A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

Archives for November 2009

America, Iran & the Authoritarian Mind

by 19 Comments

Reading Maziar Bahari’s article about his ordeal in Iran reminded me very much of the novel 1984 and all the other descriptions of “interrogations” I have read. Thinking about this, I began to suspect that there is a core authoritarian mindset that remains the same across a wide variety of ideologies. In the case of Maziar Bahari’s horrible ordeal in Iran, he faced this mind in the form of Mr. Rosewater-his primary tormentor. While Mr. Rosewater is an individual, he is token of a type-that of the authoritarian mind.

The first, and most obvious, quality of this mind is that it is obedient to authority. While Milgram‘s famous experiment showed that most people seem to be naturally obedient, the authoritarian mind takes this obedience to a greater extreme. While the obedience does come in degrees, the truly authoritarian mind reaches a state of almost unquestioning obedience. This sort of obedience is, of course, critical to rulers everywhere-without such “dogs” (as per Animal Farm) they would lack an essential tool of their power. These “dogs” are the people who tortured Bahari, the people who ran the Nazi camps, and those folks who tortured in the name of defending freedom and democracy.

The second quality of this mind is a self-fulfilling paranoia. This sort of person sees any disagreement as the mark of an enemy, thus often forcing such people to become enemies in fact. Hobbes, of course, took this sort of view in the Leviathan when he noted that people see a failure to agree as the mark of disagreement and that people react with hostility to such things. Of course, the authoritarian mind takes this to a greater extreme than normal and tends to be willing to take violent action against those who disagree.

The third quality of this mind is a distrust and fear of the freedom of thought and expression. As such, these people tend to regard intellectuals and journalists as natural enemies. After all, people who think tend not to obey unquestionably and they often raise difficult moral concerns by failing to see the world as those in power wish it to be seen. Journalists, at least those not owned by the state, have a tendency to report unpleasant truths rather than the official “truths” of those in power.

Interestingly enough, both the hardliners in Iran and those in the United States have very similar views about the intellectuals and the media. In both countries, these folks blame the media for creating dissent, undermining the state, and encouraging immorality. The intellectuals and elites are also criticized and regarded as enemies. After all, these people are out of touch with “the people” and are not part of the true America/Iran.  Needless to say, it was interesting to learn that Mr. Rosewater’s view of the media is the same as that of Sarah Palin.

Of course, the dislike of the authoritarians for folks who think and talk is ancient. The sort of people who killed Socrates are the same sort of people who tortured Bahari.

The fourth quality is a flexible moral absolutism. In general, authoritarian folks believe that their cause or side is absolutely right. They also tend to hold to an absolute moral view of pure good and evil: the enemy is pure evil while they are pure good. This is often associate with a religion (for example, Islam in Iran and Christianity in the US).

What makes their absolutism flexible is that although they see the world in absolutes, they accept that they can do terrible things in service to their cause. For example, Mr. Rosewater worked very hard trying to paint Bahari as a morally evil man. Meanwhile, Mr. Rosewater was beating Bahari, subjecting him to mental torment and keeping him locked away for no legitimate reason. That is, Mr. Rosewater was evil and doing evil things. Likewise, in the United States people advocated using torture and imprisonment without trial and justified this by claiming that America is good and hence must be protected.

But, perhaps the authoritarians are not really flexible absolutists. Perhaps they just have two absolute principles: “my cause is right, so anything done its defense is also right” and “my enemies are wrong, so anything they do is wrong.” These two principles do seem to nicely capture the authoritarian mind.

A fifth quality of the authoritarian mind is a lack of concern about truth. In the case of Mr. Rosewater, his goal was not to find out the truth about reality (that Bahari was just a journalist and not a spy or agent). Rather, his goal was to impose a “truth” upon reality. For the authoritarian mind, “truth” is not something that one finds by objective investigation. The “truth” is provided by those above and it is “confirmed” by the use of force and torture. For example, if the authorities say that Bahari is a spy, then Mr. Rosewater would torture him to get him to say that he is a spy, thus “confirming” the “truth.” In contrast, real journalists and “intellectuals” investigate reality to see what the truth is-yet another reason why authoritarians hate intellectuals and journalists they do not control.

Authoritarians might also think that other people do what they do in this regard and this might also help explain this hostility. After all, if they think that the intellectuals and media people are trying to impose “truth” on the world, they would see these people as competitors to their “truth” and hence enemies. Perhaps the idea of objective truth is foreign to the authoritarian mind (as nicely illustrated in 1984).

Not surprisingly, authoritarians are terribly dangerous and help make small and great evils possible. Unfortunately, criticism of them generally tends to reinforce their paranoia as they see any criticism as an attack (especially if it is true). For example, criticism of Iran tends to simply make the hardliners take an ever harder line as they see more and more “evidence” that their paranoia is correct.

They also tend to be immune to reason and moral appeals-they are, after all, confident in their own moral goodness and regard reason as an attempt to create dissent.

So, then, how do we deal with such people? In some cases, they can be reached-after all, they are still human. For example, Bahari’s article reveals a great deal about Mr. Rosewater, such as the fact that he seems to truly love his wife. In some cases, these people cannot be reached and then it comes down to what they understand quite well-force.

Perhaps the best way to deal with this people is by increasing the numbers of people who are not them. While authoritarians are very dangerous because of their willingness to obey and do terrible things, they are obviously not superhuman. As such, their power can be countered by numbers of people who are willing to resist them and the evils that they defend.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Fallacy

by 2 Comments

As a philosophy professor, I have waged a never-ending and largely pointless battle against people using “fallacy” when they mean “factual error.” For example, someone might say “people often think that dogs won’t eat anything that is bad for them, but that is a fallacy.” This is, of course, a mistake. A fallacy is a mistake in reasoning that occurs when the premises presented in an argument fail to adequately support the conclusion.

So, to think that a dog won’t eat anything that is bad for them is not a fallacy. Rather it is just a factual error. After all, dogs will consume anti-freeze and that will kill them.

Naturally enough, people might argue that words should mean whatever people say they mean. So, of folks use “fallacy” in place of “factual error”, then that is just they way things are.

While that has some appeal, since language is mostly a matter of convention, this sort of use is problematic. After all, there is an important distinction between an error in logic and a factual error. It certainly seems important to distinguish between those two mistakes. To see why, think about balancing your checkbook. You can make a mistake by doing the math incorrectly (adding $500 + $50.50 and getting $555) and you can make a mistake by entering the wrong amount (for example, $50 instead of $500) for a check. These errors are different and calling them the same would be a mistake and would also cause confusion.

Now, if people insist that “fallacy” should mean the same as “factual error”, then a new word would be needed to name what we used to call “fallacies.” However, since we already have a perfectly good word for fallacies, namely “fallacies”, then it makes sense to simply stick with the current usage.

A minor problem with using “fallacy” for “factual error” is that it makes teaching logic a bit more challenging. To be specific, it is quite challenging to make the distinction between assessing the quality of reasoning and assessing the quality of a claim without adding to the confusion by using two terms for the same thing.

As such, it would be nice if people would stop using “fallacy” in place of “factual error.” One refers to a mistake in reasoning and the other refers to being wrong about a fact and these are not the same things.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Avatar

by 3 Comments

MEKONG DELTA, Vietnam -- A South Vietnamese Ai...
Image via Wikipedia

James Cameron‘s upcoming film Avatar (not to be confused with Nickelodeon‘s Avatar) is already drawing a great deal of criticism. This is despite the fact that the film is not yet finished. While it is reasonable to criticize what is known about the film (it is expensive and not yet done) it is not reasonable to make judgments about the quality of the film itself until it has been finished and seen.

From what I have seen of the film, it does seem to draw heavily from existing sources. First, people are making the obvious connection to Dances With Wolves.  However, it is even more appropriate to go back before that movie and compare Avatar’s core plot device with that of the (original) Outer Limits episode Chameleon. In this episode a human is genetically modified to pass as an alien so that he might discern their purpose (and kill them if need be). He finds that the aliens are actually morally superior to humans and ends up joining them (or at least the sole survivor after he kills the others).  No doubt there are numerous other science-fiction stories with similar themes that predate even the Chameleon episode.

Of course, it is rather difficult to create a movie that does not draw from some pre-existing source. Interestingly, some movies are actually lauded for doing so. A good example of this is Star Wars (the original movies) which brilliantly weaves together an array of old threads (the farm boy who seeks adventure, the wise old man, the dashing hero, the princess, the evil empire, the plucky rebels, the Tao, and so on)  into a “new” story. As such, Cameron should not be criticized for re-using a plot device or theme-provided the movie successfully weaves the old into something new. If Cameron simply copies these other works, then the film should be regarded as artistic plagiarism. Interestingly, Cameron’s Terminator film was alleged to have been “copied” from two episodes of the Outer Limit. My own view is that although Cameron was probably (okay certainly) influenced by those episodes, Terminator is is significantly different story.

Second, comparisons are being drawn to the Vietnam war (and other conflicts). On the face of it, this seems reasonable. Naturally enough, the fact that visually the soldiers and equipment resemble those of the Vietnam war (for example the VTOL craft look like modified Huey UH-1 helicopters) lends credence to this claim. Of course, while there may be debate about whether we need yet another  movie commenting on the Vietnam War (or commenting on the current wars through commenting on Vietnam) even if the movie does this it is no mark against it. After all, some very good movies are created to (in part) comment on war.

Naturally, there is also some criticism of the cost of the movie. While cost is something worth considering, it is only a real problem if the movie does not make a profit. After all, it is not just a matter of how much a movie costs-it is also a matter of how the cost matches up against the box office take (and other revenue). If Avatar makes a Titanic amount of money, then the movie would be a success financially. Sure, it would be better to make that sort of  money without spending as much, but such profits can be presented as a justification for the expenditures.

Speaking of Titantic (and Terminator 2), Cameron has a track record of being able to deliver. Perhaps this will hold this time as well. Then again, perhaps Avatar will not turn out to be like Dances with Wolves, but rather Waterworld.

As a final point, even the negative buzz about the movie might help it. After all, the more people hear about the film, the more likely it is that they will go to see it on opening day. Of course, too much negative buzz might have the opposite effect.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Is America’s Decline Inevitable?

by 32 Comments

The recent economic disaster has raised the old questions about the fall of empires. Now, the questions are being asked about the United States. While the rise of China, India and other countries has left the US in a relatively less elevated position, we have actually be losing ground by declining. Signs of this include the obvious: a weaker economy, talk of moving away from the dollar as the world’s currency, less political clout and so on. Signs also include the less obvious: less brain drain from other countries to the US, less innovation in science and technology, and so on.

One reason for the decline of the US is that the US reached its height in the ruins of WWII. The other great industrial nations were in ruins or were at least badly damaged by the war. While the Soviets did present a challenge, they were (as history showed) burning bright by burning far too hot. The US, whose lands were not directly touched by war, was in a position to become a true superpower.

Now the world has recovered from WWII and the US is thus losing relative ground. Also, former empires such as China and India are reclaiming their former glory and power, thus returning to the world stage in force. These other countries are spending considerable resources on the future: education, research, energy and so forth.

Naturally, some folks might think that the signs are in place: the United States reached its peak and is now in a slow (or not so slow) fall.  It is quite reasonable to suspect that the US must fall. After all, all other empires have fallen and thus empires seem to be analogous to living things: they are born, reach their maturity and then perish.

Of course, while the history is accurate, the analogy is flawed. Living creatures do perish because they cannot replace their mortal flesh. But, an empire need never fall in this manner. Provided it can keep restoring its vigor and the basis for its success, it could be effectively immortal. The challenge is, of course, to pull of this seemingly imposisble task. Of course, it is not actually impossible-just rather difficult.

Even if the United States does decline, it need not become irrelevant nor need it stay down forever. After all, China was once a great empire that fell into a great decline. But China is on the rise and is a great nation once again. Interestlingly, China was rather easily defeated by the Japanese just a few decades ago. But now China is a giant looming over Japan. This, of course, may not last-as an empire rises again it can easily slide down the wheel of history and end up back on the ground.

Whether the United States declines or not is largely up to us. One factor that seems to be driving our decline now is the rot and corruption within our economic and political systems. Perhaps this will be the cancer that brings about our end, or perhaps it is but one disease among many infecting the political body.

Thanksgiving

by 12 Comments

Thanksgiving Day
Image via Wikipedia

Since I am related to John Howland, who came over on the Mayflower, I see Thanksgiving as something of a personal holiday. Of course, since I am also related to some of the native people who once owned these lands, I also take it personally in that way as well.

Some folks might be inclined to see the holiday as somewhat hypocritical given how the Europeans ended up dealing with the natives. While I can see the appeal in this and we should not forget the past, I think that the holiday has evolved into something that can be quite meaningful.

On the most surface level, it is about family and friends gathering to share fellowship and food. This is, obviously enough, a good thing. On a deeper level, it is a day we set aside to give thanks for all that we have and to, if we are kind, think about others. For me the most important part of my Thanksgiving is when I bring my donations to the local Turkey Trot race. Two of my friends, Brian and Judy, collect clothing and other items every year for the homeless shelter. I am thankful that I have enough that I can help those who have so much less. While in a better world everyone would have enough, it is right for those of us with more to show our appreciation by helping those who have less. To me, that is what Thanksgiving is really about: gratitude and generosity. Oh, and running.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Obama & Kant

by 8 Comments

While watching CNN this morning, I heard an excerpt from the speech given by President Obama at his first state dinner.  What immediately caught my attention was the fact that Obama seemed to have quoted Immanuel Kant:

“For it’s been said that ‘the most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above us and the feeling of duty within us.’ Mr. Prime Minister, today we worked to fulfill our duty –bring our countries closer together than ever before. Tonight, under the stars, we celebrate the spirit that will sustain our partnership — the bonds of friendship between our people.”

While it would be rather too much to claim that Obama is a Kantian based on this one phrase, it is certainly interesting.

%d bloggers like this: