Law Life

I went on a pretty long walk yesterday - close to 6 or 7 miles covered in about 3 hours of solitary wandering. (The temperature was around 32 - 36 on the fahrenheit scale (around 0 celsius) and it was partially sunny.) One of the things that walk did was it gave me a lot of time to think. So between today and tomorrow, the blog is going to see around 3 - 4 posts, including a photo album.

For the record, I feel the onset of the kind of mood that saw me write those posts on politics and economics (Read Moving the People, Socialism - An Opinion, and three prior posts on Globalization - One, Two, and Three)... in summum, my "welfare state" posts are around the corner - this post is setting those up...

It's actually two posts in one. The first part comprises some ponderings on justice and mercy which are the preamble to the welfare posts. The second part (kind of related to the first) comprises ponderings on life in general - in other words, that's where I'm being a vague bastard as usual... I would've posted them separately, but have no patience for that. Haven't really blogged for 9 days or more, and now there's too much thought pent up...

A. Law - Natural and Artificial

Perhaps the greatest leap of what we call 'civilization' is the abolition or amendment to a degree, of the natural law of the survival of the fittest. The effect of this law is being removed at many levels in the aggregation we call society. Take for instance a schoolyard brawl.

Consider the reason a teacher protects the frail or puny kids from the inevitable bully. For 'survival of the fittest' to take it course would mean a black eye (or worse) for most of these protected children. But society recognizes that each one of us has our strengths and our weaknesses, and the whole point behind coming out of the trees and into family/ tribe/ village/ city units has been for human beings to take care of each other - to survive by pooling our strengths and shielding our weaknesses.

The teacher's reason - arguably the intent behind most human endeavor, has been to ensure our survival and proliferation, and that means the survival of the very 'weakest' of our kin. The bully must be stopped, lest he destroys any future hopes that depend on the child being bullied. You need only to think for a minute or so about what are perceived as the greatest sins a man can commit to see how these sins reflect the exact opposites of perceived human virtue. In the way these sins are treated by 'artificial law', we can also see how ingrained the idea of mercy toward the weak is in our social apparatus.

Some Cardinal Sins

Murder - did that come to your mind as the worst of human sins? It comes close, since killing off members of your own species does not serve the interests of survival... but there is one worse. Cannibalism. It is the ultimate taboo - right alongside Incest. Because we cannot survive if we eat ourselves up, and we cannot survive if we breed inward. This aversion is not limited to mankind, but can be observed across much of the animal kingdom (with notable exceptions of course).

Or consider the crime of rape - that is a curious override of our most basic instincts. The 'fitness' law would state that the strongest amongst us has the right to procreate with whoever he or she fancies, whether the other party wishes it or not. (Let the other party use what power they possess to stop it if they like!)

The problem with letting that take its course is twofold - first of all, sex is much more personal to us humans than to the average mammal. We've elevated it from a method of procreation to something far more hallowed - it is an industry, an entertainment, and most certainly a most personal form of expressing affection/ commitment.

Secondly, unlike any species before us we have come up with many measures of, for lack of a better word, sexiness... going far beyond appearance and perceived physical fitness/ appearance (which still matter more than we would like to admit). What's more, these attributes are usually not comparable - the potency of a physical brute and that of a genius cannot be put on a relational scale. So the goon is in some ways rated just as highly as the genius who can craft a melody, or the tinker who can build a light bulb - depending on who's judging, and in what context.

The condemnation of rape is an assertion on one level that each individual should be able to decide freely who he or she wants to procreate with - and that sex must be consensual. But it is not solely that; it is also a sophisticated instance of the 'survival of the fittest' law, accepting that the average human being has a metaphysical (in the literal sense) interpretation of another's "fitness to procreate".

Law - Social Lubricant

The override of natural law with a law better suited to the more abstract, communal level of existence we have evolved into was perhaps the primary intent of artificial law. It embodies the recognition of value in an individual beyond the purely physical, and it asserts that mercy is what makes us truly human.

Religion in particular has played a huge role in preaching behavior that enables society to flourish and bind. Most religions promise an ultimate accounting at the end where breaking laws - human or 'god given' - which are essential for society to function, will mean damnation and the inferno for the criminal.

Indeed, all forms of breaking the law - 'crimes' - are looked at with revulsion, looked at as a form of atavism by some. But law is more than a comment on what we perceive as unacceptable behavior. It is just as often a positive measure that lays down standards of behavior that would make society itself feasible. As with all other things, we have managed to elevate law and 'right behavior' to something far beyond their intent and nature.

Law, Mercy and Induction

Law embodies justice. Religion, the progenitor of law in several cases, embodies benevolence and mercy. All in all, for society to function at its best we need to be understanding, compassionate and merciful. Right? Absolutely, I agree.

Now let me talk for just a second about one of the many tools we have in the armory of philosophy; the tool of induction. It originates in mathematics. Prove a principle on a particular set of numbers, and you will find hints to a larger trend true for perhaps the universal set. Prove a theory in a micro-model, and you may have a way to build the macro-view. Here's an inductive proposition then, which to me seems to lie at the heart of the argument for a welfare state:

Proposition: Mercy is a personal virtue, and giving alms to the needy is good. Inductive inference: It is the duty of the government to ensure a certain standard of living for all its citizens.

The advocates of a welfare state seem to rely on this rather flawed argument. And here's the flaw... There is a difference between mercy and justice. If mercy were the only way, justice would not necessarily be served. And the intent of law, of governance, was ever justice; not mercy. But we'll get to that in a little bit... Coming Soon - Welfare States - (1)...

:)

B. Life - Beautiful?

(Humor me while I get this argument out of my system - it isn't really an argument, more of a rant... not entirely sure where it was born or what it will birth)

Here's one way of looking at it: Life is beautiful. Life is the highest virtue. Life is good. Here's another: Life is tiresome. Life is destructive and chaotic. Life is evil.

You choose.

I've thought along these lines before in a post called "Dark's Side" almost a year ago. But of late this thought is buzzing around in my head like an irritating and tireless bug. I've spent an entire life believing that 'life' - sentience or self-consciousness or whatever - is an absolute good. What if it isn't?

We humans seem to believe that life is an opportunity to 'do good' or 'to grow' or 'to learn' or to 'be kind to others' or some such positive. The average dinosaur seemed to be interested only in survival, reproduction and the avoidance of pain. Our higher functions - the imagination and illusion that drives our daily lives - and our hubris that the universe somehow exists for (if not because of) us aside, whatever gave us the idea that life, and more specifically humanity, is good?

We teach our children kindness and benevolence and mercy. Billions are spent worldwide recreating pleasant parks and zoos so we can get back in touch with nature. We walk over to the tame cat or the tied up zebra, pet them, and coo about how beautiful and bountiful nature is. We look at photographs of - or go to - secluded islands to feel at one with nature. We wake up in the morning and feel the fresh breeze or a light rain and are delighted.

But the world is a brutal place and before long we are teaching our kids that they have to stand up for themselves and screw others. Throughout evolution we have sought to escape the very wilderness these parks simulate. Given a chance at dominion no species is going to be subservient to another - love is an overhyped human emotion and rather alien to the average hungry shark. Nature is as full of wrath as it is bountiful. We are liable to starve and die on that idyllic island if it weren't for all the supplies back in the boat. The same fresh breeze that we enjoy or the rain we delight at are both capable of killing us...

The universe seems first and foremost an unfeeling, brutal arena. It has no regard for me, for you, or for the poor hurt doggie dying by the side of the road. Shit happens, we tell each other, but the truth is what's happening isn't shit to anyone but us.

The stars and planets, the rivers of magma, the aggressive species of flora and fauna, the winds borne of pressure and temperature differences caused in the fickle atmosphere - all of that crap will go on with our without human beings. Why then, are we so darn important? What makes us good?

What makes any of life good or evil? Isn't it all just neutral?