All You Need is Love?

"The Beatles said, 'All you need is love,' and then they broke up." -Larry Norman

Love is the answer.  All we need is the air that we breathe and love. 

Love is great, everyone agrees.  The world would be different if we just had more love.  But give it a little thought, and it seems much more complicated than Augustine's statement, "Love and do as you please."

What do we mean by "love"?  Most of the songs speak about romantic love, and we, who are no longer teenagers, know that hormonal infatuation has a limited staying power, not sufficient for a single couple to stay together, let alone a universal norm.  And desire only works for people who are desirable. 

Do we mean a religious intuition, or worship of a higher being?  Experience will tell us that love of a higher being does not often translate to a greater love of people around us.  Some will say that love of a higher being provides a model of loving other humans, but the two loves seem remarkably different.  One is the placement on a pedestal, like a ceremonial king or celebrity, while the other is benefiting on a very different level.

Perhaps benefiting is a better idea of what love is.  A love event is to leave a being better off than before the event.  A simple example would be a hungry person.  Everyone needs to eat, to give a hungry person good food is to leave them better off, thus is an act of love.

But it is one idea to think that this is a model for an individual ethic, another to consider this a universal one.  

First, how do we know what really benefits another?  Think of how often a diagnosis session goes wrong.  A professional who has studied how best to love a person and the person themselves often does not know how best to benefit them.  The professional can mislead the individual who might know what they really need  ("You need this medication and you'll feel better", ignoring the side effects that might kill them).  The individual might ignore the professional's wise advice ("You should quit smoking," is more often ignored than taken heed). Or both the professional and the individual might be ignorant as to how to best benefit them. 

We could limit ourselves to what we know what benefits another, to Maslow's list of absolute needs.  Sleep, food, clothing, warmth, security, respect, human contact, achieving one's potential...  However, we can't all agree on what basic needs are.  The drunk says he needs a beer.  The moralist says he doesn't, and that he'd be better off without a beer.  However, the drunk is probably right.  All things being equal, if a drunk doesn't get a beer, he could have a seizure and die.  He doesn't need a beer once he's under medical attention, but apart from that we can't tell him what he really needs from our own limited experience.  A person of a non-normative gender says they need to be accepted for who they are, but the conservative world doesn't agree.  The non-normative gender person might commit suicide because of her society only gives her disrespect.  Normative needs aren't enough for love, not always.


Is love really enough? Having love as the only norm also implies that individual action is sufficient.  But if every single person worked at understanding the person in front of them, providing a need, then that would not be sufficient to meet everyone's needs. There are pockets of people who collect because of their needs, excluded from society.  For instance, a group of people who are isolated because they have a sexual deviant tag and so can only live in a certain part of a town.  They cannot benefit from a universal norm of love, because there are too many individuals they are separated from.  Love has to be more than an individual impulse, but an impulse in government, employment, the justice system and families.

But can love be a universal norm for all societies? What about those who do not act on an impulse of love?  Right now, love is not a norm and we are taught to live by competition and rejection or else we cannot function in society.  How can we have security unless we also ignore an impulse to love, at least to a limited degree?  Isn't self-defense a rejection of love, but isn't it also necessary?  What kind of safeguards would we have to put on a society that acts exclusively on an impulse of love?


What about fear?  Fear is the love-killer, that which forces us to ignore the impulse to love to secure ourselves, our families, our "loved" ones.  Do we have layers, in which we love certain people, but not others? Is it possible or positive to love everyone?  Or should we divide people into those we love and those we do not?  Do we have a moral obligation to love everyone? 


But if we leave anyone out of the moral norm of love, then do we not create enemies?  Even as we do not always know how to benefit another, we do not always know who we should fear and who we shouldn't.  If we exclude someone who does not deserve to be excluded, then we create an enemy that doesn't deserve it and then we are creating hate, not love.  How do we love people whom we have made an enemy?  Should we fear all of people, or only fear people in certain contexts?  Can we create a context in which we block them from our vulnerabilities, but love them in other areas?

What is our human ability to love?  Love is hard work, and we work against our impulses to fear and to rage.  How long can we keep that up?  How do we love when that love exhausts us?  Should we continue to love when love burns us out?  Do we get periods in which we do not love?  Should we prioritize love of ourselves, making sure that we are cared for before we put ourselves out to love others?  If that is the case, how cared for should we be?  If we are waiting to feel fully supported and full of energy, will we ever love?

Solitude v. Community

Some consider the path of Solitude the best path of living.

Solitude allows the contemplation of a deeper reality, which the distractions of everyday busy life do not allow.
Solitude allows there to be personal authenticity, so we can know who we are and not just who we seem to be before others.
Solitude develops self-discipline and self-reliance, which leads to self-empowerment.
And, it is said, solitude alone can give us the peace of mind and reflection to consider how best to act and live.

Others consider Solitude to be a danger.

Alone, a person has no real purpose or focus, but instead only falls deeper into the self which is an empty hole.
Solitude leads to madness, fear of others, paranoia and self-delusion.
In fact, they say, the right way to live can only be discovered with others.  Without others, we cannot love, we cannot be faced with uncomfortable truths, and we cannot build on other's strengths.
If we are to be our real selves, we discover that self by connecting in community.  Without community, we are only a shadow of our deepest selves.

Some say that our lives and communities should be a balance between solitude and community.

Too much solitude or too much community is dangerous.  In solitude, we cannot empathize.  In community, we can become numb from overwhelming empathy.
Some gain much from solitude, while others gain nothing from constant relation in community.  Different people are different.  To say that only one is beneficial is like saying that it is a moral requirement for everyone to be married or for everyone to be single.
There are different purposes for each activity.  Community teaches us love.  Solitude gives us the opportunity to consider pure truth.  In the balance of these two activities is the real truth.

What do you think?

Why Are Addictions Unacceptable?

Hi, my name is Steve and I’m an addict. 

Of course, we are all addicted to something.  Sleep or chocolate or coffee or something.  Addiction isn’t always the mine field we need to walk through, but often addictions are the archipelagos on which life is contained.  What is the difference between a drunk and a person who eats a candy bar every day?

Perhaps the difference is between what harms ourselves and what doesn’t.  Certainly too much alcohol and too many cigarettes are harmful, and so they are a bad addiction, while having a sweet tooth, especially if we exercise enough and have good dental hygiene, isn’t so bad.  Of course, anything in excess will kill us, and we don’t consider the items themselves to be problematic.  Why is addiction to meth—which destroys oneself completely— unacceptable and illegal, but addiction to Big Macs aren’t?  Why don’t the all you can eat pizza bar managers go around telling people, “I think you’ve had enough” like a bartender? 

Perhaps an unacceptable addiction is due to the harm that it causes others?  Alcohol addiction destroys families but an addiction to porn rarely harms anyone (at least physically.  Socially it may be a problem).  Yet we seem to judge addictions according to type, not to harm done.  If a person has meth on their person, they are arrested not because they have done harm to others, but simply because they have the drug. 

The other issue is that especially in the West, we almost all have addictions that causes harm to others.  Chocolate is often picked by slaves, that’s why it is so cheap.  Our addiction to cheap gas has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.  Yet few people (or nations) go to 12 step groups about their dependence on oil.  There are some kind of addictions that are completely acceptable not because the harm to others isn’t known, but because the harm is an acceptable price for the addiction.  While other addictions it is not.

Perhaps some addictions are acceptable because of the level of dependence.  A person who is addicted to drugs is consumed by it, where their life revolves around it.  They eat, drink and sleep their addiction and nothing is done without reference to that addiction.  Like a young mother about her children, or an older person about a bowel movement.  Or like a cancer patient about their disease.  Actually, we recognize that there are some obsessions that are important.

Then perhaps what society doesn’t accept is the cost to society at large.  Alcohol-related diseases take a huge toll on lives and the health industry.  But not as much as lack of exercise.   And the United States’ addiction to meddling in other nation’s affairs is far more expensive than any other addiction on the planet.   No, there are certain costs society is willing to pay, even if they are unhealthy.

Perhaps the real issue is the lack of productivity.  A serious addict is a person whose addiction causes them to be fruitless, listless, lazy.  So the addict is compared to the chronically ill, or the mentally ill, who have little capacity to be productive in society.  But the addict is anathema, because they “chose” to be addicts, while the ill have no choice.  Although personal choice certainly has an aspect in the disability of the addict, that could also be said for some chronically ill or mentally ill.  And the route out of addiction isn’t as simple as “making a choice”—rather, it is a long, complicated road that often requires a will and self-examination that few have.   And the reason we all have some addictions is because some are forced to deal with their addictions, while others are not.  We have all made compromises and allow harm to come to ourselves and others because of the addictions we have because we find them to be acceptable.  Not because they are right.

Perhaps some addictions are acceptable and others aren’t because we are hypocrites?

When Should We Not Forgive?

"There is a time for peace, a time for war; a time to sow, a time to reap;" a time to forgive and a time to... what?

Forgiveness is often stated as a general virtue: "To forgive, divine"; "Forgive and forget"; "I'm not perfect just forgiven."  To forgive is something that is an assumption, the moral equivalent of following the rules in a game-- of course you do that.  But should we always forgive?  Are there times when it is better for everyone that we not forgive?

Before we begin our questions, we must first know that when we speak about forgiveness, we are talking about three different actions.  The first action is releasing one's bitterness against a wrong done.  This is the kind of forgiveness that is being spoken of in the statement, "To not forgive is like punishing another by cutting your own hands off."  To not be bitter is to stop being angry about the situation, and it is a personal psychological state.

Honestly, there is no real reason not to forgive in this context.  The question is often whether a person is psychologically able to release the thoughts of anger against another.  As the statement above says, not to psychologically forgive only harms the one not forgiving.

The second action of forgiveness is at the root of the word.  Originally to "forgive" means to wipe away a debt. This means that there was money or some other debt that is no longer held to another's account.  The slate is wiped clean, there is a "zero" in the account book instead of a negative number.  This has the moral connotation of complete mercy.  There is no moral requirement for a person to not demand what was owed to them.  However, at times compassion overrules quid pro quo.

The question of not forgiving in this context is more complicated.  For some, there is a moral lapse in forgiving what was owed you.  For many people there is a basic principle upon which the world works: You reap what you sow; Nothing in life is free; You must pay for what you use.  If one forgives what was clearly owed (whether it be economically or some other kind of agreement), then that system breaks down, and people begin to assume that you don't have to pay for anything.  Is that really true?  Do we have to pay for everything-- the air we breathe is free, you are reading this post for free.  Does use or ownership always require payment?  Or are there aspects of life in which barter isn't ever required?  There are large chunks of the internet that are free, including valuable software and hardware.  Craigslist and other classifieds have whole communities that exchange items without cost.  Do these communities hurt the normal way the world work?

There is a different question if someone is demanding forgiveness of what is owed.  Clearly, forgiveness is something one asks for, not one demands.  Grace is a gift, but it is not a principle of life.  Unless one is in a community of giving, in which grace can be a demand.  If one is in Craigslist "free" listing, is one right to be angry if money is required when you come to look at the item?

The third kind of forgiveness is related, but goes a step further, which is to release from punishment.  Often there is a punitive requirement beyond a quid pro quo.  If someone steals from a grocery store, the store not only demands the item returned (or the financial equivalent) but also will have the person arrested and punished for theft.  Punishment is also meted out in everyday relationships.  To insult a teenage girl is to be "punished" by her not speaking to you for a time.  To sin and not repent in an Amish community is to receive shunning, or cutting off from the community. Adultery often ends in divorce, rejection of one friendship often means cutting the ties with other friends, to hit a person can mean to be hit back twice, or shot.

To forgive in this punitive context is to release one from any kind of continuing punishment.  This is not necessarily releasing one from a quid pro quo (although it might include that), but it is releasing one from any other requirements.  Once the debt is paid, the incident is set aside, not mentioned, as if the incident had never happened.

Why should we punish a wrong done?  Some say that it prevents wrongs from being done.  A person doesn't steal not only because it's wrong, but because there is an attached punishment that prevents one from doing that crime.  A person doesn't commit adultery not only because it would be breaking their commitment, but there are also consequences to such action.  But does forgiveness in one instance mean that all crimes are allowable?  Will people really do whatever they want because wrongs are at times unpunished?

Other times we punish because it is emotionally satisfying.  It is not enough for a person to pay back the same amount lost, there must be an additional payback. If our kid brother hits us, then we will hit back harder (unless he cries, which makes our dad hit us-- and he hits a lot harder). Unless we hurt a person a little more than they hurt us, we don't feel like we are able to forgive.  Is this emotion morally correct?  Is there a benefit of increasing punishment?  Or does "An eye for an eye make the whole world blind" like Gandhi says?

Where Does Morality Come From?

I think it is pretty clear that grasshopper morality comes from grasshoppers.  Even crickets, while they might occasionally be irritated at grasshoppers for their quiet, manipulative ways, agree in the end, "Well, they are grasshoppers.  They don't operate by our rules."  The same with dogs, sparrows, dinosaurs, and mosquitoes (although the latter's morality still encourages humans to kill them coldly, occasionally gleefully).

Thus, human morality comes from humans. While some might claim that God is the source of human morality, one would have to claim that God made humans to be a certain way.  Sacred texts give some general direction, but none say, "Yes, give 20 dollars to the beggar on 20th and Main on Tuesday of next week because it will change his life."  No, we figure out what to do, every day, with a holy book only giving us the most general of directions.

So where is the source of human morality?  Where does it come from?  This has been argued since the day of Plato's Republic, and is still being discussed today. The three main contenders are: a.Self interest; b. Moral reasoning and c. Emotion.  Let's take a moment to look at each.

Self Interest
Glaucon in The Republic presented this case long before social Darwinists did.  His argument is this: If a normal human being (not some goody-two-shoes Harry Potter) had an invisible cloak, he would get away with as much as he could.  He would steal, have sex with whoever he wanted, find out secrets to cut down his enemies, etc.  On the surface, if we have a fairly critical eye on human nature, we might agree. Micro economics is based on the idea that groups of people will always act in their own self interest.  Studies have been done to show that if a person thought no one was looking, people-- almost all people-- would certainly cheat.  However, those same studies show that people only cheat a little bit.  The cheating might increase over time, if they were allowed, but most people aren't interested in stealing Ft. Knox, but only a little bit more than they have right now.  Very few would become criminal masterminds.  Yet this doesn't deny the power of self-interest in morality.  But can we say that self-interest is the basis for all morality?  Darwin speculated that morality is based on what is best for the group or species, not the individual, which accounts for traits of  altruism.  But does that really explain a person jumping into a river to save a drowning child, although he might himself die?  Does it explain that we, as a species, are willing to let five people die as long as we don't kill one person?

Reason
The Enlightenment scholars said that the best kind of morality is reasoned morality, that which is considered and plotted.  Plato agrees, which is why he felt that the Philosopher King is the one to rule.   John Stuart Mill thought that morality could be measured like a mathematical formula, quantifying the right morality by measuring the total amount of pleasure by all people in any one action.  Kant felt that reason can determine the correct action, by determining the most consistent good, without contradiction.  But is reason actually the way we ever determine the right course of action?  If so, why do all of the moral principles determined by strict reason seem to be missing something?  Should we, like Kant says, never lie without exception?  Certainly it is wrong to lie most of the time, but sometimes isn't it the right thing to do (like when my wife asks me how she looks before we go out)?  Is the majority of pleasure really the best course of action, always?  If an entire city could live in complete happiness for a year if a single, young child is tortured and killed, does that equation really equal morality?  And in fact, studies have found that more often than not, reason is used after a moral course has been chosen.  Do we reason to determine morality, or to make our actions seem more moral, no matter what we have chosen?

Emotion
Emotion isn't, strictly speaking, irrational. When we are angry, we sense injustice and we respond to that injustice.  When we are fearful, we sense a danger to ourselves or our loved ones, and the emotion of "fear" drives us to respond to that.  So emotions are less "irrational" and more of an innate, intuitive rationality.  We are responding to a hidden reasoning that isn't necessarily conscious or even knowable.  And it could be that our morality is based on that?  How often is it that we know what is right or wrong instantly, without a moment's thought, even if we had never done a certain action before?  And we do not always choose self interest as our motivating factor.  People who make great sacrifices for others often do so instantly, without a thought for themselves, or really, thinking at all.

And yet, is morality strictly instinct?  After all, people can be trained in certain moral thinking, even as a martial artist is skilled in precise movements. Certain Buddhists, Jews and Christians live a very peculiar mode of life, based on a certain morality given to them from their teachings.  Is this a special kind of reasoning, or some divine guidance that allows them to live differently?  Or is it their society that molds them and trains them to become so morally unique, until their moral decisions become just as quick as capitalists? And is society completely to be blamed or praised for the creation of saints or serial killers, neither of which is trained by any society at all?  They seem to have their own set of moral codes that they follow, whether for ill or for good.

Or is it simply too complex to be determined?

What Does It Take For Everyone To Be Just?

I just saw a young man speeding off in his car and a young woman, futilely chasing after it, screaming, "It's all I have.  I've got nothing!"  Why are human beings so cruel to each other?  Why do we think we have the right to ignore the clear pain of another person?

Of course, the young man felt like it was his right to leave with everything the homeless woman had.  Perhaps she had done something to him.  Whatever it was, is the theft of her bedding and belongings on this cold fall day worth the "crime" she had committed?  Of course, the local police find it easy to tear up the homeless folks' bedding and tents, leaving them with nothing to sleep with.  The local gangs attack other gangs because of an insult enacted a year ago.  A nation kills innocent civilians because of the supposed crime of their leaders.

This is all based in the human brain.  We all have mirror neurons, which cause us to identify with other people.  But we also have a way to block mirror neurons, to make some kinds of people those we refuse identity with, so we can actually treat them as less than human.  But if we refuse to identify with those of the opposite sex, those we consider "criminals", another group, another nation, then we can easily justify inhuman actions against them.

How, then, can we stop this?  If this is a natural process, what must be done to see others, ALL others as human beings?  How can it actually be morally possible to treat our neighbor as ourselves?  Are we simply not built for it, even as we all recognize how necessary it is?

Is there a social response that would help us all treat each other fairly?  Jails and prisons clearly don't work-- in fact, in some ways, they only increase the separation between humans allowing us such dehumanizing terms as "inmate" or "felon".  Can we put social pressure on each other to be fair to all people?  Can we train all children in school how to resolve conflict in peaceful ways that is fair to all sides?  If so, would it do any good, considering that our human makeup demands unfairness at times?

Is there a medical solution? What about hormone therapy?  Those with high testosterone rates often demand more respect and react more harshly than those who do not have such high rates.  But is demanding such a procedure acting in fairness to their "normal" state?  Can we demand unfairness to some for a more fair society? And, of course, unfairness is not simply a medical condition.  We are all unfair at times, especially when excessively stressed.  We are occasionally unfair to our children, to our employees, to our students; and conversely, we are occasionally unfair to our parents, employers and teachers, by applying to them unjust motives that may or may not be true.

Is the best we can do to make an ideal of fairness, of equality?  To apply objectivity and lack of judgment as a universal standard, not just a standard of courts and journalism.  And then, perhaps we can train and model the art of apologizing when we are wrong, because we all make mistakes.  If we admit our unfairnesses, and do what we can to not repeat the wrongs, can we get closer to a society that sees fairness as a true, practical standard?

Can War Be Moral?

War is an armed conflict between groups, often nations.  Every war has been justified, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad.  Of course, war is justified by those who participate and perpetuate it, but often war is claimed right by those outside of the conflict.

But if we looked at the true cost of war, and the outcome, could war ever be justified?  Is there ever a war that did not kill children?  Recognizing that children always die in war, although always unintentionally, could we ever justify the death of even a single child?  What about the death of other innocents? What would be worth the cost of a helpless innocent?  A political ideology?  An economic system?  The comfort of an entire nation?  Once we have agreed upon this cost, then perhaps we would see that we are still making the demands of the ancient King of Crete, who requested Athenian youth for the sake of peace.

There is one thing that might be worth the death of a child and this is the deaths of many others.  In order to save the lives of many, we might allow the death of an innocent.  So that thousands of lives might be saved, we might sacrifice one baby to the flames.  But would we sacrifice that child if there was only the threat of thousands killed, but we didn't know if that threat was carried out?  Would we sacrifice that child to get revenge on thousands that have already been killed-- is that worth it?  

However modern warfare takes place in occupied cities, with missile attacks.  So civilian deaths are not counted on our fingers, but in the thousands-- sometimes the hundred thousands.  What is worth such a cost?  The death of millions?  Perhaps.  But an ideology?  A racial hatred?  To alleviate a nation's anxiety? Economic comfort?  To save the lives of hundreds?  What is worth the lives of thousands of non-combatants?  Of people dying because other people of other nations make the decision to kill?

Is war the natural order of things?  If so, should it be?  

Is Pornography Moral?

Pornography has existed as long as men have.  Some of the earliest cave drawings are that of nude women and phalluses.  There is no question to pornography's effectiveness.  But when we speak of pornography being good or evil in general terms, then we head in murky waters, certainly.

The only religion that absolutely condemns pornography is Christianity, which rests their idea on a word of Jesus: "You have heard it said Do not commit adultery, but I say to you if any of you look at a woman with lust in your heart you have already committed adultery with her."  Other religions are more flexible.  The major divide on porn isn't between one religious standard and another but between women and men, and it seems tied to their idea of the basis of sexuality.  Is sex an end, in and of itself, or is it related to relationship?  One tends to be a male attitude and the other a female attitude, so men tend to be drawn toward porn and women toward romances.  Is a romance or soap opera just the female equivalent of porn?  Are both simply the outgrowth of fantasy, which, with age and experience, tend to fade in light of reality?

Certainly porn can do damage to some relationships, even as alcohol does.  But does porn do damage to all relationships?  Or does porn allow some excess sexual energy to be released?  Is porn innately addictive, or are some addicted and others can partake but not get addicted? (The same question could be asked of the internet)

Is porn, by its nature, damaging to women?  The majority of woman who are enslaved are captured for the sex industry, of which porn is its most lucrative branch.  Should no one watch porn because we do not know which women are paid and which are enslaved?  Doesn't porn cause men to see women as objects for sex only?  Does porn encourage men to see certain kind of women as sexual objects instead of human beings?  Or does porn only reflect this tendency?  Does porn for women avoid this tendency?

Who is porn most damaging to: women or the consumers of porn?  Does porn encourage isolation?  In this way, can it contribute to the lack of empathy and care and intimacy in general?  Does porn encourage sexual violence?  Can it contribute to criminal behavior in general?

What does the popularity of porn communicate about society in general?  Does it mean that we are starved for real sex, or that easy sex is simply more pleasurable?  Does the billion dollar industry indicate that we don't have enough sex or that we simply can't communicate anymore?  Or has the desire for this kind of industry always been there, but only recently has it been so easily and privately and cheaply accessible?  Is porn an indication of a problem in our society, or in humanity at large?  Or is it simply the way things are?

The fact that there is great debate about the morality of pornography, does this indicate a moral issue or a societal divide?  Is pornography, like abortion and homosexuality, unable to be discussed rationally?  Is it an accident that all three of these subjects have to do with sexuality?

How Do We Create Peace?

Peace isn't controversial.  Almost everyone wants peace.  We want to be without conflict, or major conflict anyway.  We want to be a peace with everyone.

But what is the context of peace?  How can peace be achieved?  That is the real conflict. Should we bring peace by having a standard culture which everyone adheres to? But those who cannot fit in will not feel peace, will they? Is it possible to have peace by allowing everyone to do whatever they want?  But what happens if someone wants to use their freedom to harm or even kill others?  That doesn't create peace at all. 

Can we create peace by making peace a prerequisite for one's own self interest?  For example, to grant everyone economic well being if they promote peace?  But we will always have idealists who will fight and kill for what they believe in. How can we encourage them to act for peace?

And what about people who are poor? If people do not have their basic needs met, will they ever accept peace before they have their needs met?  Wouldn't they more likely fight in desperation until their needs are met? Is a prerequisite to peace creating people's well-being first?  But how do we do that?

And what about the paranoid or the severely mentally ill who look to violence because they see reality differently than the rest of us?  Can they ever participate in a society of peace?  Can we have a society of peace that includes everyone without exception?  If not, who would be excluded?  And what would we do with those excluded?