Violence, Part One

This is the first entry in which I will attempt to tackle the problem of violence in human civilisation. Here I will lay out the framework for what I perceive to be the problem, and I will in future be able to come to some concrete solutions.

Above all, apart from freedom of speech (but not necessarily action; this will be covered below), we must strive for and protect freedom from violence and involuntary, imposed death.

Perhaps I need to back-track just a little and set out a simplified hierarchy of concepts ordered by human worth:

Freedom of Speech - The most valuable concept we possess as a species is that of freedom of speech. Without it we are incapable of the continuous revolution against dogma and stagnancy necessary to progress as a civilisation. It allows us to apply the scientific method to ourselves; to seek out faults in logic, justice, purview etc and to attempt solutions. These solutions will themselves always be imperfect, of course. There is no logos towards which we can, or should, aspire. Such a thing would itself only be defined dogmatically and should therefore be rejected outright in the interests of protecting freedom of speech. Imperfection is acceptable with this in mind.

I will go into this in further length in the future, and there are obviously hugely varied and detailed arguments which must be made for and against freedom of speech being held paramount by our species, but for now, this is as much as needs to be said.

Freedom from Violence and Imposed Death - The reason this is second in my hierarchy and not first is simply because there may come times in the future, as there have been in the past, where violence is the only remaining method of protecting freedom of speech. Logically, therefore, freedom of speech takes primacy. Freedom from violence and imposed death does not need much of an explanation here as I will talk about it later.

Freedom of Action - This comes last in this small and simplified list as, whilst freedom of action is exquisitely important, it must also be tempered by speech should things be taken too far, i.e. attempts at totalitarian, theocratic or otherwise suppressive and oppressive behaviour. In the worst and most lamentable cases, malign action must be ceased with violence, but a responsible civilisation must always see this as a last resort and the abject failure of speech.

In reality I think this hierarchy should be seen as a small pyramid, with Freedom of Action and Freedom from Violence and Imposed Death being seen as equally weighted underneath Freedom of Speech. The two are so intricately connected as to be continuous from a distance, separated by a shifting fault-line of social normality.

This is a subject I will return to, and hopefully with more clarity; I appreciate it is a little rushed here, it is simply because it is not what I wish to discuss.

Back on topic: Freedom from violence and death; the why and possibilities of the how.

Now when I talk about violence here, I am not talking bar brawls, playground fights, pugilistic ripostes; I am not advocating a society with repressed expression. These forms of violence are modes of social interaction and are mostly looked down upon or straightforwardly outlawed as it is.

What I am talking about is violence as a means of political persuasion. 

The main forms of this are as follows::

Violence as a Means Toward Social Order: This includes police brutality as a blatant method of control, but extends organically towards the problems of Russia, China, not to mention other, apparently democratic nations.. Russia and China have both become the poster-children for violent suppression of freedom of speech and the troubling echoes of their behaviour are now becoming manifest in supposedly liberal societies.

The simple counter-argument to violence as a means toward social order is this:
If social stability or social power is gained through the use of violence, that social stability/power is not legitimate as it has been gained through straight-forward ignorance of important sociological problems. The ends do not justify the means and, perhaps more importantly, the perpetuation of said sociological problems will necessitate the use of the same unjustifiable violence. This problem either snowballs towards full-on revolution or the society in which it occurs becomes so superficially stable that the majority of the populace become ignorant, willfully or not, of social problems until far after they needed dealing with. I would argue this is the situation in which Western civilisation now finds itself.

Capital Punishment: It cannot be overstated. There is no ethical justification for capital punishment. The argument for capital punishment is simple and utilitarian; it is the removal of a problem. A man murdered by the state can do no more harm and costs the state no more money to maintain, unlike other prisoners. There is also an emotional argument for capital punishment. It provides revenge for aggrieved family, for instance. It scares criminals away from committing extreme crimes. There is a biblical argument: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. 

The problem with many, if not all of these arguments is that they are, to put it diplomatically, hubris, ex post facto. 

The bible was written to govern another world, another era of humanity. The Great Amender, Jesus Christ Himself, actively disagreed with much of the violent old testament. The emotional arguments hold no water as they are failed logical connections wrapped in rhetoric. The fact that after our species existing for 250,000 years there are still societies with the death penalty presents quite a neat counter-argument against capital punishment as a preventative measure. Those who demand vengeance should never be allowed it. It is that simple. The pathology of vengeance is self-sustaining.

The utilitarian arguments for capital punishment fall to pieces upon the mildest scrutiny. Money never measures against the actual worth of human rights; something enshrined in America with the emancipation proclamation. You cannot measure a man's death as a preemptive debt relief. 

The only argument listed here (I will approach this subject in length in the future) which holds up to any extent is that regarding potential future crime. If a man commits homicide, he has a higher likelihood of committing again. This is a fact which cannot be avoided. Apart from in the cases of provably innocent men put to death.
The arguments against capital punishment become long-winded and complicated quickly and will be dealt with by me in the future but at the moment I will simplify: The government murder of a human does not prevent or solve anything on any scale larger than the individual. On the individual scale, there will always be a responsibility thrust upon a person to actually conduct execution. Even if it is a computer which does the deed, that computer needs programming. It is not acceptable to allow for the responsibility of murder to be put on a person's shoulders, however willing they may be.

War: The case of war is one I have spoken about at length with people in the past and it is one difficult to bring to a conclusive solution. As a pacifist, my feelings are plain: murder is unacceptable. There is, however an argument for Just War and I would be remiss if I didn't spend considerable time on it.
A statement which demonstrates my feeling which would be difficult for most modern humans to disagree with is this:
War is the failure of politics.
If it is being used as a tool of politics, then that polity can no longer claim absolute right. This statement would, logically, justify at the very least the aims of the Allies during the Second World War. Political peace had been attempted and failed, spectacularly.
Any war waged to prevent further war is a gamble on potentiality, however, and few are as clean cut as the war against fascism. War is a colossal subject which I will cover in length, but here I will simply repeat the phrase: War is the failure of politics.

A world without any of these three forms of political violence will most likely never exist. A world without war, for instance, sees a gradual increase in governmental obsession with observing its own citizens; a situation which could feasibly lead to increased police brutality and social repression. War will always be waged, whether by men or their proxy robot replacements. Societies will always murder their own for political reasons. There are, however, ideals towards which we must strive. We must marginalise war. We must pour scorn on government oppression. We must whole-heartedly reject any claims to credibility made by an institution which believes crimes can be solved by something as simple as symmetry.

Any comments/arguments/suggestions would be more than welcome. I hope I can give some satisfactory answers.

Apologies

There is in fact a series of updates on its way, I've had a fairly hectic few weeks. Reasonably big things on the horizon. Who'da thunk creating a universal philosophy for myself would have been in any way hard?!

On Nick Griffin

I haven’t failed to notice Nick Griffin’s spectacularly repellent return to the limelight. His threats towards and irresponsible, callous and potentially illegal acts against (i.e. giving out their personal address on Twitter) the couple disallowed service from a (apparently irony impaired) Christian b&b are so crass, childish and moronic as to make redundant any statement of distaste by myself. Anyone with a worldview not based on fear and hatred can see his actions for the cynical, desperate pandering to the armchair-fascists (or bar-support fascists) he relies on for votes and publicity. He has been quiet and half forgotten for a time, so he needed to re-enter the arena with a splash, so he latched onto a rabble-rouser and went “all Nick Griffin” on it.

So far, so predictable.

What worries me is the reaction. I received an email earlier asking to sign a petition to get Griffin banned from Twitter. Now, the main reason given is the publishing of the couple in question’s address, which is in direct contravention of Twitters rules of use. Fair enough, he needs to be reprimanded for that within the rules. What worries me is a call for him to be silenced for being disgusting. I would respond to this with two points.

The first, for the angry amongst us, which includes myself, I have to admit. Let him tie his own noose. Whilst there are lots of very deluded people out there who will agree with his published sentiments, there are also many more who will despise them. He is broadcasting on Twitter, not targeting (this does not seem to occur to him, incidentally). Let him speak, and make himself look like a monster wanker. He is not Adolf Hitler, he is a hooligan, an angry child, a half-baked fury-merchant and he must be allowed to reveal himself as this. No amount of negative publicity can do as much damage to his reputation than his own blundering, blustering ignorance.

The second point is that if we start censoring people for having horrible views, we not only damage ourselves in the long run, but also raise the question of credibility regarding our own views. The first bit is obvious; any attack on free speech sets a volatile precedent which can be used to justify an incredibly wide range of action in the future, far away from the original intention, however well meaning. The second is, in the short term, a greater worry as it is less easy to undo. A furious response will often be interpreted as a sign of insecurity. Those who stand against gay rights will see a vengeful response to Griffin’s hot air as a sign that they have made a dent, and they will carry on with it until they feel they can cause real damage. The response to this is not spite or rage or censorship. It must be dismissal of an untenable philosophical and political decision. It must be calmly disassembled, discarded for scrap. A response to meet Griffin’s arguments head on risks only turning the rational into a mirror image of the irrational instead of the measured rejection that it should be. Rationality is not a simple opinion; it is the outcome education, observation and reflection.

Let’s not dignify Nick Griffin’s asinine claims of “heterophobia” with the anger he lives on. Let’s just dismiss him into oblivion.

The problem with Objectivism

Mark has asked me my opinions on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, i.e. Objectivism, and also for an explanation of my statement, "We are at the beginning of a new era of humanity. It is one which links us to all others, and makes a nonsense of internally consistent but externally incompatible belief systems."

I'll start off with my opinion on Objectivism. 

A disclaimer: not having enough of a Sunday afternoon to write a 1000 page philosophical treatment, I am treating Rand in a hugely simplified manner. 

Firstly, the idea that the universe exists in some kind of static, "true" sense; a logocentric "1", is extremely tenuous to begin with. To be pedantic, the exact nature of the universe is not directly measurable. On the very most basic scales of reality, one can only know the momentum or the location of a particle; not both simultaneously. Less pedantically, the conceit that the universe provably exists outside of the mind of obviously always going to be unsubstantiated and, with regards to our own selves, not actually wholly relevant. Whether we are only in our own solipsistic universe, a computer simulation, a divine creation or a mindless, infinite extent of matter and energy, no appreciable effect is had on the concepts of useful, admirable or even just normative behaviour. Finally, the idea that reality and the human mind exist discretely is observably untrue. Whilst, yes, our minds cannot blot out the stars or move the continents, they most certainly drive the environment within which we live, and willful ignorance of this is irresponsible to the point of inhumanity.

Perhaps all that is irrelevant.

What I truly take issue is is the concept of a prescriptive moral code for individual success. This is the central tenet of many religions and political/economic (the three can be readily conflated) systems and it remains fundamentally short sighted and unethical. Now let me make myself clear here: Violating the rights of fellow human beings is unacceptable. Removing the right to action, choice or life are abhorrent behavioral patterns. This does not, however, mean that individual rights trump everything else. Rand believed that a system of unrestricted capitalism was the ultimate expression of the preservation of individual rights. This is an astoundingly naive extrapolation which speaks more or her pathology than it does her philosophy. Capitalism demonstrably and repeatedly removes individual rights from the populace as it seeks to remove competition. I cannot overstate this point: capitalism is the un-systematic removal of competition over time. Human rights are competition to the rights of capital. The point that "well yes, so those capitalists are actually acting in a way that Rand would disagree with" only shows the fallacy of her stance. Capitalism is not practicable without this destruction of the rights of the less able. The idea that people can just magic up opportunity and enter into this corruptible golden city of unfettered individualism is facile; an insulting denial of the world created when individual power is abused as an inevitable outcome of unrestricted personal growth. That this is not a truth universally observed speaks only of the power of propaganda and its used-car salesman cousin, advertising.

Another point which needs emphasising: socialism is not the alternative. There is no alternative. There is no perfect politics. There is no ideal human arrangement. The striving for such a state is admirable but must always be misguided as we are, as a species, simply running an indefinite experiment with forever altering base-values. Rand sees capitalism as the state to which a civilisation should aspire to meet the needs of its individuals. Europe of a thousand years ago saw fundamental Christianity in the same light. The path to personal enlightenment is always sold by a serious salesman who first creates the image of a prophet, then a destiny. The most important invention is always a past.

Competitive capitalists are not prophets, nor are their pet politicians. Destiny is not personal wealth and happiness; these are merely side-effects. The past is proof that the universe can exist as a manifestation of both itself and of the human mind.

I'm aware that that was a reaction rather than an alternative, but hopefully I will be able to make my own views clear in time.

With regards to the statement, "We are at the beginning of a new era of humanity. It is one which links us to all others, and makes a nonsense of internally consistent but externally incompatible belief systems."

Simply put, I have faith that time and cooperation will bring forth certain methods of interacting which encourage and nourish all of humanity and I think the communications and transport technologies developed in the last century or so will be central to this process. In earnest, I think the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will be seen forever as the point at which human kind developed self-referential perception; the kind which, in nascent forms, has seen an increasingly peaceful, inclusive and altruistic wave of social change sweep through civilisations over the past few hundred years. We are in the midst of a new, technological enlightenment, constructing a mirror for ourselves. How long it will take to assimilate the whole image is a question for historians hundreds, perhaps thousands of years hence, and for philosophers forever after that.

On a brand spangly new blog

The time comes when a new start is more rewarding than bending the past into the present. I have been blogging for years under the name "Human Friendly", and in that time I have thrown all sorts into the mix. Photography, drawing, writing, random nonsense from around the net. Time to simplify. Photos, cartoons etc will continue to be hurled at my basic blog, humanfriendly.tumblr.com, but writing comes here.

I've been writing short stories for years, exploring different philosophical takes on the world, and I have been boring the ears off people for much longer on the same subject. I have increasingly found it useful to explore these concepts in a more essayist way. What comes out of my head varies from my views on the nature of justice, the divine, and the human soul to my visceral loathing of cephalopods (they have arms for a face. Not ok, nature. Not ok.). I've been planning this blog for a long time and it became something I... just didn't get around to. But I've decided now is time. I'm working on several pieces which will make their way up onto here in the coming weeks and I aim to keep it going indefinitely.

This may come across as wildly ambitious, but I intend to use this blog to forge an all-encompassing personal philosophy. It will be a philosophy of altruism, compassion and functionality. It must acknowledge diversity of mind and be able to account for that.
It will be fundamentally intolerant of violence.
It will not explain anything in terms not directly linked to experience.
It will not reject the past, but will emphasise the potential of the future.
It will be realistic but necessarily optimistic.

We are at the beginning of a new era of humanity. It is one which links us to all others, and makes a nonsense of internally consistent but externally incompatible belief systems.
We must acknowledge human suffering and progress, regardless of where it is on Earth and, in the future, beyond.

Selfishness has a sell-by date. Even if only by the most minute increment, I intend to hasten our progress towards that day.

Let's see where this goes...