"If no idea of right or wrong, of moral good or evil, exists per se or is conceived in the intellects of men, no law passed by a legislator can render any action or failiure to act just or unjust, good or bad. For there can be no reason why obeying any given law is right or wrong, good or bad, and there can be no principle on which to base the right which any one person has to govern another, if the idea of legitimacy, duty, and right is not innate or inspired (as Voltaire would have it, that is, naturally and by innate disposition arising in the minds of men, when they reach the age of reason) in human intellects." (4 September 1823)

                       - Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone (Z3349-50 in the first complete English
                           translation, revised edition; Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2015)

No less true almost 200 years later. And yet the so-called conservatives in this country think they can solve the problem of "crime" (really the problem of poverty) by hiring more police and enforcing laws, which will inspire nothing but resentment and ridicule. 

I almost can't wait to see them fail. 

Note: This is the first time I've quoted from Leopardi's Zibaldone in this blog. Doubtless it won't be the last. 

Use your illusion?

The effortless illusion that the Earth exists for the benefit of living creatures like ourselves is one of the most natural, and therefore one of the most powerful and enduring, illusions produced by the human mind, which is itself a product of nature. It is to be found at the heart of most cultural mythologies in one form or another, even those lacking a creator figure or any overt sense of the spiritual. Even James Lovelock, whose hugely influential Gaia hypothesis gave shape to the emerging ecological consciousness of our age, was not above suggesting that human beings, with their superlative gifts of intelligence and skill in communication, may ultimately be "desirable to the planet" in the same way that the emergence of plants, with their photosynthetic ability, was similarly "desirable" for the development and continuing evolution of the Earth system in the past.  

Of course, saying that certain traits are "desirable" for living systems in general is not the same thing as saying that a living system exists for the benefit of any particular organisms who happen to possess those traits - at first glance the two ideas might seem almost diametrically opposed - but upon closer examination one finds the two perspectives rather more complementary than exclusive. At the very least, Lovelock's suggestion, much like the sentiment typically embedded within traditional systems of belief, implies that human beings have a special or possibly central role to play in the unfolding drama of terrestrial life. (For the record, I am not aware that any convincing evidence could be put forward to suggest that such a conviction is actually true, no matter the species in question. Surely the dinosaurs, if they had had our brains, would have said the same about themselves).      

The trouble begins when one starts to ask - as the question inevitably must arise - desirable to whom? or to what? 

Certainly not to any individual human being, who cannot desire what she possesses already, and whose assured fate is to be consumed by our planet after a lifetime of painful and often humiliating struggle. Nor indeed to the entire species taken together, whose fate is obviously no different than that of its individual members. It would be even more preposterous to suggest that our intellectual gifts are coveted by some other species, since we seem to be doing a pretty good job of laying waste to probably the majority of them these days. And so... what then? Well, the answer, for Lovelock anyway, is that if it's not God (it's not - at least we're in agreement on that), it's something called "Gaia". And if that's a bit too vague or nebulous for you (it is - for me anyway), then the desire is on the part of an as-yet unknown future species, somewhat like ours but which has yet to emerge from the primordial soup of the present epoch, all things being relative.    

There is no doubt that it's a fascinating idea. I'm just not sure I believe a word of it.    

I will not attempt to explore here in any great detail the dubious idea that intelligence can properly be considered a "bio-product" in the same sense that oxygen is a physical, biological product of plants. One suspects that this type of category error can at least partially be blamed on a quirk of language that often treats of objects on the one hand, and processes or qualities on the other, as grammatically interchangeable, thus falsely implying a kind of logical equivalency. But that's for another day. 

Perhaps more importantly, there are now reams of evidence that intelligence is not an exclusively human trait. Even plants, though they lack nervous systems, still grow in the direction of a light source. And while it's probably fair to say that humans have evolved a capacity for language far beyond that of many other species, one must be careful not to forget that no matter how impressive an evolved trait may appear to us, its actual survival value is never fixed or absolute. Evolution does not have a preferred direction. There are only ever degrees of adaptation, per the organism, relative to changing environmental conditions. Therefore, intelligence, considered as an end in itself, is precisely moot. Some species, like sharks, have found a niche that has remained practically unaltered for many millions of years, no special intelligence required! Considering that humans have brought themselves to the brink of global meltdown in a little over ONE million years - an eyeblink on the geological time scale - it's entirely plausible some will outlive our own species. There is undoubtedly a point, either as a matter of degree or as a function of time, past which intelligence is no longer useful to its possessor; in fact it may become actively harmful.               

This doesn't seem to have been the case for James Lovelock, who led one of the most successful and celebrated scientific careers of his time. After all, there is always the possibility that certain illusions may remain useful even if their content is not, strictly speaking, to be believed. 

James Lovelock died on 26 July 2022, his 103rd birthday. He will be badly missed by many professional and citizen scientists, philosophers and inquiring minds of all sorts who, despite not always agreeing with his ideas or taking his concepts at face value, nevertheless found his unconventional and iconoclastic approach as an independent scientist profoundly inspiring. I know I have!   

Mad world

If people are frightened by the idea that they don't have control over events occurring in the world, how much more terrified they are at the prospect of somehow lacking control over themselves! 

So frightening that a special category of being called "mental illness" was proposed and universally adopted to denote those unfortunate persons whose actions are thought to result from a somewhat less than authentic source, though through no fault of their own (of course).    

And indeed the majority have naturally come to assume views like this, without expending the slightest mental effort, and despite questions of free will or the precise extent to which our conscious efforts actually do determine our behavior never having been settled.

Cruel intentions

"It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the [highest] grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."

                - C.S. Peirce, "How To Make Our Ideas Clear", originally published in Popular Science Monthly,                           January 1878; quoted from William James, "The Function of Cognition", Mind, vol. X (1885)

It is a sobering reminder that the philosophical method which birthed this defining maxim, a product of some of the 19th century's most accomplished intellects, is a good deal more sophisticated than the upside-down logic being trotted out to support the Supreme Court's rash of extremist decisions in the early 21st.   

In considering the practical effects of their rulings, it doesn't take long to understand that they are not being made out of some carefully studied, historically-informed pursuit of wise jurisprudence, but that they are merely a cheap exercise in wanton cruelty.

When the facts of the matter are evaluated in sum, we're inevitably led to the conclusion that the intended result has nothing to do with upholding rights or advancing "originalist" interpretations of founding documents. Instead the intended effect is almost certainly to further exploit the poor and marginalized people of the country, a result explicitly understood by these unelected decision makers. The goal is to facilitate a transfer of power away from democratically-elected majorities toward an unaccountable network of private influencers who consider cash donations to elected officials a form of "free speech", and to enshrine their power as absolute.  

While the rest of the world has long aspired (in theory if not in practice) to view the United States as a beacon of hope and freedom, another consequence of these rulings, taken together, is that it is increasingly unlikely that future generations will see our nation as anything exceptional, save perhaps in terms of scale or as exemplar of institutional injustice. 

The American people - and the world - deserve better, and they had better speak up before rights such as that are overturned next. The authoritarian crusaders are showing no sign of letting up their all-out assault on civil society, even if it means alienating the citizenry from the very meaning of their country. If nothing is done, the damage will be felt for many generations, further unravelling a social fabric already worn thin by decades of inadequate public investment. 

Note: This was never intended to be a political blog, or tied in any way to current events, but the magnitude and unprecedented nature of the court's pronouncements were such that I couldn't avoid commenting on them.