Just checking

My blog gives me statistics that show how many people have visited the site, read the different posts, and so forth.  My last posting has no comments, and a few views.  I guess this supports my decision to suspend the meetings.  Not a whimper, not a complaint.

We all have moved on.

Big Questions is Off Line

To my many loyal BQ followers over the past many years, I wanted to send a personal message.  I have decided to suspend Big Questions for at least this fall, and "give it a rest".  I feel a bit of burn out, having done many of the question many times.  Let's let it percolate for a while and see if we feel like picking it up again.

As you drive or sit and think about life, think, "What would Socrates have thought about this?"

Dialectically.

Desmond

Water and People - Conflict?

Last week I drove through central and southern California, both in a rental car and on my bicycle.  This included a car tour of the San Joaquin valley, especially the parts used for agriculture.  I saw vast fields of crops growing, with citrus, nuts, vegetables, and plants of all sorts.  Most were irrigated using a drip system where the water a plant receives comes to it through a plastic pipe, which prevents annoying things like evaporation and soil seepage from stealing from the water supply.

I recently read the book Cadillac Desert, which includes a large section concerning the acquisition of several watersheds for the use of the residents of the Los Angeles valley.  The politicos of LA were able to co-opt the waters of places like Owens Valley, among others, forcing the residents of these relatively less inhabited areas to abandon their claims for lack of the water needed to make a living, in order to serve the greater good of the "Many" in the valley lower down the watershed.  The Colorado River, the Salton Sea, and the Ogalla Aquifer are all part of the story here.

Today the water shortage makes the news, and most certainly exists in a sort of abstract sense.  Driving around I didn't see it.  Green lawns, golf courses, trees and plants outside, and no lack of proper amenities in homes and businesses dependent on water.  To be sure the weather is hot and dry, and bicycling, I suffered terribly for the lack of water, at points.  Sweating, breathing dry air that we do not have at any time of the year here in Snohomish, and heat that drew my "precious bodily fluids" out of my body and onto the road beneath me in the form of sweat and spit, I felt myself dehydrating.

So, my point is that we, as a culture, have agreed to sustain a population of people in a place where, without the extreme measures we take to provide water, would not support life as we know it.  Is this a good thing?  OK, the weather is great with respect to the things we all like, such as temperature, humidity, seasonality, and all that, but at what cost to the environment, and to the rest of us?   If we divert water to the millions of people in southern CA that would have otherwise severed other purposes, what price will we pay in the long term?  Can the calculus of utilitarianism be applied here?  The best and highest good for the greatest number?  I'm not so sure.

Is this a Big Question?  Or is this a Question that just happened to hit me in the face?  You decide.

Cultural Relativism

With the topic of cultural relativism available both from the last posting about Speaker of the Dead, and with what we are daily exposed to with respect to world cultures, I think this remains a viable topic.  One of my regulars has mentioned to me their interest in the writings of Peter Hessler and his work on the culture of China.  Perhaps we can tread that path, as well.

See you on Friday.

Cultural conflict?

I've just finished reading Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead".  This is the second book in the Ender Wiggins series.  In the first book, "Ender's Game", Ender is tricked into using is exceptional skills to direct the military forces of the humans to destroy the home planet of the Buggers, an insect-like race of sentient beings.  It turns out that the Buggers were really only trying to get by, and the conflict that put them up against the humans was a cost of cross-cultural misunderstanding.

In this second book Ender is engaged in a second encounter, this time with a race of beings very different from humans, but also less threatening.  The book is well written and has plenty of plot twists and interesting characters to keep your interest, but at the root of it is another example of human society coming into conflict with an "other" that they don't understand.  These are a forest-dwelling group of furry creatures with dramatic sexual dimorphism and a completely different sort of life cycle.  The central government of the new human race has strict limits on the sorts of contact the humans can have with these new creatures (who speak several languages, including the human ones), so that there is very limited understanding at the point where Ender shows up and engages them fully (he's a special guy).  In short order he fathoms the Piggies (as they are called by the humans), meets with the different groups, comes to understand the life cycle issues, and forms a style and level of communication with them that is between equals (which takes some doing, as the Piggies are actually superior to humans in many ways).  In summary, Ender saves the day.  I want him on my Team!

My point of all this is that here is another example of the fascination people have with the idea of the Otherness of cultures that are different than ours.  There are things that happen with the Piggies that are deeply disturbing to the people, but only because they don't understand what is going on.  In some senses it is very much like the cases I wrote about earlier.

Has anybody read this book?  Are you ready to try out cultural relativism again?

All things in moderation?

The Socratic question would be, What is moderation?

Christopher Phillips, in his book The Six Questions of Socrates, explores this question from a variety of perspectives.

In one he breaks the word down into the root, modesty.  What is modesty, in a personal context?  He uses the Islamic practice of women wearing burkas as an example of modesty in that culture, and reports on a discussion by Islamic women that takes place in San Francisco (of all places).  Recently immigrated women talk about the factors in their lives that have lead them to "take the veil" or not, and these women's use of the Qaran to justify their personal  practice.  In the environment from which they have come, some report, the wearing of burkas is required of them to ensure their modesty.  Others disagree, and they have a lively debate over this.   The point of the manner of dress is not to attract attention to themselves.  Are there normative behaviors in our society we follow to do the same thing?  The way we dress, the way we speak, the topics we choose to speak about, that sort of thing?

Is modesty the same as moderation?  How are they related?  Are they related?

Socrates, Aristotle, and Confucius all promoted the idea that a middle ground in thought, behavior, and personal life is the best, rather that one of extremes.  In another episode Phillips is talking with a group of students in South Korea about the Confucian ideal of moderation, and they all agree that this is a worthy goal of living.  However, they say, it may also be important to be extreme at times, as they justify protests and rallies against the government.  They say that the process of corporeal punishment that is practiced in Korea on school children is really just a way for Korean society to suppress the natural individualism children have, taking away something important and replacing it with conformity to a norm, which only looks like moderation.   Inside, they say, the fire and passion remains but they maintain a calm exterior so as not to attract attention and to fit in.  The protests they promote while at university is their inner frustration at the system finally getting out.

Critiques of Aristotle's Golden Mean idea of moderation might suggest that his prescription of Goldilocks's "Not too little, not too much" philosophy logically leads to some very bad ideas.  A life without meanness should add a little, right?  A person who has no evil thoughts should have some, or at least a little. Too much of a good thing is too much, we might agree, but can we think of things that having a lot of is a good thing, not bad?  Charity?  Kindness?  Love?  Compassion?  Still, the Golden Mean concept is a thread of thought that winds its way throughout modern American ideals, jurisprudence, and history.

Are you living a life of moderation?  Is this what we think of as having balance in our lives?  Was Goldilocks right about something?

See you Friday...

Freedom and the Social Contract

Cultural relativism has always been a difficult topic for BQ, and I think we will let it wait for another time and place.  If you want to pursue this as a topic, I suggest you do a little reading about it, and ask me for the article I mentioned in my last blog.  Then, if you can express yourself in a short note, you can leave a message on this forum for all to see and share.

One of my favorites has to do with Rousseau's idea of the Social Contract.  He posited in his essay on Man in his Natural Environment, that as a people in nature we are completely free, and we give up elements of that freedom by joining into a society.  To what extent do we think that is true, and is it true today? 

Come prepared to talk about what we have given up as freedoms we might have enjoyed in nature.  What are they?  Is an isolated individual living in some idealized natural life free in the sense we think we have freedom today?  If not, why not?