Whether they’re liberals or conservatives, insecure people can’t tolerate profound differences, so their friends must do one of two things: agree with them or hide their disagreement. Such is the result of being members of a species that has evolved to find safety in tribalism.
I value no readers more than those who disagree with me while continuing to read my blog. The ones who go away mad sometimes complain that I’m judgmental. They list my failings (things about which they disagree), clueless that every item on the list constitutes their own judgment. For instance, I’ve said that I hate nose-rings (I could give many such examples, but this is an easy one), which I grew up seeing on pigs. If I went to a new doctor, and he walked in with a nose ring, it would bother me. I would even hesitate to hire a roofer with a nose-ring, but I would hire him if he came well-recommended. Even so, I despise nose-rings, the moreso because they’re so prominent that I can’t not see them.
Some people would say that this makes me closed-minded, and that they don’t want to read the blog of such a bigot. I would say two things: I would never outlaw nose-rings even if I could, and if a doctor or a roofer who had one showed himself competent, I would still use his services. I would never make a nose-ring the sine qua non of anything, yet those who object to my hatred of nose-rings nonetheless dismiss my entire being as unworthy of their august friendship.
As for those who stop reading my blog because I hate nose-rings (again, this is just as example), I would simply ask: who’s being close-minded here? I hate nose-rings, but you hate people who hate nose-rings. So what’s the difference? Isn’t it ironic for a person to pride himself on being open-minded, only to close himself off to anyone he regards as close-minded? I think he should have a bumper sticker that reads, “I’m Closed-Minded Against the Closed-Minded.” What good does it do to boast of your open-mindedness only to reject those who disagree with you? It makes your open-mindedness into a feel-good position that is devoid of substance. It enables you to go to your ACLU meeting, your atheist organization, or your Unitarian Church, trash all manner of people, and come home reinforced in your opinion that you and your buddies are the crème de la crème, and that out there lie the ignorant, the stupid, the benighted, the accursed, the close-minded, the hoi polloi, and, worst of all, the Republicans. If you even believe in God, which you probably don’t, you can pray, “Thank you, Lord, for that thou hast made me open-minded, for my superiority over those who are close-minded is like noonday to the darkness of a cave.”
Here in liberal Eugene, it’s perfectly acceptable to heap scorn upon racists, loggers, ranchers, Catholics, conservatives, white Southerners, evangelicals, the poorly educated, and the grossly obese. While gloating over the hypocrisy of others, liberals are blind to their own hypocrisy. One wrote in response to my last post that he expected better of an atheist (that would be moi). Better of an atheist?! Does he see us as members of some rarefied elite? Fuck that! Atheists are no better than other people. Not one of us is pure. Not one of us has reason to boast of our goodness while rejecting others for their lack of goodness. I’ll tell you who is good, it’s the person who stops to help me when my car breaks down or I become sick on the sidewalk, and I don’t give a damn how he votes or what he thinks about the existence of God. Goodness exists in honesty, in helpfulness, and in being there for people and other animals. Aside from that, neither religion or politics makes the least difference. They’re side issues that have no more relevance than a whether one prefers candy or cookies.
“Honor Diversity” is a commonly seen bumper sticker here in liberal Eugene. It implies that diversity per se is good and that the world contains two kinds of people, those who honor it and those who don’t. In practice, this means that the latter are seen as Cretans who should be shunned (no people are more intolerant than the tolerant). I think it’s an absurd position because not all thoughts, customs, and values are equally valid, and some are grievously wrong.
A reader who went away mad earlier this year informed me that she had a right to her opinion. I wrote that there is vast difference between a legal right and a rational right. Few of our values are built upon rational rights. “Honor Diversity” portrays a world that has little to do with reality, but the bromides that represent false inclusivity are so often repeated that we facilely accept them, although, in practice, we might do just the opposite.
Because of this blog, people often become angry with me because I don’t respect some opinion that they hold dear. Of course, they don’t respect my opinion that their opinion is wrong (honoring diversity doesn’t go that far). I think that what they really want from me is that I express only such controversial values as they agree with. I say this because I have never once been criticized for anything I wrote, no matter how controversial, unless my critic held an opposing opinion. I’m absolutely, totally, completely, and unalterably, unwilling to aim for agreement; I make no apology for this; and I don’t take the fact that I’m criticized for it to suggest that I should do anything differently. In fact, the more I’m attacked for a well-considered opinion, the more I am obliged to defend it, and the firmer my belief becomes. Nobody cows me. I respect no authority. I yield to no pressure, and I can but thank my lucky stars that I don’t live in some hellhole like Saudi Arabia where I would have to choose between keeping my mouth shut and being stoned to death in a soccer stadium.
I don’t mean to portray myself as a person who, in the name of honesty, goes about blurting out the first thing that pops into his head no matter how offensive, because I try to be just the opposite, by which I mean someone who puts a great deal of thought into what he says, who tries to avoid shooting-off his mouth, and who expresses himself as tactfully as he knows how. Some might say that, if these are my goals, I certainly fail miserably at them. Very well, I fail miserably, but these are my goals.
I put nearly all of my emphasis on acting in good faith. What I mean by this is speaking the truth—as I see it—as honestly and constructively as I can. For instance, when I told the woman that there is a difference between a legal right and a rational right, I knew she would leave my blog, but I couldn’t find a better way to say it, and I thought it needed to be said because she had demanded respect for her opinion simply because it is was her opinion (that I “honor diversity,” as it were), and I considered it an irrational demand. Yet, it’s very difficult to attack someone’s opinion without making them feel that I am attacking them, although I try to draw a distinction. After all, I can look back at my life (such things only being clear in hindsight), and see that I sometimes did and believed appalling things, and this does give me more humility than might be apparent.
The question then becomes, does doing bad things make us bad people? Two thoughts. One is that even when we act within the best light we have, our light is often very dim. The second is that we don’t always act within the best light we have, that is, we knowingly do hurtful things. We steal, we leer, we scheme, we lash-out, we gossip, and so on. Because I lean toward determinism, I seriously doubt that we could behave differently. You might object that even determinists talk as if they have free choice and become angry with those whose choices displease them. This is true, but it doesn’t negate their position that whatever is must be, including their own feeling of having choice, there sometimes being a difference between a philosophical position and a feeling.
It’s also true that most people are simply not deep thinkers. This doesn’t make them stupid or inferior, but it does mean that they’re limited in a way that I hold dear. It also means that I usually avoid talking to them in depth. I know other people who are deep thinkers, yet I still regard them as appallingly wrong about some things. My sister and I have argued religion for decades, but I persist in thinking she’s wrong, and she persists in thinking that I’m missing the point. No matter how smart, deep, open, knowledgeable, and persuasive two people are, they will nonetheless disagree about many things.
The fact that most people aren’t deep thinkers is especially obvious in regard to the subject of my last post, which concerned our treatment of other animals. I don’t mean to say that meat-eaters are shallow by definition, but rather than most people eat meat for no better reason than that they’re acculturated to regard other animals as property that exist for human benefit. This enables otherwise kindly people to behave callously and even brutally (you can hardly shoot a cow in the head with kindness), and I don’t respect that, but I do understand that a person of depth and goodwill might disagree. I will think he’s grievously wrong, and I won’t respect what he does, but then I don’t respect much of what I do, and, for all I know, he’s acting in greater congruity with his light than I am with mine.
Because I criticize someone’s religion, values, philosophy, or behavior, he might charge that I’m a horrible person, a complete hypocrite. Okay, fine, but even if I’m as bad as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot combined, this doesn’t of itself falsify a single one of my beliefs. We all fail. We all lack light, and we don’t always live even by the little light we have. Some atheists wear t-shirts that say “Good Without God,” and it seems an ironic statement indeed coming from people who accuse Christians of self-righteousness. The one part of the Bible with which I completely agree is that we’re all fallen, we’re all desperately wicked. Not one of us can get through a day, and maybe not an hour, without knowing that we did or thought something of which we were ashamed, something which we wouldn’t want anyone to know about. Maybe you disagree; maybe you think you’re a genuinely good person whose shit don’t stink. I think you’re either lying or clueless, but I’ve been wrong before.
The bottom-line is that “honor diversity” is bullshit when it’s expressed as an either/or proposition, and, sad to say, the greater the differences between two people, the harder it will be for them to get along. All things being equal, if you isolate five black guys and one white guy on an island, the white guy will be the odd man out. Likewise, with five Christians and an atheist, five conservatives and a liberal, and so on. Whoever is the odd man out will be blamed for creating disharmony simply by the virtue of the fact that he is the odd man out. He will be attacked as stubborn, judgmental, and arrogant. So it is in society. If you don’t fit-in, you’re seen as the problem, and the only way to avoid being seen as the problem is to keep your mouth shut, and I think it’s a ridiculous expectation.
Someone wrote after my last post that she is seen as judgmental because she’s a vegan. Well, she is judgmental inasmuch as she thinks it’s morally wrong to cause other animals unnecessary suffering. The idea that we should go through life not passing judgments on other people’s values—the “Honor Diversity” approach to morality—is a crock. As it with vegans, so it is with me as an atheist. I’m seen as arrogant simply because I am an atheist, the word alone being the equivalent of waving a red cape in front of a bull (you should see how cold many people’s eyes become at the mere mention of the word). But what is a vegan and an atheist to do? We can think as well of other people as we are able, but it’s too much to ask that we respect beliefs that we think are in such grievous error that they’re harmful to the entire world. After all, the difference in being a vegan versus a meat-eater or an atheist versus a religious person isn’t like the difference between a Sealy and a Posturepedic; rather each comes from our best thoughts about the universe and our species’ place in it, and this makes it impossible for us to regard the thoughts of others as different but equal. Some things really are an either/or, and sometimes respect for diversity really is too much to ask. Take abortion.
People who are pro-choice often view those who are anti-abortion as the enemies of freedom, and they demand that such people respect their right to choose. I’m pro-abortion, yet even I consider it an outrageous demand given that those who oppose abortion regard it as murder. I think they’re wrong, but given their perspective, I fully accept that they’re going to regard their views as infinitely superior to mine. If they see me as a person of good faith, they will understand that I disagree with them about abortion being murder, yet I can hardly ask that they respect my opinion in the interest of some silliness about honoring diversity. This same respect is what I offer those with whom I disagree about important issues. If they really need me to respect their opinions as equal to my own, they’re not going to get it, but if they want me to respect them as people of goodwill, I might be able to oblige. It is the most that I can do, and if they possess a strong internal sense of security, they won’t feel threatened by our differences. Otherwise, I don’t see that I have much to offer them.
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| Torch-bearer of Ahimsa |
“The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.” —Peter Singer
Last night, Peggy and I visited some friends who usually lock their dogs in a kennel when they have guests because they view the dogs as disruptive. I am pained by this because I view an animal’s participation in social events as a right unless the animal is out of control.
The premise behind our treatment of animals is that they are property, and while they have a vague right to humane treatment, they are still animals while we humans occupy a higher estate. Religion tends to support this idea, but my friends are atheists, and upon what grounds could an atheist assign a lower estate to a dog except by the assumption of human superiority, by which I mean the arbitrary valuing of such assets as are common to humans over those that are common to dogs simply because they are common to humans?
My thought is this. If a person and a dog were drowning, and I could only save one, my efforts would go to the dog if I knew and liked the dog but didn’t know the person. If the person was a child, or I knew and liked both, I might choose differently, but any choice I made would be based upon subjective preference rather than a belief that human life is more valuable than non-human life. Certainly, accommodations have to made with non-human animals just as they do with human children, but these accommodations can only be justified inasmuch as they are necessary.
To view creatures as I do makes some difference in how I relate to them, yet I continue to drive a car although I know I will kill countless bugs and some larger creatures. I also kill spiders that get inside my house; own leather shoes and belts; step on slugs that threaten my flowers; spray herbicides on my lawn every year or two; and eat food that requires the destruction of animal habitat and the mass killing of plants. I also consume fish, eggs, and milk, all of which necessitate slaughter. I do these things because I want to, not because I can justify them. I have no reason but personal preference to think that, except in self-defense, my life is worth more than the life of anything else. I could at the very least reduce the amount of suffering and death that I bring into the world, but I don’t even do that except for the avoidance of eating meat and fowl and the occasional rescue of earthworms that are driven into the street by winter rains. If, upon reading this, you were to point out that, although a meat eater, you live in consistence with your ethical standards while I fail miserably by mine, I could but agree. I would question, however, whether your ethical standards were well-founded because I can’t imagine how you might defend them aside from making the rather odd assumption that human life is worth more than other life.
Even vegans live by killing, their thought being that, since they have to kill, they should at least avoid the destruction of beating hearts. If I were a deeply moral person, I would have no choice but to be a vegan, but as it is, I pay others to kill bulls, roosters, and fish for me for no better reason than that I prefer the taste of foods cooked with milk and eggs and imagine myself to feel better when I eat fish.
As for those who do eat beef, sheep, swine, and fowls, I will readily admit that many of them are better people than I in all sorts of ways, yet when I observe kindly people eating a steak, I can’t avoid the thought that they are less kindly than I had imagined based upon their willingness to cause misery and death for no nobler reason than that they enjoy the taste of meat. The best I can say for them is that they might not have thought the matter through. They probably grew up eating meat; almost everyone they know eats meat; and they’re so accustomed to cooking meat that they wouldn’t know what else to cook. Even so, they’re about animals like slave owners were about slaves in that if they try to justify their behavior at all, their rationale is self-serving.
Such is my species, and the most obvious difference between most people and myself is that I probably think more deeply. This might make me slightly more ethical, but it also puts me in the position of knowingly doing more evil. While most meat-eaters have at least some excuse, I have none, so I’m on shaky ground when I congratulate myself upon my superiority. I would even go so far as to say that one small reason I’m not a vegan is that it would make me even more judgmental. The ultimate would be to live like Jains who go to such extremes to avoid harming other creatures that they breathe through masks; examine seats before they sit; avoid all means of travel other than walking; and look at the ground before every step. Their ethic is defined by the word ahimsa, and while I don’t accept their pacifism, I respect them.
It’s fair to say that I’m a misanthropist. Although I like and enjoy most people, I have no respect for my species, largely because of our double standard regarding other creatures. A predator must eat meat, and, so far as we know, lacks the capacity to feel empathy for his prey or the ability to examine his behavior ethically. We most certainly can feel empathy, and we most certainly do possess a moral sense, so we could easily make different choices without threatening our health (we would be more likely to improve it) but we nonetheless kill other creatures by the billions for no nobler reason than that their corpses please our taste buds. We might claim that they are less important than we, and therefore less deserving of life, but what is the rationale for such a belief?
While petting my friends’ dogs last night, I reflected upon the fact that joy, fear, need, and affection, exists in dogs as much as in me. It is said that Descartes considered animals to be living machines, so as some of his followers performed scientific investigations upon a dog (i.e. torture), they effused over how well God had endowed the animal with the ability to feign emotion. Surely, the better we are able to dismiss the feelings and deprecate the value of other creatures, the better we can rationalize mistreating them. But how do we make the leap from observing that an animal’s ablilities are less than our own, at least in the ways we value, to concluding that the animal’s life is of less value than our own? But having done this, why don’t we go to the logical extreme and conclude that the same applies within our own species? For example, I have come to doubt that I possess any remarkable skills or intelligence, and since I’m getting up in years, I’m losing whatever skills and intelligence I once possessed. Surely, if my life is worth more than a dog’s life because of my skills and intelligence, then it is worth less than the life of another human who is more skilled and intelligent than myself.
This is not a popular way to think. While it’s easy for us to compare the worth of our species to that of other species without anyone but a few “nutcases” (moi) demurring, even atheists tend to maintain that, unlike the worth of nonhuman life, the intrinsic worth of every single human life is incalculable. Alas, it is but a feel-good statement that has little bearing upon how we actually behave. For instance, if by spending $100-billion dollars on airplane safety, or by lowering the highway speed limit to 40-mph, we could save one human life, would we? Given that we Americans, at least, allow our neighbors to die everyday because they can’t afford medical care, and send our young men and women to be killed and maimed in foreign wars without so much as bothering to vote on whether those wars are necessary, I would consider the answer obvious. We only regard human life as more valuable than money or convenience when the expenditure of money or convenience is minimal.
We even speak of money as indicative of human worth as when we say that Warren Buffet is “worth” $72.3-billion while Donald Trump comes in at a mere $4-billion. Upon what basis can we claim that these are mere figures of speech? After the fine sentiments are out of the way, no exorbitantly expensive safety changes will ever be made, and the speed limit will never be lowered in order to save a single human life or even a great many human lives. That which we don’t value can often be discovered by reversing that which we say we do value.
I am better at learning vocabulary than my cat (for whom I buy kibbles made with meat), but he is my superior in dexterity and night-vision. If he and I were to argue over which of our lives is worth more, the most that either of us could accomplish would be to tally our abilities in the hope of outnumbering the other, but it would be a vain endeavor because even if one of us had twice as many abilities, the other could argue that his were of greater importance. Even if one of us possessed a thousand important abilities, and the other no abilities, the former could not prove that his life was of greater inherent worth as opposed to worth for given purposes. As I suggested earlier, to do so would be to imply that a gifted person’s life was worth more than a less gifted person’s life, and we would all be on shaky ground if this were the case.
Feeling as I do about other animals is reminiscent of how I feel about religion in that almost everyone I know feels differently, and that in the interest of getting along, it is better that I keep my mouth shut. Because I hate going through life keeping my mouth shut, I rarely succeed in pulling it off very well, and have consequently lost more friends than I can count. It’s hard being the perpetual outsider, the one who is different, the one who either can’t or won’t (I’m not sure which) at least pretend to go along with what other people believe is right.
I think that, for most people, ethics is a function of: (1) imitating our neighbors, and (2) being true to ourselves when we think we can get away with. If you live in America’s Deep South, you will probably say you believe in God, but if you live in Scandinavia, you will probably say you don’t, partly because our tendency to mimic our neighbors makes us more likely to be atheistic in a dominantly atheist society, and partly because those who would be atheists no matter where they lived know they won’t be penalized for saying what they really think. So it is with our treatment of animals. To continue the slavery analogy, most white American Southerners once believed that slavery was ethical and even charitable (it exposed slaves to Christianity); they now say it’s horrible and regret that their ancestors ever owned slaves. Does this mean that white Southerners of today are generally more moral, sensitive, and empathetic, than those of 150 years ago? I doubt it when I consider their behavior in general but especially in regard to other animals. We’re not creatures who think for ourselves; we’re creatures who mimic our fellows. Sometimes, this is for the good, and other times it’s for the bad, but in either case, our convictions lack depth. That which is easy to think and do is what we think and do, and this makes any claim to moral advancement a bit of a joke.
Image credit: "Lord Mahavir Gold" by Sidparakh - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lord_Mahavir_Gold.jpg#/media/File:Lord_Mahavir_Gold.jpg
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