Here it is, our regular Friday diet of suggested readings for the weekend:
It’s possible I’m missing something, but this smells too much of postmodern nonsense about immunology.
Foucault understood the Stoics only in part, but he got something out of ’em by the end of his life.
A temporary marriage makes more sense than marriage for life (though why marriage to begin with?).
A well balanced follow up to the discussion on whether the philosophy curriculum should be “decolonized.”
The circles of American financial hell and what causes them.
How to do social media shaming in an ethical way (though I’m not convinced it is actually possible).
6 big differences that turn city dwellers into liberals (very down to earth and enlightening).
Not from Venus, not from Mars: what we believe about gender and why it’s often wrong.
Footnotes to Plato 
Massimo, re Coyne and ev psych, I wasn’t aware he was agin it before he was for it.
I’ve read a few previous essays by Fine, and an excerpt from one of her previous books.
As for Coyne fighting political correctness? Since he denies free will, in his own world view, there’s no “Jerry Coyne” to willingly “fight” anything, now, is there.
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Dan,
Perhaps we are operating under different conceptions of what “moralizing” is. But here is part of what you wrote. The parts I find moralizing:
“Unsurprising, given what passes for social thinking today, but depressing nonetheless.”
“the shape of the society we seem to be forming is so ugly and unappealing”
“my daughter seems to be even more old fashioned than my wife and me, so it is unlikely that she will fall for the shallow, technocratic rubbish that fills this article like an overloaded landfill”
“The trouble is that in a time of Self Actualization! and Life as One’s Project! and 27 Steps and Practices for Happiness! and all of the rest of the intellectual detritus for which we can thank the pop psychology / self-help wave that came out of the 60’s and humanistic psychology”
“people have no capacity to understand marriage beyond the adolescent notion of “dating for a really long time.””
“If you think of a marriage as a long-term girlfriend/boyfriend, then not only are you stuck in the mind of a 14 year old, you fail to understand a fundamental social institution that has existed for millennia.”
“Not only is the essay shallow and stupid, it is rather repulsive as well. What a sad bunch we are turning into.”
If the above is NOT moralizing, I honestly don’t know what is.
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“6 Big Differences That Turn City Dwellers Into Liberals’ appropriately published in ‘Cracked’
Farmers were not always conservative. In the days of William Jennings Brian they may have been conservative on region, but they understood that Wall Street was not their friend.
Fighting Bob La Follette was elected Govenor of Wisconsin which was very rural at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._La_Follette_Sr.
My wife grandfather was a remember of the None Partisan League in North Dakota (a rather ‘red’ organization) which supported which ever candidate they considered most progressive. Progressive could be found in both Republican and Democratic parites at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_League
NPL was founded by a farmer!
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we can thank the pop psychology / self-help wave
Self help predates the 60s. I suspect it goes back even further than the Victorians under various names and from various quacks.
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As we have discussed before science only tells us what is not what we ought to do. In this case, divorce is difficult for children (science), but given that, what do we do make things better? Stop divorce? stop marriage? stop having children? offer free counselling? pay a living wage? I don’t think this is easy and no one approach will solve it.
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I enjoyed Loey Nunning’s article on “liberal” city dwellers, though suspect there’s some tongue in cheek involved. But it does explain to a limited extent my inability to fathom some relatives of mine. I mean those living in the midwest who post pictures of their children attending 4-H functions where all the children look alike (oh, please tag your blue-eyed blonde photos so I know which belong to you!). We seem to have nothing in common.
I live in an unincorporated suburb outside of New Orleans. It is largely populated by middle to upper middle class families. I have friends who live in the city who are far more conservative than I. At least twice per week, I cross the street to indulge in rambling, mostly incoherent discussions with my neighbor Phil. He, like most in my neighborhood, voted for Trump while I voted for Hillary (holding my nose, as is now a common refrain by both of us). We indulge in a steady stream of cynicism and beer. Neither suffers the delusion that the other will change via argument. Phil is the so-called military brat. He grew up in Greece and Germany, worked for Exxon for most of his life and has spent time in Africa. So why is he still politically and economically conservative? This question seems more challenging to me than the narrative depicted by Nunning.
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Massimo, thanks for the link. Was your father, or mother, a diplomat? A research scientist? How did you wind up being born in Liberia?
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Thomas, have you read, or heard about, Arlie Russell Hochschild’s new book? All of her in-depth interviews with Trump voters seemingly either voting against their own interests or else hypocritically was in Louisiana. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1901768675
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Massimo, that’s not “moralizing,” that is … umm, “Wittgensteining!”
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Dan certainly opened up a basket of worms — or should that be a can of asps? Whatever.
That was the first comment on this thread, and I agreed fervently with it. And also not. Generally, people don’t seem to be connecting with the concept of marriage the way they did in the past. One of my hobbies is genealogy, and this has caused me to spend a good deal of time rooting around in the US census for the past 150 years or so. I would say offhand that probably 80% of all households in, say, 1880 consisted of a man and a women on their first marriage, along with several children under 20. More than 50% of the men were farmers (and some of the older male children); the women’s occupation was listed as “none,” meaning that they ran the household. Occasional people were listed as “divorced” but they were few and far between. Some of the marriages may have been quite happy; some were probably desperately unhappy; personal satisfaction seems to have taken a back seat to pressures that required stability to keep the social engines running.
There are a lot of options available now. Gay marriage is a recent issue that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago, and one that involves complex side issues: children? roles (breadwinning vs. homemaking)? in-laws? friends? social acceptance? divorce? All the usual marital problems on steroids!
Personal disclaimer: I am the product of a home that broke in 1938, when that was still pretty uncommon. Before I finished high school, I had attended 12 different schools and lived in 12 different households (all relatives of some sort. My first marriage ended in divorce, leaving me a single parent with four children, a somewhat shattered career, and no significant funds. If I still believe in marriage, it is because my spouse and I are approaching our 40th anniversary and still love each other. I can think of no general rule for this sort of thing: it’s all in the particulars.
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No, socratic, I haven’t. Thanks for the link!
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To say that what marriage is is entirely subjective leaves you with no explanation of why marriage has been such a constant presence throughout recorded human history, regardless of culture or religion. Either that is a coincidence/ miracle, or marriage does have a core to it that has a real purpose and meets a real need.
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But, has marriage been that constant? Certainly, before the dawn of history, ie, written evidence, we have no way of knowing that, Markk. And, per my Wiki link, even after the dawn of history, what marriage is has varied.
Yes, there’s been quasi-monogamous male-female bonding, but, per Massimo’s link, and per the disputes over gay marriage, marriage, in opposition to generic quasi-monogamous male-female bonding, has always had a contractual element, contra Dan’s disparagement of more contractualizing.
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As for why divorce has gone up in the last 50 years? One, people live longer, and more of them get divorced after the kids are gone. Second, there’s less stigma attached. Third, societal support for good reasons to be divorced has increased. I for one certainly don’t want the US going back to a time when martial rape was not considered rape, and ditto on other spousal abuse.
Yes, broken homes hurt children.
However, many trial marriages either dissolve, or else bond more firmly, one way or the other, before a child becomes part of the mix. If it’s child safety that’s the concern, we should welcome trial marriages, not sneer at them, in my opinion.
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I’m disappointed that we are discussing marriage instead of why talking scientism to skeptics is a hopeless endeavor. And I was surprised that that article didn’t mention Shia temporary marriage (mut’a) which has been practiced since at least the 12th century.
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Socratic,
My father spent ten years in different parts of Africa overseeing road construction for a British company. My mother and he went back to Rome shortly after I was born in Monrovia.
Markk,
“Marriage” is a cultural construct that varies in form and shape from culture to culture. (Serially) monogamous relationships, usually with a lot of cheating on the side, are the actual pretty much universal norm.
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I asked some social workers I know who work with troubled teens how much a factor divorce was. I got some very scornful looks but was told all the evidence is while there is some short term negative behaviour, they recover pretty well after a while.
I was also told that in Europe at least divorce rates started going up after divorce laws were changed to give men and women equal rights to filing for one. Apparently 75% of divorces are started by women. In the UK women over 50 seem to be a significant demographic filing for divorce.
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David: Sunnis also practice a form of temporary marriage, misyar. The Gulf sheiks, among others, use it to “marry” a … well, a prostitute, and be Islamicly “legal.” I am not sure if that is the reason among Shias. Both versions are at that Wiki link I posted.
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Then there is some cyclical aspect to it. I know of some people who were from seemingly happy households and never managed to settle down. My suspicion being they set their standards too high. While the other aspect was of kids who grew up in broken homes, yet created very successful relationships, possibly because they understand it is complicated and needs effort to work.
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I thought the immunology article fascinating. What governs ethics? The distinction between good and bad. What is the function of the mind? To recognize distinctions in the environment and chose what options to take, necessarily the better, or lesser evil, if one is talking politics.
What is the premise of this article? That the immune system is not just repelling negative organisms, but distinguishing between good and bad ones and cooperating with the good, to repel the bad. Essentially the proto-mind/ethos.
The financial circles of hell/rat race article raises too many issues to properly encapsulate, but it re-enforces my life long commitment to delving back into my own, very well rooted, east coast, wasp culture, rather than chasing after the golden myth. The global bubble is popping and those who committed their lives to it, are finding the ground turning to mush. The eventual consequence will involve going back to a more commons based culture, not social atomization, with the money god as universal social and economic umbilical cord. If you don’t have roots, start growing some.
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My argument has long been that when this all does go to hell, even wasps are going to need a Plan B.
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The Foucault didn’t really seem to offer a clear, or at least deep presentation of the ideas.
“In Seneca the exercise presupposes the notion that our individual death is part of a larger rational order of things, which we ought to accept precisely because it is rational, hence good.”
I suspect a philosophy which makes our death inconsequential, rather than focal point, would be more effective. As in one’s death is just one more moment we pass through, to who knows where, yes, but still only one more bridge to cross when we get to it. Just as every moment is lived as the present state.
“The aim of this exercise is to learn to look at our own life not from the viewpoint of our subjective experience, but from a viewpoint seemingly external to us, far above, in order to be able to correctly position human existence, and therefore our own existence, within the universe. This exercise should, therefore, liberate us from perturbations, anxieties, fears, and frustration arising from the excessive centrality we attribute to our personal experiences whenever we lose the sense of our relation to the whole or we lose sight of our smallness within it.”
The fact remains that we are the center point of both our life and our view and thus knowledge of that darn universe. We can’t see from outside of it, but the universe as a whole, is absolute. Yet take one small speck from it and the entire universe is relative to that speck. Our self. So how does one become relative to the entire universe? Not by taking one’s self out of it, but by existing in balance AGAINST it. For instance, if the entire universe seems to be moving in one direction, it can only do so in terms of against something else. So does one go along with it, or is there some other direction that might balance it? Sort of like the people leaning out of a sailboat, as it is keeling over, to keep it right side up. The better you get at this with the little things, the more they become transparent and you see the bigger things. We all do this, as we grow up. The things you focused on as a child shrank to playthings and you saw a larger world. Similarly we find ourselves focused on seemingly larger things, but the same rules apply, when you learn to put them into their context and sense the world beyond them. Occasionally the view gets too large and you drop back and take care of the smaller details, important to you as a self. This in turn teaches lessons that might have been lost in the larger picture. Expand, consolidate.
Don’t lose the self, just keep it in context.
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Uniting both the marriage piece and the Cordelia Fine piece? I heartily recommend Stephanie Coontz’s “The Way We Never Were.” (Or other writings of hers, for that matter.)
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I could keep talking about marriage, but I don’t have the strength for it, and a long debate on the topic can only end in tears.
If I may, I would like to ask Massimo or Dan a question about something entirely different.
Recently I brought up this argument:
1) All human knowledge is ultimately based on unverifiable instincts.
2) These instincts all have the same source (evolution). The exact pathways are unknown to us.
3) Therefore, there is no basis for privileging one instinct over another.
4) Therefore, there are only three consistent positions available to us:
– we assume they are all true and proceed on that basis, or
– they are all false and all human knowledge is fiction, or,
– “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
My question is: is there anything wrong with this, where would it lead if I chose the “all instincts” option, and are there any modern philosophers making this argument?
For the curious, or for those who want to see me pretend to be a philosopher, here:
https://ideascage.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/should-we-doubt-our-instincts/
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Markk,
Yes, there is something wrong with that reasoning, and it is in the first pr mise: it is not the case that human knowledge is entirely based on instinct. In fact most of it is not, it is the result of rational thinking, observation and experiment.
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Perhaps instinct is the wrong word here. I mean in the sense that all human knowledge is based on foundational premises that cannot themselves be based on anything else. For example: “the physical world my sense tell me about is real”, “the human mind is adequate to do science”, etc.
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My desktop computer won’t let me comment with the account I use on my smartphone, in case you’re wondering.
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Hi Markk,
You are assuming a foundational theory of knowledge, in which everything is based on un-questionable axioms. Many people would reject that idea in favour of anti-foundational accounts.
An illustration of this idea is Neurath’s raft, where “knowledge” is compared to a raft of planks, on which you are floating. You can replace any of the planks — there is no plank that you cannot replace — you just cannot replace all of them at once. Thus, any “foundational axiom” can actually be examined and tested — using the “platform” of the other planks to do so, — and it can then be replaced with something better if that would improve the overall model.
To do that, all you need to do is apply the standard scientific method. Simply consider the possibility “not-axiom”, compute all the knock-on consequences of that for everything else, and then compare the two models (“axiom” vs “not axiom”) for overall explanatory and predictive power.
[Sorry everyone, feel free to return to discussing marriage!]
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Hi Coel,
I recall last round of this discussion, you made the same point but in regards to Quine. Since I’m more familiar with Quine than Neurath, I’ll respond in reference to Quine. But note that I do not claim to be an expert on Quine.
I am assuming a foundationalist view of knowledge. Now, according to Quine, the philosophical and scientific (as normally defined) form a “web of knowledge”, such that there is no separation of the two and in principle, although the empirical is at the edge of the web, it is possible to test the centre because of its links to the edges – correct?
Plus there are no exceptions to this. So it is theoretically possible to test that “true statements are false” by experience. All I can say is – I hope I never have an experience like that! Maybe another few years of Trump and we’ll all believe in falsy-truth.
But does this amount to “no assumptions”? If I have a belief in the centre of my web, and I could test it empirically, and I have done so, this is not an assumption. But if I have thus far not done so – doesn’t this make that belief an assumption, by any normal use of the term “assumption”?
Does Quine himself make this “no assumptions” claim? When he makes statements like “Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer” – how is that compatible with “no assumptions”?
Finally, as I said last time, all of this presumes that we are competent to arrange our webs in light of the pressure brought to bear on them by any given type of empirical evidence. This is surely as foundational an assumption as anyone could ask for.
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So, since the article on marriage seems to have gotten most people worked up. I have a question. What is the purpose of state sanctioned marriage in the modern world? Al the legal and financial contractual obligations can be solved via incorporation, which is a stronger legal position. Beyond that is there are reason marriage can’t be a purely personal affair and we can retire the marriage license?
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