100 Treatises

Chechen Violence is Back

The recent resurgence of Chechen- and North Caucasus-related terrorism on Monday and Wednesday of this week points to the deep unresolved issues between Russia and its tiny region. Like in any situation of rebellion and civil strife, the short term details of the violence are sure to be complex. But the essential dynamics remain identical to what is seen in countless places around the world, including modern Iraq and Afghanistan: the interplay of identity, nationalism and sovereignty. There remains a segment of the Chechen population, and of the Caucasian population, that identifies itself separately from the rest of Russia. This unique sense of identity or separateness has persisted through two Chechen wars and 2 decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. How widely held among the people is this sense of ethno-national uniqueness? Evidently, popular enough to result in the death of several dozen innocents in the span of three days.

Russia under Putin is not interested in peace with Chechnya. Vladimir led the country in the offensive Second Chechen War in 1999, which reestablished Russian suzerainty in the region after a period of self-rule. He is also now using bombastic rhetoric in the aftermath of the recent attacks, to say nothing of the uptick in jingoistic prejudice that is sure to come, the early signs of which we are already seeing. And let’s not forget the oppression and ruthlessness that has characterized Chechnya under Russian control in recent years–always a popular cause of radicalization.

So Russia is not interested in peaceful coexistence. But if it were, the proper action would be quite simple: give them independence. Just let go. Barring the extermination of hundreds of thousands of human beings and totally remaking the society and culture of the region, it is clear that the unique sense of identity there will remain strong for a while. And as long as it is, there will be ethnic and nationalist tension, which will provide the fuel for radicalism and terrorism, which will result in the deaths of innocent Russians. The recent influence of global Islamic fanaticism on the terrorist movement adds another dimension of difference from the Russian population–religion.

Would Chechen independence hurt Russia in any way? Essentially, it is irrelevant because the positives for peace and prosperity in both countries would more than outweigh any negatives. Nonetheless, according to Wikipedia, the area of Russia is 6,592,800 square miles (17,075,400 square kilometers), and that of Chechnya is a whopping 6,680 square miles (17,300 square kilometers). That makes Chechnya literally one tenth of one percent of the total Russian land mass. I think Russia would be okay. In fact, I don’t think they would notice at all.

Iceland Bans Strip Clubs in the False Name of Freedom

A glowing piece in the Guardian reports recently that Iceland (“the world’s most feminist country”) has banned strip clubs. The move is just the most recent in a line of measures taken to snuff out the sex trade. According to the author:

Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons. Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: “It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold.”

This is a foolish and wrongheaded notion. People who are slaves are “a product to be sold”—perhaps the Icelandic parliament should have chosen to help the many people around the world living in modern day slavery, if they are so concerned with people being bought and sold? For the decrease in economic activity caused by this ban, they could probably give hundreds of thousands of dollars to that cause. Their concern for human welfare is “impressive,” indeed. The article also says:

Jónsdóttir [of a group that fights sexual violence] says the ban could mean the death of the sex industry. “Last year we passed a law against the purchase of sex, recently introduced an action plan on trafficking of women, and now we have shut down the strip clubs. The Nordic countries are leading the way on women’s equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale… I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale.”

Another cockeyed way of thinking. A woman is not “for sale” if she is freely choosing to do something. The fact that there is so much talk of “women for sale” or “people for sale,” even though they are not actually for sale indicates that the women of Iceland desire to outlaw this activity because they object to it emotionally. It simply bothers them to see a woman being paid for taking her clothes off for men’s entertainment. Visually, they see a man or men in control of a woman and using her for their pleasure. (From a man’s perspective, the power in the relationship might be seen very differently, but that’s another issue.) The image is objectionable to them on a subjective level, and therefore they want to do away with it, while couching their effort in the explosive terms of “ending the commodification of women.” Who would not be against the commodification of women?

A frequent canard used by those fighting the sex industry is the conflation of willing, freely-chosen participation in the sex industry with forced participation or, even worse, the forced participation of children. And the legal action taken in Iceland against human trafficking is very positive and laudable. The exploitation of any human being, female or otherwise, is fundamentally wrong. But what if that person chooses to exploit themselves?

If a government can forbid one woman from using her body to her financial advantage, why can it not forbid another woman from using her brain to her advantage? Are not both the body and the brain the sole property of the person themselves? If the state should ban the selling of sexual services, why should it not ban the selling of massage services? Do not both confer physical pleasure to the customer for a price? If nude dancing should be outlawed, why not clothed dancing? Do not both provide visual stimulation to a customer? Is not the ballet patron exploiting his or her “power” over the performer for the sake of visual enjoyment?

None of this is to argue that prostitution, pornography, stripping or other related activities support the empowerment of females. But they do not hurt the empowerment of females, anymore than a man stripping and being treated as a sex object in a bachelorette party diminishes my empowerment as a male. The point is that allowing them to occur, with adequate controls and regulations, supports the empowerment of human beings insofar as it supports freedom.

Freedom is not about doing what is “morally” right. Except for certain fundamental rules such as causing harm to others, or limiting others’ freedom, in a truly free society one should be free to do as they wish—whether I or anyone else “approve” of it or not. That does not mean behavior cannot be regulated; it would be ridiculous for zoning laws to allow brothels next to elementary schools. But there is a huge leap from regulating, controlling or directing human activity and illegalizing that activity altogether.

What will be the consequences of a stripper-less Iceland? They will probably not be very severe on the surface. Several hundred people will be out of work, to be sure. But in time they will probably find new jobs. Enterprising former strippers can start dance studios or pole dancing fitness centers that have become popular recently. The real consequences of such action are more serious, though radical feminists would refuse to hear it: that the state further constrains and restricts human activity, making human life just a bit more bland and homogenous, limiting diversity of lifestyle and the freedom of choice that make life worth living.

Gay Marriage, Interracial Marriage, and Conservative Values

It never ceases to amaze me how many on the conservative side of the political, and especially cultural, spectrum gleefully embrace the thing that their intellectual forefathers fought against. Meanwhile they use the very same language and reasoning to fight against new sociopolitical developments that are, essentially, logical extensions of the very thing they claim to embrace. A good example of this is women’s rights: they were against it in the middle of the 20th century, until they were for it insofar as it distinguishes the west from radical Islamists.

Another case in point is interracial marriage and gay marriage. There are differences between the two phenomena, to be sure, but at the bottom lies a very simple dynamic: the right for people to receive the same legal benefits as anyone else in the same type of relationship, regardless of their personal characteristics. Whether those characteristics are skin color or sexual orientation, it makes no difference, and has no relevant impact, as far as the nature of the relationship is concerned. The fact that conservatism intellectually and culturally cannot grasp this concept points to the fact that their objections to both have been based primarily on traditionalism, emotionalism, simple-minded religiosity and discomfort with change. In other words, no solid intellectual analysis.

In an article on interracial marriage and the effect on children, the following account of an early legal battle is given.

During the course of the proceeding the trial judge asserted that: “Almighty God created the races of White, Black, Yellow, Malay, and Red, and He placed them on separate continents.” “And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages.” “The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.”

Looks like the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Iraq Election Fun has Just Begun

The Iraqi ethnoreligious landscape: three nations for the price of one

Another completed election in the third world, another round of fraud charges. Of course, it was almost guaranteed that whoever lost the recent elections in Iraq would allege fraud—regardless of the truth or falsity of the claim. That’s just how “democracy” works in these kinds of places. The cloud of “fraud” will continue to hang over Iraq in the coming days and weeks, and it will add another valuable ingredient to the instability soup, along with religious fundamentalism, terrorism, corruption, anti-Americanism, poverty… you get the idea. Reuters recently reported on Iyad Allawi and Nuri al-Maliki in the context of the political situation:

Allawi, a secular Shi’ite who served as prime minister in 2004-05 after the U.S. invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, and his Iraqiya partners took 91 seats in parliament to 89 for Maliki’s State of Law coalition in a vote that exposed the depth of Iraq’s sectarian divide.

Violence erupted when Iraq’s political leaders took five months to form a government after the last parliamentary vote in 2005. Allawi appeared to try to allay fears of a repeat…

Officials with Maliki’s coalition and from the third-place finisher, the Iraqi National Alliance, a bloc with close relationships with Shi’ite neighbor Iran, have said they are working toward a merger. The two combined would hold 159 seats, close to the majority needed to form a government.

INA includes the Sadrist political movement of anti-American Shi’ite Moqtada al-Sadr, who is studying in Iran and is shaping up to be the new kingmaker of Iraqi politics…

any attempt by the major Shi’ite blocs to sideline Allawi could lead to resentment among Sunnis pushed to the side when the majority Shi’ites rose to power following the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Iraq is in trouble and has been for a while, for the same reason as Afghanistan: extensive heterogeneity in identity among the people belies the authority of a unitary central government. In other words, a state from multiple nations won’t work. In western terms, the analogy is a single state and a single central government trying to be formed to encompass Italy, Germany and France. Now, there are certainly very different circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq culturally, socially and economically. But the essential characteristics of identity and the challenges to nation-state stability are identical.

There is a very simple test that can be used to determine the stability of a government: do the people over which that government has authority identify with each other, or not? If they do, then, despite all other problems, that government has a reasonable chance at success. If they do not, then there is no chance, because the most fundamental aspect of a nation-state (the nation) is not there. Sooner or later, it will probably fail. It is vital to understand that this is not because of short term violence, it is not because of the vicissitudes of day-to-day parliamentary politics, or because of an economic downturn (which are probably what the press will blame it on if and when the Iraqi state does fail). It is a structural feature of the society in question that guarantees state failure.

Saddam Hussein ensured internal stability in Iraq for over 20 years through blood-soaked tyranny.  It was ruthless dictatorship alone that was able to keep a lid on the bubbling stew of ethnic, tribal and religious tension. That bubbling stew, naturally, boiled over in the aftermath of Hussein’s overthrow. For years, hundreds of Americans and many thousands of Iraqis died during the botched Bush nation-building project. Then, in the last few years, a surge in American troops ensured some temporary stability that has allowed some democratic progress to be made.

Rest assured that this stability is indeed temporary. As Obama winds down the troop presence in the coming months, we can expect that Iraq will once again regress back into a quagmire of ethnic, tribal and sectarian violence. But it is not, as the Republicans and conservatives will undoubtedly argue, because of the decrease in troops. It will be ultimately due to the inherent structural attributes of Iraqi society spelled out above. In time, unless identity is overhauled in Iraq, and average Iraqis really start to see themselves as Iraqis first and Sunni Arabs or Shiite Arabs or Kurds second, it is inevitable that the current state model will fail.

Israel Does Not Need Peace as Long as it has America

The recent actions of the Benjamin Netanyahu government can be characterized with a good Yiddish word: chutzpah. Admittedly, the Israelis have little reason to believe that any consequences are in store, given the history of their relations with the US. And cautious optimism is still very much warranted when it comes to any analysis of the Obama administration’s Israel policy. However, recent developments are some of the best signs we have seen in years. Even if Obama is a one-termer and the next president is a staunch Israel supporter, given the blind pro-Israel stance that has been the norm in modern American foreign policy, any pressure at all on the “Jewish state” is a good thing, and should be treasured.

Israel’s government continues to engage in its despicable campaign of apartheid and oppression, no doubt expecting the full support of the American sugar daddy. The Israeli colonists and their apologists offer the fantastic notion of “natural growth” as justification for their theft of private property and eviction of innocent people. But what about the “natural growth” of the Palestinian population, which is even greater, given their higher birth rate?

The fact is that Israel does not need peace as long as it has America. The question for Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton is, how long will they have America?

Healthcare Bill Passes, Now Things Get Interesting

The Congress has finally passed their healthcare reform bill. Supposedly it will lead to universal healthcare, but as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, now that the bill has passed, we can find out what is actually in it. A number of problems with the bill can be pointed out, among them that it largely won’t actually go into effect for years, that it will likely expand the deficit (not reduce it), and that it won’t really result in truly universal healthcare.

But perhaps one of the greatest travesties of this healthcare reform bill is that it has not confronted some of the most profound issues from which the healthcare crisis in the US stems. Healthcare, like any other product, is determined by supply and demand. Partly as a result of the mind-numbing emphasis on insurance, the whole debate between right and left over the last year has focused, broadly, on the supply side of American healthcare. This is problematic for a simple reason: the real problems are on the demand side. And the demand side is informed by such phenomena as the obesity epidemic, the awful health and lifestyle of American schoolchildren, and the plethora of prescription drug advertisements. As long as issues like these and others are not adequately addressed, healthcare in the US will remain dreadfully broken, no matter who’s paying for it—the government or the private sector.

The best and most important effect of this legislation is the foundation laid for real universal healthcare, and proper financial and organizational management thereof. Within the framework of a new and improved social contract, advances will now necessarily be feasible in areas of financing and regulation. The really interesting thing to see in the years to come will be if the negative consequences of this bill overwhelm the positive effects.

The God Problem, Part 6: God is a Circle

In this sixth and final part of the series on god, consider an extension of the problem seen in Part 5. If god is defined as a being not of this reality, then nothing in this reality can be brought as evidence in favor of it. The God believer has defined himself into a corner. Since humans are creatures of this reality, and we grew up and evolved within this reality, we are inherently incapable of knowing anything beyond this reality, which means that if god exists, we cannot know it. Therefore belief in god is unwarranted, and unjustifiable. If it is unjustifiable, that means it cannot be justified, which means it cannot be accepted.

Typically, if not always, the god believer must point to some evidence, argument or idea that originates or has its basis within this natural reality as justification for the existence of god (again, because this is the only kind of thing we humans can know or understand). This inevitably leads to circular logic in that god is justified by something in natural reality; and natural reality, the religious will argue, owes its existence to god.

For example, many offer the complexity of the universe as justification for an intelligent creator. Aside from the simple invalidity of this argument in its own right*, this approach prompts a question: One knows the universe is complex, but how does one know the universe even exists in the first place? The answer the religious will give is simply that the universe was created by god. And how, in turn, does one know that god exists? The answer was already given: the complexity of the universe. Circularity. This same kind of circularity applies to every argument for the existence of god, because every argument that can be created is based on evidence or observation rooted in this natural reality. There is not a single argument that can be proposed that is not rooted in natural reality.

It is important to note that this circularity occurs because the religious will never say “the universe exists” as a first assumption. The first assumption is always that god exists. From this, it follows that the universe exists. If one starts out by assuming that the universe exists,  if one assumes this without evidence, on faith, then by definition one does not need god to explain the existence of the universe—one is already accepting the existence of the universe. For this reason, the religious should first assume that god exists, and from there it follows that the universe exists, because god created it.

So the bottom line is that god cannot be proven. The very notion of God, by definition, has ensured this. During the course of this series, we have seen why the idea of “God” is highly problematic, because of the idea of omnipotence, the definitional relationship between god and reality, the notion of the supernatural, and the logical and argumentative issues with “proving” God in the first place. There are many more issues with the idea of God that can be explored, but this series alone is reason enough not to believe. Now, after all this, I am still willing to say that there might be a divine. Just as I am willing to say that, somewhere in the universe, there might be a leprechaun, or a unicorn, or a Loch Ness monster.  But that’s not very impressive company.

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*Because something is complex, it does not follow that (1) it was created, or (2) even if it was created, that it was created by an intelligence, and (3) in fact the universe originally was not complex, and subsequently became more complex on its own.

The God Problem, Part 5: The not-so-super-natural

In Part 4 of this series, we saw that believing in natural reality is logically prior to and more fundamental than believing in the supernatural, contrary to what many religious thinkers argue. Further problems for the God believer arise when we take a closer look at the belief in the supernatural unto itself.

One major problem for those who would assume the existence of a reality beyond the one immediately perceptible to us is, why stop there? Why stop at a supernatural reality? Why not also assume the existence of a hyperreality? Or a megareality? Or an uberreality? Indeed, what is to stop us from assuming that an infinite number of ever-higher planes of existence exist, each one enveloping the previous one, like a cosmic chain of Russian dolls?

One begins to see the absurdity to which opening the door to non-natural reality leads us. And if one is to respond that, in fact, it is not absurd to assume such realities, then why does no one believe in them? Why is it only ever (1) natural reality alone, (2) supernatural reality plus natural reality, or (3) the two combined in some way? Why does no religion or belief system go on to imagine more realities and planes of existence? Perhaps it is because it violates some deep and profound intuitive idea that humans have about the nature of what exists. And that would be very telling, indeed.

One may respond that we see the evidence of just one level of supernatural reality, not of multiple planes of existence. The religious would then put forward various pieces of “evidence” that supposedly legitimate the belief in the supernatural. But this approach too raises a serious problem for the believer. The only evidence that one can offer in support of the supernatural is something that exists or occurs within natural reality. (For example, someone might cite a miraculous event as supporting evidence for the supernatural.)

But by definition, proving the supernatural is basically impossible, because “proof” only has meaning within a naturalistic frame, because all human knowledge comes in a naturalistic frame. Therefore proving the supernatural by pointing to the natural is logically untenable, if the supernatural is defined as the source of the natural. It leads to circular logic: the supernatural is proved by the natural (citing a miracle, for example); the natural is proved by the supernatural (god created the natural reality, etc); the supernatural is proved by the natural. Circular. Maybe the supernatural isn’t so “super,” after all.

The God Problem, Part 4: The Natural and the Supernatural

Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism

Since God is not of natural reality, belief in God requires belief in a supernatural reality. Generally speaking, secularist and atheist people believe that only natural reality exists, while religious people believe that both natural reality and supernatural reality exist. So which should we believe? The basic problem with either belief is that there is no evidence that can be brought to bear. We cannot “prove” that natural reality exists, for example. So one way to answer this question is to simply ask, which is more logically fundamental? That is, which option does logic command us to accept? I submit that logic requires us to accept only natural reality, and that the acceptance of natural reality alone is the default position of the human condition.

This fact can be seen in the following thought experiment: Imagine there is no natural reality. Logically, can you do that? No, because in order to imagine that natural reality does not exist, you must exist. And if you exist, then natural reality must exist. Now, imagine there is no supernatural reality. Logically, can you do that? Yes, you can. Because whether there is or is not a supernatural reality, we can imagine that there is not a supernatural reality. But if there is no natural reality, we cannot imagine that there is not a natural reality. Therefore assuming that natural reality exists is prior to, and more fundamental, than assuming that supernatural reality exists.

The assumption of the nonexistence of supernatural reality may or may not be metaphysically or actually correct. But it is logically permissible. Logic does not prevent you from making that assumption, but it does prevent you from making the assumption that natural reality does not exist.

So we see that the natural (no pun intended) and default condition of the human mind is to assume that only natural reality exists. Everything after that fundamental, un-evidenced assumption must be justified. Therefore one is legitimate in asking for evidence of some kind for God, and for the supernatural. As we shall explore later in the series, such evidence is inherently impossible, because of the nature of these things.

Further Thoughts

Now the supernaturalist may retort: “in fact, if there is no supernatural reality then we cannot imagine anything either, because natural reality comes from a supernatural force.”

This argument fails for the following reason. The issue is not where this natural reality comes from, if it comes from anywhere. That is a metaphysical question. The issue is if it is logically possible to imagine that supernatural or natural reality does not exist. This is a logical question. Logically, it is inherently impossible for us to imagine that natural reality does not exist. And this is because we are natural beings that have evolved through natural processes within this natural reality—even the religious agree on this.

We are fundamentally incapable of imagining that this natural reality does not exist. Think about it. Imagine that reality does not exist. You can’t do it. It’s not possible. The closest anyone can come to that image is closing their eyes and picturing total darkness, but that too is obviously an image of this natural reality.

It is worth mentioning that if we did not have a naturalistic basis for explaining human thought (and therefore for the process of “assuming”) then there might be some wiggle room for the supernaturalist. But since we do, since we know that everything about human thought can be explained within a naturalistic framework, it follows that only natural reality is required to explain human thought. Therefore supernatural reality is not required. Therefore the assumption of natural reality is logically prior and more fundamental to explaining human thought.

So, to sum up, naturalism or materialism is the default condition of the human mind. Therefore the burden of proof is on the supernaturalist, not the naturalist, despite the fact that the naturalist cannot provide evidence for their assumption. Again, this burden of proof for the supernaturalist is an impossible burden to bear, as we shall see later in the series.

The God Problem, Part 3: How to Disprove God in 5 Easy Steps

I am provocatively titling this little part of the series as “How to Disprove God in 5 Easy Steps.” Not literally, perhaps, but at least it would seem to further problematize the concept of “God.” Here goes nothing.

1. Everything that is real is a part of reality
2. Nothing can be a part of the thing it creates
3. God created reality
4. Therefore God is not a part of reality
5. Therefore God is not real

R.I.P. God. Now, the God-believer can take issue with #3 and say “God created all reality, except for one part—God itself.” However, it is important to note that the God-believer then is revealed as having no problem with the idea of something being uncreated; he simply has a problem with that thing being reality. The silliness of the God position would then be seen, because if we can believe in an uncreated creator of the universe, we can believe in an uncreated universe—logically, both are equally valid because both require acceptance of an “uncreated” thing. And if the God position has no logical advantage on that count, then one is under no logical obligation to accept a created universe instead of an uncreated universe.