Religious Rejection and Power

Nov 22, 2017 //
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Despite the Dawkinsian rise of the New Atheists, true religious rejection in contemporary society is actually fairly low. Not literally believing that two of every animal could fit on a wooden ship, or that a man could survive inside of a whale is not new, and theologians have been discussing the purpose of religious allegory since religion has been around. It is a discussion that takes place within religion, not outside of it. Beyond this theological non-argument “against” God, there are asinine claims like religion could never contribute anything like the iPhone, as if that is the purpose of religion, or even something worth striving for at all. These are not rejections of religion; these are a waste of time.

I want to talk about true rejection. Friedrich Nietzsche deconstructed the entire Christian faith and found it abhorrent. Nietzsche wasn’t rejecting God qua God, he was rejecting an entire social order that a belief in God entailed. “God is dead” was the death of Christian morals, beliefs, social norms, and institutions, and that void where God-as-institution used to be is what Nietzsche set out to fill. Nietzsche sought to take the power that resided in God and install it into man (yes, man, Nietzsche is quite famous for his misogyny). Not just any man, as Nietzsche believed that the pussification of Europe had created the 19th century equivalent of the cuck (soyboy? I think I’m falling behind in my alt-right slang…), but a future man who would rise above the beta herd: the Übermensch.

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The Alphamensch

A slightly earlier contemporary of Nietzsche, who rejected religion with just as much enthusiasm, was Mikhail Bakunin. However, rather than a Promethean heist of power from God, Bakunin saw the religious subservience to God mirrored in subservience to the state, and, recognizing the oppression in both, rejected the notion of power entirely. Not necessarily authority, as he says that when it comes to matters of the railway, for instance, he defers to the engineer, but he would never allow the engineer power over himself. Bakunin saw the same problems as Luther, but rather than try to rectify the problem with more God, he wanted to pull it out by the root.

If someone follows the rules without question because they perceive some degree of moral infallibility in their authors, whether they are the secular laws of the state, traditional social mores, or the divine scriptures of revelation, then they possess religious fervor essentially indistinguishable from any other fundamentalists. Atheism means questioning the face of religion regardless of the mask it wears. Given how religion was founded in power (power over morals, the family model, social hierarchy, sexuality, and so on), if we reject religion, that power has to go somewhere, and allowing it to disperse throughout other institutions is just infusing religion into other aspects of our lives; rejecting it becomes absurd hypocrisy.

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I’m against gay marriage. Not for religious reasons, I just think the institution of marriage is sacred. I am basing this on literally nothing.

Nietzsche’s vision is Hobbesian in nature. He believed enemies were more important than friends, and a friend that wouldn’t stab you in the back wasn’t worth having at all. The continuous warfare between “friends” was supposed to keep the Übermensch in top form, I guess until he slips up and takes a blade between the vertebrae. The lives of others are supposed to only be seen as instrumental to the Übermensch’s goals, since the only thing worth having is power, and we should all live, constantly striving for more. Like with Hobbes, it seems the only way there could be any form of social cohesion is if the most Über of all the mensches can seize power, might making right, and use his totalitarian control to ruthlessly enforce his will until one of his “friends” overthrows him in a vicious coup. This libertarian wet dream (minus the social cohesion) is one possible direction we could follow if we decide to take God’s power and make it our living goal.

Luckily there are alternatives. What would abolishing power look like? Bakunin’s vision had societies organizing their institutions democratically. Industry would be managed by its employees. There would be no state government because Bakunin believed that we could collectively run our own affairs without overarching regulations so long as everyone had an equal say. Bakunin’s methods for achieving this utopia may be even more violent than anything Nietzsche might conceive, but the vision itself for a world without God is certainly much more palatable.

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Communism ≠ Anarchism, but this image is just amazing.

Regardless of your approach, be it Nietzschean or Anarchistic, rejecting God requires recognizing the multifaceted power that historically has belonged to God. Institutions that rely on power require justification for that power; without God, scrutiny becomes a social necessity, lest we fall into hypocritical dogmatism.

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Categories Religion

The Trolley Problem

Nov 14, 2017 //
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If you’ve ever taken a philosophy course, or at least had the misfortune to talk to someone who has, it’s likely you’ve heard of the trolley problem. It poses us this moral dilemma:

A trolley carrying five people is barreling towards a barrier erected by the dastardly Snidely Whiplash. You, our intrepid hero, can save these five people from certain doom by pushing a button that reroutes the train onto a different track, but alas! Snidely Whiplash has tied someone else to that track, and in rerouting the train, you will be killing that one person. What do you doooooooo?

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That mustache is so prominent, it really distracts from the fact that Snidely Whiplash wears a dress.

Most people’s first thoughts are going to be utilitarian. Morality can be reduced to a simple mathematical formula: five people is more people than one; you should press the button. Here’s the problem: first impressions are wrong; utilitarianism is wrong; you are wrong. Consider this second example:

You are a brilliant surgeon. Snidely Whiplash has been at it again, and has, through some dastardly plot, caused organ failure in five separate individuals who are now in your operating room. Their situation is dire: their deaths are imminent. Just at this moment, a box arrives with a note that says, “Each patient has a separate failing organ, and your assistant is compatible with every single one of them.” In the box is a gun. As a brilliant surgeon, you can save those five people by killing your assistant and using his organs to save their lives, or you can do nothing and allow them to die. What do you doooooooo?

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Come now, Utilitarians! T’is simple maths, m’yessss?

Despite the framing, both problems are identical in content. In both cases, you can either passively allow five people to die, or actively kill one person in order to save them. I expect that most people’s first impression of the second example is to not murder their assistant, even if they would push the button in the first one, but what causes that discrepancy?

Lt. David Grossman analyzes the nature of killing in his book On Killing, and part of what allows regular human beings to kill, who otherwise wouldn’t, is a distance from the target. It’s easier to kill someone at range than it is up close. It’s easier to kill someone through a scope than it is through your bare eyes. It’s easier to kill someone with the press of a button than it is with a gun. The consequences of our actions become diluted the further we get from our deeds. If we consider life in the abstract, life becomes worth measurably less.

Part of the reason that a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima was that nobody wanted to send in ground troops. It’s easier to kill from far away, and the horrors of a nuclear blast became justified. We care more about being ghosted by somebody off Tinder than we do about the collective deaths of the entire Syrian civil war because what happens to us up close will always matter more, no matter how ridiculous the comparison might be. We don’t want to kill our assistant because we assume that we have a relationship with that person, but we’re fine with killing a stranger tied to some train tracks, never stopping to wonder if that person might be someone else’s medical assistant.

Ethics is obviously an ongoing conversation, but the importance of the trolley and surgeon questions are what we as human beings are capable of. Are we killers? I mean killers in the sense of killing people, regardless of how far away (literally and figuratively) from the victim we are, or how little we value their lives. We are in control of our actions; that’s what we must decide.

When considering the trolley problem, think to yourself. What would Batman do? He would obviously swoop over to the train and work some kind of bat-strategy to save everyone, but he would never push that button. Know why? Because Batman is a God damn hero.

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Categories Philosophy

Cultural Marxism

Oct 14, 2017 //
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You know how Muslims are the new communists? Lurking insidiously in the shadows, just waiting to impose Sharia law or clitorectomies or whatever onto the hapless, civilized population of the West? Muslims are the new and improved version because they look and dress differently from us, which is about the absolute worst thing a person can do. There are, however, analog purists out there who never quite gave up on the red scare, furious that McCarthyism is being used against the president with wiretaps instead of against liberal arts majors. Just as with the wiretaps, and McCarthyism in general, anyone who believes that there is anything legitimate to be found in any of these claims is a moron.

As with all morons, they come up with catchy names for their moronic ideas. Enter Cultural Marxism, the belief that every progressive idea has its roots in Marx, and that a sinister cabal of Jews (yes, Jews. It’s always the Jews) are trying to destabilize the world with their commie Jewish ways. Marx’s end game, as interpreted by these Jews, was to infect the culture of society rather than the economy. Kinda seems like a nice way of blaming Marx for gays and women’s lib, on top of the Cold War and Obama. Cultural Marxism is the moron’s way of not having to think too deeply about anything, since all the problems in the world can be blamed on a single, simple thing: the Jews… I mean, the commies.

Well, morons, you’re in luck. You know those damned socialists wanting government reform to implement higher welfare rates? Those dirty Cultural Marxists! Fortunately, according to famous actual communist Rosa Luxemburg, anyone who wants the government to implement social change is not a true communist, because “State control is penetrated with the exclusive interests of the ruling class.” No communists is going to want government intervention; the entire premise of communism is a worker’s revolution against the whole capitalist system. The government is too influenced by corporate interests to be of any value to the communist cause.

How about those 99%ers who want a $15 minimum wage to help the poor because of their Cultural Marxist leanings? Turns out, one should not “struggle against the mode of distribution, … [but] against the mode of production.” Thanks for clearing that up, Rosa! Communists want workers to own the means of production! Redistribution of wealth… ain’t communist! So relax.

Luxemburg calls these folks “Opportunists”, and her ire is directed at one chap in particular, Eduard Bernstein. This is my gift to you: the most popular dude in American politics, “Bernstein” Sanders. Get it? He’s not a communist; he is, at best, an Opportunist, according to real-life Marxist sources.

“But… but…!” you might stammer, “All that talk of capitalism being the worst! That’s gotta be Marxism!” And you’re right. Marx was not particularly fond of capitalism. You know who else isn’t fond of capitalism? Donald Trump. Trump wishes to eliminate NAFTA, something that created wider markets for American businesses. Under NAFTA, companies can sue governments whenever those governments try to implement regulations that get in the way of profits. This mostly happens against Canada, usually whenever we try to implement environmental protections. Companies having more power than governments is like the capitalist’s wet dream, and Trump wants to get rid of that. He wants to regulate markets! Isolationist policies stay the invisible hand! Trump is about as Culturally Marxist as anybody, given the amount of evidence and intelligence it requires to use that label, and if Donald Trump is a Cultural Marxist, then nobody is.

At this point, it should be clear that if anyone unironically says Cultural Marxism, you can just stop listening to them, and move on to other, more productive things.

What might cause you some concern, however, is a poll of Americans in 1987 which showed that about half believe that, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is in the American constitution. Here is what it really says:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Now I know what you’re thinking: it mentions welfare; the constitution must be Culturally Marxist! What it doesn’t say is, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” which is actually Marxist. People just thought it sounded like a truth that we hold to be self-evident, and figured it must be in there. What this tells us is that even if people don’t like Marx because morons keep attributing his name to nonsense, they tend to like Marxist ideas. Guy just needs some rebranding, I suppose.

Stop worrying, Cultural Morons. All those things you think are Marxist, like welfare and gay rights, aren’t, and all the things you love, are! So grow a beard, throw on your nicest red sweater, grab your hammer, find someone with a sickle, and go forth to seize the means of production. Workers of the world, unite!

Post-script: On second thought, Karl Marx was Jewish, so maybe there’s something to this whole “Cultural Marxism” thing after all…

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Categories Social Criticism
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