Weekly Moment of Pessimism (not actually certain of the frequency)

From Firmin Debrabander's "Deluded Individualism" post at NY Times' Opinionator blog:

Thanks to a decades-long safety net, we have forgotten the trials of living without it. This is why, the historian Tony Judt argued, it’s easy for some to speak fondly of a world without government: we can’t fully imagine or recall what it’s like. We can’t really appreciate the horrors Upton Sinclair witnessed in the Chicago slaughterhouses before regulation, or the burden of living without Social Security and Medicare to look forward to. Thus, we can entertain nostalgia for a time when everyone pulled his own weight, bore his own risk, and was the master of his destiny. That time was a myth. But the notion of self-reliance is also a fallacy.

Debrabander invokes America's ethos of rugged individualism, placing self-determination and self-reliance at the center of this myth-yearning.  Sometimes I wonder if there is not a more damaging force driving our country's pertinacity.  Jonathan Franzen, in Freedom, a novel that addresses this vague ideal in more ways than one, does not shy away from his own speculation when describing the actions of Walter, his novel's protagonist:

He became another data point in the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn’t the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn’t get along well with others.

I suspect Franzen was simply aiming for satirical hyperbole here, but I lately find myself wondering a lot, when considering the raging debates surrounding the ACA, taxation, and government aid in general, why it seems that many Americans just don't care about their fellow citizens.

Thai Observations #3

Unlike many parts of America, there is an intriguing lack of any distinction between the residential and the commercial in Thailand.  Developed roads appear as an endless stream of advertisements regardless of whether one drives along Khao San Road or a dirt track winding through mountain communities.  Most homes seem to double as businesses.

When Beliefs Must Be Public

I often hear people invoke the following principle of liberalism:

I don't care what you do or believe in private as long as you keep it private and don't cause me or anyone else harm.

My intuition is that this general principle is a good one and can go a long way toward helping us decide how we should act in any given situation.  However, principles such as these are bandied about so frequently these days (almost every political issue seems to boil down to Some Traditionalist vs. Some Liberal Autonomist) that I worry their favor within my academic and social circles acts as a bias which leads me to think (perhaps incorrectly) that they are good, or at the very least, uncontroversial.  At some point, I would like to read and think a lot more about "autonomy," what we generally mean by it, and what place it should have in discussions regarding bioethics.

For now, I want to suggest that this principle is often invoked too presumptuously and in vain.  Put another way, this principle is not the be all and end all of moral argument that many take it to be.  Consider religious belief.  Many atheists who consider themselves more welcoming than Dawkins and the other New Atheists claim not to care if others maintain religious beliefs as long as they keep these beliefs to themselves and cause no harm.  But what if the harm that would be caused by making these beliefs public (e.g. through proselytizing or protesting outside of abortion clinics) is believed to be less than the harm that would be caused by keeping these beliefs private?  From the Mormon perspective, proselytizing is saving a whole lot of people from missing out on Heaven.  How can we say to a devout Mormon that they may only maintain their religious beliefs in private when the whole point is to make them public?  How can we tell a religious pro-lifer that they are entitled to their views, but not entitled to foist them in the faces of others, when they believe that not doing so is tantamount to standing idly by as thousands of innocent people are murdered.  It seems to me that we can't do so without being incredibly insensitive to the force of their beliefs.

Moreover (and if we want to avoid the consequentialist route), consider the possibility that many religious people may believe in a cluster of inseparable propositions (i.e. if you believe one proposition, then you must believe all the propositions in its cluster).  This seems plausible given the existence of holy books like the Bible which propose entire sets of moral precepts and correct beliefs.  Imagine a person who subscribes to the following cluster: 1) I believe in God and, 2) I believe that God's love for humanity should be spread far and wide through proselytizing.  Now, regardless of the quantities of harm that would result from action or inaction, this person believes he ought to make his religious beliefs public and will therefore do so.  How am I supposed to come along and convince him otherwise using my trusty principle of liberalism?  I can say, "I believe that your beliefs should be kept private," and he will say in return, "Well, I believe that my beliefs should be made public."  What are we to do?  He has a belief of which I am trying to dissuade him simply by stating the opposite belief.  This is not how you change people's minds.  This is how you make people dig in deeper.

So, we are left with an excellent way of offending people with no chance of any practical gain.  Religious people, of course, are the obvious victims here, but I think the principle of liberalism in question is also mistakenly used to put down the vegetarians or vegans who dare open their mouth to persuade others to cease eating animals.  After all, one could argue that vegetarians and vegans have a good reason to convince others to eat like them given how much American eating habits contribute to global warming.  The cluster argument may not apply here, but how should we compare the harm that results from remaining a private vegetarian and the harm that results from being a public vegetarian...?

Thai Observations #2

As I was walking to class the other day I noticed a large group of students assembled in one of the common areas of the university.  I managed to find an older student who knows English and he explained to me that the students were voting for the new University president.  I must have looked very surprised, because he quickly added that the administration extends voting rights to the students in an effort to promote democracy.

I couldn't help but think how interesting it is that Thailand, a country that has had trouble with democracy at the national level, promotes democracy like this among its lower levels of organization (e.g. Mae Fah Luang University), while the U.S. has a well-functioning democracy but does not encourage similar practices at its lower levels (e.g. Princeton University).

MFU may not be a private university (unlike Princeton)....I'll have to look into this.

Thai Observations #1

I've already been in Thailand for over two months, but it's taken me awhile to start this blog.  As I'll point out in the near future in some sort of introductory post, this blog is not intended as a repository for descriptions of my experiences in Thailand; it's simply a place for me to record and develop my thoughts on a wide variety of topics.  That being said, I think that from time to time I'll have some (hopefully) thoughtful observations to make of life in Thailand.  I anticipate that sometimes these observations will be directly related to the topics in which I am more generally interested (e.g. Thai bioethics), but more often than not I will just find them randomly interesting and want to write them down for memory's sake.  Today, I'll start with one.

1. Outside almost every 7-11 and Tesco Lotus in Chiang Rai there is a scale (these franchises appear to have respective monopolies on the convenience store/superstore markets).  Patrons or passersby can slip one baht into the machine and weigh themselves.  Presumably, this indicates that many Thais are concerned with their weight, perhaps to the point of being very self-conscious about their weight.  At the very least, I would guess that the individuals who use the scale are concerned enough with their weight to want to know exactly what it is and that this concern might stem from a fear of being seen by others as either over- or underweight.

I am baffled, then, by the decision to place these scales outside the two most frequented stores in the city.  There is simply no way to weigh yourself without being seen by everyone who is walking into the store, out of the store, or loitering outside of the store.  What's more, is that as soon as one pays the machine, it begins playing a loud jingle that pretty much serves to attract the attention of anyone who is nearby.  Put simply, these scales are ridiculously public.  I don't understand why people who are self-conscious about their weight would weigh themselves in this manner.  Shouldn't they be too self-conscious to publicly weigh themselves?

I guess I'm just assuming a connection between being concerned about one's weight and being self-conscious about one's weight (i.e. not wanting others to know one's weight for fear or rejection).  This connection is admittedly present in Western culture.  Perhaps it doesn't exist as strongly in Thailand.  Perhaps people in Thailand are more internally motivated to watch their weight than externally motivated (i.e. by the fear of being rejected or treated differently by others).

But why the loud jingle?  My conclusion above explains why it isn't weird to place scales in very public locations, but not why one should actively draw attention to themselves as they are weighed...  I don't know.  This is another thought for another day.

Sex and Human Uniqueness

Many people (most notably, religious folk) maintain that humans are categorically distinct from all other animals (i.e. mere beasts).  Of course, Darwin destroyed the notion that species are real and distinct categories, showing instead that they are simply artificial categories which are useful for understanding the continuous spectrum of evolved life.  Not to be undone, Pope John Paul II posited the existence of an ontological discontinuity along this spectrum between "human" and "beast."  That is to say, though there is no physical discontinuity between "human" and "beast," there may very well be a spiritual discontinuity.  As a spiritual being, therefore, humans are categorically distinct from all other animals.

It generally follows from this claim that humans are to behave differently from all other animals (perhaps because something different is expected of us).  A favorite claim (usually religious) is that human sexuality should not resemble the sexuality of beasts.  Human sexuality should be enjoyed exclusively within marriage.  Human sexuality should be reproductive-in-type (cf. Robert George).  Human sexuality should not be a wanton pleasure.

Perhaps I'm constructing a straw man, but I just don't see how these claims regarding human sexuality can follow from the claim that humans should behave differently from all other animals.  For the vast majority of animals, sex occurs exclusively among mating pairs (is "mating" not the animal analog of "marriage"?).  The vast majority of animals engage exclusively in reproductive-type sex.  The vast majority of animals know nothing of having sex solely for pleasure.  One exception to these three claims is the bonobo.  Individuals of this species regularly engage in non-reproductive-type sex (both homo- and heterosexual) with non-mating partners for the sake of pleasure.  With this in mind, it seems to me that if humans should behave differently than beasts, then we would do better to act more like the bonobo than other animals when it comes to sex.  One simply can't argue from the premise that humans are categorically distinct from beasts that human sexuality should be "dignified," restricted to marriage and reproduction.

To be sure, I don't mean to argue that truly "dignified" humans are the ones engaging in orgies on a daily basis.  Put another way, my purpose here is not to trivialize humans or sex.  I think both are worth much respect and thought.  Instead, I would argue that human sexuality in all its forms, not simply its reproductive form, should be considered a component of what makes humans so unique.  After all, human sexuality in all its forms is one way of distinguishing ourselves from most other animals.  Therefore, rather than demonizing homosexuals, non-monogamists, fetishists, and those who have sex before marriage as behaving contrary to human nature, I would suggest we champion these people as reminders of the human uniqueness.