Adults also say "I'm sorry" when they are wrong...
I have thought quite a bit recently about the differences between being children and being adults.
I don’t think that any of us truly ever becomes fully ‘grown-up,’ and everyone retains some elements of childishness throughout their entire lives. That said, being an adult means taking on adult relationships, modes of thought, and attitudes towards others. Becoming an adult means leaving one’s childishness behind and aspiring toward something better than we once were.
Part of being an adult is recognizing that other people are rarely (if ever) ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Even people who do things we would call evil did them for reasons that they believed were truly righteous. Even Hitler believed he was bringing about a better world.
As adults, when we feel that someone else is wrong, it is easy to fall into the childish trap of demonizing the other person and thinking that they are somehow evil or malignant. The hard path is the path of being an adult, and that path requires that we confront the other individual, tell them politely and calmly what it was that they did that you found wrong, and let them explain their side of the story.
More and more, I am concerned at the future of a society that is so quick to judgment that it refuses to even listen to the other side of the story and judge that version of events on the merits of the version.
A good example of this is our national epistemological crisis. The prevalence of claims for which no rational explanation is offered would be laughable except for the fact that so many people believe them. Finding the truth of a situation requires that people acknowledge that evidence and explanation are required to make something true. I find it inconceivable that people planning on entering a career in our national truth-finding enterprise for interpersonal conflicts (the legal system) sometimes find themselves making exceptions to the norms and premises which underlie the very system they plan on working for. And yet, I am confronted with people who believe in things like leprechauns, demons, magic crystals, and aura-cleansing.
When people jump to a conclusion without weighing the evidence, there is little to restrain them to a set of conclusions even remotely close to the actual one. Offhand observations about emotional states somehow are transformed into personal attacks. Discussions about the wrongness of governmental policies become grounds for accusations of anti-Semitism.
When will people learn that evidence must be the basis for conclusions about reality? It isn’t just a coincidence that non-evidence based conclusions held sway over humanity for all of recorded history until the Enlightenment when a few rationalists got the idea that reaching conclusions without evidentiary warrant hadn’t progressed humankind very far. In the past 300 years, evidence-based thought has progressed humankind at a rate far exceeding all of human history prior to the Enlightenment.
Even I have been guilty of reverting to my childishness and holding on to reactionary perceptions. Sometimes it may be difficult to avoid demonizing people for their perceived faults, but as adults it falls upon us to talk to the person and see whether our perceptions of them have been flawed. However, as adults, it is incumbent upon us to put aside the trivialities of childhood and treat other people as adults.
posted by The Academian | 10:27 PM
6 Comments:
1) epistemological crisis? I thought you were beginning to accept Strauss? this is a terrible set back, set your crazy humanism on the shelf. I have an extra copy of MacIntyre's "after virtue" not my personally signed edition, that's mine for keeps, I'll send it to you, you can have my signed Chomsky too, if you want it, lord knows I'll never read it
2) The law as truth-finding? That’s just silly, go find your philosopher-kings so they can discover and administer the truth, trix are for kids
3) Israel. I can't remember your first post all that well, and I didn't read your follow up very closely, but I think I got the gist of your perspective.
Basically, you said that Israel's policies are bad and that Israel as a whole is bad - not individual Israeli's - therefore, not delightfully anti-Semitic, Well, let's look to the president of Iran, or Hezbollah, destroy Israel - they aren't pissed about Jesus, or usury, they want their land back, they abhor the state of Israel. They take it a step further by killing women and children, I acknowledge that you have probably neither killed an Israeli nor advocated killing an Israeli, unless it would save a mouse or monkey or chipmunk, but that's an altogether different topic,
I maintain that criticizing the legitimacy of Israel is akin to denigrating Judaism and Jews as a whole. For the sake of full disclosure: I am not Jewish, I have not dated a person of the Jewish faith, nor do I have any Jewish friends, nor have I ever read Elie Weizel(sp)
If I remember properly, you mentioned something about North Korean policy and North Koreans personally.
First, I can say I'm not prejudiced against North Koreans because I have many North Korean friends and even dated a North Korean. My friends even called me an honorary North Korean.
Anyway, it’s a poor comparison because of the obvious historic, both contemporary and ancient, and religious differences.
I think a more appropriate comparison would be Vatican City. Can I criticize the pope's political, theological and social policies, without being anti-catholic? I think so, I hope so. But, I don't think I can deny the legitimacy of their existence without disparaging Catholicism. Disagree with Israel's policies. I don't agree with them on all policies either, but denying the legitimacy of the state, a state that is uniquely Jewish, is more than simply disagreeing with unilateral withdrawal from the west bank. It is denying a unique and miniscule population the right to live, work and worship as a community. Granted, a similar argument could be made for Palestinians, but the differences are greater than degree, they are of kind.
Do you essentially agree with Iran? You cite much of the same evidence, basically political policy and Zionism, rather than religious issues.
Finally, at least on this topic, your facts on the 1967 war are hog shit. I can't immediately back that precise terminology off hand, but give me a few weeks and I'm sure I can put something together
Also, I believe you need to update the number of people who think you are gay (not that there is anything wrong with that) it's got to be higher than 7, I don't even know you and have surmised after reading your posts, even the ones were you talk about women, that you are gay. I bet if you asked around, it would definitely be in the double digits.
You must be the loneliest person most people encounter, and therefore, even if you aren't, it could really increase your chances of finding a meaningful relationship. GO GAY! You could be catholic gay and just not have intercourse. I realize you've probably heard this same sentiment before, but really, look into it, you never know.
-Alana-
Yikes.
I had no idea that my rambling thoughts on the nature of adult interpersonal relationships could spawn something quite so interesting as what I found here. Not that I mind. Quite to the contrary, really. I have to commend you, Alana, on what is the longest post by anyone who isn’t me in my comments for a very long time. I like people that have long posts because it generally means that they have a lot to say.
I'm going to break up my response into separate responses according to their content for convenience.
EPISTEMOLOGY:
I’m not sure I follow your disagreement with my claim that we are in an epistemological crisis. I’m not sure I agree with Strauss at all (at least not if we are referring to the same Strauss). I’m not all that much in favor of having gentlemen-puppets rule society while being quietly fed the right answers from behind the scenes by Strauss’ chosen few. I certainly am a humanist, but I’m not sure I understand what you mean by me putting it on a shelf. Since I take into account the suffering of other beings too (in the interest of not being a speciesist) I’m not exactly a humanist in the conventional sense of the term, but it’s close enough, I suppose.
When we justify things on the basis of non-evidentiary warrants, we are a nation in crisis. Truth demands explanation and saying ‘it is simply true’ without more isn’t enough to make something true. That is the cardinal difficulty with justifications of truth through anecdote or faith. Ultimately, they can justify absolutely anything at all. I can have faith that unicorns exist on the surface of Pluto, but that hardly makes it true. Whether there are unicorns on the surface of Pluto will depend on whether we see any unicorns when we look at the surface of Pluto.
The presence and popularity of things like aura-cleansings, homeopathy, magnetic healing, faith healers, and astrology are indications that as a civilization, we have profoundly lost our ability to differentiate between that which is true and that which is false. A society with a firm commitment to ascertaining truth would demand that individuals who claim to speak to the dead or read minds be able to demonstrate this power to the satisfaction of rising to something greater than statistical averages.
LAW AS TRUTH-FINDING:
You dismiss my claim of law being a truth-finding discipline, but fail to give any reason for dismissing that claim other than saying it is silly. However silly you may personally find the claim, it has a long history and makes an awful lot of sense to a lot of people. When someone is brought before a court to determine whether he is guilty of robbing a store, the parties present evidence to either convince the impartial fact-finder that the man did or did not rob the store. Why would we do this if not to actually determine the truth of whether the man robbed the store? Why would we feel upset at the injustice of seeing a woman go to prison for a crime she did not commit if we weren’t convinced that a trial was supposed to find that she did not commit the crime in the first place? Finding the truth of the narrow questions posed to a court is a prime explanation for why we even have trials to begin with.
Take a civil case for example. Let us suppose that we agree that I have broken my neighbor’s window with a baseball and should pay for it, but disagree as to the amount I owe for the window. My neighbor contends that the amount was $500, and I say that it was only $100. Each of us will present evidence about the true price of the window that was broken. What we are after is the actual price of the window. Finding that price is what this case will ultimately come down to, and I’m not sure how else to explain the truth-seeking nature of that process without calling it truth-finding.
ISRAEL:
As for the claim about Israel, you make some valid points that need to be discussed. I still urge you to refrain from throwing around the charge of anti-Semitism so carelessly, but will try to address your response as clearly as I can. I’m going to ignore your claim about me being likely to advocate killing an Israeli if it would save the life of a non-human animal because I can’t possibly imagine that you meant that comment to be taken seriously. If you did, you seriously misunderstand the nature of a utilitarian calculus that involves non-human animal suffering and pleasure. Even Peter Singer makes it clear that we adjust the weight given to an entity’s interests in line with the entity’s capability to suffer of feel pleasure.
You summarize reasonably accurately my position, in that I say that the State of Israel’s governmental policies are despicable and that the State is responsible for awful things of which they should be ashamed. I agree with that summary, but diverge from you thereafter. Those who are anti-Semitic have a bias against Jews or Judaism. I do not have a direct hatred for Jews or Judaism, rather I have a bias against the State of Israel. You conflate the two in a way that I still do not comprehend.
You compare my position to many Middle-Eastern groups and individuals who advocate destruction and terrorism as a way to harm Israel, but do so ignoring the fact that when they use the term ‘Israel’ they mean more than the State of Israel. Rather, they refer to Israel (as the ancient term for the Jewish people). The State of Israel is not the Jews and the Jews are not Israel.
A stark difference exists between people who want to hurt Jews and people who want to end the atrocities committed by the State of Israel. Those who desire the former usually want the latter as well. Those who want the latter do not usually want the former. A quick and easy way to tell the difference between the two camps is to see what their attitude is towards Judaism or Jews apart from Israel. If the person blames Jews living in New York City for the occupation of lands seized in the 1967 war, that person is likely from camp A. If the person couldn’t care less about Jews living in New York City, and doesn’t seem to have strong opinions about Jews even living in the State of Israel, they are probably from camp B. To my knowledge, I’ve done nothing to make anyone doubt that I belong to the latter group.
You maintain that criticizing the State of Israel’s policies is akin to denigrating Judaism or Jews as a whole. Given that I see the two as separate entities with little to do with each other (as I suggested in my prior answer regarding anti-Semitism where I indicated that you could replace all of the Jews in Israel with some other group and I would still criticize the international violations of human rights law engaged in by Israel), how would you respond to my suggestion that critiquing another country populated by an identifiable group (with a history of oppression) is not generally considered to be a critique of that group? I took as an example in my prior response a hypothetical, in which I supposedly critiqued the country of Mali for allowing private militias to run amok in the countryside (I have no idea of whether that is true). If I had critiqued Mali in this way, would that be equal to my spreading racist anti-black propaganda?
When I criticize pre-WWII Germany’s policies of Jewish extermination and discrimination, am I denigrating Christianity (from which the German people and Hitler drew their burning hatred for Jews)?
If I critique the United States government for policies I find unwise or immoral, am I guilty of criticizing rich, upper-class, white people? Would it be another group?
Put frankly, Israel is a state that does not demand that citizens adhere to a specific religion. Muslims can be citizens of Israel. Christians can be citizens of Israel. Scientologists and Voodoo practitioners can be citizens of Israel. Given that the citizenry of the State of Israel has no set composition, are we relying on percentages to determine whether critiquing a country’s political choices amounts to a criticism of the characteristics of some set of people living in the country?
You suggest that the State of Israel is uniquely Jewish which entails that criticism of the State is criticism of the people, but I simply don’t see how that is the case. None of the Basic Laws of Israel (their version of a pseudo-Constitution until the Knesset gets around to creating an official one) establish Judaism as the national religion of the State, nor prohibit non-Jews from being involved in the political process. If Israel is a state based upon Judaism, then they openly tolerate dissent from Judaism and fail to recognize Rabbinic Law as guiding (as Muslim States sometimes do with the Islamic Law).
Further, if we accept that the policies of a state in which some portion of the world’s Jews reside represent something uniquely Jewish, then why are their policies not the desired policies of Jews the world over? Jews living in Topeka that I know don’t clamor for the United States to invade Mexico to set up a ‘protective zone’ to free us from immigration. Should Jews living in Washington D.C. all support the idea of detaining children and beating them in violation of international norms? If they don’t are they self-hating Jews? What about Jews living in Russia, Brazil, or the United Kingdom? Must they all support the policies of Israel in order to avoid being anti-Semitic themselves?
The root of this difficulty is that if we identify the policies of the State of Israel with Judaism (rather than with the political processes of the State), then there are no policies of the State which are left to question without venturing into anti-Semitism. Their military and domestic security concerns aside, even their internal tax system couldn’t be criticized without saying something anti-Semitic, since that system would be the result of a political process founded upon Judaism.
Another problem with identifying the political decisions of Israel with Judaism is that the position assumes that Judaism must be the source of the electorate’s values, which seems a bit off to me. It seems much more clear to me that Jews in different parts of the world will hold different political values because of their vastly different contexts, just like Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists, and Hindus. Christians in the Deep South of the U.S. are different than Christians living in New England and their views are informed by their varying political, financial, and sociological backgrounds. Why must Jews the world over draw their values from the same source and ignore the values that are wholly apart from their religion? Why can’t their choices on military struggles or occupation be the responses of people who believe themselves to be under attack by terrorist organizations? Why can’t their decisions to bulldoze houses for crimes of attainder be an attempt to engage in a massive campaign of general deterrence? If we accept that their policies are there because of Judaism and not because of sociology or psychology, then we have set aside Jews as being somehow different from everybody else in the world, since we all are subject to these influences.
A more sensible alternative is to suggest that the policies of the government are open for critique no matter from what source their political constituency derives their values. If we abandon this position, we face the bizarre situation of having two identical countries with identical policies in violation of human rights, but where one is the result of a reliance on the values normal to a U.S. political landscape and where another is motivated by religion. In this scenario, only one of these countries can be criticized, even though both engage in exactly the same bad actions which are wrong for exactly the same reasons.
I’m really not seeing how using this analytical framework denies Jews the right to live, work, and worship as a community. I have no problem with Jews having a state of their own, or living in communities within other states (there are Jewish communities in London). It is not a stretch of the imagination to even pretend that Israel lives peacefully with its neighbors and doesn’t engage in the actions in which it engages in reality. I would be perfectly fine with that. There are plenty of examples around the globe of successful, non-violent secessions. Non-violent coups are not unknown in Southeast Asia. Canada even has had their judiciary explain the methods by which Quebec can attain its own statehood apart from Canada. If Jews want a particular state of their own, there are plenty of ways in which that can be accomplished without seizing land against the will of the inhabitants followed by expansionist wars.
I don’t recall saying anything about North Koreans, but I’ll do a check through my previous response and my blog postings to see if that is the case.
Your claim about my facts regarding the 1967 war (the Six Days war) is incorrect if you refer to the main claim I recall making. I’ll go back and search for other claims, but the one I recall distinctly is that Israel invaded and took lands belonging to other nations during the war (lands which it still holds to this day). This claim is verifiable. The American-Israeli Cooperative enterprise (a charitable organization whose mission is to strengthen U.S.-Israeli relations) contains a map in their databases that shows the political boundaries prior to the 1967 war.
(http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
/jsource/Peace/borders.html)
The map shows that the West Bank and Golan Heights, as well as half of Jerusalem were under the rule of Jordan, while the Gaza Strip was under the rule of Egypt. Following the war, these pieces of other countries were under Israeli rule, and this occupation of these lands is the source of much of the continuing strife in the region.
Your comparison to Vatican City is an apt one and one that bears further consideration. I’ve never thought about Vatican City before, so I’ll have to work through that comparison. There are obvious differences between the two countries. Vatican City wasn’t carved by force out of existing countries by a foreign hostile occupier. Rather, it was given freely as a gift to the Church. Nobody is fighting for the return of their land or for political freedoms against Vatican City either. That said, it is a State which is founded directly upon a religion.
Having never thought about it particularly, I’ll have to play with the idea of it for a bit and then get back to you as to whether it is a good analogy to Israel, and if it is what that means.
MISC. VITRIOL:
Finally, I’m going to ignore your assertion that I’m gay. Even I am prone to a touch of drama now and then, and I certainly will assume that the same tendency is what motivated your suggestion.
Having never insinuated in my writings that I desired to become sexually intimate with men, I can only guess as to where you implicitly read such an idea. Identifying gay men with their stereotypes (fashion sense, broadway musicals, talking with a lisp, etc.) isn't a productive area of discussion, unless you want to assert that the stereotypes are true.
Finally, as to crack about my being lonely, that was in poor taste. I know I'm not much of one to criticize other people's taste. After all, I listen to some pretty awful music and laugh at some pretty awful comedian's jokes. Nonetheless, hitting below the belt in that fashion is uncalled for and insensitive. I'm going to ignore it and assume it stemmed from the same tendency for drama that I assumed motivated the musings about my sexual identity.
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