My second year of boarding school, I was deeply depressed. I cried many times a day. Life seemed to difficult to bear. I was harming myself. Yet my journal entries always read, "I'm so happy, because happiness is doing the will of God, so even if I don't always feel it, I'm happy because I'm in Your will."
That's how I feel reading this week's spate of blog posts in which people admit how hard it is to practice the Church's moral teaching. None of this is any news to me -- not only have I lived it, but I hang around in the secret parts of the internet where we've been admitting it for years. It's HARD. And not lifting-weights hard, but single-handedly-hosting-Thanksgiving-with-walking-pneumonia hard. The kind of hard that doesn't make you stronger, but wears you out.
Some people find NFP difficult because their marriage is struggling, their spouse isn't really on board, he's turning to porn because he isn't willing to abstain as much as the method requires. Some people find it hard because they can't figure out what their body is doing -- I know people who abstain for months in a row because their body isn't doing what the method said it should. Some people find it hard because their method is impossible for them -- like the way my kids steal my thermometer from under my pillow or crawl in bed with me at three a.m. so that by the time I get up in the morning, I'm an oven. Some people find it hard because they're poor, and it's pretty miserable to realize that you can't afford to be intimate with your spouse because it would mean having to buy a van instead of repairing the hazards in your house.
Whatever the reason, it's just seriously rough. NFP fails a lot, not because the methods don't work, but because people have trouble following the methods. So you see a lot of people in poverty with six kids who have to constantly deal with being told they're irresponsible, when in reality they were trying to be responsible, the only way the Church allows. Or a woman whose uterus has severe damage from multiple c-sections, being chastised by her doctor because she's risking her life -- she knows that! There's getting pregnant with one baby before the post-partum depression has worn off from the last one. There's spending a whole pregnancy in tears because you don't know how you'll manage -- I've experienced that one.
And it's not just personal suffering, which you can sometimes brush off -- it's the knowledge that you're failing your kids. Seeing their needs -- healthy food, medical care, speech therapy, more time with you, more time with dad, a place to sleep -- and knowing that you can't actually take care of them all. You don't want to brush these things off because you want to care. It's your job to care. But you can't fix it.
My forums always re-run the same questions, over and over. There's "How can I get the baby to sleep when I have a noisy toddler?" (I wish I knew.) And, "One of my kids is acting out, I know more attention would help, but I don't have that. What ELSE can I try?" And, "I'm due with a new baby soon but the old baby is still not sleeping through the night." And, "I'm exhausted literally all the time, is there a cure for this besides getting more sleep at night?" And, "I'm pregnant sooner than I hoped, how can I joyfully accept this?"
The answer is, it's hard. It's dang hard and it's okay for you to admit that it's hard but it's not ever okay for you to give up, because even though God loves you, he isn't going to save you from this.
I'm glad they seem to have quit with the over-advertising, where we were promised miraculous draughts of fishes every time we got pregnant; children who blossomed with every new baby added to the family; marriages that grew closer; feelings of faith and serenity. That was too much to expect, and it was unfair to promise it, knowing that it's only after we've had the babies that we find out they aren't really born with a loaf of bread in their hands. We were told people always managed before birth control, but in reality it was probably extremely hard for them too. That's why birth control was such a hit in the first place!
I just wonder, with all of that, what people are to think about being Catholic. "Join us! You'll cry a lot, but through your tears you'll have a sense of meaning, and that will make it all worthwhile!" Or they could try, "Be Catholic! God makes a lot of rules for us to follow that sometimes result in misery for some undisclosed percentage of people!"
I know, I know. Heaven. If you really, firmly, fervently believe in heaven, you're going to stick with the rules no matter what. But for me it only makes me ask the question, why would God make this rule in the first place? Is it utterly beyond his power to make things a little less hellish here on earth?
I don't have a nice conclusion for this. This teaching wasn't exactly on the list of reasons for my doubt -- I don't want to use birth control. But it is the reason many Catholics leave, and it makes sense. Not, "I'm leaving because I want permission to use birth control." But, "I'm leaving because I feel very strongly that God doesn't, couldn't, command this much suffering." And it seems as good a rationale as any.
But I would say to these brave, honest bloggers that maybe they should come up with some sort of argument against this, if they want to keep it up. Because as it is, the comments section is full of, "But then what SHOULD we do?!" And there is no real answer to this. The answer "pretend you're happy with it, because it's the best you're going to get" was actually kind of logical. Just like I did in boarding school, sometimes it hurts less to cry than it does to admit you're unhappy.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Sunday, November 1, 2015
You can't be too careful
I've been a little cagey on this blog about anything that might actually deconvert anyone. Losing your faith is hard, and until you're actually in that situation, you might not be aware of how many parts of your life would be affected.
But it occurs to me that I shouldn't be taking that burden on myself. After all, it isn't my job to make sure you stay Catholic. It's yours. And I have to warn you: if the most important thing in your life is to stay Catholic, you can't be too careful. There are dangers everywhere. I ought to know.
For instance, it's well known that comparative religion courses destroy people's faith. It can be a big blow to find out that other people believe things you know are wrong, but feel just as sure about them as you do. You find yourself wondering how you can be sure yours are right and theirs are wrong. So don't study other religions, except apologetics books that show you how to respond to them.
Going to college at all correlates with loss of faith too. There's a lot of discussion about why that is, but to be safe, you'd probably better not go to college if you haven't already.
Even using the internet correlates with loss of faith. So maybe you shouldn't just give up this blog, but all blogs. It's possible that by carefully clicking on Catholic links only, you can stay safe, but I should warn you that I did try this and it didn't work for me.
We all know having a non-religious parent makes you more likely to disbelieve. Of course you can't help that, but you can do your best to pick a spouse who believes exactly what you do and hope they won't change their mind. That will give your kids a fair shot at keeping their faith.
It's much easier to believe when all your friends do, too. Harness that positive peer pressure and drop your unbelieving friends. They might give you the impression that unbelievers can be as virtuous or more than Christians, or mention an argument you can't answer.
Don't be methodical about the way you think, at least not in a scientific, empirical sort of way. If you get in the habit of expecting your beliefs to come from evidence, of changing your mind when you learn new information, of listening carefully to the cognitive biases that may be affecting the way you think, you might start expecting your religion to meet the same standard.
If you have kids, you should probably make sure to be very strict and harsh with them. If you breastfeed them, like I did, you won't be able to spank them because you're too attached, and that will drive you to read liberal namby-pamby parenting books and websites. Do that, and you'll realize kindness and freedom work so much better than threats and punishments. And once you've come to that conclusion, you'll find yourself asking, What the heck was God doing throughout the whole Old Testament?
Don't buy into secular notions like liberty, religious freedom, or equality. You'll notice that the Church hasn't always been fans of any of them, and in fact it's arguable that it's still a bit suspicious of these ideas. To be a Catholic without doubts, you're going to have to accept that slavery and forced conversion are, at the very least, not a huge deal.
Don't study history, at least not thoroughly. If you do, you'll learn the level of independent historical attestation that's necessary to confirm past events, and you'll find that the Gospel accounts fall quite short of this. You can still choose to believe, but it will be made more difficult.
Pray, of course. It will help. But don't get too serious about your faith either, because if you take it really seriously, you'll realize that there is no excuse for spending any of your time and energy on worldly things when eternity hangs in the balance. You'll start nitpicking ever smaller and smaller things you do, and the motivations behind what you do, and develop scrupulosity -- a disease no one outside of religion ever gets. That will encourage you to abandon your faith because you can't be "balanced" about something that matters this much.
Don't read the bible too much, at least not without a guide to help you. God's inerrant word is very dangerous and hard to understand. It might be best not to read theological books either, because some church teachings look like the opposites of other ones.
If something seems contradictory, don't admit that, even to yourself. Say that you are too stupid and uneducated to understand it, and seek out someone to explain it to you. Don't google it or you might get the wrong kind of answers.
And whatever you do, never read anything that amounts to anti-apologetics. Read The Case for Christ, and don't ever google "answers to The Case for Christ." Read Peter Kreeft and no Richard Dawkins. That sort of thing. Never click on anything with the word "atheist" in the title. Some people say it's a sin, and anyway, do you want to take the chance it might convince you?
* * *
However: if your main goal is to believe what is true and do what is right, rather than to remain in the religion you are currently in no matter what -- if the reason you stay Catholic is because you think it is good and true -- then you don't need to worry about any of the above. If the Catholic faith is true, it can handle exposure to any new information or argument. As people used to tell me, the Truth is a lion, it doesn't need to be defended. You don't have to try to believe what is apparent.
Sure, if you make seeking the truth your first value, above staying Catholic, you run the risk that in the case they conflict, you'll have to leave the faith you love and find fulfillment in. That will break your heart. But that's only true if the Church is wrong. If you're sure it's right, you don't have to be afraid. You could read all the stuff that I've read, which made me think the things I currently think, and then keep searching till you've satisfied yourself that I am wrong. The information has to be out there.
The question you should answer, right now, is this: if the Church were wrong, would you want to know? If the answer is no, you can't be too careful.
But it occurs to me that I shouldn't be taking that burden on myself. After all, it isn't my job to make sure you stay Catholic. It's yours. And I have to warn you: if the most important thing in your life is to stay Catholic, you can't be too careful. There are dangers everywhere. I ought to know.
For instance, it's well known that comparative religion courses destroy people's faith. It can be a big blow to find out that other people believe things you know are wrong, but feel just as sure about them as you do. You find yourself wondering how you can be sure yours are right and theirs are wrong. So don't study other religions, except apologetics books that show you how to respond to them.
Going to college at all correlates with loss of faith too. There's a lot of discussion about why that is, but to be safe, you'd probably better not go to college if you haven't already.
Even using the internet correlates with loss of faith. So maybe you shouldn't just give up this blog, but all blogs. It's possible that by carefully clicking on Catholic links only, you can stay safe, but I should warn you that I did try this and it didn't work for me.
We all know having a non-religious parent makes you more likely to disbelieve. Of course you can't help that, but you can do your best to pick a spouse who believes exactly what you do and hope they won't change their mind. That will give your kids a fair shot at keeping their faith.
It's much easier to believe when all your friends do, too. Harness that positive peer pressure and drop your unbelieving friends. They might give you the impression that unbelievers can be as virtuous or more than Christians, or mention an argument you can't answer.
Don't be methodical about the way you think, at least not in a scientific, empirical sort of way. If you get in the habit of expecting your beliefs to come from evidence, of changing your mind when you learn new information, of listening carefully to the cognitive biases that may be affecting the way you think, you might start expecting your religion to meet the same standard.
If you have kids, you should probably make sure to be very strict and harsh with them. If you breastfeed them, like I did, you won't be able to spank them because you're too attached, and that will drive you to read liberal namby-pamby parenting books and websites. Do that, and you'll realize kindness and freedom work so much better than threats and punishments. And once you've come to that conclusion, you'll find yourself asking, What the heck was God doing throughout the whole Old Testament?
Don't buy into secular notions like liberty, religious freedom, or equality. You'll notice that the Church hasn't always been fans of any of them, and in fact it's arguable that it's still a bit suspicious of these ideas. To be a Catholic without doubts, you're going to have to accept that slavery and forced conversion are, at the very least, not a huge deal.
Don't study history, at least not thoroughly. If you do, you'll learn the level of independent historical attestation that's necessary to confirm past events, and you'll find that the Gospel accounts fall quite short of this. You can still choose to believe, but it will be made more difficult.
Pray, of course. It will help. But don't get too serious about your faith either, because if you take it really seriously, you'll realize that there is no excuse for spending any of your time and energy on worldly things when eternity hangs in the balance. You'll start nitpicking ever smaller and smaller things you do, and the motivations behind what you do, and develop scrupulosity -- a disease no one outside of religion ever gets. That will encourage you to abandon your faith because you can't be "balanced" about something that matters this much.
Don't read the bible too much, at least not without a guide to help you. God's inerrant word is very dangerous and hard to understand. It might be best not to read theological books either, because some church teachings look like the opposites of other ones.
If something seems contradictory, don't admit that, even to yourself. Say that you are too stupid and uneducated to understand it, and seek out someone to explain it to you. Don't google it or you might get the wrong kind of answers.
And whatever you do, never read anything that amounts to anti-apologetics. Read The Case for Christ, and don't ever google "answers to The Case for Christ." Read Peter Kreeft and no Richard Dawkins. That sort of thing. Never click on anything with the word "atheist" in the title. Some people say it's a sin, and anyway, do you want to take the chance it might convince you?
* * *
However: if your main goal is to believe what is true and do what is right, rather than to remain in the religion you are currently in no matter what -- if the reason you stay Catholic is because you think it is good and true -- then you don't need to worry about any of the above. If the Catholic faith is true, it can handle exposure to any new information or argument. As people used to tell me, the Truth is a lion, it doesn't need to be defended. You don't have to try to believe what is apparent.
Sure, if you make seeking the truth your first value, above staying Catholic, you run the risk that in the case they conflict, you'll have to leave the faith you love and find fulfillment in. That will break your heart. But that's only true if the Church is wrong. If you're sure it's right, you don't have to be afraid. You could read all the stuff that I've read, which made me think the things I currently think, and then keep searching till you've satisfied yourself that I am wrong. The information has to be out there.
The question you should answer, right now, is this: if the Church were wrong, would you want to know? If the answer is no, you can't be too careful.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Babies and time
A peek inside the mind of an anxious mother: I have trouble deleting photos of my kids. It can be out of focus, blurred from motion, dark, but I'm still going to keep it. I'm afraid that child will die and all I will have will be my pictures of them. What if that blurry picture is all I have left of Michael's "crazy face"?
When I was thinking this, though, I realized Michael doesn't even do his crazy face anymore. I still have Michael, but I don't have that Michael. So I'm stuck with the blurry pictures anyway.
Above is baby Marko. I don't have baby Marko in my life anymore. I have five-year-old Marko, but that's not very similar. He isn't that size, shape, ability level, or appearance. He doesn't remember being that baby. The things I loved about him -- his smell, his tiny little hands, his milk-drunk face -- are gone.
Anyone that we love may change. We reassure ourselves by reminding ourselves of the things that didn't change. They changed their hair, but they're the same personality. They changed their opinions, but they kept the moral anchor that helps them choose their opinions. And of course, they remember our history together and all our in-jokes.
But babies? They change completely. There is pretty much nothing about them that stays the same over time.
That's why the love of a mother is so special. With anyone else who loves us, we can say, truthfully or not, "They only love X about me. They only love Y. They might stop loving me if I changed." We fear that. But our mother, we know is going to love us no matter how we change, because we've already changed drastically and they still love us. That's why we talk of a "face only a mother could love." Everyone deserves this kind of love, and there's nothing worse than growing up without it, as some do.
A mother strings together the disparate points in time, the different selves the child is, and chooses to love the substance of the child -- the whole changing thing they are. I love Marko because he was once that tiny baby, and because he is such a joy at five, and because someday he will be a grown man who doesn't remember as much about his own story as I do. And because each day has led into the next day, so that while he changes, I also change, and each of us strings together these days into our lives -- the love remaining constant. But most of all, because he is him, and he is a person I made up my mind to love.
I miss his baby-self, and Michael's crazy face, and Miriam's tiny little feet. But it doesn't really matter, because my love has grown with them to find new things about them to love, every day.
When I was thinking this, though, I realized Michael doesn't even do his crazy face anymore. I still have Michael, but I don't have that Michael. So I'm stuck with the blurry pictures anyway.
Above is baby Marko. I don't have baby Marko in my life anymore. I have five-year-old Marko, but that's not very similar. He isn't that size, shape, ability level, or appearance. He doesn't remember being that baby. The things I loved about him -- his smell, his tiny little hands, his milk-drunk face -- are gone.
Anyone that we love may change. We reassure ourselves by reminding ourselves of the things that didn't change. They changed their hair, but they're the same personality. They changed their opinions, but they kept the moral anchor that helps them choose their opinions. And of course, they remember our history together and all our in-jokes.
But babies? They change completely. There is pretty much nothing about them that stays the same over time.
That's why the love of a mother is so special. With anyone else who loves us, we can say, truthfully or not, "They only love X about me. They only love Y. They might stop loving me if I changed." We fear that. But our mother, we know is going to love us no matter how we change, because we've already changed drastically and they still love us. That's why we talk of a "face only a mother could love." Everyone deserves this kind of love, and there's nothing worse than growing up without it, as some do.
A mother strings together the disparate points in time, the different selves the child is, and chooses to love the substance of the child -- the whole changing thing they are. I love Marko because he was once that tiny baby, and because he is such a joy at five, and because someday he will be a grown man who doesn't remember as much about his own story as I do. And because each day has led into the next day, so that while he changes, I also change, and each of us strings together these days into our lives -- the love remaining constant. But most of all, because he is him, and he is a person I made up my mind to love.
I miss his baby-self, and Michael's crazy face, and Miriam's tiny little feet. But it doesn't really matter, because my love has grown with them to find new things about them to love, every day.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Life is complicated
The human mind is good at making sense of all kinds of things. Clouds, random statistics, inkblots. It's always a bit of a struggle, trying to sort out the things that make sense to me from the things that actually make sense.
Conspiracy theories are a good example of this. It feels really good to take a dozen random facts and fit them into a connecting pattern. Nothing sticks out, nothing is meaningless or random. We like things that make sense.
Other ideologies do this too. When I was reading up on agrarianism, everything seemed connected to agriculture. Unemployment? It's because their ancestors sold the family farm. Epidemic of depression? Too little exposure to nature! Health problems in this country could all be traced to overconsumption of processed corn products.
And it's not like these things are totally unconnected. There is a real relationship I was seeing. But it was always tempting to paper over the things that didn't fit -- the Facebook friend whose husband profitably manages a commodity corn farm, the joy a friend has working in technology and rarely going outdoors, the way I really do love the taste of Taco Bell burritos. They made the pattern less beautiful and so I didn't want to acknowledge those things.
Libertarianism was another, for awhile. Libertarianism can connect to agrarianism, as I spent a lot of time working out, but there were moments they did clash, and it made me feel uncomfortable sometimes. For instance, when reading Fast Food Nation, I could see that the sustainable food movement had nothing at all to do with a right-left dichotomy. Sometimes the big food lobby got Democrats to vote for increased regulation to drive out their smaller competitors, and other times they got Republicans to vote for decreased regulation so they could get away with some shady business practices. It felt like they were using people's interest in the question of "more vs. less government" to manipulate them to back certain things.
I realized that more vs. less government is a line, but the right policies are a picture, a picture which sometimes calls for government action and sometimes not. In general I still feel that people neglect the possibility of solving problems without government, and underestimate the negative side effects which always crop up when you use a blunt instrument like government to solve problems, but that doesn't mean that you can answer all questions with a simple "just legalize/deregulate it!" There are some problems that won't be solved without government. All but the most radical libertarians acknowledge this, but it is a good deal harder to keep this in mind than I would have thought.
It's occurred to me that habits of mind like this -- of seeing everything along a single axis, "more or less government," or "conventional or alternative medicine," or "conservative or liberal" -- are very tempting and very problematic. It leads us to team up with others who see things on the same axis, which makes it even more tempting to focus only on the things that match the pattern and ignore all the ones that don't. That's why libertarians are always so sure that food stamps aren't really necessary (because if they are, then federal involvement in them is justified) and alternative medicine proponents don't want to hear about scarlet fever and atheists think all Christians believe the earth is 6,000 years old. It's simple, it's easy, it allows you to keep seeing the pattern you think the world is.
I wish I knew the cure. For now, I just remind myself often: any time I notice that everything seems to be fitting into one unified pattern, I should look around for the pokey bits that aren't popping into place. They're there, my mind just has trouble seeing them.
Conspiracy theories are a good example of this. It feels really good to take a dozen random facts and fit them into a connecting pattern. Nothing sticks out, nothing is meaningless or random. We like things that make sense.
Other ideologies do this too. When I was reading up on agrarianism, everything seemed connected to agriculture. Unemployment? It's because their ancestors sold the family farm. Epidemic of depression? Too little exposure to nature! Health problems in this country could all be traced to overconsumption of processed corn products.
And it's not like these things are totally unconnected. There is a real relationship I was seeing. But it was always tempting to paper over the things that didn't fit -- the Facebook friend whose husband profitably manages a commodity corn farm, the joy a friend has working in technology and rarely going outdoors, the way I really do love the taste of Taco Bell burritos. They made the pattern less beautiful and so I didn't want to acknowledge those things.
Libertarianism was another, for awhile. Libertarianism can connect to agrarianism, as I spent a lot of time working out, but there were moments they did clash, and it made me feel uncomfortable sometimes. For instance, when reading Fast Food Nation, I could see that the sustainable food movement had nothing at all to do with a right-left dichotomy. Sometimes the big food lobby got Democrats to vote for increased regulation to drive out their smaller competitors, and other times they got Republicans to vote for decreased regulation so they could get away with some shady business practices. It felt like they were using people's interest in the question of "more vs. less government" to manipulate them to back certain things.
I realized that more vs. less government is a line, but the right policies are a picture, a picture which sometimes calls for government action and sometimes not. In general I still feel that people neglect the possibility of solving problems without government, and underestimate the negative side effects which always crop up when you use a blunt instrument like government to solve problems, but that doesn't mean that you can answer all questions with a simple "just legalize/deregulate it!" There are some problems that won't be solved without government. All but the most radical libertarians acknowledge this, but it is a good deal harder to keep this in mind than I would have thought.
It's occurred to me that habits of mind like this -- of seeing everything along a single axis, "more or less government," or "conventional or alternative medicine," or "conservative or liberal" -- are very tempting and very problematic. It leads us to team up with others who see things on the same axis, which makes it even more tempting to focus only on the things that match the pattern and ignore all the ones that don't. That's why libertarians are always so sure that food stamps aren't really necessary (because if they are, then federal involvement in them is justified) and alternative medicine proponents don't want to hear about scarlet fever and atheists think all Christians believe the earth is 6,000 years old. It's simple, it's easy, it allows you to keep seeing the pattern you think the world is.
I wish I knew the cure. For now, I just remind myself often: any time I notice that everything seems to be fitting into one unified pattern, I should look around for the pokey bits that aren't popping into place. They're there, my mind just has trouble seeing them.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Freedom vs. friends
In college I had a cranky theology professor with white hair and a white beard who occasionally did an impression of a three-year-old. He called it the Ego Shriek. He sat on his desk and kicked his legs whining, "I want playmates! But I want everything to go my way! But I want playmates!"
He explained that this is how we all are. We desire relationship with others, but we don't like the perpetual downside -- other people are free agents who aren't going to always do what we like.
Certainly my three-year-old does it all the time. "I want to play with Marko! But I want to go outside! But Marko won't come outside with me!" Sorry, bucko, looks like you've got some tough choices to make.
When I was a kid I dreamed of a soul mate, a bosom friend, perhaps a sister. The Diana to my Anne Shirley, the Tacy to my Betsy Ray. She was going to like all the things I liked and want to play with me all the time, except when I wanted to be alone. Because I didn't get out much, I believed in this ideal for a long time.
Eventually, though, I discovered that no one is ever everything you want them to be. If you select your friends based on having a maximum number of things in common with you, that's great -- till they inevitably change. If you respect their freedom to change, your freedom is now constrained -- you no longer have the choice you had before, to be friends with this person while also sharing a certain number of things in common with your friend. You sacrifice your desire to share those things with your best friend, or you go find a new best friend. Each of these is a sacrifice; they both hurt.
It's the same with groups. My alma mater was a lovely place when it came to community spirit. There were all these people who agreed with me on everything really important. We had a solid ground to build stuff on! But there wasn't a lot of freedom, because there were many things you couldn't really question. When I question those things, as I do these days, those same people don't like it. Why? Well, obviously I'm threatening the great thing they have -- a community that shares the same ideas. They're then faced with a choice -- to keep their friendbase uniform (which is great, it means you can talk about all those commonalities) or to remain faithful to me as a person. I'm forcing that choice by exercising my freedom.
Organizations that have strict rules -- that are more culty, in a sense -- are often more stable. People invest in them more. Loose clubs have people always coming and going; cults have dedicated members because it's hard to leave. You can't get all the benefits of a cult without giving up some of your freedom -- the "bad parts" of cults are features, not bugs.
Our whole society has mostly chosen freedom over community. Many people I knew wish they lived near family that would help with their kids. But they don't want to live near family, really -- they want to work in a certain field, or live in a certain place, and that's why they don't live near family. They chose freedom over living near family. We also choose freedom in career choice over family businesses most of the time, which is why you don't hear of many family businesses that last more than a generation or two. Family farms don't last, because the father wanted to farm but the son doesn't. Then when the grandson comes along, he wants to farm, but the farm isn't there for him, because his father exercised his freedom and sold it.
But I wonder sometimes if we don't overemphasize freedom, to the detriment of community. People don't want to hang out with their neighbors because they are used to choosing friends based on shared interests or values -- but then you can't be friends with your neighbors, because they're selected more or less randomly and might not have anything in common with you. Every playgroup I try to start or join ends up falling prey to the old problem of, "I didn't feel like going this week." Every single member would like to have the choice to not show up one week, so they don't commit to going. And then no one wants to go because they're afraid no one else will show up. In order for a group to be successful, at least some of the members, some of the time, have to show up when they don't feel like it.
I have been told I should never hang out with a friend unless I want to, I should bail on a social event if I don't feel up to it. But if everyone did that, when would anyone hang out with each other? I have read articles explaining that introverts are tough nuts to crack and therefore the extrovert in the relationship should do all of the effort to make the relationship happen. But why would they want to do that? I'm sure we'd all love it if we had a friend who planned everything for us, called to invite us, and then (when we said no fifty percent of the time) just kept asking and asking because they like us so very much. But I, for one, would feel like a terrible friend if I treated someone that way. They'd think I didn't like them.
Marriage is the ultimate in friendship, and also comes with the least freedom. You want the freedom to change after getting married, but your spouse is going to exercise the same freedom. They might not be exactly the person you married, ten years down the road. You agree to love them anyway, which is a sacrifice of your freedom to go find someone more suited to the ways you've changed. (And mind you, I'm not saying no one ever has a good reason to get a divorce, but I'm talking about the ideal of marriage.) But in return for that tradeoff, you get that magical thing everyone wants -- a bosom friend, someone who likes you for you and not for specific attributes that might change later, someone who isn't going to ditch you when you change.
For better or worse, friendship requires some sacrifice of freedom. It's unfortunate in some ways, because we do have a strong desire for those special friendships where we can do what we like and still have someone to do it with. And certainly there are times and people and places where very little sacrifice is required -- that friend who really is as obsessed with Firefly as you, the spouse who changes to become more like you rather than less, the online forum where people come and go but you are guaranteed to get to talk about your pet topic all the time.
But in another way, I think it's almost a perk, because you show love to others when you sacrifice a little of your freedom for them. You go play outside with your brother because he wants to, and that tells your brother that you care more about being with him than about doing what you want. You keep up with a friend even though they aren't into Lord of the Rings anymore, because after all these years you love them, not your shared interests. And you always get that primary choice -- how far do you want to go for your friends? You can set the balance where you want.
He explained that this is how we all are. We desire relationship with others, but we don't like the perpetual downside -- other people are free agents who aren't going to always do what we like.
Certainly my three-year-old does it all the time. "I want to play with Marko! But I want to go outside! But Marko won't come outside with me!" Sorry, bucko, looks like you've got some tough choices to make.
When I was a kid I dreamed of a soul mate, a bosom friend, perhaps a sister. The Diana to my Anne Shirley, the Tacy to my Betsy Ray. She was going to like all the things I liked and want to play with me all the time, except when I wanted to be alone. Because I didn't get out much, I believed in this ideal for a long time.
Eventually, though, I discovered that no one is ever everything you want them to be. If you select your friends based on having a maximum number of things in common with you, that's great -- till they inevitably change. If you respect their freedom to change, your freedom is now constrained -- you no longer have the choice you had before, to be friends with this person while also sharing a certain number of things in common with your friend. You sacrifice your desire to share those things with your best friend, or you go find a new best friend. Each of these is a sacrifice; they both hurt.
It's the same with groups. My alma mater was a lovely place when it came to community spirit. There were all these people who agreed with me on everything really important. We had a solid ground to build stuff on! But there wasn't a lot of freedom, because there were many things you couldn't really question. When I question those things, as I do these days, those same people don't like it. Why? Well, obviously I'm threatening the great thing they have -- a community that shares the same ideas. They're then faced with a choice -- to keep their friendbase uniform (which is great, it means you can talk about all those commonalities) or to remain faithful to me as a person. I'm forcing that choice by exercising my freedom.
Organizations that have strict rules -- that are more culty, in a sense -- are often more stable. People invest in them more. Loose clubs have people always coming and going; cults have dedicated members because it's hard to leave. You can't get all the benefits of a cult without giving up some of your freedom -- the "bad parts" of cults are features, not bugs.
Our whole society has mostly chosen freedom over community. Many people I knew wish they lived near family that would help with their kids. But they don't want to live near family, really -- they want to work in a certain field, or live in a certain place, and that's why they don't live near family. They chose freedom over living near family. We also choose freedom in career choice over family businesses most of the time, which is why you don't hear of many family businesses that last more than a generation or two. Family farms don't last, because the father wanted to farm but the son doesn't. Then when the grandson comes along, he wants to farm, but the farm isn't there for him, because his father exercised his freedom and sold it.
But I wonder sometimes if we don't overemphasize freedom, to the detriment of community. People don't want to hang out with their neighbors because they are used to choosing friends based on shared interests or values -- but then you can't be friends with your neighbors, because they're selected more or less randomly and might not have anything in common with you. Every playgroup I try to start or join ends up falling prey to the old problem of, "I didn't feel like going this week." Every single member would like to have the choice to not show up one week, so they don't commit to going. And then no one wants to go because they're afraid no one else will show up. In order for a group to be successful, at least some of the members, some of the time, have to show up when they don't feel like it.
I have been told I should never hang out with a friend unless I want to, I should bail on a social event if I don't feel up to it. But if everyone did that, when would anyone hang out with each other? I have read articles explaining that introverts are tough nuts to crack and therefore the extrovert in the relationship should do all of the effort to make the relationship happen. But why would they want to do that? I'm sure we'd all love it if we had a friend who planned everything for us, called to invite us, and then (when we said no fifty percent of the time) just kept asking and asking because they like us so very much. But I, for one, would feel like a terrible friend if I treated someone that way. They'd think I didn't like them.
Marriage is the ultimate in friendship, and also comes with the least freedom. You want the freedom to change after getting married, but your spouse is going to exercise the same freedom. They might not be exactly the person you married, ten years down the road. You agree to love them anyway, which is a sacrifice of your freedom to go find someone more suited to the ways you've changed. (And mind you, I'm not saying no one ever has a good reason to get a divorce, but I'm talking about the ideal of marriage.) But in return for that tradeoff, you get that magical thing everyone wants -- a bosom friend, someone who likes you for you and not for specific attributes that might change later, someone who isn't going to ditch you when you change.
For better or worse, friendship requires some sacrifice of freedom. It's unfortunate in some ways, because we do have a strong desire for those special friendships where we can do what we like and still have someone to do it with. And certainly there are times and people and places where very little sacrifice is required -- that friend who really is as obsessed with Firefly as you, the spouse who changes to become more like you rather than less, the online forum where people come and go but you are guaranteed to get to talk about your pet topic all the time.
But in another way, I think it's almost a perk, because you show love to others when you sacrifice a little of your freedom for them. You go play outside with your brother because he wants to, and that tells your brother that you care more about being with him than about doing what you want. You keep up with a friend even though they aren't into Lord of the Rings anymore, because after all these years you love them, not your shared interests. And you always get that primary choice -- how far do you want to go for your friends? You can set the balance where you want.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Fall poem
Why so spendthrift with your beauty, leaves?
Why are you so lovely in your dying?
You fling your gold on the wind like coins;
The reddest leaves lie soonest in the gutter.
The stars might ask us in their turn:
Why do you bother, sons of men?
Why are you so lovely in your dying?
Your life slips by like a leaf's fall.
The first thrill of a first love
The sweet smell of a newborn's head--
Why try to gather up these things?
Even your memories are soon leafmold.
Why waste love on a grandfather, soon to die,
Or on any son of man, so short your season.
Kingdoms rise and fall and are forgotten,
A century gone, and no one knows you ever were.
The leaves whisper their answer on the wind:
We were green for months, and you never spared a glance.
You call those colors fairest that are glowing for the least time.
Red against gold, clear yellow in an russet wood,
It is the change that sends the shiver to your bones.
Now is beauty's eternity:
Don't turn away from a falling star.
Some things are broad in time, others deep.
It matters to be lovely in your dying.
Why are you so lovely in your dying?
You fling your gold on the wind like coins;
The reddest leaves lie soonest in the gutter.
The stars might ask us in their turn:
Why do you bother, sons of men?
Why are you so lovely in your dying?
Your life slips by like a leaf's fall.
The first thrill of a first love
The sweet smell of a newborn's head--
Why try to gather up these things?
Even your memories are soon leafmold.
Why waste love on a grandfather, soon to die,
Or on any son of man, so short your season.
Kingdoms rise and fall and are forgotten,
A century gone, and no one knows you ever were.
The leaves whisper their answer on the wind:
We were green for months, and you never spared a glance.
You call those colors fairest that are glowing for the least time.
Red against gold, clear yellow in an russet wood,
It is the change that sends the shiver to your bones.
Now is beauty's eternity:
Don't turn away from a falling star.
Some things are broad in time, others deep.
It matters to be lovely in your dying.
Friday, October 9, 2015
How can I know anything?
When I say that I want to believe only those things I have evidence for, people invariably ask, "But then how do you know anything? How do you know you're not a brain in a jar?"
The answer, I suppose, is "I don't, not with certainty." What frustrated me about pre-modern philosophy, when I studied it in college, was the desire to know things with certainty, as if you could solve for existence like a math problem. To achieve that, most of the reasoning was a priori -- starting from basic axioms and trying to reason from there. What I couldn't see was how you could know your axioms were correct. For instance, "Everything has a cause." Certainly I've never seen anything that doesn't. But how can you prove that there is nothing that doesn't? You don't, you assume it at the outset, and if you happen to be wrong, everything you conclude in your argument is now doubtful.
But, of course, if you assume nothing, if you say that everything is doubtful, well, maybe you're a brain in a jar. Descartes, so far as I know, did not set out to prove "a priori reasoning is a joke," but that was kind of what I got out of him.
The way out, to me, is the scientific method. I'm sure this methodology would have been more exciting to me, way back in fifth grade when I learned about it, if I had studied Descartes first. At the time it was like, "Of course you do experiments to find out stuff, how else would you do it? Doy!" (Hey, it was the 90's.)
But I missed the real point of it, which was that instead of starting with an axiom -- something that is assumed and never questioned later on -- you start with a hypothesis. A guess. You assume it conditionally, you make predictions of what will happen if it's true, and then you see if your predictions are true. If your predictions always come true, you start to believe more and more that the hypothesis is accurate. But if even one is false, you have to abandon or at least revise your hypothesis.
So when I make the hypothesis, "my senses are generally reliable," I can then make some predictions. For instance, I predict that my senses won't contradict one another; that I won't randomly jump around like in a dream, but will have to go step by step from one place to another; that other people will affirm that their sense-experience is similar to mine. So far, so good -- my experience is entirely compatible with my hypothesis. I haven't disproven the idea that I'm a brain in a jar, but given that it seems a lot more complicated and less likely, I don't spend much worry on it.
This is how science develops. The theory of evolution started as a guess, but as new finds confirm its predictions -- that newer fossils are more complex than old ones, that fossils will be found in the geological layers corresponding to the period when we think they lived, and so forth. When some minor deviation is found -- say, a T. rex in the Jurassic layer -- the theory has to be adjusted to contain it, and we get new dinosaur books that list T. rex in the Jurassic instead of the Cretaceous. When predictions fail in a big way, with no way to explain how the theory could be reconciled with them, the theory is abandoned. If they find a rabbit fossil in a Precambrian layer, that would pretty much disprove evolution, but it's never happened. That is a good reason to believe in evolution -- but no one claims to be certain, in the philosophical sense, about it. Certainty is really not something that happens outside of math.
Here are some theories I believe, with a high but not total level of certainty:
1. My senses are generally accurate.
2. Other people are mostly to be trusted
a. unless they have a motive to lie, or a reason why they would be mistaken
b. or they have a history of lying
c. or if they are asking me to believe something that seems contradictory or highly unlikely
[This theory allows me to believe in stuff like "Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth" without believing every salesman who knocks on the door.]
3. My moral intuitions should be followed
a. though I should use reason to doublecheck them
b. and not act if I am doubtful
This last is perhaps more of a choice than a proper theory because it contains should, but I do think that the fact that humans have roughly similar moral intuitions, and that they match a rational idea of "what actions are good for humanity," it's reasonable if not fully scientific.
Why trust the scientific method? Well, in the few centuries since it was adopted, it's given us the steam engine, the gasoline engine, the airplane, electricity, penicillin, the eradication of smallpox, the internet, sanitation, a man on the Moon, global positioning systems, and the air conditioner. Not that these things are indispensable (well, not all of them) but that they are good examples of how the scientific method is a good way of navigating the world we live in. Rather than either assuming things and not going back to check, or failing to make any assumptions and living in total uncertainty, it's about moving forward with your best guess and seeing if it holds up. It's about not privileging any belief you hold so dearly that you won't allow future evidence to amend it. It's humble in what it promises, but impressive in what it delivers.
It can't prove I'm not a brain in a jar, though. Oh well.
The answer, I suppose, is "I don't, not with certainty." What frustrated me about pre-modern philosophy, when I studied it in college, was the desire to know things with certainty, as if you could solve for existence like a math problem. To achieve that, most of the reasoning was a priori -- starting from basic axioms and trying to reason from there. What I couldn't see was how you could know your axioms were correct. For instance, "Everything has a cause." Certainly I've never seen anything that doesn't. But how can you prove that there is nothing that doesn't? You don't, you assume it at the outset, and if you happen to be wrong, everything you conclude in your argument is now doubtful.
But, of course, if you assume nothing, if you say that everything is doubtful, well, maybe you're a brain in a jar. Descartes, so far as I know, did not set out to prove "a priori reasoning is a joke," but that was kind of what I got out of him.
The way out, to me, is the scientific method. I'm sure this methodology would have been more exciting to me, way back in fifth grade when I learned about it, if I had studied Descartes first. At the time it was like, "Of course you do experiments to find out stuff, how else would you do it? Doy!" (Hey, it was the 90's.)
But I missed the real point of it, which was that instead of starting with an axiom -- something that is assumed and never questioned later on -- you start with a hypothesis. A guess. You assume it conditionally, you make predictions of what will happen if it's true, and then you see if your predictions are true. If your predictions always come true, you start to believe more and more that the hypothesis is accurate. But if even one is false, you have to abandon or at least revise your hypothesis.
So when I make the hypothesis, "my senses are generally reliable," I can then make some predictions. For instance, I predict that my senses won't contradict one another; that I won't randomly jump around like in a dream, but will have to go step by step from one place to another; that other people will affirm that their sense-experience is similar to mine. So far, so good -- my experience is entirely compatible with my hypothesis. I haven't disproven the idea that I'm a brain in a jar, but given that it seems a lot more complicated and less likely, I don't spend much worry on it.
This is how science develops. The theory of evolution started as a guess, but as new finds confirm its predictions -- that newer fossils are more complex than old ones, that fossils will be found in the geological layers corresponding to the period when we think they lived, and so forth. When some minor deviation is found -- say, a T. rex in the Jurassic layer -- the theory has to be adjusted to contain it, and we get new dinosaur books that list T. rex in the Jurassic instead of the Cretaceous. When predictions fail in a big way, with no way to explain how the theory could be reconciled with them, the theory is abandoned. If they find a rabbit fossil in a Precambrian layer, that would pretty much disprove evolution, but it's never happened. That is a good reason to believe in evolution -- but no one claims to be certain, in the philosophical sense, about it. Certainty is really not something that happens outside of math.
Here are some theories I believe, with a high but not total level of certainty:
1. My senses are generally accurate.
2. Other people are mostly to be trusted
a. unless they have a motive to lie, or a reason why they would be mistaken
b. or they have a history of lying
c. or if they are asking me to believe something that seems contradictory or highly unlikely
[This theory allows me to believe in stuff like "Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth" without believing every salesman who knocks on the door.]
3. My moral intuitions should be followed
a. though I should use reason to doublecheck them
b. and not act if I am doubtful
This last is perhaps more of a choice than a proper theory because it contains should, but I do think that the fact that humans have roughly similar moral intuitions, and that they match a rational idea of "what actions are good for humanity," it's reasonable if not fully scientific.
Why trust the scientific method? Well, in the few centuries since it was adopted, it's given us the steam engine, the gasoline engine, the airplane, electricity, penicillin, the eradication of smallpox, the internet, sanitation, a man on the Moon, global positioning systems, and the air conditioner. Not that these things are indispensable (well, not all of them) but that they are good examples of how the scientific method is a good way of navigating the world we live in. Rather than either assuming things and not going back to check, or failing to make any assumptions and living in total uncertainty, it's about moving forward with your best guess and seeing if it holds up. It's about not privileging any belief you hold so dearly that you won't allow future evidence to amend it. It's humble in what it promises, but impressive in what it delivers.
It can't prove I'm not a brain in a jar, though. Oh well.
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