Christopher Lasch on De Sade and Contemporary Capitalism

Christopher Lasch in the Culture of Narcissism:

"Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived of by the Marquis De Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch.  In many ways the most farsighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations--the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form.  By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that had outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.

Sade imagined a sexual utopia in which everyone has the right to everyone else, where human beings, reduced to their sexual organs, became absolutely anonymous and interchangeable.  His ideal society thus reaffirmed the capitalist principle that human beings are ultimately reducible to interchangeable objects.  It also incorporated and carried to a surprising new conclusion Hobbes's discovery that the destruction of paternalism and the subordination of all social relations to the market had stripped away the remaining restraints and the mitigating illusions from the war of all against all.  In the resulting state of organized anarchy, as Sade was the first to realize, pleasure becomes life's only business--pleasure, however, that is indistinguishable from rape, murder, unbridled aggression.  In a society that has reduced reason to mere calculation, reason can impose no limits on the pursuit of pleasure--on the immediate gratification of every desire no matter how perverse, insane, criminal or merely immoral.  For the standards that would condemn crime or cruelty derive from religion, compassion, or the kind of reason that rejects purely instrumental applications; and none of these outmoded forms of thought or feeling has any logical place in a society based on commodity production.  In his misogyny, Sade perceived that bourgeois enlightenment, carried to its logical conclusions, condemned even the sentimental cult of womanhood and the family, which the bourgeois itself had carried to unprecedented extremes.

At the same time, he saw that condemnation of "woman-worship" had to go hand in hand with a defense of woman's sexual rights--their right to dispose of their own bodies, as feminists would put it today.  If the exercise of that right in Sade's utopia boils down to the duty to become an instrument of someone else's pleasure, it was not so much because Sade hated women as because he hated humanity.  He perceived, more clearly than the feminists, that all freedoms under capitalism come in the end to the same thing, the universal obligation to enjoy and be enjoyed.  In the same breath, and without violating his own logic, Sade demanded for women the right "fully to satisfy all their desires" and "all parts of their bodies" and categorically stated that "all women must submit to our pleasure."  Pure individualism thus issued in the most radical repudiation of individuality.  "All men, all women resemble each other," according to Sade; and to those of his countrymen who would become republicans he adds the ominous warning:  "Do not think you can make good republicans so long as you isolate in their families the children who should belong to the republic alone."  The bourgeois defense of privacy culminates--not just in Sade's thought but in the history to come, so accurately foreshadowed in the very excess, madness, and infantilism of his ideas--in the most throughgoing attack on privacy; the glorification of the individual, in his annihilation."

Sex and the Early Soviet Union

One of the earliest fruits of the Communist Revolution in Russia was the so-called "emancipation of women".

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/59/emancipation.html

The above link (from the Fourth Internationalist Communist League) discusses the early changes in Soviet law, from a Trotskyite perspective.  According to our article:

"Just over a month after the revolution, two decrees established civil marriage and allowed for divorce at the request of either partner, accomplishing far more than the pre-revolutionary Ministry of Justice, progressive journalists, feminists and the Duma had ever even attempted. Divorces soared in the following period. A complete Code on Marriage, the Family and Guardianship, ratified in October 1918 by the state governing body, the Central Executive Committee (CEC), swept away centuries of patriarchal and ecclesiastical power, and established a new doctrine based on individual rights and the equality of the sexes."

But wait, there is more.  The adoption of contract marriage, no-fault divorce and civil marriage (thereby removing the Orthodox Church and replacing it with the totalitarian State) was not the only innovation after the Communist revolution:

"The Bolsheviks also abolished all laws against homosexual acts and other consensual sexual activity. The Bolshevik position was explained in a pamphlet by Grigorii Batkis, director of the Moscow Institute of Social Hygiene, The Sexual Revolution in Russia (1923):

Soviet legislation bases itself on the following principle:

It declares the absolute non-interference of the state and society into sexual matters, so long as nobody is injured, and no one’s interests are encroached upon.

—quoted in John Lauritsen and David Thorstad, The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935) (New York: Times Change Press, 1974)" 

Communism, as initially manifest in the revolution, involved an exchange of economic freedoms, and the embrace of a totalitarian, centralizing state, but promised its citizens a total sexual freedom, provided no one is injured, and freed citizens from the tyranny of traditional religious organizations in the domain of marriage and sexuality.

After the liberation came the demands.  Because of inequalities between men and women, the Soviet civil code began requiring alimony for disabled ex-spouses.  According to the Fourth International, although these laws were on their face neutral, in application jurists favored the women and children. "In one case, a judge split child support three ways, because the mother had been sleeping with three different men."

These legal innovations were insufficient for the "social justice warriors" of their time, who celebrated the socialist ideal of Free Love, a society based on impermanent, random hook-ups, where love and commitment were forever abandoned to history.  Some criticized compulsory monogamy, and called for the abolition of marriage altogether.  This faction ultimately lost due to the need to provide support for women and children.  However, even the promulgators of this Code agreed with the sentiments of Free Love, and looked forward to a time when the State was sufficient to support all, and marriage could be finally abandoned, once and for all.  Then, every person would be completely free to manifest their sexuality however they chose.

But no-fault divorce, alimony, and legalization of homosexuality were not enough for our revolutionary reformers.  The 1918 Labor code provided for paid 30-minute breaks every three hours so that nursing mothers could breast feed.  The new Soviet laws also provided for fully paid maternity leave for eight weeks, nursing breaks, and factory rest facilities, free pre- and post-natal care, and cash allowances.  Women were often commonly accorded menstrual leave.

In 1920, more Communist progress transpired, in the form of free abortion on demand.  Unfortunately, the promise of this law was limited by the amount of State resources available to furnish this need.  Many women in the countryside suffered from unsafe and unsanitary abortion care.  Although contraception was lawfully available, access to rubber supplies were limited, so abortion became the primary form of contraception in this New Order of Humanity.

Today, we don't associate Communism with these kinds of sexual liberty.  In fact, all these reforms were for the most part reversed by Stalin by 1936.  Divorce was restricted.  Homosexuality outlawed.  Motherhood celebrated, and large families encouraged, but on Stalin's terms, not on the basis of tradition or Orthodox Christianity.  Cynically, we might say that sexual liberation is a tool of the totalitarian state used to destroy the power of the family and organized religion, which might provide a nexus of resistance against it.  Harness the power of sexual passion, and the resentments of women, in order to destroy those elements of society which might oppose the State.  However, there are other, pragmatic, explanations.  These policies caused a demographic slide in the population, which threatened Stalin's plans for militarization and centralization of Soviet economy.  There can be no territory without boots on the ground to occupy it.  Likewise, increasing numbers of orphaned children, falling into dependence on the State (essentially post-natal abortions) provided an economic burden that the developing Soviet Union could not afford.  A government intent on building a war machine will revert to a focus on industrial production and the virtues of motherhood out of necessity.
 

I find it interesting that there is a lack of curiosity in the West about the Communist system, which supported the ideals of Free Love and atheism.  These Bolsheviks of the 1920's would have a favored place at the table in today's contemporary discussions of divorce, marriage, abortion, and the role of religion in society.  Moreover, Eastern Europe underwent a decades long experiment to create a new man, a new citizen that had thrown off the yoke of tradition and religion and replaced it with a faith in reason and centralized planning.  While the West's focus on Communism has mostly been directed at Socialist economics, a new Socialist culture was emerging in places like the USSR.  While our own economic system no way resembles Communism, our own cultural system increasingly models itself on doctrines and ideas derivative from these early Communist revolutionaries.  As we Americans boldly construct our New Person, one free of ancient traditions and socially constructed notions of gender, perhaps we should look more closely at the historical effect of these policies in the former Communist block, specifically at impacts on demographics and public health?  Do we have any reason to believe that the long-term consequences will be any different here?

Many in the West regard the conservative attitudes of the former Eastern Block as backwards, yet the Eastern Block was atheistic and steeped in modern egalitarian rhetoric generations before the West.  The social justice warriors landed in Moscow in 1917, and began reconstructing the cultural order.  In contrast, the West had to wait to the 1960's for our liberation, when Western Academics began indoctrinating our youth with the Cultural Marxist agenda of the Frankfurt School.  Gay rights, liberal feminism, political correctness, ethnic supremacy for minority groups, these ideas all descended on the West through the works of intellectuals like Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer, and Fromm.  Is it possible that the East is not in fact behind us but ahead of us?  Having witnessed the demographic and public health disaster that decades of atheism and "social liberalism" creates, is it possible that the East rejects these ideas for a good reason?     

Why Secular Liberalism is Doomed

I constantly encounter condemnations of Fundamentalism, and I will admit that Fundamentalism, in many forms, is easy to critique.  I don't abide with Young Earth Creationism, or a lot of other beliefs that I find silly, but fundamentalists of certain stripes take very seriously.  Yet I cannot look at Fundamentalism without appreciation, for I believe that the Fundamentalists will inherit the Earth.  Thus, Fundamentalism, in whatever form, is marked by vitality, zeal, discipline, and sacrifice for something higher.

In contrast, while my worldview is probably closer to Secular Liberalism, I think this worldview is much more worthy of criticism, because it is killing itself off and bequeathing the Earth to the Fundamentalists, which strikes me as a practical matter as stupid, despite the subtleties of it's syllogisms.  Any social order which seeks to survive must inspire certainty in its adherents, and Secular Liberalism, despite its claims of moral relativism, is just as intolerant and repressive of its enemies as any Fundamentalism, so certainty and a willingness to act against others to preserve itself are present.  However, Secular Liberalism fails because it cannot, by nature, inspire people to sustained sacrifice on behalf of the social order.  It does not inspire people to make more babies.  It does not inspire people to remain sober.  It does not inspire people to remain in difficult marriages.  It does not inspire people to remain in difficult employment situations.  It does not inspire people to fight for their country.

To sacrifice yourself requires the love of something greater than yourself, something so great you are willing to trade your life or well-being in the name of that greater love.  Certainly, Communism was a secular liberal system if there ever was one, but Communist zeal really burned out by Stalin's rise.  Stalin appealed to the sanctity of the Motherland to inspire his people to resist the Nazi invasion, not the Communist Revolution.  This is not to deny that a handful of people may be willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of equality for all humanity, but most people are unmoved by bloodless abstractions.

Any social order that can replicate itself through time must not only be intolerant (as Secular Liberals invariably are in fact, whether the "politically correct" left or the "Islamaphobic" Dawkins right), but any social order that can replicate itself in time must also inspire sacrifice.  The inversion of sacrifice in Secular Liberalism is manifest in its commitment to egalitarianism.  What we find under Secular Liberal egalitarian rhetoric is "gimme equality".  That is to say, the believer does not intend to surrender something to the other, the believer demands something from the other.  Further, equality is in the eyes of the beholder, so you end up with a political culture in which various groups attempt to mug each other in the name of "equality".

Let's take a concrete example.  In general, men tend to more extreme outcomes then women.  I don't know if this has always been true, or if it is genetic, or whatever, but you can look on death row, and you can look at the Boardroom of a Fortune 500 company and find men.  Men are disproportionately represented at the extreme bottom, or at the extreme top.  Thus, under "gimme equality", a woman looking at this situation will compile credible statistics about how men are disproportionately represented at the top, and women are kept down.  In contrast, a man looking at this situation will compile credible statistics about how men are disproportionately represented at the bottom, and how women (or "feminism") is keeping the men down.  They will then dispute, because they both know that they are entitled to something, they both have credible facts that they can point to, and will both claim how they lack rights, and they will never see each others' point of view.  Obviously, someone will win in the political process, but the resentments will not disappear.  Neither will be particularly grateful to the existing social order, because they will either obtain what they are "owed" by society, or they will be denied what they are lawfully "due" from society.  (Note: this "equality" is totally vacuous, as either side can win the political battle and claim a victory for equality.)

A house divided against itself cannot stand.  In contrast, if a person views their individual existence as part of a higher order, consisting of a family, a community, a religious community, and a nation, then the person has a particular role defined by their communities, and has particular and reciprocal duties.  This person is willing to gladly sacrifice, because they identify with something greater than themselves.  The person, in their self understanding, belongs to something greater than their particular existence or their particular privileges.  Because Fundamentalism does a better job of integrating individuals into families and communities, individuals are ready and willing and able to do what is necessary to preserve the integrity of the community.  Any sustainable social order must be rooted in communitarianism and holism.  From this point of view, what we often call "freedom" largely amounts to "alienation". 

Platonic Homosexual Thoughts

Read a fascinating article in the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities discussing the rationale for Plato's condemnation of homosexuality in the Laws, which has caused me to pause and think about the meaning of homosexuality:

http://www.randallclark.org/publicat/2000a.pdf

I believe Plato's political thought can be characterized as primarily focused on questions of collective security.  Plato recognized that the greatest threat to a person is their existential being, and the greatest threat to a social order is an existential threat to the order.  The most fundamental basis for any political thinking must relate to establishing laws and customs that promote the collective security of the polis, the city-state in Plato's day, and today the nation-state.  Laws and customs which diverge from the interests of collective security will ultimately be abandoned, or they will result in the city becoming conquered by its internal or external enemies.  Moreover, in Plato's time, collective security was much more in question, and the consequences of war were much higher.  In antiquity, if a city was conquered, the best scenario generally involved the slaughter of all adult males and the sale of the women and children into slavery.  In contrast, the last wars fought on American soil were in the 19th century, and America rules as hegemon throughout the Western Hemisphere.  American political philosophers are accordingly not very concerned about collective security, they generally assume the inexorable continuation of American power ad infinitum.

In discussing Plato's views, it is also important to reject a fundamental ontological category of modernity:  the so-called gay/straight divide.  To the modern person, people are sorted into two categories, gay or straight, presumably from birth or before.  Moreover, we are frequently told that these categories are the result of genes that determine these characteristics (similar to the way racists explain differences in IQ test results).  Plato's conception is more polymorphous.  Human beings are erotic beings, but this erotic energy is, to some extent, undirected, wild and chaotic.  The purpose of law is to attempt to direct erotic energy into socially constructive directions.

We can imagine a world like Plato's.  Perhaps some people in Plato's city would have a very strong attraction to people of the opposite sex, and would be incapable of ever engaging in same sex acts.  Likewise, some people in Plato's city would have a very strong attraction to people of the same sex, and would be incapable of ever engaging in heterosexual acts.  However, in the middle would be a wide swath of people who could, to some extent, swing either way.  It would be at this last group that the law would take aim.  (Of course, perhaps modern science and genetics renders the existence of these people impossible.)  Obviously a law which punished sodomy would promote heterosexual marriages, which in ancient times, with limited access to contraception, would result in children.  So we can understand legal sanctions against homosexuality are fundamentally natalist in principle.

Why would natalism be something that a state might want to encourage?  Well, clearly, the larger the population, the greater the specialization, then the larger and better equipped the army--which would in turn open up more opportunities and territory for the surplus population.  Good laws and customs would create a virtuous circle of expansion and growth, provided the polity could govern itself, and the laws were not corrupted.  In the ancient world, laws against homosexuality, and laws promoting heterosexual marriage, would result in a stronger and safer city, able to defend itself from invaders, and would ultimately promote expansion and conquest.  Thus, we should not be surprised that Plato would call for the outlaw of sodomy, not based on superstition, but based on basic strategic and military grounds.  [Thus, we can understand the reluctance of the post-Communist governments of Eastern Europe, facing a total demographic collapse and rampant drug and alcohol abuse, to embrace atheism and same sex marriage with the gusto of the West.]

But in fact, Plato's prohibition stems more from internal concerns than external threats.  Plato sees human desire as fundamentally as homophilic:  "It is according to nature that everyone is always somehow attracted to what is most similar to himself," [at least according Mr. Clark's translation.]  Eros for Plato is fundamentally narcissistic.  People seek relationships with people like themselves.  The rich court the rich.  The intelligent court the intelligent.  The powerful court the powerful.  This also follows for religious, ethnic and racial groups.  Within human desire there is a fundamentally incestuous and nepotistic quality.  We can witness this characteristic in the hemophiliac royalty of Europe and the autistic progeny of the New Class of Silicon Valley.  In contrast, maintaining a common order demands mixing with the Other.  If not, the polis becomes concentrated into rich and poor, learned and ignorant, white and black, male and female.  The basic civic division between citizen and alien is politically acceptable, even helpful, but divisions within citizens undermines law and order.  Thus, although Plato did not live in our time, we can imagine that he would support racial and ethnic miscegnation--perhaps even mandating it in his heavy handed way.  Otherwise, the polity would remain internally divided against itself.

Thus, Plato seeks to ban fornication, adultery, masturbation, incest and homosexuality, and to encourage heterosexual procreative marriage, presumably between differently ranked social groups, even recommending that a man marry the lesser of two suitors in the interest of the commonwealth.  It should be clear that Plato does not view eros negatively--but rather--he seeks the transformation of eros from a narcissistic, self-absorbed eros, to a truly ecstatic eros that moves beyond the limited division of self, into a higher love, a love of the other, and a love of the polis.  Moreover, Plato viewed the role of law as shaping citizens toward a higher civic life, not one based on the excessive accumulation of wealth or a narcissistic self-creation project, but toward a common wealth enjoyed by all.  Plato acknowledged the role of the love of the same, but sought to channel that love from a carnal love to a mode of friendship and mutual caring.

Obviously, Plato is not a man of our time, nor did he ever read Ayn Rand, nor had Al Gore invented the internet.  Perhaps his views are too demanding of human beings, too heavy handed, too idealistic, and perhaps Aristotle may provide a more grounded view of politics.  But the question of law remains with us today, and how we conceptualize the law, either reinforcing the natural human tendencies to segregate and separate, or fighting these tendencies to create a common social order remains an important question.

The Future of Sin

I recently read an article entitled "Once and Future Sins" in Aeon Magazine.

The link is here:

 http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/what-will-morality-look-like-100-years-hence/

Don't worry, the article is not religious, and one of the authors points out that he is a physicist, so therefore, presumably qualified to speak about the evolving nature of sin.  Rather, the authors point out how they anticipate human morality will evolve in 100 years.

This causes me to pause, and consider how I anticipate human morality will evolve in 100 years.  Don't worry, I won't get all religious on you, I will look at the question empirically and anthropologically, assuming no faith beyond common sense and respect for empirical science.

But the purpose of this exercise is that I view the Aeon article as paradigmatic of what I would call bovine progressive liberal secularism.  It embodies all the diagnostic criteria of this syndrome.

To start, empirically, historically, we have to assume that the future will, in large part, resemble the past.  That is to say, we have to start by discounting the possibility of a miracle altogether.  Please don't get me wrong, if we have a miracle, say the Second Coming of Christ, then I would imagine a drastic change in the moral condition of the human race.  But to play the prediction game, I have to presume a continuity in time between the past, the present and the future.

What can we say, in general, about the past and the present?  The first principle is that all of human history (and by inference, all human pre-history) consists in the struggle between groups over control of territory and resources.  In as much as groups are ordered under a sovereign power, we can conceive of these groups as factions, or parties, or alliances, involved in politics.  In so much as we conceive of struggle between sovereign powers, these struggles consist in wars and diplomacy, and also may include factions, parties and alliances.  I have specifically said group, and not something more specific, because there are different types of groups, social classes, ethnic groups, religious groups, economic interest groups, families, etc. 

If we desire to speak of the ethical life, we could start by understanding ethics as transcending politics, war, and the struggle between sovereign powers.  That is to say, ethics is the practical suppression of all politics, struggle and war, resulting in a kind of social stasis.  If we made this move however, we have to conclude that ethics is absent from human history, as social stasis is the great and temporary exception within history, which proves the rule.  That is, whatever our concepts of ethics or morality are, received from and embedded in cultural influences, they cannot transcend history and memory.  Under a sovereign power, and toward all those under the protection of the Sovereign, there can be a full ethical life.  In the conduct of diplomacy and warfare, between nations, there can also be ethical conduct, but in many ways more circumscribed than an ethics backed directly by the force of law.  There can be ethical considerations in warfare, for example, in the treatment of prisoners, restrictions on interrogation techniques, selection of weapons, etc.  But ethics can only occur within a territory subject to either political power or geopolitical power.  In a state of true and protracted anarchy, there can only be the wretched struggle for survival at all cost, at least beyond a narrow set of kinsmen.

With this preamble, we can consider our article, which postulates the first prediction for moral advance will be acknowledgment of the so-called "rights for future generations."  We must, I believe, consider the logical presuppositions of this statement.  First, the authors equate the invention of abstract systems of rights with human morality.  In contrast, we can consider the text of Leviticus, which everyone will acknowledge is a moral code, whether we agree with it or not.  Leviticus consists primarily of behavioral prescriptions and prohibitions.  "Do this"  or "Don't do this", as well as outlining the steps a community (or an individual) should take in the event of a transgression.  Moreover, these behavioral injunctions are primarily concerned with maintaining the purity of the group.  For example, if we look at the story of Sodom and Gemorrah, God promises to spare the city if only 10 good men remain.  If there are a sufficient number of good people to be found, the remainder will be spared, notwithstanding their wickedness.  Likewise, if God discovers only 9 good men in the city, these men are toast, notwithstanding their virtue.  The group rises and falls as a group, and there is no question of anyone simply "doing their own thing".  There are no individual rights, there are only individual duties, in the first instance to God, and in the second instance, to one's fellow creatures.  This is the paradigm of morality 1.0.

The author notes:

Currently, only people alive now can claim rights.  But just as we have extended our circle of moral concern among the living, so it can be extended in time.  The problem is clear:  we often make decisions that will have impacts on people far into the future --such as producing nuclear waste that will remain toxic for millions of years -- yet those future people are not here to stand up for themselves.

Once again, let's unpack the assumptions.  Morality consists in some unspecified "we" extending its "circle of moral concern" and acknowledging the unclaimed claims of ungenerated generations.   Now lets consider the historical and cultural context of rights, that is to say, legal rights.  What is a legal right?  A legal right is a claim made on behalf of a person, generally in the context of a legal dispute, although claims of rights can also be bandied about in the process of crafting legislation or interpreting statutes toward the creation of executive regulations.  Here we can discern a parallel to the story of Sodom found at Genesis, Chapter 18.  In this chapter, God reveals his intention to destroy Sodom on account of its wickedness to Abraham, which perhaps parallels humanities current disregard for the well-being of future generations.  Abraham's response consists in a question to God, whether God is willing to destroy both the righteous and the wicked.  Abraham asks God whether God is willing to destroy the city if 50 righteous citizens can be found in the city.  In some sense, Abraham makes a claim of rights on behalf of the righteous before God, asking whether God ought to destroy them.

At the same time, there is a dis-analogy between our modern futurist and Abraham.  Abraham makes a claim of right on behalf of the right-eous, that is, those human beings who have distinguished themselves from their fellows on account of their moral virtue.  Rights belong only to those who deserve them in this view, not to all, the wicked deserve what they get.  They can only be spared by living in relation to the virtuous.  The circle of concern can never be extended directly to the wicked, only indirectly.  Yet we should note that our futurist authors make a similar claim about the future generations, comparing their lot to that of animals and small children.  Surely these future generations will be righteous, or at least, have the opportunity to be righteous?  But there is another, more important, dis-analogy between Abraham and our futurist authors.  God is God over all.  Any historically constituted human sovereign is not sovereign over all, and any claim of right can only be relative to a particular and historically embedded system of law.  Likewise, Abraham asks God to spare the City of Sodom.  The futurists authors ask "we" ("us"?) to acknowledge the rights of future generations.  The "we" can only be a historically constituted power (or powers), and the "rights" can only be expressed in positive laws promulgated by States.  Rather than propose a radical new morality, the author seems to be giving sanction to the creation of a whole new system of bureaucracy.  Moreover, since the holders of these rights have no means of speaking for themselves, the Sovereign will by necessity be forced to put words in their mouth.  Thus, bureaucracy grounded in an indefinite system of laws and rules for the living interpreted by an autonomous system of power in the purported interest of an indefinite and unformed collection of people.  A blank check for totalitarianism if you will.  God spare us!

We should add that God is not ultimately moral, at least as depicted in the Old Testament.  We say God is omnibenevolent, but this is tantamount to saying that by definition, what God does is good.  In contrast, human behavior, at least traditionally understood, can be moral, in that morality consists in living in conformity with the Will of God.  God may manifest mercy toward Sodom, in the sense that he ultimately bargains with Abraham not to destroy Sodom if ten good people remain, but this does not make God good, it manifests God's goodness.  If God had refused to bargain with Abraham, or if he had set the bar to 5 people, or one person, he would still be good--by definition.  Moreover, God could have done any of these things, as he had the power to do these things--by definition.  God is good, and so God does not become good by undertaking some action, or refusing to take some action.  Although I am talking a lot about God, the point connects to the rights of future generations.  If a sovereign power adopts some bureaucratic procedures that artificially include the interests of future generations, it is hard to conceive of how this can be a good act.  If one believes in God, then one can judge the sovereign in terms of its conformity to God's will.  But if one does not believe in God, then clearly whatever law the state enacts, it is by definition good.  For this reason, the legitimacy of modern governments is generally proposed on the basis of procedural (e.g. democratic), not substantive grounds.  This legitimation invariably gets fudged a bit, with considerations of the "spirit" of the people (the Constitution) and the notion that the letter may be overcome by the "spirit" of the law.  But the modern theorist must be very careful here, because such thinking teeters on the brink of acknowledging an order beyond simply the fact of the given (or that the given, by virtue of the gift, presupposes a giver).  The bottom line, if we adopt the naturalist game, is that the substantive result of any political body, provided it follows the procedural rules, is good, regardless of whether it enhances or shrinks the circle of "moral concern".  (We could examine the legitimacy of proceduralist theories of legitimacy, but that is beyond our scope.)

To summarize, the concept of a "right" is fundamentally an amoral concept.  In our system of law, the righteous and the wicked are both entitled to the same legal rights.  For example, a righteous person and a wicked person are both entitled to the same rights if they file a claim for disability benefits, or if they are accused of a crime.  If a democratically elected Government confiscates 10% of the real estate holdings of all estates over 1,000 acres in the name of the rights of future generations, and conserves them for the benefit of future generations, this cannot be a moral act.   It could only be moral with respect to a legitimate standard of morality, and what standard could exist independently of the State itself?  Certainly not the subjects, as they form the body of the State.

In contrast to the right, there is the concept of duty, which is distinct from a right.  First, right derives its meaning specifically from a legal context.  To speak of a right that transcends positive law is to conceive of righteousness before an absolute sovereign.  This kind of righteousness is precisely the kind of thing that we can't legislate, if it exists at all, it must be revealed from God.  On the other hand, a duty is just something we owe another person.  There can be legal duties, and the violation of legal duties can give rise to legal remedies, but a duty can exist independent of positive law and a positive sovereign, and therefore, in the abstract, independent of anthropomorphic theological presupposition.  On the other hand, the concept of duty cannot be divorced from the concept of customs or tradition, that is, historically received norms of behavior.  People all over the world act out of a sense of duty, but the concrete obligations are determined by particular circumstances and customs.  Is the groom's family or the bride's family expected to pay the dowry, for example?  If we understand the origins of duties, we can say that the the primary duty is to carry on those customs and traditions we have inherited from our ancestors.  Without tradition, we have no way of concretely manifesting the felt sense of obligation we feel as living, thinking, and breathing human beings.   Our lives, our language, our culture, are all given to us, without asking, and, out of gratitude, it falls on us to obey and transmit these forms of life to future generations.  Duty in this sense operates outside or alongside the state.  This is not to suggest that reform or modification of customs should never take place, but that while there can be evolution in customs, there can never be revolution.  One can be colonized or enslaved by another group (witness the African slaves), and have one's customs wiped out and destroyed, and replaced by other customs, but this is not evolution, it is cultural genocide.

From the standpoint of duty, it is self-evident that we owe both a duty to past generations, and a duty to future generations, and that our role here on Earth is stewardship, and conservation, not extraction and consumption.  If there is going to be a moral transformation, it will consist in a return of our attention to our duties as human beings, and a rejection of a rights-based framework, which is rooted in the rights of extraction and the rights of consumption.

Our futurist authors' second "moral advance" consists of expanding our circle of concern to include the "rights" of animals.  As the authors note:

. . . It is no longer in doubt that non-human animals feel pain and indeed many more complex emotions too. . . To take account of the interests only of humans and not other animals is therefore increasingly regarded as speciesism--an unjustified discrimination akin to racism or sexism.

As I noted previously, the notion of rights can only be relative to a positive, constituted system of power.  Second, from the standpoint of right (or righteousness), what the positive, constituted system of power does is by definition right (at least if it accords with our positive, democratic procedures for doing so).  Embedded in the authors vision of morality is a vision of moral purity that can be distinguished from that of the ancient Israelites, namely, purity through inclusiveness.  The ancient Israelites' ethos was based primarily on exclusiveness, and mingling with foreigners invariably led to mingling with foreign gods and abandonment of the God of Israel and his Covenant.  In contrast, a subsequent sect, the Christians, proclaimed a Gospel of inclusiveness, whereby all the Nations of the world could be united under the God of Israel.  Naturally, there developed a historical tension between an inclusive Christianity and the Jews of the Diaspora, who clung to their exclusive claims.  In the age of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment, formerly Christian Europe discovered that even Christianity was too exclusive, and insisted on a new, natural religion that incorporated all of mankind, which ultimately became humankind, and now extends perhaps to vertebrates.  Just as Christian inclusiveness gave Christians a causa belli against the Jewish people, today, post-Modern humanism gives Humanists a causa belli against all races, nationalities, creeds, and religions who seek to preserve their own distinct cultural identities.  Just as Christianity took a diverse lot of pagan peoples, eradicated or absorbed most of their distinct ethnic customs, and homogenized them into Christendom, today humanism seeks to take the diverse peoples from around the globe, wipe out all distinction, and order them all beneath the Golden Arches of McDonalds.  Men must become women, and women must become men.  Jews must become Christians, and Christians must become Jews.  Muslims must become Buddhists, and Buddhists must become Muslims.  Man must become an animal, and an animal must become man.  Human beings must become interchangeable parts, like a collection of widgets that have been painted different colors, but any one of which can make the machine run.  In this order, the human being is reduced from the unique condition of personhood to become a fungible and utilitarian product.  One can gaze at any annual report from a Fortune 500 Company, and view the happy smiling pictures of people of diverse backgrounds, who on the surface look different, but on the inside are all the same, as inside the hearts of each and every person is a smiling avatar of Ronald McDonald, sitting cross-legged, at peace, reciting positive motivational slogans.  Ronald has been reading the latest book of Sam Harris on meditation it seems!  It is in this second prediction that I agree with our futurist authors, the authors present a possible alternative for the future of the human species, a Brave New World, without history, without memory, without difference, no longer able to distinguish itself from the beasts of the Earth.  Yet, when this post-modern animal farm is complete, will it signal the end of slaughter?  Can we expect greater mercy from the pigs than we do from the farmers?   

The third prediction calls, unsurprisingly, for world government.  Not a federation of diverse states, or an alliance of world powers to work together to solve global issues.  Our futurists authors put it this way:

. . . everyone should have the same rights to healthcare, welfare, etc., not just regardless of where they come from, but also regardless of where they are.

There will be no allowances for cultural differences, historical differences, local customs, but rather, a total complete and uniform homogenization of everyone in the world under one system of law.  A Borg World Nation.  As the author notes:

Effective action will require nations to give  up more of their sovereignty to supranational unions.  This too will face fierce resistance.  But eventually our descendants will regard themselves as global citizens--and will be appalled that we let 19,000 children every day die from preventable, poverty-related causes.

To our authors, nothing short of realizing the apocalyptic vision of International Communism will suffice.  Note that I presume that the authors would not hold up Stalinist Russia as the particularized version of their ideal for the International Promised Land.  But as a historical fact, Stalinist Russia did guarantee the same rights to healthcare, welfare, etc., that the authors support.  Moreover, as far as the means of achieving the Communist vision for the world, Stalinist Russia cannot be faulted for taking half measures, or blanching in the face of "fierce resistance".  The fact is that the end of equality was the motivation driving the Communist system, and Communism had no restraint with respect to the choice of means with which it pursued its goal.  Having both a clear end, and virtually unlimited means, if Communism can ever be done, Stalin did it.  It is unclear how our authors envision this utopian project resulting in anything other than another iteration of the Soviet Union.

This moral vision of the authors, in its utopian quality, hides the real goal of this line of thinking:  the subjugation of all under a totalizing and centralizing power:  "One ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the Darkness Bind them."  We can study Communist morality, and the Communist end game, in works such as the Gulag Archipelego by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, and we can ask ourselves, does the Gulag represent our liberation or our slavery?  But the lesson is clear: man's purpose here on Earth is to serve, and the one who does not serve God must fashion for himself a God.  We can see clearly the connection between the faith in progress, and atheism.  Because we refuse to acknowledge Heaven, we must have faith in our on-going capacity to create a Heaven on Earth.  Without this faith in the future coming, we would surely die.  Yet we fail to note the recurring fact that every god assembled by human hands eventually comes to demand blood, preferably the blood of the first born, innocent and without blemish.

Yet there will be no world government, as we know very clearly from Genesis 11.  God has divided humanity by giving each nation its own tongue.  The nations of humanity speak different languages, have different religions, different customs, different world-views, and different and incommensurable value systems.  They can only be made one through brutality and slavery, and the scope and depth of brutality necessary to create conditions of world servitude would ultimately rip the world into two.  Universal government and universal rights may be a banner which can justify a world war, but the result will not be global hegemony for any world power.

Our last moral prediction, unsurprisingly, is "healing criminals".  As our futurists authors note:

. . . But in 100 years, no one will believe we have an absolutely free will and therefore that anyone chooses to be a criminal.  Indeed, there is evidence we lock up those who are least responsible for their decisions -- those with the least capacity for self-control, those who suffer from addictions, or who are mentally ill.

We can count on our liberal progressive secular to give us paradigmatic categorical errors and sloppy thinking.  We can consider a person who predicts the result of a future coin toss.  In as much as they are asked to predict the result of the coin flip, they can only predict heads, tails, or that the coin miraculously totters on its side.  Yet we would maintain that they are free to predict any result, and that their prediction is uninfluenced by coercion.  They choose heads, just as a criminal chooses crime.  (Just because we refuse to believe that people could choose evil, it does not negate the fact that many do.)  We live in an age of myopia, with one model of how things must be: a mechanism.  What does not fit into a mechanism becomes (or must be, a priori): random.  Thus, human behavior is either a mechanism, or a mechanism plus a random number generator, ergo, there is no free will.  Yet our language and our system of law and our systems of moralities all presuppose that the human being is a moral agent, a doer, and that the human body is a passivity, something that is acted upon (or manifests) the agent.  If there is no free will, then the jury, and the judge, and the executioner can no more help themselves from killing the poor, misguided youth than the youth can help committing act of mayhem.  Denying free will does not diminish the moral responsibility of criminals, it abolishes moral agency altogether.  For example, the organism called Hitler did not kill millions of Jews in Europe, the Big Bang, through a series of intermediate causes, killed millions of Jews in Europe.  Hitler and Martin Luther King, Jr. are just two apparent manifestations of the first cosmic cause rippling through the multiverse (with perhaps millions of intervening quantum mechanical coin flips).

If we are going to postulate moral agency, then it strikes me that those with the least capacity for its exercise should be subjected to the greatest possible penalty.  The weaker the will, the greater the threat needs to be to move the will.  (This principle also relates to the utility of the doctrine of hell.)  If we acknowledge that those that are possessed by an anti-social compulsion are by nature weak-willed (or something of the sort), then all the more important it is to threaten them with punishment, the better to get through to them.  On the other hand, if free will is an illusion as "science" (e.g. sloppy interpretations of empirical data) tells us, then you might as well go massacre school children, after all, the Big Bang made you do it.

But there is a greater point here, beyond a theory of punishment.  The point is about the transition from a system based on individual accountability for voluntary conduct, to a system of sorting human beings by type.  Criminal law punishes kinds of acts.  The mental health system "helps" or "treats" kinds of persons, not based on behaviors but on behavioral dispositions.  This is not to knock the mental health system, which continues to assemble a new and improved system of placebos which may ultimately begin to rival the skills of a good prehistoric witch doctor.  After all, a good witch doctor recognizes that the only thing that can overcome a moral agent is a more powerful moral agent.  Thus, healing consists in exorcizing the unwanted influences and purifying the person so that they may be more fully what they are.  What were these obstacles for the Dessert Fathers?  Powers such as gluttony, lust, wrath, sloth, greed, and the like.  In contrast, the modern mental health worker tries to conceive of a car without a driver, and fix the performance of the car by messing with the engine.  It assures us no driver can exist because there is a clear correlation between the performance of the engine and the performance of the car.  Moreover, what can the driver do as the direction and speed of the car is explained by the working of the mechanism?

So I have addressed the futurist authors predictions regarding the future of morality.  What are my predictions?

As I have discussed previously, there is a distinct difference between secular liberals and religious traditionalists, namely, secular liberals reproduce below national norms, while religious traditionalists have on average one child above national norms.  In one generation, these differences do not amount to any significance.  However, in the course of three or four generations, the demographic impact is enormous. If current conditions continue, experts expect that American society will evolve from a secular liberal order to a pluralistic society in which a variety of traditional religious groups predominate.  Best estimates suggest the inversion point will occur in 2050:

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18824/demographic_projections_predict_fundamentalist_populations_surpassing_secular_counterparts.html

The demographic overtaking in 2050 will become a demographic rout by 2115.  So my best guess is that humanity's morality in 100 years of the future will more closely resemble human morality in 1615, than either contemporary morality, or what our futurists authors predict.  Progress at last?

Racism, Crime and Policing

It is difficult to be an American on the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, and not ruminate on the issue of race in America, especially in light of the tragic deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.  But it is also difficult to contemplate the complex issues of race and American history, and reach a simple answer, the way some might.

I would recommend the following article, which is a minority view of a report to the Department of Justice.  I recommend anyone interested in the issue of policing, and policing in minority communities a read, no matter what your political orientation:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/121019.pdf

According to the article, racial segregation, racial disenfranchisement and legal segregation began in the North, not the South.  As functional matter, since the Blacks in the South were slaves, there was not any social question as to where the slaves lived.  On the other hand, in the North, there was a political question about where the Blacks could live, and it was solved by creating segregated housing districts, which spread South after emancipation.

As urban policing developed, it developed rooted in urban political machines supported by ethnic immigrants.  Blacks did not exist in sufficient numbers in the Northern cities in the late 19th century to wield political power, insuring that they had no real political clout in urban politics.  Police jobs were spoils that were handed out to political/ethnic loyalists, and given Black relative political power, there were not many Black policemen, and the Black officers were mostly consigned to segregated Black neighborhoods, often with legal limitations on their ability to arrest Whites.

I think one important point of the article is the historic relationship between the Black man and the police officer:  the existence of the Black man was a problem to be controlled.  Policing primarily meant driving the Black man into the segregated district and keeping him there.  To the police, the Black man was the Other, and to the Black man, the police were the Other.

After the turn of the century, the Progressives did what all real political progressives do:  they shut down immigration.  Part of their agenda was to clean up political machine politics, and to make police jobs subject to professional standards, and not simply hand outs to political supporters.  The other thing they did was to remove residency requirements from police work.  A cop could live wherever they wanted, and there was a disconnection between the community subject to policing and the community of the police man.  These progressive reforms helped to raise the professional standards of police, but it came at a cost.  Given educational disparities and racial discrimination, these Progressive standards did nothing to create more opportunities in the police force for Blacks.  The impact of the Progressive reforms had a long term impact on the Black community, in that by restricting immigration, job opportunities became available for Blacks in Northern cities that would have previously gone to immigrants.  This lead to the Northern migration, and the flourishing of Black neighborhoods and Black communities in the North.  Unfortunately, as Black people coalesced in numbers where they might be capable of exerting political power, civil service restrictions made it difficult to create a police force that had the same face as the community it policed.  Moreover, police resources, as is typical, were directed to protecting the interests of the powerful, and not a whole lot changed with respect to the Black community.

Under segregation, combined with policies such as the "Red Light" District, Blacks were confined to segregated spaces in anarchic conditions of crime, vice and disorder.  The main police directive was to keep the Blacks where they belonged, not to protect Black citizens from victimization.  The relationship between the Black man and the Police was adversarial.

This leads us to a side of the story that the liberal doesn't like to talk about:  Black street crime.  Black homicide rates are X 7 to X 10 (700% to 1000%) times higher than White homicide rates.  Similar relationships can be found with respect to robbery, and other street crimes.  We are not having an honest debate about the relationship between Black men and the police if we pretend that Black men are not 700% more likely to be arrested for murdering someone than the White counterparts.  (It is not likely a detection or reporting issue because you need a dead body for a murder prosecution.)  We can also look at issues with racial profiling--we can oppose racial profiling for egalitarian reasons--but racial profiling is not simply hate or ignorance, it can sometimes be based on rational guesses informed by statistics, resulting racial disparities in arrests.  While we can point out that Whites are more likely to engage in crimes like smoking marijuana, the crimes that Whites disproportionately commit are not those which create the same level of existential fear as murder or a mugging.  We are dealing with questions that are complex, and tangled, and do not have simple answers.

Here are some links: 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/21/family-secret-what-the-left-wont-tell-you-about-bl/

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls

 Although I cannot provide some metaphysical explanation for the data, and not one that all will agree with, I don't think that the relationship between Black street crime and the traditional policing of Black neighborhoods is an accident.  If you are not prioritizing the policing of Black neighborhoods, then someone else will, namely urban street gangs.  Moreover, because there is no real order over the gangs, the gangs will fight with each other, resulting in murders.  If the prosecution of Black on Black crime is not given serious law enforcement attention, then Blacks will prey on Blacks, and over time, a culture of criminality will emerge and reinforce itself.

I believe that certain principles could give rise to an improvement in Black communities:

1.)  Reconnect residency and police jobs, even at the cost of police professionalism.  An officer who has an existential dependency on a community will approach crime and disorder differently than an outsider.

2.)  Strive to create a police force that mirrors the population, even at the cost of police professionalism.  For members of a community to have an authority figure that they can identify with is valuable in creating positive alternative role models for youth.

3.)  Vigorously prosecute crime in Black neighborhoods, and make sure that criminal actions have serious consequences.

4.)  Leave sentencing decisions to local juries and judges, and abolish mandatory sentencing.  Let the local community decide the appropriate penalty based on the facts and circumstances of the offense.

4.)  Condoning lawlessness is simply a method for dragging a frayed civilization under the domain of the Lord of the Flies.  A verdict of a Grand Jury demands respect, not because it is necessarily fair or just, but because it is the best we can humanly do.

People who claim that citizens are entitled to break the law because of their ethnic or racial status are promoting criminal acts on the parts of minorities, which will result in state repression out of fear backed by the majority.  For example, if you look at measures of White confidence in the police in the wake of Ferguson, you find that support is higher: 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/09/whites-are-more-confident-than-ever-that-their-police-treat-blacks-fairly/

I doubt this is some essential racial characteristic of the White man.  It is a human characteristic of any group that feels threatened by the lawlessness of another group.  If you were a Tutsi in Rawanda, and there was a Hutu riot in response to a case of excessive force carried out by a Tutsi police officer, you would likely find the same confidence in the police.  We have to live together, and the only way we can do that is through law.

This gets to my problem with the contemporary Left.  If you are a Communist, or if you are an ethno-nationalist, a White Supremacist or Black Nationalist, then this race mongering, good-entitled race/bad-privileged race rhetoric is exactly what you want.  But if your goal is the integration of the Black community into the greater National community, and if your goal is the empowerment of Black Communities, contemporary liberal rhetoric is both stupid and counter-productive.  Get the facts and talk the facts.  Stop pretending there are "good" racial groups and "bad" racial groups--both races contain their saints and their sinners--the problems of ethnic and racial relations are structural.  Moreover, the problem of human evil will never be solved through creation of the right ethnarchy--Hitler didn't fail to create justice because he was German and not Nigerian.  Rather, the only way to overcome evil nonviolently is through mutual repentance and forgiveness.  Look at Mandella's work in South Africa if you want a model of racial reconciliation.


For more suggestions on managing urban policing, you can link to this article by the late William Stuntz of Harvard Law School:
  

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/stuntz_unequaljustice.pdf

Flannery O'Connor and the Cheap Grace of "Anti-Racism"

I was reading an article on Flannery O'Connor in Jezebel:

http://jezebel.com/5192628/judging-flannery-can-you-love-the-work-and-not-the-author

If you are not familiar with Flannery O'Connor, she was born in Georgia in 1925, died in Georgia (from Lupus) in 1964, was a professing Roman Catholic, and wrote some of the best works of fiction in the English language in the 20th Century.

However, it turns out from her biography that she committed two sins against political correctness:

1.)  When a friend of hers was kicked out of the army for engaging in a lesbian affair, Ms. O'Connor sent her friend private letters, not rejecting her friend, but condemning her for her immoral actions.

2.)  She also sent a friend who was very active in the civil rights movement a number of racist jokes in private correspondence.

But her real sin before the God of Political Correctness--please sit down before you read this--was her "zeal, sanctimony, and intolerance" which were "insufferable."  Political Correctness is a jealous and tolerant God, and will lash out in anger at the infidels who turn away to bow before the God of Israel.

What struck me about all this dithering about O'Connor's racism is the following:  has the author of the piece not, at some point, told a racist joke in her life?  Has anyone not told a racist joke at some time in their lives, excepting those, of course, who lack any sense of humor?  Moreover, isn't telling racist jokes a feature of, say, human existence?  Human beings break up into little arbitrary groups, and they tell jokes about the outgroups, and sometimes repeat jokes about themselves?  For example, people tell lawyer jokes that circulate stereotypes about lawyers--are these bad people?

Of course, this gets to the liberal theory of conflict, that conflicts occur because of irrational prejudice against outgroups.  I have tried to suggest the opposite in this blog--it is completely rational, in the absence of the rule of law, to fear outgroups.  Without a central government, the outgroup will kill or enslave you, unless you are more powerful than the outgroup, in which case you will probably kill or enslave the outgroup.  (One only has to study ancient history to see this pattern writ large in the world.)  The real irrational behavior is the trust of fellow members of the ingroup.

For example, if we look at the North and the South in the 1950's, we find lynchings in the South, and no lynchings in the North.  Why?  First and foremost, because the Southern States would not prosecute lynchings, and Southern juries would not typically convict white men for lynchings when the Federal Government attempted to prosecute.  That is to say, lynchings happen when a group can lynch people they don't like and get away with it.  But are we really to believe that the differences between the North and the South can be explained by the prevalence of racist jokes in that time period?  If you want to stop group-on-group violence, it is far more productive to develop a universal sense of respect for citizenship and the rule of law, than to try and root out nasty jokes.  The first goal can sometimes be attained, the second is an anthropological chimera.  You need to start over with a new species that has a different evolutionary history if you hope to succeed.  Perhaps a mollusk?      

If we look at Flannery O'Connor's politics, she was supportive of the civil rights movement, a minority position for mid-Twentieth Century white people in Georgia.  We find, that despite the fact that she told racist jokes, in public, she actively supported bringing an end to racial segregation in the South.  I would further suppose, albeit without evidence, that she opposed vigilante justice, especially if directed against ethnic minorities.  Last, I suspect that if I had the opportunity to sit down for tea with Ms. O'Connor, I highly doubt that her "zeal, sanctimony and intolerance" could hold a candle to our average social justice warrior.

Which leads me to another characteristic of Flannery O'Connor, which distinguishes her from the "zeal, sanctimony and intolerance" of the present moment.  Flannery O'Connor understood, in her heart, that human redemption is always purchased in blood.  Innocents will always have to die, their blood will have to cry out from the Earth, before an evil can be corrected.  If we accept redemption in blood, then we can understand that ugly jokes can neither impede nor foreshorten justice and redemption.  Today's social justice warrior is not willing to pay the true cost for justice, nor are they willing to accept its currency from those who have paid it forward.  They reject the true redemption in blood for a cheap grace founded in superficiality and hypocrisy.