Book Review: Polyamory The New Love Without Limits by Deborah Anapol

Blah, blah, blah.  I was kind of excited to read this book to know more about the polyamorous lifestyle.  I was kind of disappointed though because the material seemed to be common sense for someone who wants this type of lifestyle: overcome jealousy, get involved with people that you feel like you can get involved with, and don’t get involved with people you don’t like.  Seriously?  That’s the advice?

The other part of the book mentions about attending workshops to help you and your loved one(s) to living this lifestyle.  I looked at her website and it’s pricey.  This book felt like it was part weak advice and part brochure to her workshops.  I felt cheated.

To be fair, there have been many other books about polyamory that have been updated lately.  This particular book was written in 1997 so it’s somewhat outdated.  It barely mentions the internet, and it talks about contacting groups using mailing posts or pen pals to set up your own polyamorous family.

My recommendation is that if you want to research this, find some places online.  A good place is here and then from there, you can find other links about the lifestyle.

I wouldn’t waste your time on this book however.  Go somewhere else to learn about polyamory.

Daniel Dennett talks about Memes

Over at TED talks, philosopher Daniel Dennett talks about Memes.  What are memes, you say?  Imagine a parasite overtaking your brain.  Now this parasite makes you do things, not for your benefit, but for the parasite’s benefit.  For example, rabies.  Although rabies isn’t a parasite, it’s a good analogy.  Rabies enters your body and it causes you to want to bite things more often–particularly living mammals.  Why?  It’s not to your benefit.  It’s so that the disease of rabies can continue to spread and you are just a host.

Memes are parasitic ideas.  Dennett uses fundamentalist Islam as an example.  These people have an idea and these ideas take over the brain so that people commit suicide.  But wait a minute, suicide doesn’t help you biologically speaking.  So why commit suicide?  It’s so that the Meme can propagate and spread.  The word has a similar alliteration with “gene.”  Genes, as you know, propagate themselves by sexual or asexual reproduction.  That’s how they spread.  Memes propagate themselves by spreading ideas.  Think of a song that’s stuck in your head.  You whistle it, and then people around you have that song stuck in your head.  That song is a meme and your whistling is spreading that idea.  Language is another example.  In fact, all ideas are memes.

I have some reservations about the concept of memes.  I would like to ask Dennett two questions:

1. Isn’t this just a form of dualism?
2. Where is free will in this since we have no control over our ideas?

Nevertheless, I think it’s a very interesting idea and this video explains it well, although this video mainly talks about how some memes can be toxic such as fundamentalism.

Peter Singer on Ethics, Darwin, and Vegetarianism

Peter Singer was on Point of Inquiry for the last two weeks talking about Ethics, Darwin, and Vegetarianism.

In Part I, he talks about various ethical issues.  This comes from the site:

Peter Singer explores how controversial or compatible his views are with religious thought and in what sense his ethics is informed by a naturalistic or Darwinian understanding of the origins of life. He discusses the value of human life as regards end-of-life questions such as doctor-assisted suicide, and offers justification for the involuntary euthanasia of severely disabled infants. He details what it means to be genuinely “pro-life.” And he shares his views on stem cell research and abortion, arguing how that even though abortion is killing a human life, it is not unethical. He also explains what qualities of life would make killing it unethical.

In part II, he talks about Vegetarianism specifically.  Here’s the summary from the site:

Peter Singer defends vegetarianism, arguing that we should give equal consideration to all “beings who have interests.” He draws ethical distinctions between human fetuses and animals, such as dogs and cats. He argues against “dominionism,” which is the idea that humanity is special, and that other animals were made by God for humanity’s benefit. He attacks “specieism,” and explains why he did not sign the Humanist Manifesto 2000. He describes factory farming, and the commercial imperatives that he says cause animals to be treated as mere property. He talks about the decision to become a vegetarian, and what keeps secularists and scientists from making the decision, in terms of the question he posed to Richard Dawkins at a recent Center for Inquiry conference. And he considers how working with the religious may advance vegetarianism in society.

I agree with Singer when it comes to a lot of ethical issues, especially vegetarianism.  Although I have a few exceptions when it’s ok to eat meat which I gave a in a previous post about demi-vegetarianism.  Some of his other views are quite radical, but they are consistent with his utilitarian ethics.  He defines rights not at natural rights, but as “having interests.”  Well, animals have interests in having a good life.  Therefore, we should consider them when giving them rights.  Whether you agree with him or not, you must say that he has done a lot to philosophy.

Anne Phillips on Representative Democracy

At philosophybites.com, Anne Phillips argues that in this day in age, direct democracy is impractical.  There are just too many people.  Thus, we must have a representative democracy: having certain people represent us because of our interests.  Ok.  So far, this makes sense.  But she argues that if we’re going to be consistent with the idea of representation, then the population must coincide with the Congress to get true representation.  For example, there are 50% women in the US, therefore there should be 50% women in Congress to get the full representation.  Part of her argument is that in a democracy there will always be a majority no matter what.  Thus, the minorities will be shut out or be ostricized.  But because they live in a country where it’s government is a representative democracy, they should also get representation.

This idea isn’t new.  J.S. Mill came up with this.  He really popularized the view that the “tyranny of the majority” is a threat to liberty.  This silences the minorities.  So they should get a percentage representation because that is part of the definition of representative democracy.

Think about this, that would mean Congress would have about 10% homosexuals, 10% atheists, 5-7% creationists, 12% black people, 14% Hispanics, 1% Pacific Islanders, and so on and so on.  I think in general, this is a good idea.  Everyone will have a voice and thus, everyone is represented.  But when we try to put this in practice, it seems so complex.  But then again, I have heard that India has been doing this for quite a while and they have three times of the population that we do and they are incredibly diverse than we are.

Click here to go to the site to check it out.

Language, Offensiveness, and Equality

I’ve finished a biography of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.  Wittgenstein really sparked the idea of how language expresses how we see the world.  So language-users see the world when they use a different language, or as Wittgenstein would say, a “form of life.”  Here are some examples that I use for my class:

1. Gua in Chinese means watermelon, papaya, melon.  In short, it means having that shape.  Asian languages split up words like that.  Thus, they see the world differently than we do.  Chinese language-users see the world starting with shape first and then they go into specifics.
2. Define father.  English users define it as a male that has biological DNA.  Some cultures define father more functional rather than biological.  So a brother or a friend can be a father according to some languages.  Imagine seeing the world like that.
3. “Everyone is going to Paris.”  Imagine a world where everyone’s goal was to get to Paris.  It doesn’t matter what they’re doing now.  The entire goal is to get to Paris.  You would look at the world in a totally different way.

Thus, when you speak a different language or phrase it differently, you literally see the world differently.

Now, I was wondering if offensive language influences how we look at the world and perhaps our social attitudes towards people.  Consider this, which do you find most offensive:

1. “You’re such a fag.”
2. “You’re such a bitch.”
3. “You’re such a nigger.”

Now which is most offensive?  To me, number three is the most offensive, then number two, then number one.  Indeed, I think this fits with my worldview: my friends jokeingly say these phrases, with the exception of number three.  So how does this relate to the world?  Because number three is the most offensive, I think any form of race inequality is seen as crude and bad.  Now this doesn’t mean that racism is gone.  By no means.  But to be honest, when I watch the news or even simply observing my surroundings, I notice more gender inequality than racial inequality.  We can even look at the recent election: 79 % of college students say they’re ready for a black President, whereas 63% of college students say that they’re ready for a female president.  With this, I think calling someone a “nigger” is considered more offensive than “bitch.”  But what about “fag?”  I think this word is thrown around casually which means it’s hardly seen as offensive, and since this is a prejorative term for homosexuals, they seem to get the worst end when it comes to respect.  With this, homosexuals have it bad because our language is constructed in a way to not treat them with respect.  Imagine a world where the word “nigger” was thrown around casually.  Our world would be where we see black people as not equal to us.  But because our culture and language has deemed that word to be bad, race relations have gotten better.

It seems like a stretch, but based on this, if “bitch” has the same connotations as “nigger” then there might be more gender equality.  Same thing with “fag.”  Imagine where “fag” has that same negative connotation as “nigger.”  Perhaps they would gain more equal status.  I don’t mean simply rights or privledges, but getting along with people in general.

In short, I think that on some level, if you want to aim for equality and respect, you must change the way people use language.

The Difference Between Democrats and Republicans

When I teach political philosophy, I usually include some test online to determine where one fits politically in America.  In the end, a student wanted to thank me for providing that test because she can now get more involved politically and have an understanding at becoming an active citizen, especially with an election coming up.  She did have a question that really got to me, yet it’s a simple question: what is the difference between Democrats and Republicans?  I hesitated to answer because it was kind of hard.  After all, can you simply try and explain the difference, at least to students who honestly can’t tell the difference?  I really couldn’t provide a good answer, she kind of put me on the spot.  On the way driving home, it kind of bothered me.  After all, here I am teaching political stuff and being a citizen, and I can’t even explain the different ideologies of our political parties.  Well, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and my thoughts have evolved and developed while I was researching.  So let me start with the first definition that I found:

1.  Democrats are watered-down Communists (or at least Socialists) whereas Republicans are watered-down Fascists. Interesting definition, I thought.  I forgot where I got this definition, but while this may have some truth to it, it’s just plain silly.  I doubt that if you go to any democrat or republican, they’ll agree with that definition.  But more then that, it seems odd to define these positions in terms of extremes.  This is like saying Christians are watered-down fundamentalists, or sad people are watered-down suicidal people, or horny people are watered-down rapists.  It’s just silly.  Why define something in terms of an extreme?  The essence of a term doesn’t need to be defined at extreme end of the spectrum; we can easily define something without going to the extreme.  Thus, we can define Democrats and Republicans without going to the extremes.

2.  Democrats are liberals; Republicans are conservatives.  Ok, this is a better definition.  But then what does liberal and conseravative mean?  These terms change over time.  Take Affirmative Action.  Right now, the Republican thing to do is to against it.  But Republicans were first for affirmative action.  They were, after all, the ones that wanted to pass the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.  It was the Democrats who were mainly against it.  It wasn’t until 1890 that the Republicans gave up on the prospect of race equality (mainly because the Democrats were blocking them from doing so).  Over time, the roles switched to where the Democrats aim for affirmative action and the Republicans don’t.  Another switch was a free market economy.  Democrats were really big on laissez-faire economics, but now the role switched to Republicans being big on it.  And now, people claim that affirmative action is a liberal thing.  It’s not, it was a Republican thing, but now a Democrat thing.  Same thing with the full-blown free market economy.  So although we’re getting closer, I think we can get more specific.

3.  Democrats are more social oriented whereas Republicans are more individual oriented. Possibly, but there are a lot of programs that show the opposite.  Democrats are against taking away any civil liberties that we have seen under the Bush administration, which seems to suggest some stance on individuality.  Republicans usually endorse the No Child Left Behind Act, which seems to suggest a social stance.  But I think this is getting us closer to the truth. . .

4. Namily, I think the issue comes down to rights.  Now of course they both believe in rights, but there’s a difference between positive and negative rights.  What’s the difference, you ask?  Negative rights are rights where you have the freedom from something.  These are rights where they’re recognized by the government NOT doing something to you.  So things like freedom from slavery, civil rights, and freedom concerning religion are good examples of these.  In other words, the government cannot interfere with your rights.  Now on the opposite side are positive rights.  This is freedom to do something.  The government has to make some effort to make you aware and exercise this right.  These are rights that everyone can have that’s above the minimal.  Good examples of positive rights are public education, minimum wage, and certain adequate health care.  So let me give more examples to bring this home.

Freedom of speech:
Negative right: government cannot interfere with our right (except in certain circumstances).  I’m free to speak my mind.  But so is the New York Times, so is Bill O’Reilly.  So is Rosie O’Donnell, so is Sean Hannity.  But when those people speak, their voice is much more, shall we say, at a higher volume than mine.
Positive right: So there is a sense of equality, everyone has the right to speak, but there’s also a sense of inequality: people with more money, louder voice, more persuasion and charisma may be able to get more volume out of their speech.  Thus, their speech may have more of an impact than yours. Therefore, the government has an obligation to help us realize that right.  Maybe even make it for the little people possible to speak.  Or to let the people who have been silenced to let them speak in a larger, louder place. A good example of a positive right is there should be equal time in the media, where there has to be, say, an hour of conservative talk on the radio, with an hour of liberal talk on the radio.

Let me give another example:

Abortion:
Negative right: a woman is able to get an abortion during a certain part of the pregnancy.  Government may not interfere with that right.  So the woman has the freedom from any governmental intervention.  That means that wealthy woman have the same right to get an abortion as a woman in poverty does.
Positive right: But let’s be honest, wealthy women are more likely to get an abortion than a woman in poverty because (a) she can afford it, and (b) a wealthy woman is usually educated about these sorts of things whereas the impovershed woman isn’t.  Therefore, the positive right to abortion is that the government not only can interfere with an abortion, but must enable woman to pursue an abortion as well so that poor woman may be able to achieve their right.

Now I’m not saying that Democrats or Republicans aim for this all the time (I actually haven’t heard of some governmental official claiming a positive right for abortion), but I think you can notice the differences between negative and positive rights.  Again, to reiterate, negative rights mean freedom from something; positive rights mean freedom to something.

So here’s my claim, both of them want both kinds of rights, but I think Democrats want more positive rights.  You can see this in terms of health care, education, welfare, the economy, taxation, and other aspects of society.  One more example: Does the homeless have rights?  Well, they’re not being interfered with, but can they exercise their full rights?  The Democrat will say no; the Republican will say yes.  Now why do Republicans not want more positive rights?  It’s because they see it as interfering with the negative rights.  Here’s a dialog:

Democrat: We should help the poor because they cannot simply live by extreme means.  To live in America means to fulfill the American dream, and being poor is certainly no one’s dream.

Republican: It’s true that being poor is a bad thing, but wait a minute, my American dream is to keep what I’ve earned.  So why should you take something away that I’ve earned and give it to someone who didn’t earn it?

Democrat:  This isn’t about keeping what you earn.  It’s about the right to live out your life.  After all, Jefferson declared that we have the right to life.

Republican: But he also said we have the right to liberty.  If you’re taking money away from me, then that is a violation of my liberty.  Besides, the poor do have the right to life, but not at my expense.  The poor is still living.

Democrat:  Would you honestly say that’s a good way to live?  Besides, we’re only taking away a small portion of what you earn, can’t you afford some charity?

Republican: But it’s my property.  I can afford to be charitable, but when you force me to give my earned money and give it to the poor, it’s not called charity, it’s called theft.

Democrat: Don’t think of it as theft.  Think of it as fulfilling the rights of every American.

Republican: But at the expense of mine!

So we can see the argument: the Republican finds most positive rights violations of negative rights, whereas the Democrats see positive rights to help fulfill the rights that is guarenteed by the American dream.

Of course, this is just a generalization and there are many nuances to it, but I think you can get the general idea that the difference, I believe, comes down to negative and positive rights.  Any other nuances or differences?