126. Is change evil?

 There is a deep-rooted fear, in human thought, of change and contingency, human vulnerability to accident, illness and death, and consequently there is a craving for certainty and stability in universal and fixed truths and certainties, in religion or ideology. But how, then, to account for change, which is so obvious and pervasive in the world? It has been dismissed either as illusory or as associated with evil, work of the devil.

 According to Freud’s lust principle people crave for stability, lack of change. As a result, people may lust for death as the ultimate peace. If that were true, we might need religion as an alternative haven of restfulness, to stop a wave of suicide. But all this, I think, is just nonsense. How to account for the Nietzschean drive towards the excitement of sex, conquest, adventure, and discvovery that also clearly exists? Freud tries to answer this question but fails. I propose hat human beings have an urge for both rest, serenity, and excitement, ecstasy. I discussed that in the context of art, in item 81.

An ancient logical argument against change that it is either genuinely new, which would entail creation out of nothing, which is impossible, or a reconfiguration of what existed before, in which case it is not genuinely new. A counter-example is that of evolution, with species that are genuinerly novel while arising from mutations and recombinations of genes.

I propose that there is no creativity (as a ‘good’) without destruction (as an ‘evil’). Hindu philosophy recognised that with the god Shiva, next to Brahman, the source of all, and Krishna, the pinnacle of virtue.

Destruction is not annihilation (as Heidegger noted) but a de-construction, a taking down or taking apart what exists, allowing for re-construction. In economics there is Schumpeters notion of creative destruction as novel combinations.

In my theory of invention and innovation, summarized in item 31 of this blog, I offered a general ‘logic’ of how in society novelty may arise, in a cycle of discovery. An essential part of it is that what exists is subjected to novel challenges, in novel contexts, where it meets the challenge and the elements for de-construction and reconstruction from old and new elements.

Heidegger claimed that development of (philosophical) thought requires a disposition to change, i.e. a openness to it and a shift of position, and I think my cycle of discovery may clarify that, in the step to novel contexts for novel challenges.

While destruction can be creative, it does entail a break-down of what existed before. Is that evil? If it is, again we find that exclusion of evil would entail stagnation, which, I propose, is destructive of the flourishing of life. To allow for flourishing one must allow for uncertainty and risk. A society without risk is a stagnant society. Society can compensate for injustices that emerge from risk, and that is what it does, in social security, though this can go too far, eliminating willingness to take risks. It should not remove risk but compensate for it when needed. Society has been going too far in eliminating risk.

125. Private and public virtues

 Ethics has mostly been approached from an individual perspective: how should the individual behave. There, the proposed universal principle is the ‘golden rule’ that one should (not) do to others what one does (not) want done to oneself.

Now, most individual ethics are powerless when we turn to public conduct, of states, which are under pressure of geopolitics, aggression, crime, insurgence and terrorism. Torture is clearly wrong but what if by torturing one person one can save a nation?

This was brought home forcefully by Machiavelli’s classic ‘The prince’. For reasons of state things may need to be done that are blatantly bad, such as torture. However, that does not make it good. What does this do to ethics?

Should one now say that there are two kinds of good and bad: private and public?

I propose that there is no fundamental difference. Ethics and morality are not clear-cut on the individual level either. Also in the private sphere there can be multiple goods and bads, and it is often difficult to choose.

Earlier in this blog (in item 40) I referred to Martha Nussbaum’s account of the Fragility of goodness, with the example of Agamemnon, who had to choose between his daughter, to whom he had paternal duties, and his army, to which he had the duties of the commander.

I also argued (in item 118) that the golden rule is not strictly universal. There are things that I would do to others that I would not like to be done to myself, because knowing the other I know what s/he appreciates that I do not.

Lying is bad, but even on a personal level I may have to lie to protect someone’s interests. Would I lie to keep my child out of prison? I certainly would. Others might not.

I appealed to Aristotle’s virtue ethics. There are multiple dimensions to what may be good, they are often not commensurable, not amenable to a common denominator, and what is good depends on circumstances. Sometimes I need to be brave and at other times prudent. Next to valour and prudence there are choices between trust and control, ‘voice’ and ‘exit’, attack and defence, spontaneity and restraint, truthfulness and lying, etc.

As I claimed (also in item 118), ethics is indeed multiple, debatable. What is to be chosen, and to what degree, is a matter of debate. However, the impossibility of universal rules and judgements is not a passport to the arbitrary. Or to relativism in the sense that any opinion is as good as any other. The striving for justice remains. And an ethical stance is subject to argumentation.

For matters of state there is an International Court of Justice. To justify oneself one needs to show awareness of the bad, evidence that one deliberated, evidence of proportionate action, and the willingness to have one’s judgements tested and possibly condemned and punished.

Also as an individual one must submit not only to the rule of law and but also, since the reach of the law is deliberately limited, to ethical judgement of friends, colleagues, and communities. It does not automatically suffice for bankers to plead that they are aware that they acted immorally but acted within the law and were forced to act as they did under pressures of competition. They need to argue their case in a balancing of virtues.

Socrates drank the cup of poison though convinced that his actions had been right.

124. Art, love and God

If you have the urge to aspire to perfection, and to feel special, significant, essential in life, does that make you a narcissist, or only if you need to be admired, celebrated for it? However that may be, how does one satisfy that urge?

Patricia de Martelaere saw three ways: art, love and God. The problem with God is that he does not answer or speak, and you cannot be sure he really exists and loves you. The problem with romantic love (eros) is that the loved one may cease to love you or may desert you. Art has the advantage that it is under your own control, if you have the talent for it. Unfortunately, the price you pay is that it is dead, not alive by itself. Yet for control freaks, seeking to achieve an essential life without risk, that may be the way. Perhaps that is why often artists (and philosophers) wind up alone, avoiding the risks of love.

Foucault, at he end of his struggle with pervasive and all-invasive powers of social structures, sought a way out in turning one’s life into a work of art. How could that go?

De Martelaere said that death does not fulfil life but interrupts it, prevents one from rounding it off as a finished product, and that to foil death an artist (and, I would add,  also an intellectual, scientist or entrepreneur) seeks to achieve a finished work, after which one can say: I achieved that before death could snatch it away.

How could this be related to the imperfection on the move that I advocate in this blog, and the idea that the only life after death is the life of others that one leaves behind? 

For the artist (or intellectual, scientist, entrepreneur), after finishing a project there is always the next one to engage upon, which may not get finished and in any case is only a step in an ongoing series that will certainly never be finished.

Suppose one sees one’s life not as a series of projects for oneself but as a contribution to an ongoing stream of life, where one’s projects contribute to those of others to come. Then, may not the urge to feel essential in life be satisfied by making essential contributions to what may come, to the potential after life? But how does one know whether one’s contribution is essential? That also is up to posterity to decide. All one can do is to strive for it to the best of one’s capability and insight.

That is also what parents, especially mothers perhaps, do, in bringing up children as a project without end, contributing to the potential of posterity. And how about workers in health care, say? In their way they can feel essential in life.

In both Western and Eastern philosophy there is a tendency to reserve enlightenment for an elite of the initiated, the illuminated, the trained, the ascetic, in gaining access to a transcendent, elevated, absolute, supreme being (God, Brahman) or condition (Nirvana). If one renounces absolutes and embraces imperfection on the move, one can achieve freedom from self-obsession in ordinary life, in transcendence that is horizontal, in others, and immanent, during life.  

123. The destruction of distrust

Trust is needed to give some space to others for choice and action. The alternative is to lock up the other in measures of control and monitoring.

However, while distrust is destructive it is itself difficult to destroy. Deep distrust will always defeat trust.

In a relationship that starts with distrust others have to prove that they are trustworthy. This is doomed to fail. Proving one’s trustworthiness is logically impossible in the same way that it is to prove that a theory is true. No matter how often or long a theory has been corroborated, i.e. not contradicted by observations, it remains possible that it will be falsified in the future. In the same way, no matter how often one shows one’s trustworthiness, in keeping to agreements and promises, and taking positive action to mutual advantage or even from altruism, and being open about mistakes and failures, this does not prove that next time one will not break trust.

Since trustworthiness cannot be proved, and the possibility of its lack remains, the mistrustful are inclined to impose ever-stronger tests of trustworthiness. But there is no logical end to this. At some point the people who remain mistrusted will break out and exit. And the mistrustful will interpret this as evidence of untrustworthiness.

If a relationship is started in distrust, and people have to prove their trustworthiness, they will avoid all actions that may break expectations, which would likely be seen as a confirmation of untrustworthiness. No opposition will be voiced. I once worked at a university faculty where the dean took the stance that people must first prove their trustworthiness. It led to an organization of ‘yes-men’, lack of criticism, sweet-talking the dean, a culture of fear and conformism. It is the only case that I know of where in the end a dean was deposed by a university board.

By the same mechanism, in the difficult struggle of going from eros to philia, discussed in a preceding item of this blog, a deep fear of vulnerability and failure may yield the stance that now the other has prove his/her trustworthiness, and then the destruction of love sets in, leading to an exit which is seen as a confirmation of untrustworthiness, or lack of love.

Deep distrust can keep one from engaging in relationships that would allow people to show their trustworthiness. Trust, on the other hand, enables relationships and can be adjusted when untrustworthiness manifests itself.

In contrast with distrust, trust, with its assumption that another is trustworthy, can be falsified by evidence to the contrary. However, if the room for action offered by trust leads to a disappointment of expectations, that does not necessarily prove untrustworthiness. It can be due to a mishap, a mistake, or lack of attention. One should extend benefit of the doubt and engage in voice, a discussion of what is going on, allowing for mistakes or lack of competence, and be open about one’s own errors and mistakes. When this voice does not work one can reduce the space for action, extending control, or one can go for exit. Trust is imperfection on the move.

 

 

122. Commitment and choice

In the preceding item in this blog, concerning love relationships, I argued for a certain channeling or re-direction of passion (eros) to allow for the build-up of loving friendship (philia). I did not mean to imply that emotion should be replaced by rational evaluation.

Eva Illouz, in her book ‘Why love hurts’ (2012), analyzed modern conditions of love and commitment. She found that rational evaluation of multiple alternatives, which have increasing arisen in modern times, after the suspension of constraints of class, education, standing, income, procedures and ritual, and multiple dimensions of choice, of appearance, spirit, life style, interests and abilities, can have an adverse effect.

Rational evaluation is typically analytic, decomposing objects of choice into different characteristics and weighting them to arrive at some composite measure for comparison of alternative options. Illouz employed a variety of outcomes from research that show that this procedure can have adverse effects.

It has long been known that often choice is best left up to intuition. While rational choice is analytic, intuition is more integrative, employing tacit knowledge built up from experience, which by definition escapes rational grasp. Tapping from various research, Illouz further analyses this as follows. ‘Decomposing an object into components diminishes the emotional force of a decision’ (p. 93), and causes people to ‘moderate their evaluations’ and to lower emotional quality’.

In a rational analysis of alternatives, there is a consideration of opportunity costs (as the economist calls it): of the value of options not chosen, in an anticipation of regret, which lowers the value of whatever one does choose. It produces ambivalence in choice.

Illouz reports research that shows that cohabitation before marriage, as a ‘try-out’, increases the risk of divorce and lowers the quality of marital satisfaction. Ongoing analysis and comparison of value drives out commitment. She concludes that ‘.. the affective dimension of commitment ultimately is the strongest because commitment cannot be a rational choice’ (p. 96).

It is not a matter of dotting all the I’s and crossing all the t’s of rational choice and solving all problems before a commitment is made. At some point an emotional commitment needs to be made, to close issues of choice and as a basis for solving problems.

In sum, the emotional sweep of eros is still needed to leap into commitment, as a start, for next developing philia. So what does this do to my analysis in the preceding item in this blog? On the one hand the furor of eros should be tempered, in eliminating its possessiveness and its fear and suspicion of loss or dependence, and on the other hand it is needed to clinch the issue of commitment, in preserving the emotional craving to be with the loved one and to keep him/her, and no-one else, as a basis for philia to develop.

What is wrong with modernity is that eros has been reduced to sex and rational choice has replaced commitment.