, I mean that mi amiga Tammy Teng managed to talk me into attending her bible study group. That proves I'm open minded, right? Anyhoodles I thought id share my impressions with you. (disclaimer: these are generally geared toward Christianity because it was a BIBLE study group, but I think the general concepts can be applied to all religions).

First off, I noticed how my earlier hypothesis seemed to be confirmed; that the bible is more used for retroactive justification then anything else. The purpose of the study group was to "bust bible myths", essentially using bible passages to refute what they deemed to be common misconceptions about god. Notice the problem here? They picked a thesis (which happened to be "all roads lead to god"), then justified it using personal interpretations of the bible. Seeing as the bible is mostly vague fables that kind of fit together chronologically, essentially any thesis can be justified in this manner. And I'm sure this applies to any use of holy books in any religion. Their wordings are deliberately vague and open to interpretation so that any person can justify any action through them.

The other thing I want to mention is how despite appearances, how callous and cold hearted they are. The topic of the night centered around how jesus was the sole conduit to heaven and salvation. People in the group mentioned how those not following jesus would simply not find salvation, but I don’t think they really appreciated what this means in terms of their bible. If you're not saved, you're sent to hell. Read dante's inferno. Tortured for all eternity. Now I'm apparently one of the worst kinds of sinners there is: I've heard the word of god, know it, and have conscientiously objected to it. For those of you who know me personally and not all you trolls out there, are you ok with this? For you who are told to love thy neighbor, are you ok with a religion that would damn me and others like me to being tortured for all eternity?

I swear this won't be a religion blog. Next time Ill try to get into some political issues.

Religion Part 2

Most of the ideas that I'm going to discuss here come from Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael, My Ishmael, and the Story of B. I highly recommend his books, and if i butcher his ideas here please read those books for a better understanding of what im talking about.

I said this would be a history. So lets start there. Organized religion as we understand it today traces it's routes back to the neolithic revolution, a period during which humans at several places around the world began to settle and practice totalitarian agriculture. Bear with me for this part, because it's important. There is a huge difference between agriculture and totalitarian agriculture. Agriculture, cultivating plants for consumption had been going on long before the neolithic revolution. The neolithic revolution was the onset of totalitarian agriculture. The goal of totalitarian agriculture is to maximize production by converting all organic matter into forms consumable by humans, whereas agriculture is subsistence farming as a supplement to hunting and gathering. This is where we trace organized religion to, and where we trace our cultural identity.

Population is a function of food supply. The more food you have, the larger population can be supported. Because totalitarian agriculture maximized food productivity, the tribes that practiced it soon exploded in numbers. Overwhelming numbers soon allowed totalitarian agriculture-based tribes to conquer their neighbors, and they expanded outwards from the Fertile Crescent, East Asia, and Central America. Each area was based on the growth of a specific crop: Asia was rice-based, the Fertile Crescent was wheat-based, and Central America was maize-based.

The transition to totalitarian agriculture had huge consequences. It led to social stratification, compared to the relatively egalitarian nature of tribal societies. It led to the subjugation of women, who were tied to male farmers for a means of survival. It led to the cultural myth that totalitarian agriculture was simply the way humans should live, and always had lived. This can be seen throughout world history; manifest destiny, European colonialism, and the systematic extermination or "making-more-civilized-of" any tribal society ever.

Totalitarian agriculture also gave rise to organized religion. And you thought i wouldn't ever get to the connection. Humans have long had superstitious beliefs, but the neolithic revolution centralized religion under political leadership; all societies of the era were theocracies. Religion was now being used as a method of social control. After all, who would be stupid enough to rebel against a king who could smite you in this life, then torment you for all eternity in the next? Totalitarian agriculture requires a back-breaking amount of work compared to hunting and gathering, and larger population numbers in close proximity led to a rise in infectious diseases. Larger societies began to wage devastating war on each other, compared to the constant, low level of conflict that tribes engage in. Humans began to believe that we were intrinsically deficient, or divinely cursed. Like we had some original sin or something.

Prophets also began appearing, who's main function was to tell people how to live. I remember reading somewhere, that any animal that is taken from it's habituated state will begin to exhibit psychotic tendencies. Humans are no different, we have the tendency to form tribes, like how birds form flocks, dolphins schools, and elephants herds. Taken into a new method of survival, humans experienced an identity crisis. Of all the things we know how to do now, we still don't seem to know how to live. People still look back on ancient texts for guidance. We don't know how to live as a totalitarian species.

And so, religion grew into what it is today. I think this is helpful, because a lot of people tend to hold onto the idea that their religion has been and always been the truth. Taken in a historical context, this is ridiculous. Of all the religions ever, of all the prophets, holy books, and miracles ever that claim to have a stranglehold on truth, it takes a mighty arrogance to think one of those religions must be the truth because you believe it, or you "feel it".

I'll finish with a couple disclaimers. One: I'm not trying to idealize the tribal lifestyle. What i've described is simply what happened. Humans know how to live as tribes, we don't as totalitarian agriculturalists. Soon it won't matter anymore: we're nearing a point of no return, where soon all of Earth's resources will be for human consumption. We'll devastate the world with our culture. Another disclaimer is that some people may scoff at the idea that we are not now better then ancient tribes. They are blinded by the cultural myth that our evolution was progress. It wasn't, it was simply change. We do live now, longer and healthier now then before. But at what cost? Wars, famines, and plagues that kill millions. Crime, the largest gap between rich and poor ever, etc. One of the worst effects we suffer i think, is the lack of social ties we experience. In a tribe, you have close and intense bonds with people in face-to-face interactions. Now, we post on facebooks. Friends, family, and people we love move away, never to be seen again. Loneliness is one of the worst social and psychological conditions.

Oh, its also a cultural myth that there's a distinction between artificiality and nature. Everything is nature, including humans, machines, factories, etc. Artificiality is an artificial construct, so to speak. Also, its a cultural myth that we know what's best for other species and ecosystems. We have no idea, and we have a terrible track record of trying to be the shepards of Earth. Just thought I'd tack those on there.

Sorry this was a long post. Next time, ill probably move onto a new topic. Or maybe ill go back and clarify/restate some of the things i talked about earlier. Whatevs.