The Absence of Love

In the absence of Love, one will do whatever strikes the highest balance of ease and stimulation. Without Will to compel us to chase or seek after something, we will turn to what we already have that is able to keep the boredom at bay.

In short: find something to pursue or settle in for a life of binge eating and masturbation.

A Theistic Answer to Chaos

My response to how we are to love in chaos is that we must love ever deeper. That the answer to the inevitability of despair is more love. That the answer to uncertainty is love. And I call my answer theistic not because one must necessarily believe in God, but because I consider this response to be foundational block to a higher theism that is rooted in love of God first and treats belief as a secondary concern.

To draw out my response, I offer this scenario:

A man loves a sick woman. The woman is fragile; she may live, she may die, she may live well, she may live broken. The man loves her, but he can protect himself from despair by starving his love for her. He can take rational, tactical steps to kill his love by choosing to meditate on certain thoughts, directing his attention on certain areas, and placing himself in certain situations. Likewise he can feed his love and grow ever nearer to her, to the point that her death might leave him a broken man.

If he constrains his focus in this way he will either starve his love and become a living-dead stoic or he will feed his love and invite the world to destroy him. What would I tell this man to do?

I would tell him to love the sick woman. Love her more and more. And love his house as well, the house he can share with her and that will remind him of her if she should die. And love their friends and family who will stand near him but be able to do nothing to console him internally. Love his job, which will become a heavy burden if he has to perform it while grieving. Love the world which is so arranged that his misery is a certainty. And love God to such a degree that he will continue to love if she lives and love if she dies.

This scenario, captures what I mean by adding more and more love. If using the word "God" makes this difficult, I invite you to instead use the word "Other." Make the choice to feed your love of that which is outside of you, that which you can not control. Love what you love and love in such a way that you will love even if love leads to despair.

One may perhaps wonder if we have rendered the word "love" meaningless. What is it to multiply love in this way?

Scream that you want her to live - deepen your commitment to her and do not let yourself pull back to protect yourself. And if she dies, own your despair and defiantly spit out, "your will be done." And then live in that way still, continue loving and knowing that with or without your permission, "his will be done" and react to that with acceptance. Return at all times to a harmony between Self and Other/Perception and Mystery/Man and God, resisting both the urge to remove one or the other.

Love in Chaos

Suppose you lived in a world full of treasures that commanded your affection. It was not necessary for you to own them to love them, simply the fact that they existed made you happy. Like any love, however, you could starve or feed your attraction. Then suppose that these treasures just started shattering. You wake up one morning and some lovely statue that you would have happily sold your grandmother for now lies shattered on your feet; that night the most magnificent building ever created just sort of crumbled into a nearby lake. The rubble killed a lot of beautiful fish. The most gorgeous woman in the world let herself go at dinner last night and turned into Bruce Vilanch. The sweetest drink that would ever touch your lips got watered down and added to some Mountain Dew.

Living in such a world, what would you do with your love? Would you feed it? Would you let yourself get attached to all the stuff that was falling apart, opening yourself up to despair? Or would you starve it? Would you continue living due to some accursed Will-to-Live, but stoically trying to live without love or affection as though you were already dead to avoid the pain of loss?

Perhaps the world is not quite so chaotic, but then it is not entirely right to say that we do not live in a world like the one described. The things we love do fade - it is a certainty that any person we love will one day die and it requires the cooperation of a wide network of people in order to preserve any particular object through the ages. And neither option of starving or feeding love is exactly a winner. Indeed, it is very brave and noble and tragic to dare to love despite the inevitability of despair, but, from the point of view of the person who despairs, is it truly an enjoyable life? And a long, drawn out suicide-by-avoidance just sounds exhausting as hell to me. How could you get up in the morning if you viewed each day as an opportunity to try to avoid any attachments in life? So far as I can tell this worldview only really works if you do not acknowledge it - or only acknowledge it with feigned irony; by all means start on the porn at one in the afternoon when you finally wake up and finish up by the time you've exhausted yourself back to sleep, but how will you find the drive to even Google if you say that plan out loud?

Of course there is the Platonic/Jesus option:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

Escaping the chaotic world for the sake of another world: a world of forms or a kingdom of heaven. Something general, something essential, something fundamental, something perfect, something incorruptible. Something that isn't falling apart.

Maybe it works for some people, but I find that this leads us to one of two positions, one of which is untenable the other of which I can agree with but do not find especially meaningful. 

Sometimes we create a picture of Heaven by taking our world and stripping out everything we dislike, leaving us with something two-dimensional and unsatisfying since it is, after all, a reduction of our own world. When I see people posturing on the internet by linking to some given immorality and then saying "come quickly Lord Jesus," I do not see someone who is speaking out of love for heaven, but someone who is speaking out of loathing for earth. In fact the desire for an Otherworld seems entirely based on a recognition of the inadequacy of our own world: any attempt to actually describe what would make the Otherworld so lovely tends to reduce to just cutting off the nasty bits of our own world. Those who do try to describe their Otherworld tend to start slashing at their membership roster as one man's utopia tends to be another man's hell.

Other times we acknowledge that if there is an Otherworld, it is a mystery to us. We have no appearances to form a picture of it from. We do not know what appeal it will have for us. I like this approach in that it does not try to say more than it can say, but we must still acknowledge that it does not say much.

What then are we to do?

Religion, Even if True, May Not Be so Important

One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.

-C. S. Lewis

Meh....

-Comment Sections Everywhere

Suppose we were to be contacted by angels tomorrow. Spiritual beings would manifest themselves in physical form, call a press conference, and reveal the mysteries of the universe. They would tell us that religious claims (or at least some religious claims) were correct. There is a God. And they would consent to all manner of rigorous scientific examination to show that their bodies were composed of matter that could not be accounted for by the known universe, and then they would toss out some mind-blowing version of the Ontological Argument that made God's existence indisputable.

What would the world look like?

Over a year ago, I argued that it may be necessary for God - if there is a God - to obscure himself in order to keep the mundane realities of everyday life looking necessary for human beings. I still, for the most part, agree with what I wrote there: if God appeared in all his glory he would shatter our ability to be concerned about our own lives. However, if God himself did not appear, but his presence became a fact on par with any scientific hypothesis that we regularly rely upon, what would the world look like?

And my answer would be, not very different.

After the initial shock of having God's existence proven, we would have to realign our thinking a bit. The atheism movement would fragment between those who would become theists and those who would redefine atheism on moral grounds. The perceived enmity between science and religion would fade. But then, what?

Our lives are busy, our situations diverse, and our mental power limited. Most people will spend most of their time not particularly worried about God; they may give God a portion of their time and energy but they will also give a portion to family, work, sex, entertainment, sports, finances, maintenance, and personal hygiene. Even those we might consider intellectuals or reflective people will have to devote their mental energies to economics, chemistry, political science, cultural criticism, and the proper implementation of web standards. Indeed, even if God were a fact, he would be a fact that a great many people find useless given their own, limited projects. God will hardly capture everyone's heart simply because he has claimed territory in everyone's mind.

Human nature is diverse. Even if we remove the question of God's existence, not all human beings will react to God's existence the same way. Frankly, a lot of people don't spend a lot of time worried about God or spiritual matters at all. God occupies a place in nearly every person's mind, we all have moments where theistic questions seem significant to us, but for many of us these moments are fleeting. We have an entire life to live, only some of us are so inclined to grow obsessed over this one aspect of life.

Intuition and Perspective

Previously, I tended to see intuition as a kind of deception that held a privileged position. Our intuitions varied too greatly between individuals and, especially, different cultures to be any kind of accurate description of the facts. Naturally, discarding intuition makes foundationalism crumble, leading eventually to my Epistemic Lenses/Vantage Points/Perspectivism once one realizes that Coherentism and Pragmatism can only rule out very wrong ideas but not necessarily discover true ones. However, intuition cannot really be removed from the forefront; even if we deny that intuition is discovering true facts we cannot deny that in everyday life we really just use reason to bridge the gaps between new information and old intuition. Only those of us who are aware of the frailties of foundational epistemology try to get away from that method of thinking and living.

It seems to me now that perhaps there is a place for intuition if we accept the kind of pluralism suggested by Epistemic Lenses.

If one craves honesty, then one must admit that intuition does not discover true, objective facts. If they did, then all intuition would have to come to the same conclusion – perhaps with a handful of exceptions that we could call diseased intuition. However, we also see that science does not seem to hang on to anything – it is free floating as its foundations cannot be established with rigor, with some branches standing on especially ghostly cornerstones. This is where I tend to mention Epistemic Lenses, where the world looks different depending on what presuppositions and values one interprets the world through. Intuition, however, could also serve as an explanation of Epistemic Lenses: we intuit certain foundational beliefs that make it possible to interpret the rest of the world, but intuition varies because it proceeds from the nature of the one who intuits.

Intuition is not true, but through intuition we can come to starting beliefs that make it possible to understand the rest of the world. But the intuitions vary from person to person, making the world as seen through each person's eyes different from the world as seen through other eyes. Not so distinct that we cannot relate to one another, but distinct enough that the perceptions are not identical.

Do we intuit values? I do not think that we do. I would not use the word “intuit” here. Do I intuit that strawberry ice cream is superior to vanilla? Do I intuit that it would be better for people to be allowed to make their own decisions for their lives? Rather I would use the word “love.” I love strawberry ice cream more than vanilla. I love that people choose their own paths. We confuse “love” for “intuition” when we want others to love as we do, but once we are comfortable with the sliver of loneliness that stems from loving without the support of the nature of the world, then we see that intuition and love work in different ways to form our perspective.

But which is more basic? Which is more primary: love or intuition? We intuit the world according to what we love, and we love according to what we intuit. That is, we see the foundations of the world the way that we want to see them, but we also desire according to how we think the world is. I can not say which one has first privilege. I want to say that it is probably messy and layered, with an intuition being reevaluated by a love which leads to a new intuition and probably a new love.

Geography of the Mind

Sometimes when you reflect on the process of thinking itself, you can start to feel like an explorer. I don't want to start using overly flowery language and talking about “traversing the fields of concepts, the forests of illusions, and the seas of new ideas” or something stupid like that. I just mean that you tend to find certain ideas where you feel comfortable, almost like thinking about them is like resting in a friendly house; then there are other ideas that make you uneasy, like you're walking around an unfriendly alley; and of course there are ideas that you see obscurely because they're new and you haven't thought them through much yet.

I don't go exploring in real life, but it reminds me of what it feels like to explore in an RPG, so my pasty, sunless self will stick to the comparison. Thinking can be a kind of exploration. It isn't arbitrary: logic and data determine the nature of the ideas that can be explored and a fundamental shifting up of vantage points is just like shifting up landmasses, whereas a more contingent shifting up is just further exploration of the environment.

And just like with geography, different ideas will produce different moods. And those moods can even change over time. And something lovable can be spoiled when you find that it contains something ugly. And something ugly can be redeemed when you find that it contains something lovable. And sometimes, you just want to go on vacation.

And much like exploring: it's easy to wander around admiring the territory, but it's difficult and more useful to make a map of it.

The Exceptional Spider-Man!

Today I saw The Amazing Spider-Man. I am not certain to what extent the film was really just that good, and to what extent I was just in a generous mood, but I loved this movie. I really did. I'm putting it right up there with The Dark Knight, at least for the moment while I'm still high on the film. Now, I'm not going to get into everything I liked about this movie, I'm just going to get into pretentious philosophical film criticism, because I do that sort of thing. To preface this: I am not saying that these ideas are what the writers or the director had in mind when making the film, I am saying that this is an idea that occurred to me while I was watching the movie and it made me love it even more. If it does not do the same for you, disregard it.

To some degree, this is the theme that every single superhero movie tackles, but it seemed to me that TASM tackled it more beautifully than any other superhero flick I've seen. This is the theme of how do superhuman individuals relate to the mass of humanity. When I say “superhuman,” I'm not just referring to people with superpowers, I am referring to anyone who is above the masses, whether in fact or in delusion. The Übermensch, Raskolnikov, Ozymandias, or really nearly any great villain but a good number of heroes as well, but I point to the Übermensch, Raskolnikov, and Ozymandias in particular because I think the works that these characters appear in highlight the relationship between great individuals and the universal best. They all are figures who see themselves as no longer being bound by the same rules and responsibilities that the rest of society is expected to follow.

This movie explores how Spider-Man, as someone who has greatness thrusts upon him, manages to find a way to relate to the universal. The universal is the great mass of people, it is ethical norms, it is openness and honesty, it is respect for society, it is law and order. In the earliest scenes we see Peter as part of the universal, when he becomes Spider-Man we see him selfishly place himself above the universal, then when he has to face the Lizard we see him submit to the universal but remain separate from it. In this way, the movie answers the question of how superhumans relate to humanity: superhumans are to be the friends of humanity, but not to be humans themselves.

Peter Becomes a Villain

In the beginning of the movie, Peter Parker stands up for another student who is being bullied by Flash Thompson. Flash demands that Peter take a picture, but Peter refuses and even speaks out against Flash. For this, he earns a beating from Flash. This is a pure expression of universal ethics: no greater good came out of Peter's actions, if anything pain was increased, but Peter refused to take part in the degradation of another person even though doing so probably would not have caused significantly more pain and refusal did not bring about any change to the situation about from his own pain. The stupidity of the action was obvious, but he did it regardless. At this point, Peter is a part of the crowd of humanity, and he excels in that capacity. He lives according to a kind of duty.

When Peter learns from his Uncle Ben about his Father's relationship to Dr. Connors, he violates the ethical by lying about his identity, allowing another person to be thrown out of the building who rightfully should have been there, and jeopardizing Gwen Stacy's internship by separating from the group. It is as a direct result of this violation that he is bitten by the genetically enhanced spider, leading to him becoming Spider-Man. He has now separated himself from humanity, both in a spiritual sense, and in the literal sense that he is now a fucking Spider-Man! His violation in this case could have easily been atoned for and he could have been restored to the rest of humanity (a simple, “I'm sorry,” probably would have sufficed), he did not repent, though, he pressed forward, placing his desires as an individual greater than the laws and policies that people are expected to follow.

After becoming Spider-Man, he humiliates Flash, destroys school property to further highlight his dominance over Thompson, cuts himself off from his Uncle Ben, and neglects to pick up his Aunt May. This is basic teenager stuff, it is all steps in a selfish direction, but not in anyway unbridgeable. The turning point comes after Uncle Ben's death, at which point Peter launches his own violent war against any criminal who resembles the man who killed his Uncle. At this point, Peter is basically a villain who just happens to target petty criminals. He attacks them, brutally, humiliates them, and then only after having inflicted violence bothers to check to see if he even has the person he is targeting. He asserts his own right to behave this way by virtue of nothing at all, just because he is capable of it. On some level, he still believes that what he is doing is acceptable because the people he attacks are criminals, but he does not show any concern for the rightness of his actions until George Stacy openly condemns him. He tries to put together a defense, but it is a pisspoor one cobbled together on the spot, and easily waved away when Stacy explains that Spidey actually ruined a six month operation through his reckless vigilantism.

For the moment, though, Peter is genuinely great enough to live the way he is living. He gets the girl that he loves, he can continue pursuing vengeance, and he can more-or-less continue evading the police. He is like a minor villain with certain moral pretensions, too naïve and apathetic to really worry if he is good or evil. It is only when another great individual arises that Peter must reevaluate how he stands with relation to humanity.

A More Exceptional Being

Curt Connors is not a villain. The only thing you can accuse him of is a God complex: he thinks he can create a better humanity. He is still firmly within the universal, though, there is no indication that he would ever force anything on anyone (although the existence of the machine to disperse a chemical agent suggests that he did believe that any improvements on humanity should be made to humanity en masse), and everything he tries to attain he attains with the understanding that he would share it with everyone. He does not want to regrow his arm, he wants to create a world without weakness!

Even his transformation occurs because of his commitment to the universal. He would rather give up his arm than test his serum on human subjects too early. Upon learning that he is being shut down, he tests the serum on himself rather than allow it to be tested on unknowing veterans. Then, midway through his transformation, his first priority is stopping Dr. Ratha. He is simultaneously always acting with a mind toward the universal, while also coming to believe that he knows what is best for everyone. He is not selfish, his error is hubris. When he steps outside the universal, he seeks to rejoin, he simply plans to do that by making everyone like him instead of rejoining everyone else.

He is evil only because he seeks to impose his will on humanity without regard for humanity's will in the matter. He treats them as means, not ends in themselves. His case is peculiar, though, because he is only going to temporarily treat them that way. He wants to bring them up to his level, so that they can be equals again. If he were successful and all of humanity were made reptilian like him, his suspension of ethics might have been hailed as a glorious turning point in human evolution. In the moment, though, he places his will over humanity, and is therefore evil.

Spider-Man and the Universal

Spider-Man, on the other hand, remains an individual outside of the universal. Upon encountering the Lizard, though, he seeks to rejoin the universal. He wants to repent, and he aims to repent by stopping the Lizard. He does not allow his love for Gwen to dissuade him, thereby putting his selfish desires aside for his desire to atone. He tries to rejoin humanity, but can not. When he goes to Captain Stacy to tell him about Dr. Connors, Stacy refuses to believe him. The universal action would be to give the information he has to Captain Stacy and then leave the matter up to law and order; Stacy's incredulity does not change the fact that Peter acted according to the universal by giving the information he had to those authorized to use force. Peter is not satisfied with this, and continues being separate from the universal by perusing the Lizard on his own.

If Peter had lived according to the universal, everyone would be a lizard man right now.

Instead, Peter asserts himself as an individual and asserts his individual will and desire: in this case the desire to stop Dr. Connors. Because of this, he drives a wedge between himself and Gwen, a wedge between and Aunt May, and a further wedge between himself and law enforcement. He is willing to shoulder this burden, though, so that he does what he believes should be done.

And he fails. He fails badly. By setting himself so far against the universal, he becomes the enemy of the universal. He is subdued by the police and held at gunpoint by Captain Stacy. It is only by approaching the universal (at this point, Peter is literally bowing before Stacy in the film) submissively and agreeing that he will continue to be extraordinary, but that he will be extraordinary in line with both his and Captain Stacy's will (saving Gwen and stopping the Lizard) that he is able to stop the Lizard.

Captain Stacy aligns with Spider-Man instead of against him, and society itself aligns with Spider-Man by arranging the cranes in such a way that he can easily swing to his target. Spider-Man is so weak from the blood loss from a bullet wound that even this is too great a task for him at first, society has to help him get to the Lizard. Spider-Man does not cease to be the extraordinary individual standing apart from the universal, but now he works with the universal. Distinct, but allied.

During the final fight, Captain Stacy has to sacrifice his life to keep the Lizard occupied long enough for Spider-Man to replace the serums that Connors has set to be released into the sky. Neither of them could have stopped the Lizard without the other. And at the very end, Captain Stacy tells Spider-Man what he wants. He wants Spider-Man to be alone. He endorses Spider-Man standing apart from the law, apart from society, apart from openness, but he says that Spider-Man should be alone. He makes Spider-Man promise that he will leave Gwen, which he does.

Curt Connors is incarcerated. He is brought down lower than the universal as a prisoner who is being forced to atone for trying to impose his will on others.

Spider-Man tries to live as an extraordinary friend of humanity. He keeps his promises, he gets Aunt May her eggs, and he seems to give up his vengeance quest against the man with the star tattoo. Humanity loves him in return, Flash wears a Spider-Man t-shirt, a giant spider is shown graffitied on a wall. But Spider-Man is not happy. He wants Gwen. He can not have her, though, without breaking his promise.

The Open Question

The film hints at this dilemma when the English teacher says that there is only one plot in fiction: “Who am I?” Peter walks in late and promises he won't be late again, to which the teacher says don't make promises you can't keep. Then, in a low voice so that Gwen can hear, Peter says, “but those are the best kinds.” Implying that he may break his promise, and once again live spiritually separated from the universal so that he can be with Gwen.

The film leaves the question of the extent to which Spider-Man will live apart from the ethical for the sake of getting what he wants. And we cheer for it, because we want him to be with Gwen and we want him to be happy. We love him and we want him to have what he wants. We also want him to be a good man, which is why there is a little tension when we know that he will have to break the promise he made to a dying man in order to get what he wants.

We will find out in 2014.

And with that, I think I am going to take a break from the Kierkegaard for awhile. Strange blends of strange ethics are creeping into my nihilistic head. But, yes, TASM gave me a philoso-boner, and that was just one of the enriching elements of the movie. The movie won over my mind, and if this rebooted series finds a way to do Venom justice, it will win over my heart!

Love of America

I love America. I love my nation. Why? This is not a sensible question I could answer. It is not as though I could point to certain particulars of the government or geography and say, "I love America for these reasons." In fact, it is all quite arbitrary, if America were to suddenly shift two degrees left or right on all issues, I would continue to love America. It is not the sort of love that has to be earned, it is the kind of love that is given freely.

I love America because it is mine. Because whatever it is, I am a part of it. The people I know are a part of it. My culture, the parts I like and the parts I hate, are American. The places I go are American. My day-to-day world is an American world. This is the nation that I am a part of, and there is no other reason needed to love it.