"I wandered over the land...I heard a great deal, many lies and falsehoods, but the longer I lived the more I understood that there were really no lies. Whatever doesn't really happen is dreamed at night. It happens to one if it doesn't happen to another, tomorrow if not today, or a century hence if not next year."
---Isaac Bashevis Singer, Gimple the Fool.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Order or Chaos?
"Chaos is the score upon which reality is written."---Henry Miller
We want things to add up. We want the world to make sense.
Virtue and hard work are to be rewarded; sloth and vice punished.
If some stroke of bad luck should befall us we respond by throwing up our hands and asking "What did I do to deserve this?"
Conversely, we would also like to be informed why an undeserving acquaintance should have been blessed with a windfall of good luck.
In both cases, there is a deep feeling of injustice.
A child is born with leukemia. A vicious murderer goes uncaught and dies peacefully in bed. Where is the sense in all of this?
If rewards and punishments are distributed randomly, with no regard to personal merit or lack of same, how then are we to live our lives? Why should we be good if good is not ultimately rewarded? We may claim that we do the right thing because it is the right thing, and not for any thought of reward. But if the moral order of the universe is unenforceable, who is obliged to obey it?
And in terms of social policy, we want to believe that there is one approach, one set of laws, one economic policy, that will lead to prosperity and social justice, and it is just a matter of finding it. Most often we believe that we have already found it, now it's just a matter of convincing everyone else that our way is the best way.
But what if nothing really works in the long run? What if human existence is fundamentally flawed in some way that ensures that every social system eventually fails?
Put another way, we need to believe that life makes sense. But what if it doesn't?
What if all our fine ideals---Virtue, Justice, Compassion, reward for hard work, and the like, let us call them our 'Indigenous Human Values"---are simply fictional overlays we attempt to impose upon an indifferent universe? Do these concepts represent eternal truths that exist outside of time, or did we invent them to make life livable?
Are they memories of a more perfect world from which we have descended, as Plato thought, or are they simply expedients and necessary fictions that we tell each other to keep out the darkness?
Are Logic and Order like a libretto we attempt to write upon a score of Chaos?
I'm afraid I can only ask the questions in this short space, not supply any answers. That has eluded the greatest of philosophers.
But I will say that our "Indigenous Human Values", whether they ultimately represent truth or fiction, are absolutely necessary. We cannot live without them. To attempt to is to give way to dissolution and destruction. We must act as if life makes sense and there is order in the universe, even if this is not the case.
And so our beliefs are true for us, even if the rest of the universe (whatever that may be) doesn't give a damn.
We want things to add up. We want the world to make sense.
Virtue and hard work are to be rewarded; sloth and vice punished.
If some stroke of bad luck should befall us we respond by throwing up our hands and asking "What did I do to deserve this?"
Conversely, we would also like to be informed why an undeserving acquaintance should have been blessed with a windfall of good luck.
In both cases, there is a deep feeling of injustice.
A child is born with leukemia. A vicious murderer goes uncaught and dies peacefully in bed. Where is the sense in all of this?
If rewards and punishments are distributed randomly, with no regard to personal merit or lack of same, how then are we to live our lives? Why should we be good if good is not ultimately rewarded? We may claim that we do the right thing because it is the right thing, and not for any thought of reward. But if the moral order of the universe is unenforceable, who is obliged to obey it?
And in terms of social policy, we want to believe that there is one approach, one set of laws, one economic policy, that will lead to prosperity and social justice, and it is just a matter of finding it. Most often we believe that we have already found it, now it's just a matter of convincing everyone else that our way is the best way.
But what if nothing really works in the long run? What if human existence is fundamentally flawed in some way that ensures that every social system eventually fails?
Put another way, we need to believe that life makes sense. But what if it doesn't?
What if all our fine ideals---Virtue, Justice, Compassion, reward for hard work, and the like, let us call them our 'Indigenous Human Values"---are simply fictional overlays we attempt to impose upon an indifferent universe? Do these concepts represent eternal truths that exist outside of time, or did we invent them to make life livable?
Are they memories of a more perfect world from which we have descended, as Plato thought, or are they simply expedients and necessary fictions that we tell each other to keep out the darkness?
Are Logic and Order like a libretto we attempt to write upon a score of Chaos?
I'm afraid I can only ask the questions in this short space, not supply any answers. That has eluded the greatest of philosophers.
But I will say that our "Indigenous Human Values", whether they ultimately represent truth or fiction, are absolutely necessary. We cannot live without them. To attempt to is to give way to dissolution and destruction. We must act as if life makes sense and there is order in the universe, even if this is not the case.
And so our beliefs are true for us, even if the rest of the universe (whatever that may be) doesn't give a damn.
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