Are They Really Dead?

I'm reading a book called A River Lost: The life and death of the Columbia, by Blaine Harden.

Mr. Harden is a native of Washington who laments the changes that have changed the nature of the Columbia River from the pristine state that Lewis and Clark found to the present day. He is especially critical of the Bureau of Reclamation and the work performed during the Great Depression of the 1930's when the Grand Coulee Dam and other dams were built. The engineers at the GC Dam were cavalier about the effects the dam would have on salmon, native Americans, and the price we would all pay for pouring water into what had been an inhospitable desert in and around Grant County. 

While the economic miracle that followed cannot be denied, now 70 years later the costs of this change, in Harden's treatise, are not worth the benefits. He laments the sense of entitlement the farmers of central Washington have with respect to the water they receive from the dams, while these same farmers openly detest the federal government and the "meddling influence" of the West-siders.  The hypocrisy he finds ridiculous.

As a son of the State of Washington and as a person who grew up through the development and construction of the dams on the Snake River, I share the sense of history that Mr. Harden refers to in his narrative. I used to visit the very bottom of the Snake River Canyon when I was a boy, camping with the Boy Scouts in an area that was slated to be flooded when the dams were completed. I have driven the road in this same area today that was built just above the full pool level between Wawaii and Clarkston. I recall the look the rim had in the winter where we were relatively warm in the bottom of the treeless and barren canyon, when the snow above was beautiful and glistened in the morning sun. The change from then to now is stark and dramatic.

I used the ferry at Lyons Ferry before the dam was built, when the "ferry" was a rickety platform connected to a wire rope, where a fin dipped into the Snake River was tilted towards the far shore so that the movement of the water would propel the 2-3 cars that would fit on the platform from one side to the other. Today Lyons Ferry has a high rise bridge that spans this gap, and you can travel from the south to the north side of the river at a comfortable 60 MPH in your car, never knowing how precarious it felt just 50 years ago to make this same crossing.

Lewiston ID is a port, just the same as Everett is a port. Barge traffic from Lewiston allows grain and minerals to pass hundreds of miles to Portland and Astoria through the locks, down the Snake, and into the Columbia. Harden makes the point that this could only happen if the dams and dredging were built with public funds, and the beneficiaries are farmers and mining companies that have paid next to nothing for this service. Without this water-based cartage method it would cost roughly $0.10 more per bushel to carry wheat and lentils to market using trucks and trains. Is the loss of the "Wild River" and the loss of the salmon runs in the Snake River worth the seemingly minor cost savings this offers to a few?

If I were to mention just a few of the things we have lost with the development of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, I might list:
1. Archeological evidence of native Americans in the Snake and Columbia River basins
2. Loss of salmon runs and habitat, esp. in the upper reaches of the rivers
3. Loss of "lifestyle" for native Americans dependent on salmon

If I were to list things we have gained, I might list:
1. Flood control on the rivers involved
2. Electrical power at the lowest cost in North America
3. Power to drive the manufacturing economy of the PNW, esp. in WWII
4. Cheap water transportation
5. Recreation on "pools" instead of raging rivers
6. Irrigation of semi-arid lands that would not otherwise sustain agriculture
7. Farming and manufacturing that sustain communities and economies that would not otherwise exist

So, what is the question? I think it is our old friend, What is the impact of so many people in the world? If we are going to have so many people we are going to need power, and water, and food, and communities, and to provide these we need to harness the natural resources we have and turn them to our mutual benefit.

What do you think?

Ps: Shall we organize a trip to eastern Washington to see all these wonders? I would love to lead a group on a 2-3 day trip!

Intentional Community

The next meeting is February 24, at 6:30, at the Smith's house. 

What does it take to make an intentional community? The background to this topic is that we spend a good deal of time talking about creating an environment at EUUF that is a community of like-minded individuals who chose to associate based on a set of shared mores and ideals of interpersonal relationships, but is there more going on here that that?  We chose this community and by joining it we affect the composition and nature of the group by our very presence.  We MAKE the environment we hope to be find, just by being a part of it.

There are many parts to this story, and I hope to tease them out of the discussion over the course of the evening.  Core Group, Diversity, Inclusiveness, Tolerance, Structure, Multi-Generational Involvement, Participation, Leadership, Ambiance, and Welcoming.  What other terms can you think of that would be appropriate? 

An intentional community is like a family, and like a family there are lots of issues and problems that can arise.  Love, conflict, irritation, affection, admiration, competition, help, hindrance, sharing, isolation, and many others.  What have you seen during your association at the Fellowship?  What have you seen in the world around you?  How have these affected you?  How should they affect you?

The Problem with Free Will

A regular attendee has suggested that the Problem of Free Will be discussed for our meeting on Friday.  I am all for this, however I wonder if this topic will create much discussion.  When the determinism that a created and planned world is taken away, it makes a lot of sense to think that we all have the ability to act independently and of our own volition.  Why not?  What is keeping us each from acting independently?

If you Google "the problem with free will" you will come upon several good websites where folks have written summaries of this problem down through the ages.  The historical summary they represent offers good context for the question.  If cause and effect rule nature, why not human relations?  If events have causes, actions to take today will produce outcomes tomorrow, and so forth.  Would it be possible for a super intelligence (computer?) that could assemble enough starting condition information to predict outcomes?  That sort of thing.

Do you have free will?  Some philosophers say that you have made a free will decision when you feel that you were free to make it.  Does that definition work for you?  You are free when you feel free?

How can we frame the question for this topic to encourage discussion?  Or, do you feel free to make that call?

A Review, and a Seasonal Guide

This past Friday we had 22 attendees and about half were first time attendees. While the topic was a bit different for BQ, people agreed that we stayed on topic and we kept the discussion mostly philosophical and not political. Kudos to all those who attended! This was a most difficult topic.

Please note that we are not meeting in December. There are so many activities in December that a BQ meeting seems to be just one meeting too many. Stay philosophical. Keep your balance during the holiday season. Concentrate on your relationships with others and don't sweat the conventions of the season. The richness of of the season is in the connections you make, not the gifts you give. Love is a shared richness for both the giver and the receiver. Reach out to the ones you love, even if they are not aware of your feelings, and share of yourself.

What would Socrates do?

Government By the People

There is a lot going on just now. Occupy Somewhere Movement, the GOP Presidential Primaries, state elections, and so forth. The People are in motion, and the government is reacting to issues domestic and international. The USA fiscal situation is in a mess with no clear way to move towards a resolution, and an imminent implosion of the treasury a possibility. The list of woes goes on and on.

What is the best form of government?

Greece spawned the idea of Radical Democracy where every citizen votes on every issue. To do so in any helpful way every citizen needs to be well informed on every issue, and spend a HUGE amount of time researching, discussing, thinking about, and then acting on each and every issue faced by his society. Socrates found this to be absurd, and also felt that the Every Citizen of Athens was intellectually incapable of carrying out his responsibility. He felt that people who represented special interest were unduly influential in the senate, and that the underlying issues and arguments for and against an issue were often lost to rhetoric, oratory, and sophism. In 2,500 years, have things changed all that much?

What is the best form of Government?

In American Representative Democracy we elect members of our community to represent us in the halls of legislature and empower them with the responsibility of doing the Every Citizen act of governing. We inform them our wishes and our feelings about issues, and they (presumably) tally these messages and come to some sort of conclusion about what is best for our society as a whole. They may have access to better information than we do, or they may be influenced by special interests as the Athenians of old were, and the laws they enact may or may not be in the best interests of all. But on the whole, we would like to believe that the System we have created serves the interests of all, and that we can participate at some level that is appropriate to our level of interest and still get the job of governing done. Is that a realistic assumption? If you half think about a topic, have you done it justice?

Here is another question: If you act in your self interests at the polls, and everyone else does the same, will the outcome be the best for the entire society if we have a majority rule outcome? Isn't this just an exercise in practical utilitarianism? What is the best form of government?

If you look at this question from the perspective of philosophy, and you couch your answer in terms of most desirable outcomes for all the governed, it can be a perplexing question. We want our top officials to be the Enlightened Philosophers that Socrates identified as being the best sort of rulers. We want them to always consider all angles, to apply the best information available and make the best possible decision that leads the country in the right direction. Is that happening? If not, how can we get the principles of philosophy to apply here?

The Problem With Evil

The first problem is that we don't have a good definition of Evil.  It seems situational, relative to our surroundings, arbitrary, and subject to interpretation.  Folks who do nothing but sit around and think about these things trace the origin of Evil to the Creation Myth stage of human development.  They suggest that Evil comes from 2 different sources.  One comes from a titanic struggle between Good and Evil, where Good is represented by creative forces, loving forces, compassion, caring, etc.  Evil is destructive, hating, death oriented, trouble-making, and opposed to the Good in some fundamental way. The second is that Evil is on one end of a spectrum of existence, and Good on the other.  Every act, everything that happens, can be placed on a continuum of Good and Evil, and at some point we can say that things below this line are Evil, and above this line are Good.  There are lesser and greater Goods, and lesser and greater Evils.

Is Evil pain and suffering, or can Evil be not being able to find a parking space when you need one?  Is bad luck Evil?  Is good luck Good?  Is Evil an innate feature of the human condition?  Freud thought so, calling it the Death Drive, and attributing to the human character a battle between Love and Death.  Having lived through Nazi Germany (yes, I invoked it!) as a Jew, Freud was convinced that the Death Drive was alive and well in the human psyche and could not be suppressed.

I just read Hear of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.  Published in 1902, this book describes the mentality of European colonialists who are seeking fortunes in the Belgian Congo in the 1880's and 1890's.  The conditions of depravity and suffering by the natives at the hands of the Europeans, and from the ravages of disease in the Congo are appalling and certainly warrant the title of Evil.  The demented condition of Mr. Kurtz, the pivotal character in the book who "goes native" in order to secure the greatest amount of ivory the company has ever seen, reflects on his condition and what he has seen and mutters, "The horror, the horror..." on two occasions, hinting at the extent of Evil that he has seen, and has created with his actions.  He certainly seems Evil, but can his actions be judged without putting them into context?  Are the inhuman acts that take place between the natives as a normal part of their culture any less Evil?  After all, this would seem to be Man in a natural condition, would it not? 

Evil is a problem.  What is it?  How can we define it?  How can we elevate it to a status of more than a superficial black-and-white comparison between Good and Evil?

The Nature of Evil

The topic of the existence of Evil in the world has been a hotly contested issue since the dawn of time. What is Evil? Why does Evil exist? How could a loving and caring God create a world in which Evil could exist? These and many other questions have plagued thinkers and theologians through the ages. What we have to do is avoid a naive approach to the question. We need to take a step back, see the big picture, and go through the philosopher's process of taking a simple question and analyzing it like a prosecuting attorney. We can start with the obvious question: What is Evil?

It is attractive to say, Evil results the suffering and death of people for no apparent reason. Earthquakes, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, deranged killers, child molesters, serial killers, and diseases all fall into this category. People killed or maimed without reason or sense, random suffering, innocents suffering and dying, etc. What better example of Evil could there be? The suffering that occurs at the personal level of the sufferer is Evil from their perspective, certainly. From our Objective Observer perspective it also seems senseless and pointless, and therefor Evil.

Philosophers who have considered this point of view have sometimes concluded that these processes might just be part of the normal human condition, and might be chalked up to Bad Luck, or something akin to Karma or Fate. Some people do well, and some suffer. Life is a continuum of Good and Evil, and defining a point along the line that separates Evil from the rest of the Human Condition is a bit arbitrary, and can be hard to defend. One man's suffering is another man's pleasure at times, in this age of masochism and marathons. The senseless death that occurs at time of natural disasters is certainly bad luck for the ones affected and killed, but isn't the shifting of the Earth's crust a normal, natural process that we recognize as a geologic process? How can that be Evil?

Terrorist attacks are a form of warfare, are they not? True, the targets are not "military" in nature and there may not be a declared War between political entities that we like to see when War is declared, but the act of aggression is one typical of warfare, and one many of us play out everyday on the myriad electronic games we (and our children) play on their game consoles. Warfare is a military action taken to support a political purpose or end, in the correct sense of war, and the conclusion of warfare is the establishment of a new political scheme, not a new military one. When War is over the armies go home and the politicians step in and clean up the mess they created.  In that sense War is not Evil, is it? War is a human activity that is planned, executed, and resolved, albeit in a context of human suffering and death, and destruction of property.

Deranged killers are pathological, are they not? They have an issue, maybe a medical one, that drives them to do bad things to other people (and maybe to themselves, too). In a sense, the pathological tag we give them is a way we can identify these people as different from us, as different than the norm we have in our society. Cannibals kill people, too, and eat them, but that is normal in their society, and they don't seem pathological to us. We can see the victim as having an Evil thing done to them, but the perpetrator may be acting on impulses that are organic and/or environmental in origin.

Through the ages thinkers have wrestled with questions of Evil, the origins of Evil, the basis of Evil, and the extent of Evil, and come up with some pretty different ways to think about it. How can we frame a discussion of Evil that allows us to come to some conclusions, to identify Evil in some way we that we can agree, and to couch a discussion of Evil in more than a strictly Christian context. This is our challenge.