Although philosophy has a long legacy, and is arguably responsible for all things academic (the natural sciences coming from Aristotle, psychology and sociology being 'applied philosophy' from the 1800s i.e. Freud on the one hand, and Comte and Durkheim on the other, mathematics coming from the Ancient Greeks).
Basically, philosophy was first summarized to me as an attempt to answer three questions:
1) Who are we?
2) What do we know?
3) What should we do?
The first question is usually dealt with in metaphysics, the second in epistemology, and the third in ethics and political/social philosophy. But of course there is a vast overlap between the two. 'Are we ethical beings?' might be a question put to the first, and this directly affects how the third should be answered, although in all fairness putting such a question to the first is already having 'loaded' it.
But more so, it is amazing that bashing away at these simple questions for millenia has basically made the world how we see it today. We apply (3) in every daily activity whether it be sports or academia. And to the second question, a sceptic might say 'nothing for certain' (or, like Socrates, say 'the only thing that I know is that I know nothing'), and so one could say that we haven't even gotten off the ground and never will.
So why do we worry about these questions? Well surely if we didn't we would still be in our caves.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Pascal's Can of Wagers
Last night I was thinking about Pascal's Wager and toying with making it the topic of today's post. Admittedly, a lot of the direction of the argument stems from various parts of the corresponding wikipedia article, but anyway...
Many know something of Blaise Pascal's famous wager with respect to the existence of God. I would wager (haha) that few have actually read the Pensées, and/or perhaps could not even recognize when it is alluded to, since most have simply seen it in the following simplified 'decision theory' form:
Wager:
(a) Believe in God
(b) Do not believe in God
Possibilities:
(i) God exists
(ii) God does not exist
Consequences:
(a) If (i) is true, then you get infinite bliss, if (ii) is true then you lose nothing.
(b) If (i) is true, you burn in Hell, if (ii) is true, you lose nothing.
One problem is that critics of his wager attack its simplified form. Walter Kaufmann, for example, argues that if God is truly omniscient, then surely he will frown upon (i.e. punish) someone trying to use a simple logical trick to get into Heaven, so surely such a method is bound to fail in the end. This criticism has been used to both satirize the Wager, and justify its false logic, for example:
"Suppose there is a god who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless God wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy." (Richard Carrier)
(I believe this sort of argument is sometimes referred to as 'Pascal's Demon', because it essentially tries to show that the Wager could actually be convincing people to take up a logical argument that is bound to fail in the face of God, thus recruiting minions to Hell).
However, in it's original form, Pascal's Wager is actually put forward as an impetus to faith, i.e.:
"Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing."
However, this does not deal with a host of other problems, one of the main being 'Ok, even if we accept Pascal's logic, what's to say whether we should believe in this God or that? Since there are so many possibilities, surely by choosing you are actually putting yourself at the risk of burning in the Hell of whatever God is up there, should it not be your own?'
But even if we put questions within religion to the side for a second, Pascal's Wager has opened up a proverbial can of worms ever since religion became such a controversial subject in the modern age due to many critics questioning, for example, its political motives (recall that during Pascal's time, religion was not often debated openly, and non-Christian religions were not as 'global' as they are now).
This new religious 'scrutiny', especially by those who see things like Pascal's Wager as a tool of 'flawed logic' to recruit people to religious sects, has opened up a proverbial can of worms in the sense that there are now many other versions of Pascal's Wager that attempt to satirize it and thus argue against its validity as a logical tool, as well to put forward alternatives to say that Pascal's 'logic' can be used to argue against believing in God; it all depends on how you put your argument forward. Religious critic Richard Dawkins, for example, puts forward the 'Anti-Pascal Wager' in The God Delusion by revaluing life as what's important (scored with infinite loss if you 'waste' it on kowtowing to God or infinite gain if you 'spend it wisely' on making a genuine effort to make a difference in the world itself) and afterlife as simply a meager 'bonus'. Another is the 'Atheist's Wager', which is akin to the 'Pascal's Demon' criticism above. It alleges that if you maintain scepticism then you may build a 'positive legacy' by doing good things in life, and this you gain, then if there does exist a God in the end, he will reward you for your good deeds as well as your staunch resistance to blind faith.
Whatever the outcome of the Wager or its many versions, Pascal's Wager was the beginning of modern decision theory/game theory (for example, the Prisoner's Dilemma), and thus, irrespective of the validity of its content, his suggestion/approach is definitely useful for philosophy. In true, demonic fashion, however, I must leave the last word to the critics:
"[Pascal's Wager is] indecent and childish... the interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists."
--Voltaire
"By arguing that we should first act and then gain faith Pascal is in fact subjecting us to physical domination through use of ideological power (i.e. we are being forced to physically kneel down, pray, etc.). For this reason Louis Althusser claims that Pascal brings 'like Christ, not peace but strife, and in addition something hardly Christian... scandal itself'."
--Wikipedia
Many know something of Blaise Pascal's famous wager with respect to the existence of God. I would wager (haha) that few have actually read the Pensées, and/or perhaps could not even recognize when it is alluded to, since most have simply seen it in the following simplified 'decision theory' form:
Wager:
(a) Believe in God
(b) Do not believe in God
Possibilities:
(i) God exists
(ii) God does not exist
Consequences:
(a) If (i) is true, then you get infinite bliss, if (ii) is true then you lose nothing.
(b) If (i) is true, you burn in Hell, if (ii) is true, you lose nothing.
One problem is that critics of his wager attack its simplified form. Walter Kaufmann, for example, argues that if God is truly omniscient, then surely he will frown upon (i.e. punish) someone trying to use a simple logical trick to get into Heaven, so surely such a method is bound to fail in the end. This criticism has been used to both satirize the Wager, and justify its false logic, for example:
"Suppose there is a god who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless God wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy." (Richard Carrier)
(I believe this sort of argument is sometimes referred to as 'Pascal's Demon', because it essentially tries to show that the Wager could actually be convincing people to take up a logical argument that is bound to fail in the face of God, thus recruiting minions to Hell).
However, in it's original form, Pascal's Wager is actually put forward as an impetus to faith, i.e.:
"Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing."
However, this does not deal with a host of other problems, one of the main being 'Ok, even if we accept Pascal's logic, what's to say whether we should believe in this God or that? Since there are so many possibilities, surely by choosing you are actually putting yourself at the risk of burning in the Hell of whatever God is up there, should it not be your own?'
But even if we put questions within religion to the side for a second, Pascal's Wager has opened up a proverbial can of worms ever since religion became such a controversial subject in the modern age due to many critics questioning, for example, its political motives (recall that during Pascal's time, religion was not often debated openly, and non-Christian religions were not as 'global' as they are now).
This new religious 'scrutiny', especially by those who see things like Pascal's Wager as a tool of 'flawed logic' to recruit people to religious sects, has opened up a proverbial can of worms in the sense that there are now many other versions of Pascal's Wager that attempt to satirize it and thus argue against its validity as a logical tool, as well to put forward alternatives to say that Pascal's 'logic' can be used to argue against believing in God; it all depends on how you put your argument forward. Religious critic Richard Dawkins, for example, puts forward the 'Anti-Pascal Wager' in The God Delusion by revaluing life as what's important (scored with infinite loss if you 'waste' it on kowtowing to God or infinite gain if you 'spend it wisely' on making a genuine effort to make a difference in the world itself) and afterlife as simply a meager 'bonus'. Another is the 'Atheist's Wager', which is akin to the 'Pascal's Demon' criticism above. It alleges that if you maintain scepticism then you may build a 'positive legacy' by doing good things in life, and this you gain, then if there does exist a God in the end, he will reward you for your good deeds as well as your staunch resistance to blind faith.
Whatever the outcome of the Wager or its many versions, Pascal's Wager was the beginning of modern decision theory/game theory (for example, the Prisoner's Dilemma), and thus, irrespective of the validity of its content, his suggestion/approach is definitely useful for philosophy. In true, demonic fashion, however, I must leave the last word to the critics:
"[Pascal's Wager is] indecent and childish... the interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists."
--Voltaire
"By arguing that we should first act and then gain faith Pascal is in fact subjecting us to physical domination through use of ideological power (i.e. we are being forced to physically kneel down, pray, etc.). For this reason Louis Althusser claims that Pascal brings 'like Christ, not peace but strife, and in addition something hardly Christian... scandal itself'."
--Wikipedia
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
'Living Labour' or 'Human Capital'?
As I was walking through Observatory last night on my way back from Rondebosch, I happened to look up at a sign I had seen numerous times before: it was an advertisement for the company that resided there, called 'CallStaff'. I had seen the name before and assumed it must be a temp agency, so I hadn't bothered too much with on the previous occasions that I had walked by. But last night I chanced to read (and process) the entire sign. At the bottom of the sign it said something to the effect of 'Temporary, Contract, and Permanent Labour Solutions', but right above that it said 'Human Capital Management'.
Human capital? I've heard of 'living labour' (as Marx termed it), but human capital? Isn't capital simply a broad term for financial assets, such as 'investment capital' is the amount of (surplus) financial assets that one has to re-invest? If that is the case, isn't it rather absurd to say that humans are 'owned'? (I mean, one could give the case that they are, at the very least, treated as such. But doesn't just coming out and saying it like that seem a bit brash?)
So I hired the help of dictionary.com, which provided me with the answer:
capital:
4. the wealth, whether in money or property owned or employed in business by an individual firm, corporation, etc.
5. an accumulated stock of such wealth.
6. any form of wealth employed or capable of being employed in the production of more wealth.
On the surface of it, it is perhaps a case of splitting hairs, when you hire someone to work for you, it seems a bit impertinent to say that you own them or that they are your property (at least, one would like to think this, though the reality of the situation is that one would likely not be surprised to see employees treated in such a way). But what is more interesting is definition #6. What is 'wealth'? Mostly we would think of wealth in terms of riches or abundance of something, or at least some sort of property, but Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations might lead us to be a bit suspicious of these general 'un-economic' ideas of wealth. So, dictionary.com again.
wealth:
3.a. all things that have a monetary or exchange value.
b. anything that has utility and is capable of being appropriated or exchanged
Ahhh! So now we have our answer. 'Human capital' is 'human wealth' (i.e. beings that can be utilized) capable of being employed in the production of more wealth.
Should we really be surprised, though? From my observations, the growing trend is that employees are facing greater and greater dehumanization for the sake of expanding the coffers of the rich elite. And yes, one may accuse me of being on a bit of a 'Marxist streak' after recent events in terms of completing my thesis. However, the main problem I have is when companies like 'CallStaff' are allowed to openly undermine human dignity by advertising themselves as a company that basically treats people like game pieces.
Or maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it means that eventually people will be pushed to the limit and be forced to respond.
Any takers for the slogan 'Human Livestock Available! Rock Bottom Prices!'?
Human capital? I've heard of 'living labour' (as Marx termed it), but human capital? Isn't capital simply a broad term for financial assets, such as 'investment capital' is the amount of (surplus) financial assets that one has to re-invest? If that is the case, isn't it rather absurd to say that humans are 'owned'? (I mean, one could give the case that they are, at the very least, treated as such. But doesn't just coming out and saying it like that seem a bit brash?)
So I hired the help of dictionary.com, which provided me with the answer:
capital:
4. the wealth, whether in money or property owned or employed in business by an individual firm, corporation, etc.
5. an accumulated stock of such wealth.
6. any form of wealth employed or capable of being employed in the production of more wealth.
On the surface of it, it is perhaps a case of splitting hairs, when you hire someone to work for you, it seems a bit impertinent to say that you own them or that they are your property (at least, one would like to think this, though the reality of the situation is that one would likely not be surprised to see employees treated in such a way). But what is more interesting is definition #6. What is 'wealth'? Mostly we would think of wealth in terms of riches or abundance of something, or at least some sort of property, but Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations might lead us to be a bit suspicious of these general 'un-economic' ideas of wealth. So, dictionary.com again.
wealth:
3.a. all things that have a monetary or exchange value.
b. anything that has utility and is capable of being appropriated or exchanged
Ahhh! So now we have our answer. 'Human capital' is 'human wealth' (i.e. beings that can be utilized) capable of being employed in the production of more wealth.
Should we really be surprised, though? From my observations, the growing trend is that employees are facing greater and greater dehumanization for the sake of expanding the coffers of the rich elite. And yes, one may accuse me of being on a bit of a 'Marxist streak' after recent events in terms of completing my thesis. However, the main problem I have is when companies like 'CallStaff' are allowed to openly undermine human dignity by advertising themselves as a company that basically treats people like game pieces.
Or maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it means that eventually people will be pushed to the limit and be forced to respond.
Any takers for the slogan 'Human Livestock Available! Rock Bottom Prices!'?
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Probability, Philosophy, and Monty Hall
I'm not sure that it is possible to come up with something original every weekday, and today is one of those days where my mind is elsewhere. So here is something I've plagiarized word-for-word from a photocopy tacked to a wall in the mathematics department at UCT (the original author is Dr. J Ritchie, a senior lecturer on the Philosophy of Science here at UCT). I thought the ending fit nicely with some of the things I said yesterday with regard to consequentialism and finitism.
The Monty Hall Problem
Here's a puzzle you might have heard before. Imagine you are taking part in a game show. The host, Monty Hall, has three doors in front of him. Behind one there is a car and behind the other two a goat. At the end of the game you will have chosen one of the doors and you'll win whatever is inside. You want to win the car.
You start by choosing one door at random. Monty looks behind the other two doors and opens one of them to reveal a goat. He now offers you the chance to swap your door for the one he didn't open. What should you do?
Many people argue like this. There are only two possibilities: the car is either behind your door or Monty's, each is equally likely, so it doesn't matter which door you choose. But that's a mistake. There are three possibilities at the beginning of the game, all of which we assume are equally likely. Either you have chosen the door with the car or you've chosen the door with goat 1 or you've chosen the door with goat 2. If you swap in the first case, you'll win a goat. If you swap in the other two cases, then you'll win the car. Hence you're twice as likely to win if you swap, so you should swap.
That's a simple problem in probability theory but let's now think about it in a different way. Imagine instead of winning a car that Monty promises to shower you in riches, if you win. But if you lose, Monty will shoot you. Of course, you might not want to play that game. But tough, Monty has kidnapped all your family and threatened to kill them all and you unless you play. The game proceeds as before. You choose a door, Monty opens one of his doors to reveal a goat (which now represents your imminent death) and asks if you want to swap. What should you do?
We've ratcheted up the drama a bit, you might think, but the logic of the case remains the same. You are more likely to win if you swap. So you should swap. Let's say you swap and it turns out the door you are left with contains a goat; so Monty shoots you. In what sense, then, was it the right decision to swap?
The obvious response is that it is the right thing to do because, if you play the game a lot, you will win twice as often (on average) as you lose. Probabilities in other words tell us about long-run frequencies. But this kind of game you can't play a lot. Once you lose, you are in a very serious way out of the game for good. In fact since relative frequencies only converge on probabilities in the infinite long run and in the long-run we're all dead, is there any good reason ever to choose the more probable option? Now we've moved from a simple problem in probability theory to a hard problem in philosophy... But I've run out of space to offer you any solutions.
(By the way, you are invited to send possible solutions to jack.ritchie@uct.ac.za)
The Monty Hall Problem
Here's a puzzle you might have heard before. Imagine you are taking part in a game show. The host, Monty Hall, has three doors in front of him. Behind one there is a car and behind the other two a goat. At the end of the game you will have chosen one of the doors and you'll win whatever is inside. You want to win the car.
You start by choosing one door at random. Monty looks behind the other two doors and opens one of them to reveal a goat. He now offers you the chance to swap your door for the one he didn't open. What should you do?
Many people argue like this. There are only two possibilities: the car is either behind your door or Monty's, each is equally likely, so it doesn't matter which door you choose. But that's a mistake. There are three possibilities at the beginning of the game, all of which we assume are equally likely. Either you have chosen the door with the car or you've chosen the door with goat 1 or you've chosen the door with goat 2. If you swap in the first case, you'll win a goat. If you swap in the other two cases, then you'll win the car. Hence you're twice as likely to win if you swap, so you should swap.
That's a simple problem in probability theory but let's now think about it in a different way. Imagine instead of winning a car that Monty promises to shower you in riches, if you win. But if you lose, Monty will shoot you. Of course, you might not want to play that game. But tough, Monty has kidnapped all your family and threatened to kill them all and you unless you play. The game proceeds as before. You choose a door, Monty opens one of his doors to reveal a goat (which now represents your imminent death) and asks if you want to swap. What should you do?
We've ratcheted up the drama a bit, you might think, but the logic of the case remains the same. You are more likely to win if you swap. So you should swap. Let's say you swap and it turns out the door you are left with contains a goat; so Monty shoots you. In what sense, then, was it the right decision to swap?
The obvious response is that it is the right thing to do because, if you play the game a lot, you will win twice as often (on average) as you lose. Probabilities in other words tell us about long-run frequencies. But this kind of game you can't play a lot. Once you lose, you are in a very serious way out of the game for good. In fact since relative frequencies only converge on probabilities in the infinite long run and in the long-run we're all dead, is there any good reason ever to choose the more probable option? Now we've moved from a simple problem in probability theory to a hard problem in philosophy... But I've run out of space to offer you any solutions.
(By the way, you are invited to send possible solutions to jack.ritchie@uct.ac.za)
Monday, February 14, 2011
Some Reflections on Selfishness (or 'The Significance of Valentine's Day')
Last night I was again in my usual place in Rondebosch and got into a fairly heated debate with a friend of a friend from Tanzania. He had said he was 'interested in economics', so I pushed for a clarification of this by saying 'you mean your interested in capitalist economics, i.e. making money.' And he agreed. So I got to thinking about this notion of greed. Is it inherent? Or is it dependent on our social milieu, e.g. does it develop because of the idolization of those in power over others?
And since today is Valentine's Day when we (supposedly) should be thinking about our significant others, maybe a discussion of whether or not selfishness is inherent is a good topic. Does he really love you, or he is just offering you this cheap card because he has a hidden agenda? (But maybe you're accepting it because you also have a hidden agenda... but then maybe he knows that you know that he knows that you know... you get the picture...). To raise your suspicions even further (because my primary goal by publishing this post is to plant a seed of doubt about the value of 'superstition' in terms of certain days being supposedly 'more important' than others in terms of showing someone else you care, and so, in this instance I'm unfortunately out to make war, not love) let me share a humourous anecdote shared with me by some friends here in South Africa:
The son of a certain family is well-known by his family and most of his friends to be something of a 'Don Juan' (though I've not been able to affirm this through personal experience since he's currently in a detention center and I've only visited him once). Given that Valentine's Day was coming up, they told me about how there is a very large Valentine card that one of his aunts received some years ago. As luck would have it, the card was completely generic and not personalized. So every year on February 14 he takes this same gigantic card and gives it to whichever female is the apple of his eye at the time, and even though as the years go by its appearance has gotten old and crusty, as far as I know it's always greeted exceptionally favourably ('ohhh... the sacrifice you must have made to get such a Valentine card JUST FOR ME!!!'), and the guy usually gets what he wants (the substance of which is probably fairly obvious). So they joked that they should contact him and ask him who 'the Valentine' should go to this year... (so ladies, maybe this year you should check your Valentine cards a bit more carefully than years past for signs that it might have actually come from years past...)
But let's get back to theory, shall we? In Book 2 of The Republic, Plato tells the story of 'The Ring of Gyges'. He describes a shepherd named Gyges, who finds a ring that is able to make him invisible at will. He describes a sequence of events wherein the shepherd uses the powers of the ring to kill the king, marry the queen, and rule over the domain. Plato then declares that if a just man had found the ring, his actions would be the same as the unjust man,
"For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice."
In other words, Plato argues that the only reason why we are moral beings is because of the consequences that we face due to our actions. (Recall I previously brought up this notion of consequentialism at the end of the discussion of 'Sadist morality' in the post Exegesis in the Bedroom). If, in the case of having such a ring, you can do whatever you wish and no one could ever charge you with any action since they could never trace the action to you, there are seemingly no consequences. (If you've seen it, maybe think of Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man). Although this sequence of events could never conceivably happen, let's take this a step further.
Often an argument against materialistic greed is "he who dies with the most toys still dies" or, equivalently, "no matter what you have, you can't take it with", but let's look at it from a more 'statistical' vantage point. If one is to play Russian Roulette, and the revolver in question has six chambers only one of which contains a bullet, then you have only a 1/6 chances of dying. But the problem with statistics is that they only really 'work' long term. In normal roulette, if you lose, you can ante up and try again, but in Russian Roulette if you end up on the fatal chamber, you can't say 'the odds weren't in my favour, so let me try again', because you're dead and that's the bottom line.
So consider the following argument: what we really should blame human greed on is human finiteness, because in the end all 'worldly' consequences (i.e., death doesn't count), no matter how large, are, in the end, only temporary (consider, for example, the old adage that 'suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem'). For example, it may be all well and good to say 'we need to protect the Earth for future generations', but talk is cheap; in the end, any individual will be dead long before 'future generations' come into being. Conceivably, one can argue 'well surely my own future generations are equivalent to my existing in future generations': children, children's children, etc, but even if this is true, it really is an 'out of sight out of mind' problem, and, when the chip's are down, most people are willing to (deliberately or not) turn a blind eye to this sort of idea and show a real lack of foresight by exploiting the world's resources in whatever way tickles their fancy.
And this claim of finiteness extends to other's memories of events and consequences, which is why someone who 'holds a grudge' is so dangerous:
"How little the world would look moral without forgetfulness! A poet might say that God made forgetfulness the guard he placed at the threshold of human dignity."
--Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
Perhaps, then, this is the real reason why Heaven is such a perfect place: everybody has to be moral because 'it's a loooooooooooooooong (i.e. infinite) ride and if I screw someone over, its gonna come back to haunt me' (But if that's the case, shouldn't Hell, which is also eternal, be equally perfect?)
Indeed, one sometimes wonders how those who believe in an otherworldly paradise can be so selfish and greedy, since if they happen to meet anyone up there who they screwed over down here, they're going to be hearing about it for a long time.
Or maybe not: maybe chronic amnesia is a prerequisite for human perfection, and is therefore an attribute of all residents of Heaven (save for God Himself, of course, who is omniscient)...
And since today is Valentine's Day when we (supposedly) should be thinking about our significant others, maybe a discussion of whether or not selfishness is inherent is a good topic. Does he really love you, or he is just offering you this cheap card because he has a hidden agenda? (But maybe you're accepting it because you also have a hidden agenda... but then maybe he knows that you know that he knows that you know... you get the picture...). To raise your suspicions even further (because my primary goal by publishing this post is to plant a seed of doubt about the value of 'superstition' in terms of certain days being supposedly 'more important' than others in terms of showing someone else you care, and so, in this instance I'm unfortunately out to make war, not love) let me share a humourous anecdote shared with me by some friends here in South Africa:
The son of a certain family is well-known by his family and most of his friends to be something of a 'Don Juan' (though I've not been able to affirm this through personal experience since he's currently in a detention center and I've only visited him once). Given that Valentine's Day was coming up, they told me about how there is a very large Valentine card that one of his aunts received some years ago. As luck would have it, the card was completely generic and not personalized. So every year on February 14 he takes this same gigantic card and gives it to whichever female is the apple of his eye at the time, and even though as the years go by its appearance has gotten old and crusty, as far as I know it's always greeted exceptionally favourably ('ohhh... the sacrifice you must have made to get such a Valentine card JUST FOR ME!!!'), and the guy usually gets what he wants (the substance of which is probably fairly obvious). So they joked that they should contact him and ask him who 'the Valentine' should go to this year... (so ladies, maybe this year you should check your Valentine cards a bit more carefully than years past for signs that it might have actually come from years past...)
But let's get back to theory, shall we? In Book 2 of The Republic, Plato tells the story of 'The Ring of Gyges'. He describes a shepherd named Gyges, who finds a ring that is able to make him invisible at will. He describes a sequence of events wherein the shepherd uses the powers of the ring to kill the king, marry the queen, and rule over the domain. Plato then declares that if a just man had found the ring, his actions would be the same as the unjust man,
"For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice."
In other words, Plato argues that the only reason why we are moral beings is because of the consequences that we face due to our actions. (Recall I previously brought up this notion of consequentialism at the end of the discussion of 'Sadist morality' in the post Exegesis in the Bedroom). If, in the case of having such a ring, you can do whatever you wish and no one could ever charge you with any action since they could never trace the action to you, there are seemingly no consequences. (If you've seen it, maybe think of Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man). Although this sequence of events could never conceivably happen, let's take this a step further.
Often an argument against materialistic greed is "he who dies with the most toys still dies" or, equivalently, "no matter what you have, you can't take it with", but let's look at it from a more 'statistical' vantage point. If one is to play Russian Roulette, and the revolver in question has six chambers only one of which contains a bullet, then you have only a 1/6 chances of dying. But the problem with statistics is that they only really 'work' long term. In normal roulette, if you lose, you can ante up and try again, but in Russian Roulette if you end up on the fatal chamber, you can't say 'the odds weren't in my favour, so let me try again', because you're dead and that's the bottom line.
So consider the following argument: what we really should blame human greed on is human finiteness, because in the end all 'worldly' consequences (i.e., death doesn't count), no matter how large, are, in the end, only temporary (consider, for example, the old adage that 'suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem'). For example, it may be all well and good to say 'we need to protect the Earth for future generations', but talk is cheap; in the end, any individual will be dead long before 'future generations' come into being. Conceivably, one can argue 'well surely my own future generations are equivalent to my existing in future generations': children, children's children, etc, but even if this is true, it really is an 'out of sight out of mind' problem, and, when the chip's are down, most people are willing to (deliberately or not) turn a blind eye to this sort of idea and show a real lack of foresight by exploiting the world's resources in whatever way tickles their fancy.
And this claim of finiteness extends to other's memories of events and consequences, which is why someone who 'holds a grudge' is so dangerous:
"How little the world would look moral without forgetfulness! A poet might say that God made forgetfulness the guard he placed at the threshold of human dignity."
--Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
Perhaps, then, this is the real reason why Heaven is such a perfect place: everybody has to be moral because 'it's a loooooooooooooooong (i.e. infinite) ride and if I screw someone over, its gonna come back to haunt me' (But if that's the case, shouldn't Hell, which is also eternal, be equally perfect?)
Indeed, one sometimes wonders how those who believe in an otherworldly paradise can be so selfish and greedy, since if they happen to meet anyone up there who they screwed over down here, they're going to be hearing about it for a long time.
Or maybe not: maybe chronic amnesia is a prerequisite for human perfection, and is therefore an attribute of all residents of Heaven (save for God Himself, of course, who is omniscient)...
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Confessions of a Pretentious Egomaniac
I mentioned in my introductory post something about if it was a perfect world, I would have my philosophy MA completed by now.
Well, as things have gone, the ‘problems’ with my treatment of Marx had been slowly whittled down to a handful that I received a couple of days ago. Most of them weren’t too troublesome, a bit here a bit there, but there was one that I was dreading:
27d Depending on how you treat history above, I'd emend 'Marx's ontology' to 'Marx's historical ontology' or 'Marx's historical materialist ontology'. Consider also the quote you give from Marx on real history at 28b. Note also Marx's quote at 29d on 'really existing active men' (that is, historically specific). FINALLY at 30a you give history a role but this is not consistent with the earlier claims. So make this consistent by bringing history into the picture earlier, as suggested above throughout.
So after dealing with the other problems, I was left with this one, and that meant the situation had come to a head, it was me vs. Marx, mano e mano.
You see, from the very beginning when I set out to do this degree, my intention was ‘to get a few ideas down on paper and leave with a degree in the process,’ and, true to my rather grandiose conceptions of my own abilities at the time given that I felt that I had already read ‘extensively’ in philosophy, entered the philosophy MA ring with a self-aggrandizing swagger.
Whilst there, amongst other things, I sat in a course on Marx. Unfortunately, my various ways coupled with what I saw as my father’s incessant attempts to ‘convert’ me to Marxist-Leninism beginning at a very young age (when really the only thing that I knew was that I WANT TO MAKE MY OWN MIND UP THANK YOU!) by bringing me to meetings which I didn’t at all care for, and associating me with people who were nice but whose ideas on Marx and ‘the coming revolution’ I didn’t want to hear, had made me rather cynical towards Marx and his ideas. Moreover, I had taken a course in undergrad on ‘Kant to Nietzsche’ so I already knew about Feuerbach as the ‘missing link’ between Hegel and Marx, and these other bits of trivia that I could use to impress my friends. The other problem was that my long-developed affinity with Schopenhauer, and my willingness to side with him on most issues meant my attitude toward Hegel was basically Schopenhauer’s attitude toward Hegel, e.g: “Hegel?? Pffft. What a charlatan. What a joke. People only say he’s profound because no one can make sense of all the gibberish that makes up his philosophy. Dialecticism? Gimme a break. Who cares?”
And so throughout most of the class, when fundamental concepts and implications were discussed, I didn’t really process anything, e.g. “Negation of the negation? Pfffft. ANYONE with half a brain knows that not-not-P = P. Let’s skip the obvious and get to the good stuff, like the interpretations of these other guys, this guy [Antonio] Negri, let’s just skip to him.” And yes, the individual who taught this course is the same individual who was on my panel for my original submission (though it was the other individual who demanded a re-submission for various other somewhat outlandish reasons, the individual in question simply demanded ‘fairly substantial revisions’), and he was also on my panel for my second submission where he again asked for revisions (though ‘less substantial), whilst the other one (who had been changed from the original one who asked for the resubmission) maintained that ‘no revisions were required’ (of course, that meant me saying 'the other person didn't ask for revisions: WHY OH WHY DOES THIS GUY HAVE TO BE SO PARTICULAR!!'), and to 'make matters worse' he had been given the task of seeing me over the finish line after necessity meant I had to change supervisors, so now he really was the sole 'Guardian of the Gate'.
And so throughout the entire time I admittedly railed against this individual inwardly, as misunderstanding me and not taking my approach seriously and being stuck in his ways and putting Marx on a pedestal, when, I thought, from an objective point of view, Marx is ‘just another philosopher’. And while I railed him, I railed against myself for choosing such a ‘difficult’ topic. If only I hadn’t been so cocky at the outset, to prove that I knew everything by taking on each of the two faculty members who did political philosophy ‘in their own backyard’ by including the two theorists, the one Marx, and the other Arendt, that each was most interested in. Surely if I had just settled for making the same argument with regard to Machiavelli and Rousseau, I would have been done long ago!
Anyway, because of the manner in which this ‘cocky aversion’ meant that I skipped over the fundaments of Marx as ‘elementary’ (though in actual fact, it turned out that I didn’t really have a clue), throughout all my numerous thesis attempts, revisions, and submissions, I had avoided the issue, ‘hmmm… history and dialectic… yeah it’s important… I sort of get how… I know I’ll eventually have to put it in here somewhere for ‘completeness’… guess I can fudge it by putting in what I know, adding a few quotes here and there, and saying ‘the approach I’ve taken means I don’t have to go into detail, so you better be satisfied with that.’
And maybe I could have succeeded if I had kept on this path as before. But finally I thought “alright… I’ve come this far… throughout this whole thesis process, I’ve learned that the Marx I thought I knew wasn’t even a shadow of the real Marx, that the real Marx was a pretty amazing guy who had some pretty amazing ideas, many of which I now think are pretty correct. I’ve taken care of everything else (I hope!) and included in that I just added almost a page and a half on the division of labour in about 30 minutes as part of my revisions, so why not give it a chance. How hard can it be?”
So I started with what I knew (or, at least, what I had come to understand by being forced back to Marx over and over again after I finally gave into the realization that I couldn’t fake it): the history part was easy enough, justifying its importance, discussing social relations, the socio-historical context of the individual, the development of the individual as a reciprocal relationship with society, etc. A lot of it was already there from previous revisions, so it wasn’t overly difficult. So that was done.
But dialectic? “Hmmm. I’ve really said nothing so far, so I really have nothing to add to. Gonna have to start from the beginning, or, at least, from the few tidbits I’ve scattered around to make it look like I know what I’m talking about. Alright, take a deep breath... Here goes nothin...
"Hmmm... Let's start with this quote that I had here before, about Feuerbach’s development of the ‘negation of the negation’. I originally put it in the history part, but I'm pretty sure it should be down here with the dialectic part... So let's go with that... Hmmm… still don’t see what’s so important about it. Marx was no logician that’s for sure, so there must be more to it than that. Hmmm, let’s check the index to my Marx-Engels Reader (which has basically been my bible every time I’ve had to re-visit this chapter) for some other mentions. Hmmm… these page numbers… all from the Economic and Philosophic Fragments… surely I’ve looked at all these already, but anyway, let’s try this one about its relationship to communism itself… Let’s see... Hmmm...
‘If we characterize communism itself because of its character as the negation of the negation, as the appropriation of the human essence which mediates itself with itself through the negation of private property—as being not yet the true, self-originating position but rather a position originating from private property, […]’
Wait. Why does it end so abruptly? What’s this ellipsis here about? Shit. The footnote says that the sentence is ‘impossible to restore’ because in the original manuscript too much of the page was torn off. Heh heh… that reminds me of Dead Souls… poor Gogol… what a crazy mofo he was… haha… But yeah, anyway… now let me guess, this is the ONE place where this is the case. Just my luck since this seems like it’s telling me something pretty important, I just can’t put my finger on it. Hmmm… communism… negation of negation…. ‘true’ position?? Hmmm… let me read this again… hmmm… true position… huh… communism… TRUE position… why? True?? True in what sense…??
Hey, wait a second! Is that it?? Is THAT what the negation of the negation means?? Nooo! Is THAT what dialecticism is?? Wow! That’s pretty cool, actually… Especially the way it all fits together. Hmmm… I can’t be sure, but it seems to fit. Hmmm… let’s try it out… Well it makes sense with Marx’s attitude towards Hegel… the whole idealism vs. reality thing… hmmm… is that REALLY it?? Is it really THAT simple?? So Marx wasn’t just another self-absorbed egomaniac when he talked about his own system bringing about ‘an end to history’?… And I guess I have to admit that maybe Hegel wasn't such an idiot after all (though that self-realization of Spirit stuff is still pretty ludicrous). And yeah it fits nicely with this other quote about history being ‘man’s act of coming-to-be’… Hmmm… it seems to fit with everything… so let’s try that…
[40 minutes and a page and a half later]
Huh… that looks pretty good I would say. Yeah… that really wasn’t so hard… It’s like the Red Sea just parted in front of me and showed me the way… Of course, I could be totally off, but it seems to fit with everything… Guess I’ll email it off tomorrow and see what the ol’ supervisor thinks… And yeah, if that works, I guess it means I’m done… Wow… Done… That’d be great… A ‘great weight’ lifted off of my shoulders; guess I’ll finally be able to ‘get on with my life’ (*snicker*)… And in the end a hundred pages of text exactly… Wow… Not bad… And, yeah, I guess if I had been able to swallow my pride a year ago and had not blamed the fact that I didn’t choose an ‘easier’ topic, and not blamed everyone for ‘misunderstanding’ me and going on and on about how it was ‘my thesis’ and about how ‘people’ (i.e. the individual in question) tried to force me to do it their way even though it was intended as a ‘novel interpretation’ of Marx and maybe I interpreted Marx differently than him, and blah blah blah… yeah, maybe if that all hadn’t happened I would have been done long ago.”
…but then on the other hand, if that was the case, first of all I DEFINITELY wouldn't have been able to develop such an intimate understanding of how deep and profound Marx's ideas really are (whether one agrees with them or not) by being forced to constantly scratch around in his works in order to basically rebuild his complete train of thought (because I was too stubborn to ask anyone else for any help or clarification).
But more importantly, I probably wouldn’t have been in a position to treat this thesis as a sort of ‘side-project’ the whole time while I visited 13 different countries over the 16-odd months between when I first submitted and now. And I probably wouldn’t be in Cape Town now having just spent 3+ months in India, Mozambique, and Swaziland after I arrived in Cape Town in July ready to begin and was told that I couldn’t register because I hadn’t finished my MA and couldn’t be in two programs at once. And since returning having everything go so well, enjoying life in Cape Town with my math MSc off to a ‘flyer’, trying my hand at Afrikaans, Swahili, and improving my Portuguese by joining the Mozambican student club, taking an interest in South African politics here and there, signing myself up to get involved in all sorts of writing projects at the university and in the community because I now honestly believe I’ve learned a lot, not only about political theory or about the world around me, but much more importantly, about myself. (And, admittedly, maybe this whole process has forced me to become a tad more humble... perish the thought...)
And, of course, the main reason why the whole process 'on the other side of it' (read: travel and all its benefits) has been such an absolute treat is because of the wonderfully amazing people I’ve met and gotten to know during the period. They have not only been the main reason why I’ve had such an enjoyable time thus far, but have also got me itching to take advantage of the countless possibilities and opportunities that they’ve opened up to and/or offered me. (You know who you are!)
So yeah, it stands to reason that I wouldn’t have all that. I suppose it’s possible I could have had something better by now (like another degree completed by now in place of all that?? Puh-lease!!), but I kinda doubt it.
So thanks Peter. Sure, the role you played in all of this may have been quite small, and I’m quite sure you knew of almost none of it, but at the end of the day I can say with a fair amount of surety that if you had just shrugged your shoulders and given me a free pass when I wanted it most instead of forcing me to put my head down and actually sweat it out, things might not be quite so rosy. And so despite all the stress and frustrations and endless lamentations I was made to endure over the past 16 months since my bubble was burst upon receiving the results of my first submission (what? they didn’t fall out of their chairs at how brilliant it was?? can this be true??? it wasn’t even ‘accepted with revisions’, I have to RE-SUBMIT ENTIRELY????), despite all of the insults and curses I hurled at you at those times when my sanity was seemingly stretched to its limit, and the completion of this thesis seemed to grow to the proportions of the Tower of Babel… despite all the times when, upon seeing that my latest revisions weren’t sufficient I turned around and said to anyone who would listen “damn this guy is so bloody unfair, just let it go already!! Just say yes!! It’s not like it’s being nominated for a Nobel Prize or being released as a best-seller, IT’S JUST ANOTHER BLOODY MASTERS THESIS!!” Yeah, despite all that, at the end of the day, I have to admit…
I owe you one.
Well, as things have gone, the ‘problems’ with my treatment of Marx had been slowly whittled down to a handful that I received a couple of days ago. Most of them weren’t too troublesome, a bit here a bit there, but there was one that I was dreading:
27d Depending on how you treat history above, I'd emend 'Marx's ontology' to 'Marx's historical ontology' or 'Marx's historical materialist ontology'. Consider also the quote you give from Marx on real history at 28b. Note also Marx's quote at 29d on 'really existing active men' (that is, historically specific). FINALLY at 30a you give history a role but this is not consistent with the earlier claims. So make this consistent by bringing history into the picture earlier, as suggested above throughout.
So after dealing with the other problems, I was left with this one, and that meant the situation had come to a head, it was me vs. Marx, mano e mano.
You see, from the very beginning when I set out to do this degree, my intention was ‘to get a few ideas down on paper and leave with a degree in the process,’ and, true to my rather grandiose conceptions of my own abilities at the time given that I felt that I had already read ‘extensively’ in philosophy, entered the philosophy MA ring with a self-aggrandizing swagger.
Whilst there, amongst other things, I sat in a course on Marx. Unfortunately, my various ways coupled with what I saw as my father’s incessant attempts to ‘convert’ me to Marxist-Leninism beginning at a very young age (when really the only thing that I knew was that I WANT TO MAKE MY OWN MIND UP THANK YOU!) by bringing me to meetings which I didn’t at all care for, and associating me with people who were nice but whose ideas on Marx and ‘the coming revolution’ I didn’t want to hear, had made me rather cynical towards Marx and his ideas. Moreover, I had taken a course in undergrad on ‘Kant to Nietzsche’ so I already knew about Feuerbach as the ‘missing link’ between Hegel and Marx, and these other bits of trivia that I could use to impress my friends. The other problem was that my long-developed affinity with Schopenhauer, and my willingness to side with him on most issues meant my attitude toward Hegel was basically Schopenhauer’s attitude toward Hegel, e.g: “Hegel?? Pffft. What a charlatan. What a joke. People only say he’s profound because no one can make sense of all the gibberish that makes up his philosophy. Dialecticism? Gimme a break. Who cares?”
And so throughout most of the class, when fundamental concepts and implications were discussed, I didn’t really process anything, e.g. “Negation of the negation? Pfffft. ANYONE with half a brain knows that not-not-P = P. Let’s skip the obvious and get to the good stuff, like the interpretations of these other guys, this guy [Antonio] Negri, let’s just skip to him.” And yes, the individual who taught this course is the same individual who was on my panel for my original submission (though it was the other individual who demanded a re-submission for various other somewhat outlandish reasons, the individual in question simply demanded ‘fairly substantial revisions’), and he was also on my panel for my second submission where he again asked for revisions (though ‘less substantial), whilst the other one (who had been changed from the original one who asked for the resubmission) maintained that ‘no revisions were required’ (of course, that meant me saying 'the other person didn't ask for revisions: WHY OH WHY DOES THIS GUY HAVE TO BE SO PARTICULAR!!'), and to 'make matters worse' he had been given the task of seeing me over the finish line after necessity meant I had to change supervisors, so now he really was the sole 'Guardian of the Gate'.
And so throughout the entire time I admittedly railed against this individual inwardly, as misunderstanding me and not taking my approach seriously and being stuck in his ways and putting Marx on a pedestal, when, I thought, from an objective point of view, Marx is ‘just another philosopher’. And while I railed him, I railed against myself for choosing such a ‘difficult’ topic. If only I hadn’t been so cocky at the outset, to prove that I knew everything by taking on each of the two faculty members who did political philosophy ‘in their own backyard’ by including the two theorists, the one Marx, and the other Arendt, that each was most interested in. Surely if I had just settled for making the same argument with regard to Machiavelli and Rousseau, I would have been done long ago!
Anyway, because of the manner in which this ‘cocky aversion’ meant that I skipped over the fundaments of Marx as ‘elementary’ (though in actual fact, it turned out that I didn’t really have a clue), throughout all my numerous thesis attempts, revisions, and submissions, I had avoided the issue, ‘hmmm… history and dialectic… yeah it’s important… I sort of get how… I know I’ll eventually have to put it in here somewhere for ‘completeness’… guess I can fudge it by putting in what I know, adding a few quotes here and there, and saying ‘the approach I’ve taken means I don’t have to go into detail, so you better be satisfied with that.’
And maybe I could have succeeded if I had kept on this path as before. But finally I thought “alright… I’ve come this far… throughout this whole thesis process, I’ve learned that the Marx I thought I knew wasn’t even a shadow of the real Marx, that the real Marx was a pretty amazing guy who had some pretty amazing ideas, many of which I now think are pretty correct. I’ve taken care of everything else (I hope!) and included in that I just added almost a page and a half on the division of labour in about 30 minutes as part of my revisions, so why not give it a chance. How hard can it be?”
So I started with what I knew (or, at least, what I had come to understand by being forced back to Marx over and over again after I finally gave into the realization that I couldn’t fake it): the history part was easy enough, justifying its importance, discussing social relations, the socio-historical context of the individual, the development of the individual as a reciprocal relationship with society, etc. A lot of it was already there from previous revisions, so it wasn’t overly difficult. So that was done.
But dialectic? “Hmmm. I’ve really said nothing so far, so I really have nothing to add to. Gonna have to start from the beginning, or, at least, from the few tidbits I’ve scattered around to make it look like I know what I’m talking about. Alright, take a deep breath... Here goes nothin...
"Hmmm... Let's start with this quote that I had here before, about Feuerbach’s development of the ‘negation of the negation’. I originally put it in the history part, but I'm pretty sure it should be down here with the dialectic part... So let's go with that... Hmmm… still don’t see what’s so important about it. Marx was no logician that’s for sure, so there must be more to it than that. Hmmm, let’s check the index to my Marx-Engels Reader (which has basically been my bible every time I’ve had to re-visit this chapter) for some other mentions. Hmmm… these page numbers… all from the Economic and Philosophic Fragments… surely I’ve looked at all these already, but anyway, let’s try this one about its relationship to communism itself… Let’s see... Hmmm...
‘If we characterize communism itself because of its character as the negation of the negation, as the appropriation of the human essence which mediates itself with itself through the negation of private property—as being not yet the true, self-originating position but rather a position originating from private property, […]’
Wait. Why does it end so abruptly? What’s this ellipsis here about? Shit. The footnote says that the sentence is ‘impossible to restore’ because in the original manuscript too much of the page was torn off. Heh heh… that reminds me of Dead Souls… poor Gogol… what a crazy mofo he was… haha… But yeah, anyway… now let me guess, this is the ONE place where this is the case. Just my luck since this seems like it’s telling me something pretty important, I just can’t put my finger on it. Hmmm… communism… negation of negation…. ‘true’ position?? Hmmm… let me read this again… hmmm… true position… huh… communism… TRUE position… why? True?? True in what sense…??
Hey, wait a second! Is that it?? Is THAT what the negation of the negation means?? Nooo! Is THAT what dialecticism is?? Wow! That’s pretty cool, actually… Especially the way it all fits together. Hmmm… I can’t be sure, but it seems to fit. Hmmm… let’s try it out… Well it makes sense with Marx’s attitude towards Hegel… the whole idealism vs. reality thing… hmmm… is that REALLY it?? Is it really THAT simple?? So Marx wasn’t just another self-absorbed egomaniac when he talked about his own system bringing about ‘an end to history’?… And I guess I have to admit that maybe Hegel wasn't such an idiot after all (though that self-realization of Spirit stuff is still pretty ludicrous). And yeah it fits nicely with this other quote about history being ‘man’s act of coming-to-be’… Hmmm… it seems to fit with everything… so let’s try that…
[40 minutes and a page and a half later]
Huh… that looks pretty good I would say. Yeah… that really wasn’t so hard… It’s like the Red Sea just parted in front of me and showed me the way… Of course, I could be totally off, but it seems to fit with everything… Guess I’ll email it off tomorrow and see what the ol’ supervisor thinks… And yeah, if that works, I guess it means I’m done… Wow… Done… That’d be great… A ‘great weight’ lifted off of my shoulders; guess I’ll finally be able to ‘get on with my life’ (*snicker*)… And in the end a hundred pages of text exactly… Wow… Not bad… And, yeah, I guess if I had been able to swallow my pride a year ago and had not blamed the fact that I didn’t choose an ‘easier’ topic, and not blamed everyone for ‘misunderstanding’ me and going on and on about how it was ‘my thesis’ and about how ‘people’ (i.e. the individual in question) tried to force me to do it their way even though it was intended as a ‘novel interpretation’ of Marx and maybe I interpreted Marx differently than him, and blah blah blah… yeah, maybe if that all hadn’t happened I would have been done long ago.”
…but then on the other hand, if that was the case, first of all I DEFINITELY wouldn't have been able to develop such an intimate understanding of how deep and profound Marx's ideas really are (whether one agrees with them or not) by being forced to constantly scratch around in his works in order to basically rebuild his complete train of thought (because I was too stubborn to ask anyone else for any help or clarification).
But more importantly, I probably wouldn’t have been in a position to treat this thesis as a sort of ‘side-project’ the whole time while I visited 13 different countries over the 16-odd months between when I first submitted and now. And I probably wouldn’t be in Cape Town now having just spent 3+ months in India, Mozambique, and Swaziland after I arrived in Cape Town in July ready to begin and was told that I couldn’t register because I hadn’t finished my MA and couldn’t be in two programs at once. And since returning having everything go so well, enjoying life in Cape Town with my math MSc off to a ‘flyer’, trying my hand at Afrikaans, Swahili, and improving my Portuguese by joining the Mozambican student club, taking an interest in South African politics here and there, signing myself up to get involved in all sorts of writing projects at the university and in the community because I now honestly believe I’ve learned a lot, not only about political theory or about the world around me, but much more importantly, about myself. (And, admittedly, maybe this whole process has forced me to become a tad more humble... perish the thought...)
And, of course, the main reason why the whole process 'on the other side of it' (read: travel and all its benefits) has been such an absolute treat is because of the wonderfully amazing people I’ve met and gotten to know during the period. They have not only been the main reason why I’ve had such an enjoyable time thus far, but have also got me itching to take advantage of the countless possibilities and opportunities that they’ve opened up to and/or offered me. (You know who you are!)
So yeah, it stands to reason that I wouldn’t have all that. I suppose it’s possible I could have had something better by now (like another degree completed by now in place of all that?? Puh-lease!!), but I kinda doubt it.
So thanks Peter. Sure, the role you played in all of this may have been quite small, and I’m quite sure you knew of almost none of it, but at the end of the day I can say with a fair amount of surety that if you had just shrugged your shoulders and given me a free pass when I wanted it most instead of forcing me to put my head down and actually sweat it out, things might not be quite so rosy. And so despite all the stress and frustrations and endless lamentations I was made to endure over the past 16 months since my bubble was burst upon receiving the results of my first submission (what? they didn’t fall out of their chairs at how brilliant it was?? can this be true??? it wasn’t even ‘accepted with revisions’, I have to RE-SUBMIT ENTIRELY????), despite all of the insults and curses I hurled at you at those times when my sanity was seemingly stretched to its limit, and the completion of this thesis seemed to grow to the proportions of the Tower of Babel… despite all the times when, upon seeing that my latest revisions weren’t sufficient I turned around and said to anyone who would listen “damn this guy is so bloody unfair, just let it go already!! Just say yes!! It’s not like it’s being nominated for a Nobel Prize or being released as a best-seller, IT’S JUST ANOTHER BLOODY MASTERS THESIS!!” Yeah, despite all that, at the end of the day, I have to admit…
I owe you one.
Friday, February 11, 2011
What writing philosophy papers is REALLY about...
Due to various commitments (namely, trying to push through the last few revisions for my MA thesis), my head is elsewhere, so I'll just leave this to be pondered over...
What writing philosophy papers is REALLY about...
The secret is out.
What writing philosophy papers is REALLY about...
The secret is out.
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