PHILOSOPHY – Page 5 – REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

WORLDS OF IMAGINATION

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Dawn of the New Everything (A Memoir)

By: Jaron Lanier

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

American computer philosopher, computer scientist, visual artist, and musician.

Both Da Vinci (as characterized by Walter Isaacson) and Jaron Lanier are self-effacing geniuses without formal education. Both manage to create worlds of imagination.

Lanier’s memoir illustrates how refinement of virtual reality is as groundbreaking as Da Vinci’s understanding of light. History will not likely view Lanier as the Da Vinci of our era but there are interesting similarities.

Not to carry the comparison too far, Lanier magnifies the value of imagination without limiting its potential for both human good and evil.

Da Vinci designs weapons of war that purposely fed the ambitions of his era’s tyrants.

Lanier is one of the pioneers of facial recognition. Facial recognition is a tool that can be used by humanities’ tyrants as well as benefactors. In conjunction with digitizing the lives of everyone, facial recognition implies a “Brave New World” as eminently realizable.

A visit to China reinforces potential loss of privacy and human volition with the advance of a digitized and monitored population.

One comes away from Lanier’s memoir with an appreciation for his candor about life and his unshaken belief in the value of technology. He recognizes his personal imperfection while maintaining an optimistic view for the world’s rescue by AI as a tool rather than controller of human life. There is some comfort in his opinion, but a listener reserves judgement based on the life Lanier has led. He is undoubtedly a polymath but his memoir focuses more on pleasures than the reality of most people’s lives.

The principle of virtual reality lends itself to Lanier’s obsession with music and entertainment.

Lanier is a musician, among many other talents. He spends some of his time collecting and mastering abstruse musical instruments.

One comes away from “Dawn of the New Everything” with the feeling that VR has greater potential for distraction than humanity’s betterment. There is respite from this perception with Lanier’s explanation of how VR is used for education and training. It is a virtual tool for medical and science education.

On the other hand, VR is a tool for remote murder by a person guiding a drone.

B.F. Skinner, American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.

Lanier also notes that VR has the potential of making life conform to other’s interest.

The “Dawn of Everything” gives a clearer picture of what it was and is like to become a part of the Silicon Valley. He candidly recounts his rise as a tech mogul, failure, and gadfly.

Facebook and Twitter addiction are influencers with WMD potential.

Lanier’s memoir is at once enlightening and disheartening. He offers a virtual picture of modern life that is influencing, but not yet controlling. Lanier is optimistic. Many listeners will leave his memoir skeptical.

SUPERMAN-SUPERWOMAN

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Hiking with Nietzsche (A Memoir)

By: John Kaag

Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg

John Kaag (Author, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell)

Like Mary-Louise Parker’s memoir “Dear Mr. You”, “Hiking with Nietzsche” is nearly returned by this listener. Both memoirs, as the word suggests, are personal.

However, Parker’s memoir is burdened by Parker’s self-absorption. “Dear Mr. You” reminds this listener of an actress who chose not to appear at the stage-door in New York after a forgettable stage performance. Parker is a good writer, but she needs a better subject.

“Hiking with Nietzsche” is not overly burdened by its writer’s self-absorption. Kaag offers some clarity to Nietzschean philosophical belief. However, clarity is only partially delivered. Some details revealed by Kaag of Nietzsche’s life are helpful.

Freidrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist)

Nietzsche’s father was a Lutheran minister. He died when Nietzsche was only five years old.

Wilhelm Wagner (1813-1883, German composer and conductor.)

As a young man, Kaag explains Nietzsche idolizes Wagner. Wagner becomes a father figure to Nietzsche.

However, Wagner treats Nietzsche as a servant, an underling, burdened by sexual identity and a modicum of insight to the nature of life. Nietzsche eventually breaks with Wagner, partly in recognition of Wagner’s anti-Semite sentiment, but also as a break from surrogate parental control. Like a child/parent relationship, Nietzsche continues to love Wagner but not as a great human being.

Where Kaag fails is–in inadequately correlating his family life with Nietzschean philosophy. Kaag notes that Nietzsche spent a great deal of time in the mountains that Kaag and his family are visiting. He retraces some of Nietzsche’s peripatetic life in Basel and its surroundings.

Kaag explains Nietzsche abandons belief in God and suggests humankind has killed the idea of a Supreme Being which leaves man in charge.

Nietzsche suggests humankind is on its own.

Kaag notes Nietzsche argues–We humans can become the ideal man, the master of his/her life. In that recognition, humans become potential supermen. Right conduct is determined by individuals overcoming themselves.

This oneself recognizes morality is based on action that supports life, encourages self-assertion, and has no guilt. Nietzsche suggests life should come from a “Let it Be” mentality that repeats itself. Kaag does not make these ideas any clearer in using his family life and his personal actions as a husband and father as exemplars of Nietzschean philosophy.

“Hiking with Nietzsche” is a disappointment but not a waste of time.

There is something to pursue in philosophy whether one agrees with Nietzsche or not. If “God is Dead” can man be moral? It seems doubtful based on world history. On the other hand, all species continue to evolve and adapt. Earth’s environment is no longer taken for granted. Are there supermen and women in our future?

LIVING LIFE

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Until the End of Time

By: Brian Greene

Narrated by Brian Greene

Author, (American Theoretical Physicist)

There is a great deal to unpack in Brian Greene’s “Until the End of Time”. As is true of many of Greene’s scientific observations, much of his self-effacing intelligence and science-based opinion is lost in the ignorance of his listeners, not to mention this listener. However, where Greene’s beliefs intersect with one’s limited knowledge, his theory of the ending of time and life is immensely rewarding and enlightening.

Greene does not argue there is no God. However, he suggests modern science shows there is no reason for God to exist to create life.

To Greene, there is more verifiable proof of life in science than verifiable proof of God in either science or religion.

In Greene’s thought, God and religion may have a great deal to do with sustaining human life, but in ways more sociological than religious. Weather one is a believer, atheist, or agnostic makes no difference to Greene. He carefully constructs an explanation of how science shows life may have come into existence, why stories of life may explain belief in God, and why humans are fundamentally different from other forms of life. The fundamental point of “…the End of Time” has to do with human mortality. Human mortality lies at the core of Greene’s view of time and life.

Greene suggests the laws of physics founded by luminaries like Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and Erwin Schrodinger offer evidence for the basis for life on earth, with or without God. Greene explains the principle of thermodynamics, the fundamental science of energy that creates and sustains life.

Greene explains–the physics of energy (thermodynamics) ensures eventual death. All life is pre-determined by the fundamental law of entropy. The fate of time and life began with a bang. This singular event disbursed tightly organized atomistic particles into a continually less organized space.

Greene notes that all forms of life are subject to entropy, a gradual decline from order to disorder. Greene argues that entropy acts at an atomistic level to determine the fate of all living things. Greene suggest laws of quantum mechanics determine the course of life for all “living” things.

To Greene, humankind is free to make choices. However, he argues humankind does not have free will. The physics of science show that all living things cannot choose to live forever. Humans can choose how to live, what to think, who to love, who to hate but they cannot choose one Nano second longer than what is dictated by the fundamental law of entropy.

Greene notes the science of Darwinian evolution and genetic inheritance is a relevant reinforcement of his argument for the inevitable extinction of life. The entropy accompanying human habitation is evident in pollution of the air we breath and the water we drink. (Though Greene does not address advances in genetic inheritance through gene manipulation, genetic manipulation does not negate Greene’s overriding concept of entropy.)

Just as earth’s environment slowly degrades, genetic inheritance as a process will eventually lead to extinction. Humans, just as dinosaur’s, sabre tooth tigers, and Dodo birds will disappear. All life adapts to change until the speed of environmental change becomes greater than the speed of evolutionary adaptation.

Greene agues humankind’s recognition of mortality shapes lives as consequentially as evolution. The significance of Greene’s argument is that religion is founded on acknowledgement of eventual death. Knowing that one cannot live forever, creates the desire for something beyond death. Greene elaborates by arguing that human lack of control over natural events compels creation of stories about a Supreme Being. *

The big picture in “Until the End of Time” is that the world and life is heading for an end. Based on the science of physics, there is an “…End of Time” for humankind, based on the immutable and experimentally proven laws of thermodynamics. Entropy is evident in the science of quantum mechanics (the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles), and the science of a continually expanding universe.

What does this mean to us? Humans still make their own choices on how to live, love, and hate in their lifetimes. The singer, Bobby McFerrin, suggests “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. Others suggest the meaning of life is to live in the moment. Brian Greene suggests it is up to you. Our lives and death may be pre-determined, but we have freedom to choose how we live, love, and work.

In re-thinking Greene’s belief in the physics of entropy, one wonders about the concept of energy never being destroyed. Einstein’s formula of E=MC2 implies our corporal bodies may die but atoms transmogrify. What does that suggest about the entropy of human life?

* Greene acknowledges the slim possibility of Devine existence but considers it much less probable based on the discipline of science and the existence of entropy. Greene does not discount the comfort religion offers humankind, including the rituals that help one cope with life and the passing of loved ones.

STOIC REDUX

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Practicing Stoic

By: Ward Farnsworth

Narrated by John Lescault

Ward Farnsworth (Author, Dean of the University of Texas School of Law)

No one is a stoic. At best, Ward Farnsworth argues one can only be a “practicing” stoic.

Who among us is a stoic? Who is free from passion, and unmoved by joy or grief? Possibly a psychopath. Who can supersede natural laws? No one. To live as a sentient being entails passion, joy, grief, and experience of things beyond our control.

Only a computer can be passionless, relentlessly reasonable, and programmed to acknowledge things beyond its control. In theory, a computer may be programmed to be a stoic. Farnsworth explains–a human will only be able to “practice” stoicism. Farnsworth notes no human is preternaturally capable of being a stoic.

The question is why would anyone want to practice stoicism? Farnsworth infers the practice of stoicism offers potential for living a good and fulfilling life.

Farnsworth explains one becomes a “practicing” stoic in the realization that death comes to all human beings.

However in being a practicing stoic, Farnsworth notes–humans can only strive to be morally good. Why does a stoic strive to be morally good? Farnsworth explains in being morally good, one gains peace of mind. Peace of mind offers happiness or what the classical Greeks called eudaimonia. In a practicing stoic’s view of living, it matters not whether one is rich or poor.

Here is where capitalists gag, the homeless scowl, and the poor spit. Having peace of mind is easier when one is rich. As Farnsworth notes, one might agree but he notes many who are rich are not happy.

One asks oneself, how happy can the homeless and abject poor be? Farnsworth suggests the rich never think they are rich enough. Fair enough, but the rain, cold, and desert sun have little affect on the rich.

Farnsworth explains the stoic argues “what we think” is key, whether rich or poor. The practicing stoic believes wealth, poverty, and life are ephemeral. Farnsworth implies knowledge of life’s temporality sets one free. Free to what? Reject the cold or heat of the sun when you are homeless? It is difficult to see how the homeless and poor can achieve peace of mind by changing “what they think” about the cold and heat or a hard bench in the park.

Farnsworth’s rejoinder might be that a practicing stoic would only be concerned about what they can control, not what they cannot.

That seems disingenuous because weather is an example of a life circumstance that is out of one’s control. Nature detrimentally affects the homeless and poor, regardless of how they think about it.

There is also the question of free will. Humans choose a path when opportunity knocks. Some choose to take opportunity; others pass. The stoic answers yes, we choose but the result is either/or–happiness or trial (e.g. Soren Kierkegaard’s philosophy).

One either seeks happiness or trial based on their choice. Farnsworth explains the stoic returns to the goal of happiness based on thinking and acting morally. If all humans were practicing stoics, one might argue there would be no homelessness or poverty. World history shows no culture exhibits that characteristic. It begs the question of “thinking differently” offering “peace of mind” when it is zero or one hundred ten degrees outside.

Does recognition of ephemerality achieve happiness? Farnsworth says not in and of itself because recognizing ephemerality of life and circumstance requires moral thought and action.

Reality is that thought and action require a minimal level of human economic security. Economic security is talked about by governments but rarely implemented.

Farnsworth notes many contradictions in the history of stoicism. He notes how a leading proponent of stoicism, Seneca the Younger, is incredibly rich when stoics abjure wealth. Seneca consulted Nero who was one of the most corrupt leaders of Rome. Seneca talked the talk of a classical practicing stoic, but did he live it? How can Seneca be an exemplar of stoicism when he counseled a brutal dictator, owned slaves, and lived in luxury?

Farnsworth suggests the history of Seneca is too unclear to offer an answer. Seneca may have been a moderating influence on Nero. He may have counseled Nero to act morally without success. He may have used his wealth to benefit society. This is not a very defensible argument, but it is consistent with a belief that one can, at best, only be a practicing Stoic.

Farnsworth offers a good understanding of the history of stoicism and the stoic philosophy in “The Practicing Stoic” but it seems more attuned to those who have than those who have-not. Interestingly, Farnsworth teaches law which gives some understanding of how and why a lawyer should represent the guilty as well as the innocent. It is a matter of practicing stoicism.

The best one may gather from Farnworth’s history of the stoics is that those who-have may realize how important it is to be more helpful to those who have-not. When homelessness and poverty are eliminated, a stoic philosophy offers great appeal.

BEST OF TIMES

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Meditations
By Marcus Aurelius

Narrated by Duncan Steen

MARCUS AURELIEUS (121 AD-180 AD, EMPEROR OF ROME FROM 161-180)

Marcus Aurelius has been called the last of the five good emperors of Rome. Edward Gibbon, the historian, went so far as to suggest that this is one of the best times in history for people to live. (Maybe, but Gibbon might be a little biased based on being male and white.)

PLATO, ATHENIAN PHILOSOPHER ( 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC)
Marcus Aurelius embodies the concept of the Philosopher King. Philosopher Kings are first described by Plato as the only totalitarian leader capable of ruling society. They would rule capably because of their wisdom and knowledge of the Good. “Meditations” suggests that Aurelius was the real deal.

In the modern world, Aurelius provides a bible for the leisure-class. However, one is not sure what the leisure class is in this era of doing rather than being.

Aurelius recognizes the ephemeral nature of life’s pleasures and chooses to write about and use Plato’s ideal forms to guide his rule.

The ideal forms are Plato’s essences of life, measures of the Good that in most people’s minds are only shadows in a cave.

Aurelius benefited from wealth and leisure by being in the lap of luxury while denying its seductive pleasures, His private education allowed him to study and understand the source of Plato’s shadows in the cave.

In the post industrial world the likelihood of a 21^st century Philosopher King is inconceivable but “Meditations” does offer a guide to today’s leisure class. With time, education, and inclination, a human being can adopt Aurelius’ rules to live a life of joy and contentment.

A life of joy and contentment runs contrary human nature’s proclivities, the pursuit of money, power, and prestige, but the leisure class may have enough of each to stop climbing life’s ladder to despair.

Aurelius lives in the post Christian era (121-180 AD) and writes with some confusion about belief in gods or God but seems to believe in pre-ordination and humankind’s necessary acceptance of a lot in life.

Aurelius forsakes despair and honors acceptance of doing the best one can do in a short human life. Aurelius does not seek money, power, or prestige but accepts responsibility and lets actions define his life. He believes every person has a social responsibility and that to remove oneself from social interaction is a betrayal of living a good life.

There is wisdom in Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations”. If a listener is at a position in his or her life that allows meditation, this is a good place to start.

COSMIC MIND

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Letting Go

Written by: David R. Hawkins

Narration by: Peter Lownds

DAVID R. HAWKINS (1927-2012, DIED AT AGE 85, AUTHOR, PHILOSOPHER, MD, PSYCHIATRIST)

AUTHOR–David R. Hawkins died in 2012. He was 85 years old.

David R. Hawkins died in 2012. He was 85 years old. At turns, Hawkins transitioned from agnosticism to atheism to belief in God. This progression seems correlated with education and experience but ends in philosophical belief. In each transition, Hawkins uses his intellect to form a philosophy that has appeal to many in search of life’s meaning.

At times, Hawkins seems beyond reason but each step he takes offers insight to how one may live a more fulfilling life. Hawkins might be broadly characterized as a mystic. Even so, he was a formally educated, practicing physician, and psychiatrist.

Mysticism lies in Hawkins belief in human dualism, a belief dating back to Plato and adopted by many later philosophers.

Hawkins dualism is belief in a distinct separation between mind and body. More precisely for Hawkins, it is a separation between mind and brain.

The power of this cosmic mind can cure all the maladies of humankind, both physical and mental. Hawkins implies this cosmic mind can cure physical disease manifested in the body. If you cannot see; if you cannot hear; if you cannot feel, your condition can be cured by a force of will that engages the cosmic mind.

Hawkins becomes a mystic when he posits belief in a cosmic mind shared by all humanity.

This is a point at which Hawkins loses some believers. However, before one gets to a point of rejection, Hawkins offers wise counsel on how to live life and approach a level of what Abraham Maslow labeled self-actualization.

Abraham Maslow’s self-actualization.

The mind gets trapped in Plato’s cave and only sees shadows of reality. Reality is obscured by what the human mind tells them. The mind’s interpretation of life’s events distorts reality. A child remembers a father’s or mother’s rebuke as an eternal judgement when the reality may have been to protect a child from harm. The shadow is created and remains with the child for the rest of his/her life.

PLATO’S CAVE (Hawkins argues that everything that happens in one’s life is because of the mind’s interpretation of the world.)

To escape the trap of Plato’s cave, Hawkins explains one must use their senses to accept the mind’s perception of reality and continually let it go until its negative power disappears.

An example would be one who gets angry over some event or action and accepts the anger; looks at it, accepts it, uses the mind to understand why there is anger, where it is coming from, and then letting it go. In the process, one finds anger has no meaning other than what one’s mind gave it.

With continual use of this process, Hawkins believes individual minds tap into a cosmic mind that shows the world as it really is; not simply as shadows on a cave wall.

There is wisdom in Hawkins’ perception of life and how one can more constructively deal with its vicissitudes. In this time of Covid 19, “Letting Go” is wise counsel for those troubled by emotional and/or physical trauma. However, the principle of a cosmic mind takes a leap of faith.

LUCK’S PLAN

Robert Wright is saying human beings are only replicating machines; without God; without free will, and dependent upon the arbitrariness of natural selection.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

By: Robert Wright

Narrated by Greg Thornton

ROBERT WRIGHT (AUTHOR, JOURNALIST)

Robert Wright emboldens Darwin’s theory of evolution in “The Moral Animal”. Wright argues that Darwin infers evolution is biological, an all-inclusive generative theory. Not only is humankind evolving physically through natural selection, it is evolving psychologically.

Wright suggests every human action in life is determined by evolution.

The import of that conclusion is that all life is pre-determined at birth by evolution. Humans, like all others in the animal kingdom have no free will. Life is physically and morally pre-determined by evolution. Unlike Richard Dawkins, Wright wastes no time creating the idea of memes (inherited social customs) as a determinant of behavior. Wright suggests every human action in life is determined by evolution. In other words, Wright is saying “the devil did not make you do it”, and God is only a false construct of human evolution.

Wright argues that all life is based on arbitrary evolutionary changes in reproduction. Physical (genetic) and psychological (motive) changes that reinforce survival are pre-determined controllers of human behavior. Wright’s experimental evidence for physical evolution is research on human remains. His evidence for psychological evolution is advance in biological science.

The discovery of endorphin, serotonin, enzyme, and other chemical interactions that effect human behavior are markers for evolutionary change in human psychological influence and control.

Biological research shows that chemical interactions in the human body effect psychological behavior, just as genetics effect physical being.

Physical and psychological correlation with evolution changes one’s view of civilization and its discontents. It is not only suggests the death of God’s omniscience and control, but the death of free choice. Humans are born programmed; programmed to be good and evil. Humans kill, cheat, lie, and steal. At the same time, humans build cities, create art, love others, and sacrifice their lives for something greater than themselves.

Without God; without free choice, where is morality, where is good will, where is value in living? Wright suggests morality evolves into normative ethics, an ethics of pleasure as long as pleasure’s pursuit does not harm others. Wright’s idea is that humans level their moral behavior using a “tit for tat” penalty/reward system designed by evolution. A precursor of this philosophy is inferred by Epicurus in 4^th century BC but evolves into utilitarianism in the 19^th century.

Wright argues that humankind historically demonstrated sympathy, empathy, compassion, conscience, guilt remorse, and justice. Whether evolutionary or God-given, these moral beliefs are historically exhibited by civilization.

Civilization benefits from these feelings. Wright argues that penalties for violating rules of doing no harm to others are a part of a “tit for tat” evolutionary psychology that sustains civilization. Whether this idea reflects God, evolution, or free-choice; “tit for tat” offers a morally grounded philosophy that has pragmatic and utilitarian value. It helps humans feel better or worse, depending on their side of the “tit for tat”.

Wright suggests Freud was on to something in the idea of id, ego, and superego. Wright endorses Freud’s suggestion of homo sapient need for social interaction and the libidinous nature of humanity. However, Wright believes Freud took the idea too far when suggesting humans have a death instinct or Oedipus complex. Neither a death instinct nor Oedipus complex makes sense in an evolutionary world where replication of life is the essence of being.

English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author.

In summary, like Richard Dawkins, Wright is saying human beings are only replicating machines; without God; without free will, and dependent upon the arbitrariness of natural selection.

MORALITY

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life

Written by: Professor Rufus J. Fears

Lecture by: Professor Rufus J. Fears

J. RUFUS FEARS (1945-2012–AMERICAN HISTORIAN, LECTURER FOR THE GREAT COURSES)

Rufus Fears is an excellent story-teller. “Books That Have Made History” is a series of lectures given by Fears that dwells too much on God but delightfully entertains all who are interested in living life well. (Professor Fears died in October of 2012.)

An irony of Fears lecture series about “Books that can Change Your Life” is his most revered historical figures, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus–never wrote a book. He thematically presents a story that argues these three figures are witnesses to the truth.

Fears believes Confucius’s, Socrates’, and Jesus’s truths have been played out and proven over centuries of writings and doings. Those writings and doings are recorded in secular and religious texts that range from Homer, to Plato, to the “Bible”, to the “Koran”, to “The Prince”, to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Winston Churchill, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Bonhoeffer is Fears first example of one who practices what he writes about and believes.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1906-1945, Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 and transferred to a Nazi concentration camp and executed in April 1945. Bonhoeffer is a symbol of moral and physical courage in the face of injustice.)

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1906-1945, A GERMAN LUTHERAN PASTOR, THEOLOGIAN AND ANTI-NAZI DISSIDENT WHO DIES IN NAZI' CUSTODY)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer insists on returning to Germany to protest Hitler’s totalitarian dictatorship. As a Lutheran pastor and theological scholar, Bonhoeffer publicly denounced Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. This is Fears jumping off point in arguing that theism as professed by secular and religious texts are “Books That Can Change Your Life”.

Justice, courage, moderation and belief that “wisdom comes from suffering” come from Homeric literature, the writings of Marcus Aurelius, Plato’s “Republic”, the King James Version of the bible, and the holy Koran. Fears emphasizes the transcendent impact of “Book of Exodus”, “Gospel of Mark”, and “Book of Job” as they become memes for moral belief.

In the “Book of Exodus” Fears notes the story of Moses and how Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery, a story repeated throughout history by the courage of moral leaders.

The “Gospel of Mark” tells the story of Jesus, the sins of man, and the redemptive powers of forgiveness, and justice.

The “Book of Job” symbolizes life as a struggle but, in struggle, one gains wisdom through faith in something greater than oneself.

FREE WILL VS. DETERMINISM

Fears draws from many cultures to explore “Books That Have Made History. He explains how the “Bhagavad Gita” identifies truth as a divine power and how stories like Gilgamesh and Beowulf suggest life is destiny, fated when one is born, while Aeschylus believes life is a matter of free will.

Plato posits duality of being with a mortal body and immortal soul. Religious and secular writings reinforce Plato’s concept of human duality.

PLATO’S BELIEF IN DUALITY-SEPARATE ENTITIES-BODY AND SOUL

The immortal soul is terribly and beautifully rendered in Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. Dante describes torments souls endure if mortal life is lived in sin, but offers belief in redemption.

DANTE’S INFERNO Dante describes torments souls endure if mortal life is lived in sin, but offers belief in redemption.

Buddhist belief in reincarnation offers a road to peace or continued struggle based on mortal life’s actions.

A Buddhist soul’s reincarnation may be as a beast if one’s former life is filled with sin. But as each new life approaches enlightenment, it is offered opportunity for peace without struggle in a spiritual life that requires no further incarnations.

Fears moves back and forth in history to identify some of the “Books That Can Change Your Life”. He jumps to the twentieth century to tell the story of Winston, the defeated hero in Orwell’s “1984”.

Fears explains how totalitarianism sucks struggle out of life but leaves dead bodies or soulless automatons in its wake. Fears notes how Stalin murders twenty million in a totalitarian system similar to what Orwell wrote about in the late 1940s.

Fears reinforces his argument by jumping back in history to tell the story of “The Prince”, Machiavelli’s masterpiece about totalitarian rule. Just as predicted in “The Prince”, Stalin lives to old age (lived to be 74, died in 1953) by following the rules set down in Machiavelli’s 16^th century book. Stalin murders or imprisons any opposition to his rule. Stalin’s single-minded objective is acquisition, retention, and use of power to achieve control of society. Stalin’s objectives are achieved through a police state that controls media, arbitrarily arrests citizens, and acts without moral conscience.

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN (1918-2008, RUSSIAN NOVELIST AND ESSAYIST)

Ironically, Fears notes that Solzhenitsyn returns to Russia and vilifies capitalist America for ignoring the plight of the poor by losing sight of its own values. He recognized the inequality of communism but believed democratic capitalism offered little solution with similar consequence.

Fundamentally, one takes from Fears’ lectures that one must internalize morality and have the courage to reduce inequality regardless of its cost. This is a lesson for today in the face of an American President who has no moral compass and views wealth as the only measure of social value.

DONALD TRUMP (REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. 2016)

Stalin’s terror is revealed in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago”, published in 1973. Solzhenitsyn dies in 2008, near Moscow, at the age of 89.

This is only a smattering of the many books Fears talks about in his lectures.

REINCARNATION HUMOR

Mo Yan chooses to use reincarnation to bind China’s twentieth century history together. The choice of reincarnation adds humor but suggests something more than laughs.

Audio-book Review

By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)

Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

By Mo Yan (Translated by Howard Goldblatt)

Narrated by Feodor Chin

HOWARD GOLDBLATT (TRANSLATOR OF MO YAN CLASSIC)

Cultural understanding is missing from Howard Goldblatt’s translation of Mo Yan’s “Life and Death are Wearing Me Out”. Mo Yan chooses to use reincarnation to bind China’s twentieth century history together. The choice of reincarnation adds humor but suggests something more than laughs.

Author, Mo Yan

The story begins with a murdered man who comes back as a donkey, then as an ox, a pig, a dog, and finally as another man—funny, but is there rhyme or reason in the order?

Mo Yan’s story begins with China’s communist revolution and the unjust murder and confiscation of a landowner’s farm.

China becomes communist in the 1940s under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Communism seeks re-distribution of private land into cooperatives to benefit the many at the expense of the few. Mo Yan’s story begins with China’s communist revolution and the unjust murder and confiscation of a landowner’s farm.

The murdered landowner is Ximen Nao. After death, Ximen Nao falls into an imagined purgatory to, presumably, be cleansed of his sins. Despite severe torture, Ximen Nao refuses purgatory’s judgment of his sin. In consequence, or happenstance, he is reincarnated as a donkey. The twist in his reincarnation is that he remembers his former life. Returning to life as a donkey, he meets former employees, a wife, two mistresses, and his children.

During the Communist revolution, Ximen Nao is murdered. After death, Ximen Nao falls into an imagined purgatory to, presumably, be cleansed of his sins. Despite severe torture, Ximen Nao refuses purgatory’s judgment of his sin. In consequence, or happenstance, he is reincarnated as a donkey.

Ximen Nao, as a donkey, returns to his homeland and finds that his former employee has married one of his mistresses and is farming 6 acres of his confiscated land. Ximen Nao, the reincarnated donkey, gains a grudging respect for his former employee because the employee steadfastly resists public ownership (being part of the communist co-op) of property and insists on being an independent farmer. (Communist China’s law allows a farmer to be independent of a cooperative if they choose to work the land themselves.)

The former employee and his new wife become emotionally attached to the donkey because they believe it is a reincarnation of an important person in their lives. (Later, Ximen Nao’s wife consciously acknowledges that the donkey is a reincarnation of her husband.) The independent farmer and his wife cherish the donkey’s existence and its aid in farming the land. Several incidents involving the donkey reflect on life in China during Mao Zedong’s reign.

Mo Yan straddles acceptance and rejection of communism and China’s current form of capitalism. His story skewers both political systems. In Mo Yan’s story, communism and its belief in public ownership are defeated by human nature’s drive for independence. The independent farmer lives through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and witnesses the return of a capitalist form of property ownership. Mo Yan denigrates communism’s intrusion in family affairs and how it turns son against father, brother against brother, and compels women to choose between family and a communist’ collective way of life.

Mo Yan straddles acceptance and rejection of communism and China’s current form of capitalism. His story skewers both political systems.

Capitalism and its belief in unfettered freedom are also ridiculed. Mo Yan characterizes capitalism in a story about the lives of spoiled youth. Youth that live off their family’s wealth; living for adventure; denigrating love, productive work, and respect for tradition and family.

Mo Yan shows how singular pursuit of wealth corrupts morality; how leisure becomes more important than caring for others or working for human improvement.

Is there some significance in the order of Ximen Nao’s reincarnations? Ximen Nao is first reincarnated as a donkey, then as an ox, then as a pig, then as a dog, and finally as another man. It is a clever way of observing history through the prism of different animal’s lives. It also makes one wonder about humankind’s ethnocentricity and failure to respect all living things.

Most importantly –It makes one wonder where these two Presidents are taking their countries.

Finding the right balance in life is an overriding theme in Mo Yan’s story. As the inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi suggests, “Nothing in excess”; Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and many others have suggested moderation in all things. Mo Yan suggests that both Chinese communism and capitalism fail to offer the right balance in life.

MORALITY

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Modern Scholar: Ethics: A History of Moral Thought

By: Peter Kreeft

Lectures by Kreeft

PETER KREEFT (PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AT BOSTON COLLEGE AND THE KING’S COLLEGE)

Professor Kreeft, in The Modern Scholar’ lectures, offers stories of interesting philosophers and what they think they know about moral thought. “Ethics: A History of Moral Thought” is a whirlwind tour of how philosophers define ethics. It begins in antiquity and continues through tomorrow.

What one hears in these lectures may be accepted and practiced in life tomorrow or never; if never, one is seemingly confirming belief in free choice, but not much more. As a warning to the curious, the tour is circular. The tour ends as it begins.

Socrates (469-470 BC-339 BC-estimated age 71)

Wisdom is characterized by Socrates as—“I Know Something That I Know Nothing”. Kreeft recounts Socrates’ story of being told by Apollo’s Oracle that he is the wisest man on earth.

Socrates does not believe what he is told by Apollo’s Oracle. He proceeds to prove the Oracle’s error by asking questions of wise men in his day. In the process of questioning, Socrates finds no one can convincingly answer the questions he asks.

Socrates concludes the Oracle is right. He is the wisest man in the world because he knows that he knows nothing. Others say they know, explain what they know; believe they know, but show (from Socrates’ questions) they know nothing.

Kreeft moves on from the ancients to Aquinas (1225-1274), Machiavelli (1469-1527), Hobbes (1588-1679), Locke (1632-1704), Rousseau (1712-1778), and Sartre (1905-1980) to reveal the truth of Socrates’ aphorism. Each of these philosophers open new doors of explanation to human ethics but each door leads to empty rooms.

THOMAS AQUINAS (ITALIAN DOMINICAN FRIAR & PHILOSOPHER-THEOLOGIAN 1225-1274)

Aquinas acknowledges happiness as a goal in life. To Aquinas, happiness is defined by union with God, the Father of divine virtue.

The cardinal virtues are prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Aquinas believes, to the degree humankind follows the cardinal virtues, he/she finds happiness. The logical extension of this philosophy is that there is no chance of happiness without union with God, a God defined by its believers–a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, who?

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527)

Kreeft explains that Machiavelli removes the idea of virtue and ethics from the concept of happiness and suggests the exercise of power is the source of happiness.

Machiavelli views mankind as innately evil with happiness as reward from the pragmatic use of power; power gathered by any means necessary. Machiavelli argues that being feared is more important than being loved. “Might makes right” in Machiavelli’s observation of the world; virtue is superfluous in the face of force. The logical extension of this philosophy is tyranny of the many by the few.

THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679)

Kreeft notes that Hobbes believes, like Machiavelli, mankind is innately evil. However, Hobbes suggests societies form into communities to mitigate human’ evil through the creation of laws exercised by a great Leviathan, a powerful monster.

The logical extension of Hobbes belief is big government that proscribes laws to mitigate mankind’s inherent evil.

John Locke (English philosopher 1632-1704)

In contrast to Hobbes, Kreeft explains John Locke’s argues that mankind is basically good and freedom-to-compete in a marketplace for goods and property will result in a balanced community of interests.

The logical consequence of Locke’s philosophy is smaller government but only theoretical happiness because competition generates win/lose consequences that amplify community’ inequity.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Next, Krefft’s analysis of Rousseau opens a door to the French Revolution with the idea of “The Social Contract”. Rousseau believes in the innate goodness of man and argues for the rights of assembly and representative government to establish standards for the common good. The consequence of that belief is mobocracy in the “Great Terror” of the French Revolution.

In more modern times, the rise of Sartre’s philosophy brings ethics into the 20^th century. Krefft describes Sartre’s philosophy as relativist. Sartre is an atheist. He argues that the world is indifferent to all life forms. People are free but their freedom comes with responsibility. Without God, all things are permissible but the individual bares the consequence of his/her action. Sartre believes everything is defined by relationship to an “other”.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1905-1980)

Sartre suggests human beings live in a state of oppression. What he means is people choose to emulate others rather than be themselves. They are oppressed by working to stay up with the Joneses rather than fulfilling there own desires.

David Riesman (1909-2002), a sociologist, wrote a book titled “The Lonely Crowd” that exemplifies Sartre’s concept of oppression. Sartre suggests we can break that bond by recognizing the oppression and choosing independent self-actualization or authenticity.

This is an existentialist philosophy that demands knowledge and understanding of oneself.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Oddly, existentialism began with a religious philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard. Sartre is known as an atheist. Every person is his/her own god. Ethics are situation-ally determined with individual’ acceptance of responsibility; every person is an island.

A logical extension of this ethical belief is that societies breed iniquity and distort truth and leave every person on their own path to happiness.

From Krefft’s lectures, one begins to believe human beings are good and bad by nature. Aside from “Knowing One’s Self” and “Knowing that I Know Nothing”, there is no philosophy that adequately defines virtue or ethics that would predict any kind of Utopian future.

If happiness is the goal of life, its attainment by an individual or a society remains a mystery.

Nearing the end of Krefft’s lectures, he addresses attempts of science to define morality and ethics. Krefft acknowledges observation’ analysis dates back to Machiavelli and his views of history but the scientific movement gains momentum with David Hume (1711-1776), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and John Stewart Mill (1806-1873). It seems none of these “users of the scientific method” shed much light on the subject.

Finally, Krefft lightly covers eastern philosophy’s approach to morality and ethics. One fundamental difference between western and eastern beliefs is eastern belief in reincarnation versus western belief in a one way ride. A second fundamental difference is the belief in eastern’ culture that human beings are both good and bad while western’ culture believes humans try to be good but are seduced into being bad.

Krefft suggests an eastern religion may pass a dying person on the sidewalk because he/she fears interference with reincarnation. In contrast, a westerner might pass a dying person to not be involved, or with a belief that a dying person’s problem is not my problem.

Krefft also notes that eastern philosophy is by nature a “let be” view of life with a concerted effort to leave worldly concerns to their own destiny.

Western philosophy is more proactively involved in defining and practicing, or failing to practice, morality and ethics.

By the end of Professor Krefft’s lectures, a listener returns to Socrates suggestion; i.e. “Know thyself” because “The un-examined life is not worth living”.

What you believe is what you believe, but Krefft seems to suggest we should always seek to understand why.

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