Political Ideals

Well, as mentioned in the last post, I am going to be continuing my investigation of the role of government and politics and attempt to put this work by Bertrand Russell in conversation with Thoreau's piece. Hopefully this will work.

One good quote from this work is the following: "For this reason  the men who believe in force are the men whose thoughts and desires are preoccupied with material goods." I whole-heartedly agree with this observation and I immediately thought of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a U.S-led coalition. While many official reasons were put forth by the White House, over the years some alternate theories have risen in popularity to explain what really happened. One must be extremely cautious when reading these because some are so off the wall that they cannot be taken seriously, while others seem entirely possible. Bush claimed that he wished to enter Iraq to oust the malevolent dictator Saddam Hussein. By removing Saddam from power, a figure who had been in power for twenty-some years and had been, to put it colloquially, a pest to the American government. If one thinks back nearly a decade, he is the reason why Bush Sr. entered the region when his aggression towards Kuwait was taken to an intolerable level. Bush promised that by removing this man from power, that democracy, peace and stability in the Middle East would soon follow suit. Thus, the coalition was formed to forcibly enter Iraq. Not to immediately ensure democracy, peace and stability for the Iraqi people, but rather to secure oil interests near the Gulf and in southern Iraq/Kuwait. If those were disrupted, the flow of oil to the United States would lessen, thus plunging the economy into the tank. Thus, if we take Russell's observation and apply it to this situation, one can see that the U.S. was not interested in securing what it overtly promised (at least not at first). Once they used force to enter Iraq (which, granted, did not require a ton of force), the U.S. was after material items/gain, for men who believe in force are preoccupied with material goods (such as oil).

However, is this observation absolutely correct for every situation? I wondered and thought of the Wars of Religion in 16th century Europe. As one can assume from the name, these were religious wars fought between different sects of Christianity (mainly Catholics and Protestants) over which tradition was more correct and orthodox. There were clearly some spiritual, religious motives behind the use of force in these instances, so does that refute Russell's position? I think not because while a religious bent may have been a motivation for fighting, I do not think that it was the sole purpose for war. I believe the men leading these factions were also interested (to some degree) in acquiring land, wealth, fame, etc.

He briefly gives some "rules to live by" which include:
(1) be concerned with creative impulses rather than possessive impulses -- meaning that rather than being concerned with property and the acquisition thereof, be more concerned with spiritual, intellectual, and cultural achievements. I totally agree with this rule because I also think that we are too focused on making money that we tend to lack in other "creative" profits we can receive in this world, which ultimately tend to make everyone better off.
(2) have a reverence for others -- basically, respect others around you. This is definitely a rule that we instill in children from a young age, which ultimately makes many, if not all, grown individuals respectful of those around them.
(3) Respect for self and consciousness -- pretty self-explanatory. Respect yourself and the fact that you are a cognizant being.

Basically, then, what his rules boil down to are: respect yourself, respect others, and don't worry about the money, be more concerned with rewards that can benefit society in a different way.

Speaking of war and invasion, an interesting quote from him is the following: "War is recognized as an evil by an immense majority in every civilized country: but this recognition does not prevent war." We all know it is wrong and ought to be stopped, because that is the right thing to do, yet we are drawn to inactivity rather than action, which is something that Thoreau also brings to the fore in his piece on civil disobedience. Both of these men, then, are calling us to become more active citizens to create a better world for ourselves and our posterity.

I think this ought to suffice for today, but I will definitely be adding to this post in a continuation of this work of his. In the next section he will denounce capitalism and the wage system and attempts to point out why it is wrong and ought to be overthrown. Should make for an interesting discussion. Until next time!

Thoreau, Pt. 2

Onwards...

So, after getting through a majority of this essay, I hit this roadblock wherein Thoreau states: "I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a god place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad." I find this to be a bit troubling considering throughout the entirety of the essay, Thoreau is urging people to step up and challenge the government and the injustices it inflicts upon its citizens and other injustices in general. It seems as if he is also prescribing a model for the ideal society, which would be inherently good since it would be ideal (unless, of course, one wishes for a world of evil to exist). Thus, I have a problem with this man over this statement. There is nothing more to it, really, just something I found to be a bit inconsistent considering the rest of the paper.

In going along somewhat of the same lines as the previous paragraph, he also is a strong believer that society is all talk and no action, and what he thinks we ought to do is act rather than just sit and talk about it. This would also go against what he says earlier in the paper (as noted in the previous paragraph) because he claims that he is not on Earth to change the world, he is just meant to live in it. Maybe that is what he is meant to do. Maybe Thoreau personally is not meant to be active, yet he is meant to actively tell others that they ought to be active. It still seems to me that he is a hypocrite in this regard.

A big debate Katrina and I had after reading this and discussing it came from the following quote: "Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue: for money comes between a man and his objects." And another, just a few sentences later: "The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as that are called the 'means' are increased." The first quote Katrina had a major issue with because she asked if that meant the completely virtuous person would have to be dirt poor, with no money at all. I could understand where she was getting this from, but at the same time, the opposite end is not defined either. Thoreau, in this quote, does not seem to mention what a completely immoral person would be either. Thinking of it as a graph, with money on the x-axis and virtue on the y-axis, Katrina thought that the point (0,infinity) was included and was to be deemed the completely virtuous person. What I pointed out, after I disagreed with her, was that there is no such point as (infinity, 0), the completely immoral person. Therefore, it must start somewhere in the middle, or we ought to not think of it in terms of graphs at all. Maybe Thoreau did not intend for us to think of this in terms of a graph, but rather as merely the statement he makes in this essay.

Once we had that issue out of the way, we proceeded to talk about whether the meat of the sentence was true or not. I tended to believe that it was while Katrina thought otherwise. I thought that it was a well stated observation and held some validity. Thinking about many of the famous/rich people in our society, it seems to me that many of them, with their millions upon millions of dollars, do not do virtuous acts as often as the more moderately rich or middle-class or poor. While they donate millions of their dollars to charities, that does not make a person virtuous. Money is easy to give away, time is not. If they were to give some more of their time away, I think that would be a different story, but many simply give money as an easy and lazy way out of donating time. It seems to me that middle class folk cannot give away money as readily, but they can (and often do) give up some of their time to care for others or whatever. Basically, we determined that these quotes were referring to materialism and who is more materialistic. I (and Thoreau) claimed that the rich were more concerned with material items while the poor/middle class were more concerned with being good people (including to others). Katrina argued the opposite, that everyone (including those who are poor) are materialistic. I could also see the logic behind her reasoning here, as those who are not particularly well off in the financial field tend to aspire for material objects, which can be considered materialistic. There is definitely some validity there as well. Many of the people from the lower end of the economic pyramid tend to aspire for bigger, better, brighter items. So, after discussing this, we decided that agreeing to disagree would probably be the best course of action.

To conclude my post and the unit on Thoreau, I will pose a large question that I came to about halfway through this reading. I will also attempt to answer it, but not too in depth because...well...because I don't know what to think about it, quite frankly.

Anyhow, it seems quite obvious that Thoreau was really angry with the American government and its role in society and was decrying its injustices against loyal citizens, but at the same time, it seems that the message throughout the essay was optimistic, providing an answer to the question: What am I to do in this life? What is the purpose of living? I think that Thoreau, between the complaining, ranting, raving, and angsting has provided for us readers somewhat of a purpose/course of action in this life on Earth. I think Thoreau makes us challenge our apathy and inactivity and urges us to become active citizens of whichever nation to which we declare allegiance. Therefore, maybe he is also providing people with a sense of hope and usefulness in their lives because that is what a large portion of philosophy is, at least in my opinion. This question of what we are to do, etc. is a huge question that philosophy tries to provide answers to and tackle head-on. I dunno though. Maybe I am completely off my rocker here.

Stay tuned for the next installment and a reflection of Bertrand Russell essay concerning politics. 'Twas interesting and connected nicely with Thoreau.

Civil Disobedience

As I mentioned in my last post, I am planning on reading some philosophical works and then posting my reflections on here. Dunno if anyone is really going to care about it, but that was the purpose of this blog in the first place, so I shall therefore continue to uphold its reputation as such. As can be inferred from the title, I read Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay "Civil Disobedience." What follows are my thoughts I had while reading the essay and some further expansions of some ideas.

Throughout the entire essay, Thoreau continually relates back to the Mexican-American War, which he despised. He also has a big qualm with slavery, another topic that he uses to illustrate some of his points unrelated to slavery and also in direct relation to slavery.

At the outset of the essay, Thoreau makes a bold statement and exclaims his belief in the maxim "That government is best which governs not at all." I immediately thought about what political affiliation he would have in the modern day. I think that this would put him at the libertarian end of things, wanting the government to keep their hands completely off society. I also assumed that he would be opposed to socialism, but what about communism? I think it is the common misconception that communism is also a super tight and strict form of government, but according to Marx, communism is a system without government. If there is no government, then there is no governing taking place, which is something Thoreau seems to be desiring. Regardless of what political party Thoreau belongs to, it no doubt raises the question: why would we want to get rid of the government? Thoreau goes into more depth with his answer to this, but I believe one of the main points he makes is that government functions merely as a expedient, that is to say, all it does is speed things up. Many would argue that government, specifically bureaucratic government (such as the U.S.), tends to bog down the system with its immense amount of paperwork and formalities. However, Thoreau viewed it as being a service which speeds up processes.

Another of his major points is that society is too mechanized, which is definitely something that ought to change. He states, "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward." As the title of the essay suggests, Thoreau was calling for open warfare on the law and established order of the U.S. government at the time. He said that the law frequently produces injustices to everyone, to which we ought to rise against and stop respecting the law. If something is morally objectionable, then one ought to raise a fuss about it and then disobey it because you must be a man first, and a subject later. If you are merely a subject, I believe Thoreau would imagine you to be at a loss for your humanity because you become part of the machine rather than a unique individual human being. He uses the example of soldiers who frequently do things they would normally never do, but do them anyways because they are commanded to do so. They compromise their own morals in order to retain respect for the government and the law. I think I would be in accord with Thoreau on this stance because there is no government in the world that I would follow if it made me do something that went against any of my morals. I prize my humanity too dearly to be subjected to immoral activities imposed upon me by the government.

Another one of his main points is that people are hesitant to act and decry morally reprehensible activities. He relates this back to the war and slavery: "There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them." Clearly there are many individuals who find slavery and the war to be foolish ideas, yet no one (as of then) was rebelling against the government. He claims that "they will wait, well disposed, for other to remedy the evil." Rather than taking the individual initiative, they are going to wait for someone else to call out the government. To be perfectly honest, after reading this I found this statement to be incredibly true for myself. Typically, I find myself to be calling out immoral activities, but in the grand scheme of things, I think that I could definitely improve in this regard.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote.

When Katrina and I were discussing this essay, we both came to this passage and highlighted it and actually went on some wild tangents that Thoreau never discusses in this essay. One of the tough questions we had to deal with is whether or not morality and morals are inherent in human beings. Katrina was adamant that they were, but I was skeptical. As she explained her reasoning, she explained how the groups we are part of tend to shape our morals. An example of this, though not used by Katrina during our discussion, is Christianity. There are certain Christian ethics that people tend to adhere to because of their membership of the larger Christian community. However, I quickly pointed out that this means that our morals are shaped by society then. We are not ourselves knowledgeable about the differences between right and wrong. We determine what is right and wrong by living within a community and being surrounded by people who teach us morals. We are not born with this inherent ability to make a distinction between moral and immoral, right and wrong. I believe, if memory serves me right, that we agreed to disagree on that topic. However, it raised another wildly off topic discussion.

Throughout this piece, Thoreau claims that the government ought to bow down to individual wishes made by its individual citizens. That is to say, rather than going with majority sentiment, a proper government ought to listen to every single individual and accommodate them. ((Side note: This is, in my opinion, a rather silly idea because then no consistency can be reached, as appeasing Joe Blow will likely anger Jane Doe.)) We got into a discussion of politics and how I thought that Thoreau was angry (and would still be angry) with the two-party system we have in the United States. Yes, we do have some Independents in our government, but overall, the political environment of the U.S. has been dominated by Repubs and Dems. This stands in contrast to many European parliamentary systems (notably the UK, France, Russia, Germany, India [yeah, not European, but once ruled by Europeans and therefore greatly influenced by European politics]) wherein various parties have a say in government. While sometimes a single party can obtain a majority in parliament, it is more often than not the case that parties must form coalitions in order for the government to function and get things done. Under coalition governments, if one member of the government dissents and goes against another party, thus withdrawing their seats in that government, the parliament is dissolved, and new elections must be cast. My point in bringing this example up is, in a certain sense, two-fold. First, it seems that in these European parliamentary systems (often referred to simply as multi-party systems, as these systems exist in countries outside of Europe) more individualized voices can be heard, whereas in the U.S. you have to side with either the Red or the Blue, you do not get the pink, purple, yellow, green, and tan options to choose from. So, while it is not a perfect system, multi-party systems, I would imagine, would tend to please Thoreau. While this is no perfect solution to the problem Thoreau is concerned with, it does increase individualization of government. Additionally, it also gives more individual right to govern, as exemplified by the simple fact that if one member of the government dissents, the government is dissolved and new elections must be called. In conclusion, then, it seems that Thoreau was really angry with the American political atmosphere and its lack of individualization and personal catering to its citizens.

I think I may stop there for this post, as I am noticing it already getting extremely long. I definitely have more on Thoreau and other philosophers as well, so be prepared and bring your thinking caps.