Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics" (Sunday Forum)

by James, Australia, Saturday, January 31, 2009, 22:02 (1601 days ago)

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Clive Hamilton’s book, “The Freedom Paradox, Towards a Post-Secular Ethics” is a very engaging read, very clear and well written. There are very few books on philosophy that a layman can read without finding one’s eyes glazing over and this is one of those few.

[image] The impression that I got as I went through the book is that there was a certain feeling of déjà vu about his opening lines – you know, the world has gone to the dogs, the younger generation are lost, stupefied by drugs, depressed and committing suicide, greed is good, no one is happy despite unprecedented wealth. And it all has to do with the flight away from traditional religion, the family, social bonds etc etc etc. Not that Hamilton suggests a return to these values. He accepts the fact that this old world is over.

I have always been puzzled by such pronouncements because they seem to be the prerogative of old men to say them. One can find similar cries from the heart by old men about the degeneration of the young in ancient Greece and Rome and every other generation before and since. But of course the Greeks and Romans were talking about the breakdown of their religions and their social structures, and the rejection of their gods. If all these old people were right, then humanity must have been on a slippery dip downhill ethically during its whole history and we should be off the graph by now.

In fact, I think it is quite the contrary, although of course, there is still a long way to go, as Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq at one extreme and perhaps the “greed is good” ethic at the other, would attest. There have been ethical advances in terms of prohibitions on slavery, burning witches, anti-Semitism, racism.

Much of the world has set up social security systems, education and health care for the poor, the Geneva Conventions on treating prisoners of war, the International War Crimes Tribunals, equal opportunities for women and prohibitions on torture - until George Bush made the great leap forward to water boarding, known as the “wimple” in the Inquisition, and without a blip from John Howard. Hopefully we are back on a progressive track with the change of leaders.

In recent times there has been a proliferation of “happiness studies”, but their conclusions do not come as any surprise to anyone who listened to their grandmother (“money isn’t everything, dear”). There has always been throughout evolutionary history this constant struggle between altruism and egoism, both individually and socially. Sometimes altruism wins and sometimes egotism does.

Hamilton turns to Kant and Schopenhauer for his “post-secular” ethic. I am not sure what the “secular” ethic was for this one to be “post”. But in any event, he points out that Kant made the revolutionary statement that there is a difference between what we see with our senses and perceive with our brain and what really is “out there”, the “thing in itself”. Plato had said something similar with his analogy of the shadows in the cave, but Kant brought a new refinement. Kant’s revolutionary contribution was that there is a form of innate knowledge. He described what we see and experience directly as the “phenomenon” and what is the thing in itself as the “noumenon”.

Kant did not have the scientific tools to find out what is the difference between the two, and what is the extent of this innate knowledge. In the last 50 or so years, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology studies are starting to provide us with at least some answers.

For example, when the sun or moon comes up over the horizon, it looks much larger than when they are high up in the sky. I always had accepted the explanation that it had something to do with the volume of atmosphere that you were looking through and that this had a magnifying effect. Not so apparently. It is your brain that does it, and we cannot avoid it. The reason the brain does it is because it has been very useful for man to know how far a charging elephant is away from him than a rat up close that might otherwise occupy the same volume at the back of the retina.

The same is true of the sensation of thinking the moon is moving fast during heavy winds and lots of clouds or thinking that your train has pulled out of the station when it is the train next to you that is moving. These are but two small examples of where the “phenomenon” is not the “noumenon”.

Other examples are where people who have been blind from birth and are then operated on to cure their “blindness” have great difficulty coping with the world, and do not see what we see. Yet their eyes are perfectly normal. The deficit is in the neuronal connectors that have not developed because of blindness from birth. Neuroscience is continually providing us with other examples arising from studies of brain damaged people and from the new imaging technology.

The problem with this “phenomenon/noumenon” concept is that we do not really know how much of what we see is “real”, ie exists independently outside of us and how much is created by our brains. Hamilton suggests that we do get a glimpse of this transcendental essence, and he then applies that to ethical decisions. The “noumenon” is not only what is out there, but a “universal essence” that sometimes filters through to us to make correct moral decisions.

On page 182 of his book, he writes,
“Yet we know that there is a form of knowledge other than the knowledge of the phenomenon – the ‘non-sensible’ intuition Kant deduced but denied we could have access to, the special knowledge Schopenhauer wanted to believe in but could not quite accept. I maintain that there are times in adult life when circumstances converge in such a way as to give even the most hard boiled rationalist a glimpse of the universal essence that binds humanity.”

Well, what is this “glimpse”? Is it the realization that something is morally wrong? Is this the insight that Wilberforce and others had about slavery and is it the more modern glimpse that we can’t keep destroying the earth the way we are? Undoubtedly people have these “glimpses”, but are they of the “universal essence that binds humanity?”. Maybe, maybe not.

I have some problems with this idea of a “universal essence”. Evolutionary psychologists like Harvard’s Stephen Pinker or Colombia’s Antonio Velez state that the source of our morality is not something “out there”, but is hard wired into our brains in the same way as the capacity for language is hard wired into us, and has come about through the same evolutionary forces. Language was, and still is, an essential survival tool. Those children who understood their parents when they were warned not to go near a cliff survived, and passed on their genes to their descendants. Those who did not died and left none. Children who are not taught to speak by the age of about 12, lose the capacity to learn a language.

Pinker and Velez say it is the same with morality. Altruism and cooperation within small groups, were also survival tools, but they disappear once the group gets bigger, and the survival of the fittest mentality returns. This is the reason for the failure of socialist systems that become paradises for parasites. It is the reason why there is generally altruism and cooperation within families, and small tribes, but why we need laws to govern large groups.

Morality, like language, is biologically hard wired into our brains, but it also needs practice and training. Unless children are trained to act morally, then you end up with the Lord of the Flies. But once we have been trained, we can improve, just as we can with language.

There is also other hard wiring that is not so attractive and this explains things like selfishness, xenophobia, racism, aggression and war, again brought about by those same evolutionary forces of adaptation. The challenge for humanity according to these thinkers is to put the lid on this reptile brain underneath our rational one, and to develop cultural means to counteract its impulses.

True moral advancement comes not from some “noumenon”, but from recognizing when the reptile brain is overcoming the rational brain and setting up structures and systems to counteract it. It has long been recognized that legal systems to deal with criminal activity are designed to stop people killing each other as much as to mete out justice. International War Crimes Tribunals may be another such structure and its effect could be profound on the behavior of political leaders. There are reports that Henry Kissinger now does not travel without legal advice because of the number of summonses against him from other countries wanting information about his role in the Pinochet coup, as well as other alleged war crimes.

Theologians would say that you need God for morality, and indeed all morality comes from the divine law. Hamilton rejects that idea but then he comes up with the idea that we need to be united with the noumenon to be moral…well do we?

I could not help thinking that Hamilton was creating a deus ex machina, to explain the existence of our innate morality. All he seems to have done is to change the deus and call it a “universal essence”, rather than God.

During the sixties, theologians like Karl Rahner were concerned about the obvious fact that there were many very good people in the world who were not believers in Jesus, or even in God for that matter. If morality came from the grace of the Christian God, how do you explain this obvious fact?

Rahner came up with this idea of the “anonymous Christian”, and it was adopted by the Second Vatican Council. This means that good people in the world are really anonymous Christians who are inspired by Jesus to be good. To me this was another attempt to explain some obvious fact in the world that sits uncomfortably with Christian theory. It also has its innate contradiction because it must also apply not only to those who know nothing about Christ in some wild far off jungles, but also to people who have been brought up with the Bible, and maybe even a Church, and have specifically rejected Jesus – yet nevertheless are good, moral people.

What concerns me about Hamilton’s theory is that his is a kind of “anonymous Christian” explanation. There are good people in the world who are not religious at all (like Mandela to whom he refers). Is this because Mandela is more connected with the noumenon, which by definition is something that we cannot detect directly but occasionally “glimpse”? Hamilton’s answer seems to be yes, he was or is. That seems to me to be very similar to a Catholic explanation that Mandela really is an anonymous Christian who has received some special grace from God to be the person that he is. Hamilton starts with the premise that Mandela is a good and virtuous man and the cause of that must be because he is in touch with the noumenon, or “man’s essential essence” more than the rest of us.

I personally don’t think we can explain why Mandela is the person he is, other than to say that he is, and there may well be all sorts of genetic and cultural factors that have fortunately come together in one man. We have to be very thankful for that, but I don’t think it helps the rest of us to say that he is more in touch with the noumenon. That immediately asks the question, “Well how do I get in touch with it”. Hamilton does not explain that. Of course he says that you don’t do it by living a life of hedonism or by being a slave to modern consumerist advertising. One can only agree, but I don’t consider that I came to that conclusion by being more in touch with the “noumenon” than those with ripped jeans, Rolex watches, 6 monthly turnovers of convertible cars, and different sex partners every night. It probably had more to do with my listening to my grandmother.

The evolutionary approach to understanding human behaviour seems to me a bit more useful. I find it more useful to understand that underneath the peculiar cerebral cortex of human beings, there is also the primitive reptile formed by those same adaptive forces that led to us being where we are now.

It helps to know what those adaptive forces are, how and why they arose, to recognize them and to keep the reptile under control. And if social structures can help us to do that, well and good. We have so much to improve.

“The Freedom Paradox” is a great read, and a book I found hard to put down. It certainly improved my knowledge of Kant, Schopenhauer and modern philosophy generally. In the end, however, I did not come away convinced.

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 05:03 (1600 days ago) @ James

James, thanks for all the work you've done on this. I'm still only half way through the book but fully endorse the words in your opening paragraph:

"a very engaging read, very clear and well written. There are very few books on philosophy that a layman can read without finding one’s eyes glazing over and this is one of those few."

I think (I hope? I expect?) this might turn out to be one of the most sustained, interesting and important conversations we have yet seen on Catholica. Self-evidently fewer and fewer people today in the Western world are persuaded by the social mores and moral standards that kept everybody in line in the past — and which were largely sourced from religious beliefs. Within even the Catholic Church today there are a whole raft of issues where many people simply no longer feel that certain behaviours are morally wrong — from missing Mass on Sundays through to various rules, or laws, regarding sexual behaviour, and sometimes even over into fifth commandment issues on the contentious issues such as abortion and euthanasia. While the discussion in the wider community tends not to be formal I think there is a searching going on for a new understanding as to how an individual determines whether a behaviour might be moral or otherwise. Like you, I am not sure if Clive Hamilton does give the comprehensive answer but, at the same time, I'm not sure that was his intention in the first place. I have this sense, from what I've read so far, that he is endeavouring to spark a discussion on what he sees as an important topic rather than to set himself up as some kind of god who can furnish us all with the definitive answers. I'll be interested to see if I'm persuaded out of that assessment when I get to the concluding chapters of his argument.

I think one of the great problems for the Church(es) today is we have some who seem stuck in this understanding that "to be moral" is some game of running around reciting the rules — and trying to prove you never break any of them — whereas most people have moved right past that sort of behaviour. Unfortunately the old certitudes of the past are no longer available in this new realm and there seems to be a search going on for a new way of negotiating this territory. Fundamentalists aside, life for most people is coloured in shades of moral grey rather than black or white. In the past I've raised the subtle moral nuances that might arise for a person who finds themselves in a position of having to be a whistle blower. Perhaps the real discussion should be on the nuances involved in sexual morality but that is such a hot potato in Catholic circles that I was always afraid any discussion would quickly get derailed and that's why until now I've stuck with the relatively uncontentious example of whistle-blowing morality. I do sense the time is coming though when we will be able to have an open, and adult discussion about the many contentious areas of sexual morality where far more moral nuancing is required than one gets from the religious fundamentalists. I haven't got to that part of Clive's book yet but I have already passed the paragraph where he telegraphs that he discusses that area later in the book.

In recent weeks in the mainstream press we had news of an Islamic cleric suggesting that there was no such thing as rape in marriage. I suspect one could find some Catholics who today might still hold to that view also. That's just one example of the many that might be profitably discussed as we open this topic up.

Another big area — and perhaps going well past the territory Clive Hamilton is exploring — is a discussion on how we discern what our conscience is telling us and differentiate between "conscience" and feelings, emotions and intellectual self-delusions.

Bring the discussion on, I say. I must also say that I wasn't expecting you to post your review for a few more days yet but the timing is brilliant in terms of providing our new publishing year with a powerful start. Thank you for that. It caused me to make a swift change from what I had originally planned to introduce as the first Sunday Forum.

Cheers,

[image] Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]

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It is your brain that does it?

by Ynot , Sunday, February 01, 2009, 10:54 (1600 days ago) @ James

James, thank you for this appetising introduction to Clive Hamilton's book that Brian has been writing about for so long. You seem to have given us a good outline of the argument. I need some time to think through the options.

One question before we start: only a trifle, but the example of the sun or moon rising seeming to be larger, etc. has got me baffled. Is there a reference where we could find an explanation of what the brain is doing, and how this has been demonstrated, etc.? I know it's only an example, but like a pebble in the shoe at the start of a long walk, it demands attention first...

Maybe someone knows of such a reference.
Thanks for your work,
Tony.

'TonyL
"A post is a free gift, and it will go where it pleases."'

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It is your brain that does it?

by James, Australia, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 11:16 (1600 days ago) @ Ynot

Hi Tony,

I got this out of Antonio Velez's book, Homo Sapiens. The book has some illustrations, that I can't reproduce in the reply, but you can find the whole text at www.villegaseditores.com/sapiens

The whole of chapter 10 deals with the Cognitive Apparatus and discusses the various ways in which the brain "moulds" the basic information that we receive from the senses into useful information for living in our environment here on earth.

"We experience a similar visual deception when the moon comes from behind the mountains. Ptolemy explained the phenomenon more than two thousand years ago. A photo camera shows us that the lunar disc keeps the same size throughout its journey through the firmament (in reality, the atmosphere acts like a converging lens and tends to reduce slightly the apparent size of the moon when it is on the horizon). Its apparent diameter for human vision changes in a notable way, so that when it appears on the horizon, the diameter is much bigger than it is at the zenith. Everything appears to indicate that our visual system considers that the line of the horizon is further away than the celestial vault so that while the diameter of the moon is constant, in the context of it appearing to be further away from the horizon, the cognitive system increases the appearance and deceives us. We are not capable of breaking this spell consciously even though we know that what we are seeing is an illusion.

Figure 12.6 Oh lune….inspire-moi ce soir, the work of Honoré Daumier. On the left is the original painting; on the right the diameter of the moon has been reduced to the size that would correspond to its real size if the painter had been faithful in drawing the lunar disc in relation to the size of the other objects. Oh deception.

Figure 12.7 It is enough to turn the figure on the left an angle of 180 degrees to make the bas relieves to turn into high relieves and vice versa.

The deception arises from a mental function designed with a perfect logic. The size of an object should not be judged only by the area of the retina occupied by the image, but also by their distance. That is to say they should be judged in their appropriate spatial context. This is exactly what our brains do. We know that a very large predator situated at a distance can occupy the same extension in the retina as a close rat. It would be very risky to confuse the two lots of information."

I have to say that I am not an expert in all this stuff, and am just reproducing what I have read. I am happy to be corrected if someone has some better information.

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by Letter to the Editor , Sunday, February 01, 2009, 11:15 (1600 days ago) @ James

Dear Brian,

I read the intriguing review of Hamilton's book, tried to log in to reply but I don't seem to know my user and password???

At any rate, let me comment here:

Whether it's Kant's philosophical musing or evolutionary language, the efforts to EXPLAIN who we are, why we are and how we act are always of interest to me. But such rational language is always second level "knowing" - stepping back from the experience of living/being in Being. In the end, I agree that it is our personal "story" that shapes us in our sense of ourselves in relationship with others - and in our ethical/unethical behaviors.

Narrative is a great way to both explain and explore the human experience of divinization, I believe. When I preach/teach or converse (as you, Amanda and I did recently in your home), I always find attention to be most riveted when story is being unfolded and exchanged — what "grandma told us" so to speak. Perhaps that's why The Jesus Story is told and retold in believing assemblies over the centuries — so we can walk around in That Story and make it Our/My Story. It is Felt Truth passed along and added to over the generations.

Patrick Collins

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by PeterR , Sunday, February 01, 2009, 12:23 (1600 days ago) @ James

James,

Thank you for that great review.

In the few days I was saving power some wonderful posts have appeared on Catholica. I am now overwhelmed by it all, but I shall slowly absorb and respond.

(Aside: Though virtually every neighbouring suburb lost power at some stage - often for many hours - we never lost it.)

Below is a linked article entitled, "Paul the Pastor" from which I quote:

"There is no better way to drive home this point, which is crucial for a correct understanding of Paul’s pastoral practice, than to quote one of the best exegetes of the Pauline letters, St Thomas Aquinas, ‘He who moves himself is free. He who is moved by another [i.e. takes orders from someone else] is not free. He who avoids evil because he sees it as evil is free. He who avoids evil simply because a precept of the Lord forbids it is not free’ (Commentary on 2 Cor. 3.17). The key sentence is the last one. In contemporary terms it means that a married couple who avoid contraception, not because they are convinced it is wrong, but simply because the Pope has forbidden it, are behaving like slaves. By mindlessly doing simply what they are told, their ‘goodness’ is by compulsion and, from Paul’s perspective, has no moral value."

In Kohlberg's stages of moral development we are called to move from keepers of rules to free choosers of moral behaviour at some stage. It's years since I read his work so forget all the details.

I am convinced of the importance of freedom in moral decision making. I see this as becoming a major source of conflict in the church between a hierarchy, many of whom want to issue their moral decisions to an unthinking laity to obey, and an informed laity who make their own moral decisons.

I don't want to distract us from the issues you have raised, but I see the element of relationships entering into the discussion of this passage from your review:

'Hamilton turns to Kant and Schopenhauer for his “post-secular” ethic. I am not sure what the “secular” ethic was for this one to be “post”. But in any event, he points out that Kant made the revolutionary statement that there is a difference between what we see with our senses and perceive with our brain and what really is “out there”, the “thing in itself”. Plato had said something similar with his analogy of the shadows in the cave, but Kant brought a new refinement. Kant’s revolutionary contribution was that there is a form of innate knowledge. He described what we see and experience directly as the “phenomenon” and what is the thing in itself as the “noumenon”.'

If, as a panentheist, I see the other (person or other creature) as the presence of God, my moral basis becomes one of my right relationship with God there present. Death (to sin) and Resurrection (Christ-like relationship) become esential components of that right relationship with God there present.

Yes, I know, I have already looked at the "noumenon" with my faith to form a biased "phenomenon".

Does a secular ethic call for some other habit-formed bias (like faith) to affect phenomenon formation in some way so as to create a habit of always viewing the noumen from this 'biased' point of view?

Then there are all the other elements you have raised.

Away to think.

Peter

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The Phenomenon and The Noumenon...

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 13:43 (1600 days ago) @ PeterR

For those not familiar, particularly with the term "noumenon", let me try and give a layman's explanation. This duality is pretty important to understanding what Clive Hamilton is getting at...

Take something solid. I have chosen an image of one of the 21 copies of Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture "The Thinker" that exist around the world as the example. It was cast from bronze in 1881 (or thereabouts — I'm not sure if all 21 copies were cast in that year) and this one is of the copy that can be seen in the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia.

[image]

We all tend to look at things in different ways. This happens to be a famous work of art that is attractive to many people. For many it "moves them". That's why it is famous. It is possible to imagine though it might be a big turn-off to other people — they find it ugly, or they are offended by the man's nakedness, or they have something against "thinkers", whatever... Looked at purely as a piece of art this work can generate a range of different feelings or responses in the people viewing it.

But it can also be looked at from other perspectives besides simply being "a piece of art". A metallurgist, for example, visiting the gallery — or simply viewing the image on a screen like this — might primarly be viewing it in terms of the chemical or physical structure of the alloy that was created to mould it. Questions might be buzzing through their mind not so much do with the artistic merit of the work but in terms of what alloy was used to achieve the end colour, or texture for the work. All those thoughts might be totally foreign to a person who knows nothing of metallurgy. A physicist can view this, seemingly solid piece of bronze, and their thinking might be taken down to an even deeper level at the structure of the molecules, atoms or even sub-atomic structure that gives this bronze its form. The "reality" at the subatomic level is that this seemingly timeless and solid piece of bronze is a veritable furnace of energy — and mainly empty space. It might seem solid to us living in the macro world of everyday perception but the reality at the micro- and nano-scopic level is that the structure might be likened to our solar system with vast distances of empty space between the protons, neutrons and electrons that seem to give it its solidity to us. And they're all moving around at the speed of friggin' light. Understanding Einstein's relationship between mass and energy they might perceive it not as some "massive structure" at all but in terms of the "cauldron of energy" that gives it the form we see as "timeless and unchanging" in our ordinary, everyday world of the macro dimensions.

How we all see things — even the same thing — is very much conditioned by a complexity of factors from our own experience of life. What we "see" with our eyes is a "phenomenon". What I am seeing might be — in fact more than probably is — is different to what you are seeing. The same could be said of the "phenomenon" of listening to music. When my wife listens to music (she's a musician and composer) I am bloody sure she hears a heck of a lot of things that simply do not even impinge on my consciousness. As one trained as a physicist and an acoustic engineer way back though I'm sure I also hear things when listening to music that are not of the slightest interest to her — such as I might be asking myself "I wonder what sort of microphone was used or how did the method of storing that sound digitally or on tape change it from the 'pure' sound I might have heard in the studio or concert hall?"

Our understanding of literally everything in life resides in the realm of the phenomenon. It is "conditioned" by our knowledge, by our experiences in life, by our emotional likes and dislikes. We cannot avoid it.

If, for a moment, we can imagine Rodin's sculpture sitting in the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia with no one viewing the item — this bronze statue — must have a substance, a form and meaning that is NOT conditioned by all these myriad subjective views that we lay on top of that "base essence" of what the thing is when we are viewing it. That "base essence" if you like is the "noumenon". It might be likened to the "absolute truth" of something, anything. It is "the thing" when viewed unconditionally — without all the "phenomenal conditions" we place on it because of our personalities, experience of life and likes and dislikes.

As Clive Hamilton, and the philosophers he bases his work on, argue it is impossible, or next-to-impossible, to actually view anything in its "noumenal form". Just by looking at something, or even thinking about something, we change it — we add another layer of meaning to it.

The problem that comes about is this: how can we have "moral absolutes" when everything we do, or even look at, or think about, is always conditioned by our personalities, experience of life and likes and dislikes? That's the essence of the problem his book is seeking to explore. If most in society, or an increasing number, are no longer persuaded that God hands down a law that we should not kill, or do a lot of other things, from where can a society find the "common baseline" or "the absolute" from which all can agree such and such a behaviour is ethical, or moral, and such and such another behaviour is unethical, or immoral? The same applies if there are a growing myriad of religious beliefs in society as to what God's views might be.

[image] Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]

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The Phenomenon and The Noumenon...

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 14:18 (1600 days ago) @ Brian Coyne

And, yes, even I slightly altered the photograph of the sculpture in Photoshop to draw the actual statue further out of its background to provide emphasis to what I was inviting you to look at. You can find the original image here: http://www.zimbio.com/Auguste+Rodin/articles/4/Auguste+Rodin+born+167+years+ago

[image] Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by James, Australia, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 14:43 (1600 days ago) @ PeterR

Peter,

Thank you for drawing my attention what Aquinas said about freedom, because it links in quite well with many of the things that Clive was talking about.

Perhaps I spent too much time in the review on the philosophical underpinnings of morality and not enough on what is, after all, the title of the book, "The Freedom Paradox".

One of Clive's important points is that with all the liberation movements that have been going on over the last 50 years, we have ended up with more freedom of choice (I use that phrase deliberately) than ever before, but our sense of freedom has been diminished.

The reason is that it is very easy for us to allow ourselves to become slaves of fashion, of the market, of the advertising gurus who play on every human weakness to sell their products. Conventional mores might have been overthrown, but they were simply replaced by another and more insidious authority because the clever advertisers don't want us to be aware that we are being influenced.

On page 226 of his book, Clive speaks about recovering our freedom by a 'life of detachment' which is

"not a life of disengagement from the world; rather it is a life of engagement on one's own terms, of inner freedom...it does not turn away from possessions; it owns them for what they are, not for what they promise. It insists on neither the hair shirt nor the Armani suit but is happy to wear either occasionally. It aspires without the need to aspire."

I guess there is nothing particularly new about this, reflecting the Aristotelian, "moderation in all things", but it is very attractively re-stated for modern times.

And although I have some misgivings about the philsophical bases for his "post-secular ethics", that I referred to in the review, I don't have any misgivings about what he says about freedom in the modern world.

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by Peter Dresser , Kandos, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 15:40 (1600 days ago) @ James
edited by unknown, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 16:54

James
Many thanks for your insights and the contributions of others in the discussion. Just a couple of ideas that you alert us to that may be worth some consideration.

Firstly it has been my own delightful experience during my life's journey that some of the more beautiful and entirely good living people it has been my privilege to engage with did not only not have any religious affilation or background but were avowed atheists. So to argue with them (as I did on a couple of occasions) that God was needed for morality or that all morality comes from the divine law would be, for them, a load of nonsense. Their "phenomenon" of goodness and good living was in no way dependent on or reflected in any way any notion of a divine "noumenon". Secondly it has been my very sad experience that so many people deeply involved with religion and their God displayed/continue to display very little evidence of goodness and moral living. I am here reminded of any German soldier who may have attended Mass before his daily duties at Belsen. Just by way of introduction.

I now take the risk, however, of creating what you think Hamilton was creating viz., a "deus ex machina".

For some time now, as you are probably aware, I have been trying to locate the "noumenon" as some kind of Cosmic Prevailing Presence, what I have described as the Universal Spirit of the Universe with which are all connected...not only connected with this Spirit but, as a corollary, interconnected with everything and everyone that is or has been. The idea is very close, indeed maybe identifiable, with the "universal essence that binds humanity" which Hamilton refers to.

To what extent can this "collective conscious reflection and experience" of millions of people be seen as this "prevailing spirit"? Carl Yung saw our interdependence with each other not merely interpersonal but also planetary and cosmic. From this vision, Jung coined his notion of the collective unconscious. He called it a Grenzbegriff , a concept used to describe something that feels very real but somehow defies analysis or even description. And Kant, to whom you refer, interestingly enough used the same term to designate the concept of God.

I really cannot explain how some people give expression to this "noumenon" better than others do...except that they deliberately and freely allow this spirit deep within themselves to have an impact on their lived experiences and in their relationships with others. It is a presence that is discovered in the very depths of our lives, in our capacity to live, in our ability to love and in the courage to be.

It is a Prevailing Presence that Wordsworth gives expression to in "Tintern Abbey"

.......And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round blue ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things

Peter

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I don't believe in atheists!

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 17:17 (1600 days ago) @ Peter Dresser

My headline is only half in jest, Peter. What you wrote triggered a thought I don't think I've ever had before.

Firstly a couple of thoughts I have had before...

To me, the word "God" is increasingly little more than a label — an important label none-the-less — it's the label for this essence, origin and Mystery that literally lies at the heart, the source, the beginning and the end of everything. When I say "I don't believe in atheists" what I mean is that I cannot conceive of a frame of reference — a frame of thinking — that exists without "a heart, a source, a beginning, an end, an essense or an origin". To believe that a person has to be mad, insane or not of this world. When I hear self-confessed atheists mounting their arguments — such as say Richard Dawkins or Phillip Adams — I always have this sense that they're actually not railing against those things, or That Thing, which I just described in parenthesis. They are railing against either the label, or the kindergarten-level imagery, that some seek to put on "the heart, the source, the beginning, the end, the essense or the origin" that take if out of the realm of Mystery and Unknowability and reduce it down to something not far removed from some "idolised statue". Half the time I find myself in very strong agreement with what they are railing against and I want to urge them on. Rather than "not believing in God" a lot of the time I have this sense that what they're really trying to say is "I don't believe in idolatry". Or "I don't believe in these very human or childish attempts to reduce 'the Mystery of the Origin' or 'the Mystery of the Divine' down to the level of some rag doll that a child can grasp — or to pin some imagery on it of 'a kindly, paternalistic, fuddy-duddy, old gent in the sky'".

The other pre-thought is that I don't pick up the sense in what I've read so far that the noumenon is put forward as a new descriptor of God, the Divine or however one describes this Mystery of the the Origin or Source. Certainly in some sense the noumenon fulfils a "substitute role" in the sense of seeking an alternative base from which to argue or reason an origin for moral behaviour. The noumenon is not some alternative God, or a new descriptor to add to the other descriptors we might already have of God. It's really referring to a none-deist sense of the essence or "absolute properties" or each object, or concept, in creation.

The new thought triggered by what you wrote is this — and it's related to both of those ideas I've endeavoured to describe. Perhaps our biggest problem is that while, as Clive Hamilton and the philosophers suggest, it is hard enough to touch, or grasp, the noumenon of any of the real objects or concepts we deal with in life, the ultimate challenge is "grasping the noumenon of God's Godself"? That's a sort of Mystery loaded on top of a first Mystery. Furthermore, perhaps our human problem is this diversity of meanings that come into different people's minds when anyone utters the word "God". We're all — whether Catholic, Protestant, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, or whatever — basically endeavouring to refer to the same "Mystery" or "Origin" but we can't agree, and our fight is over what we mean when we use the descriptor for this "thing" or "Mystery" we cannot describe? That's the ultimate origin of our kindergarten behaviour where we all start fighting and trying to prove "my God's bigger 'n your God"? We're not actually fighting over God, we're fighting over the label, or noumenon, of God?

[image] Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]

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I don't believe in atheists!

by Peter Dresser , Kandos, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 18:51 (1600 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
edited by unknown, Sunday, February 01, 2009, 19:04

Brian

My sad observations have been that formal religion has in many cases really stuffed up people's lives. They have become almost paranoid in their allegiance to some kind of pietistic and judgemental Jesus or whatever other prophet and some screwed up image of a God..."a kindly, paternalistic, fuddy-duddy, old gent in the sky" to use your expression. Thousands of people continue to live with this image which creates all kinds of problems for any real meaningful understanding of their religion or morality or any kind of understanding of walking in companionship with their God during their lives. They are absolutely terrified of God and their religion only reinforces their torment. And that situation is not only confined to Christianity...as past and present events have disclosed.

While I accept that the noumenon according to Hamilton is not meant to be a new theistic descriptor of God or morality, my reflections (in my previous post) actually concur with Hamilton's idea that the noumenon could very well be the "universal essence that binds humanity". And that is why I posted my theological ramblings.

In the global village we live in I think we should respect each other's Gods and God's prophets or whatever, Having said that, however, it is significantly more important that there be some common ground on which to base our morality and consequent behaviour and attitudes towards each other and so on. That is why I suggest that something in the nature of my own reflections could be helpful in this regard. (And he says this with the greatest humility! :-) )

Regards....Going AWOL for a couple of weeks. Catch up.

Peter

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by PeterR , Monday, February 02, 2009, 16:56 (1599 days ago) @ James

James,

Thanks again for your review and for both beginning and continuing this discussion.

Detachment and rejection of passing fashions are manifestations of the oft repeated saying about freedom from X to be free for Y. It seems to me that it becomes a matter of internalised values, free will and all those old fashioned things we used to talk about. It's about Death and Resurrection - my "interpretation" or "bias" - and that man, Jesus of Nazareth.

When one considers those thoughts in the context of life in community for people committed to poverty, celibacy and obedience, one realises that somebody back there had a great insight - freedom from to be free for. Then somebody else buggered it all up by turning that vision into rules. I notice Rome is turning its mind to buggering up women's religious congregations.

I hope that those with another "manner of knowing" share their vision of moral life with me.

For example, what was the internalised value of so many Australians who gave generously to the "Tsunami Appeal" a few years ago?

Peter

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by Debb , Monday, February 02, 2009, 12:25 (1599 days ago) @ James

»
» “The Freedom Paradox” is a great read, and a book I found hard to put
» down. It certainly improved my knowledge of Kant, Schopenhauer and modern
» philosophy generally. In the end, however, I did not come away convinced.

Thank you for your review, James. I did not finish reading "The Freedom Paradox". I started to read it because I heard Clive Hamilton's talk about the book on the ABC last year:

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2008/08/bia_20080824.mp3

Clive Hamilton spoke with a certain verve. I liked his ending:

In conclusion, then, humans have always needed stories to live by. For millennia until the Enlightenment mythical stories gave our lives a narrative coherence, and since the
Enlightenment we have invested our hopes in stories of liberation—liberation from feudal authority, from the arbitrary exercise of power, from political exclusion, from prejudice, from plutocrats and from material deprivation. Although spawned by the social movements of the sixties, post-modern intellectuals have ended up colluding with the economic libertarians to deny us a meaningful story by which to live. For the existentialists this is the moment they declare “you are on you own”, and the only response is retreat into mundane life. But ultimately there is no comfort in the everyday, unless mundane activities are practiced with a transcendent purpose.

This is perhaps the unconscious reason so many young people are drawn to environmental activism. What better way to engage with the magnificent questions than to bind oneself to the fate of the planet? Environmental activism is a repudiation of quietism; it is the resurrection of the subject whom the post-structuralists had pronounced dead. There is no place for post-modern irony and nonchalance when the future of humanity is at stake. The young activists commit their lives to a higher cause and thereby acquire not just an authentic identity but an abiding sense of connectedness between the inner landscape and that of the natural world they seek to protect.

So, I borrowed the book, assiduously read the first half, with lots of bookmarks. In the second half, I just lost interest. The passion was gone. He was trying to make an intellectual case, and I just could not make myself care about what he was saying.

The subject matters greatly, and I share Hamilton's concern that we have no common story to live by. I wonder, though, whether his attempt at philosophy is going to give us that story (although, I must confess it is some time since I returned the book to the library, and so perhaps I have forgotten something significant about what he wrote).

He was closer to it in his talk, I think. The story of our earth, our lives on it, our common future is what is likely to provide us all with a common story, and the Christian version of that story is more likely to come from de Chardin that from Rome.

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by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Monday, February 02, 2009, 13:11 (1599 days ago) @ Debb

Thanks to all for this wonderful thread which has sent me up many paths.

I like Clive Hamilton's way of looking at our world, can follow much but, of course, he loses me sometimes.

I like what you write, Debb. You think deeply, have learned so much from your reading and, mostly, your life-experiences. Thank you for sharing.

This time, you quote Hamilton, "......For the existentialists this is the moment they declare 'you are on your own', and the only response is retreat into mundane life. But ultimately there is no comfort in the everyday, unless mundane activities are practiced with a transcendent purpose....."

It is the last clause which I like very much. I am not being 'holier than thou', Heaven forbid, but I see the 'transcendent purpose' of the lives of most of us to be to live lovingly, loyally with our spouses, to love, protect and provide for our children.

There is nothing 'mundane' about this. It calls for courage and strength on the part of both, manliness and femininity.

For me, in short, it is the greatest work God, if He/She lives, has given to men and women, and in writing that I mean no offence.

(Welcome back, PeterR, wonderful to see your posts again. Of course, you and Betty could move to the 'Premier State' where we have electricity !!!! )

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by Debb , Monday, February 02, 2009, 16:16 (1599 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

» everyday, unless mundane activities are practiced with a transcendent
» purpose....."
»
» It is the last clause which I like very much. I am not being 'holier than
» thou', Heaven forbid, but I see the 'transcendent purpose' of the lives of
» most of us to be to live lovingly, loyally with our spouses, to love,
» protect and provide for our children.
»
» There is nothing 'mundane' about this. It calls for courage and strength
» on the part of both, manliness and femininity.
»
» For me, in short, it is the greatest work God, if He/She lives, has given
» to men and women, and in writing that I mean no offence.

Bill, as you know, in one way you and I inhabit quite different life spaces, but in another way we are as one. I totally agree with you that the "transcendent purpose" of life is to love those closest to us (while reaching out to those not so close). It is in the everyday that we find our real meaning in life - our everyday, "mundane", actions are so charged with significance. So much the better if we know it and appreciate those with whom we share love and care.

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by PeterR , Monday, February 02, 2009, 17:15 (1599 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

Bill,

Thanks for the welcome, but not for the invitation to NSW; you have some very ordinary weather in your state at times. We may need some of Queensland's water soon.

What you have written here, which is what you have expressed often, is correct IMHO, as always. A wise woman like Debb also agrees with you.

I have set myself the task of not judging younger generations as James warns older folk to do. However, it comes at a price. I expect that, like you, I often stop or step back at the shopping centre to allow a woman priority of passage. One day last year when I did this, the woman said: "Thank you." The shock of a woman having the manners to acknowledge my good behaviour nearly gave me a heart attack.

Still, I expect that if my memory were accurate, there would have been times when I wouldn't have acted so gallantly.

Keep well.

Peter

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Monday, February 02, 2009, 18:13 (1599 days ago) @ PeterR

Peter, mate, I have been waiting for you to work your way down the Board to my invitation, knew you would not accept, but thank you for your grace.

I think I wrote here, within a couple of days or so, that I am in a very happy life-stage in which I know I have been, and remain, very fortunate.

I am trying hard to clarify my years-long thinking of God and the writings given us. As each Church-scandal arises, my beliefs are weakened but I am heartened by much I read here.

As it is with you, I would think, there are few surprises or disappointments. So much appears to be coming around again.

I read about the antics of 'men' who think they are 'leading' us, in Church and state, and can only think, 'You bloody wish' but I do not allow it all to get under my skin as they are not worth it. I have my heroes, whom I have listed here previously. I am sure another will rise but I am not holding my breath as I have seen the best and the memories sustain me.

I understand what you are writing about courtesy to others but I am bent, on a stick, in some obvious pain apparently,and people are generally very nice to me, frequently standing aside, waiting, offering me a seat. There is the odd exception, of course, but my thought is, "Mate, how would you have gone with me fifty years ago?" and, me being me, I come out of it well!!

As for the younger generations, I see my job and inclination is to love those who have a call on me and to think gently of all others. Being deaf is a great advantage, I think!

Thanks for your 'Keep well', which I return to you. I so value our cyber-friendship, Peter.

Bill.

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by PeterR , Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 11:45 (1598 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

Bill,

Up above you weren't quite sure what I meant by something I wrote.

As we moved through the discussion I had written about our needing to be free from X to be free for Y.

You finished off a post the other day writing: "Betty is calling; I must away." I interpreted that to mean that because of your love for Betty you were free from your selfishness to go on enjoying what you were doing here to be able to be free for her and what she needed you for at that time.

That's what I call Death and Resurrection as a quality of human life, or simply our living the Christ life.

You have expressed the same thought in the post to which I am responding:

"As for the younger generations, I see my job and inclination is to love those who have a call on me and to think gently of all others."

I have met very few people who have such an understanding as you have of the spirituality that is developed in a loving family. Life in such a family is a constant dying to self for the love of others. It is that Christ dimension of life we "carry in our bodies", as St Paul taught us, when we celebrate the Eucharist through Christ, with Christ and in Christ.

Like you, Bill, I enjoy and I am enriched by our friendship here. I am grateful for your friendship.

By the way, I have a walking stick, too. I explain to Betty that I need it to protect myself from the advances of all the young women who are attracted to me whenever I go outside the house.

Peter

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Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics"

by James, Australia, Monday, February 02, 2009, 14:08 (1599 days ago) @ Debb

I really did enjoy the Freedom Paradox, and one of the things that kept me going was not only Clive Hamilton’s easy prose, but I thought that at the end he would provide the clincher that would provide a secular ethic that would be useful for the vast majority of the population who are “secular”. But it didn’t arrive.

I have to admit that I had not read much on ethical theory before. I had read before Peter Singer’s “Practical Ethics” and quite liked much of what he said, particularly in relation to “speciesism”. In chapter 39, the Freedom Paradox does deal with issues of treatment of animals, but again from the perspective of Schopenhauer rather than of Kant who did not think that cruelty to animals was inherently wrong. Hamilton however says that the “universal essence” is common to all creatures and therefore cruelty to them is wrong.

But whether we are talking about treatment of animals or other ethical issues, I just find this appeal to the “universal essence” a bit airy fairy. It is just as nebulous and slippery as the traditional Catholic concept of “Natural Law”. You can see that by reading Chapter 39 on the differences between Kant, Schopenhauer and a modern Kantian, John Rawls, not to mention Hamilton himself. “Natural Law” and “Universal Essence” are words whose meaning reminds me of Humpty Dumpty’s comment to Alice. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."

On the question of stories, I agree stories do give people a sense of coherence whether one is talking about the aboriginal dreamtime stories, the Christian or Buddhist stories or even the Anzac story. But I see these stories like the Anzac story as creating a connectedness between the present and the past, rather than as providing some guidance for living beyond the merely material. At least I hope it isn’t because it might mean just a lot more enthusiasm for going off to war.

And I don’t see young people’s enthusiasm for environmentalism as being part of seeking for some transcendence or “universal essence”. It reflects more the idealism of youth that affected all of us in one way or another, and is spurred on by what we have been told about what we are doing to the planet. And if they have thrown the Christian stories into the same basket as Santa Claus, does that mean that that “fabric of society” that conservatives love to throw about is going to crumble? As I said in my opening remarks, old people have been saying this about the young since time immemorial, and it cannot possibly be true.

It may be that care for the earth is going to be our “common story”, and whether you call it that environmentalism or something else, it is certainly something that unifies people, particularly young people.

There is a fair bit of pessimism going through the Freedom Paradox, but do young people today really think that everything is existentially absurd? That life is really meaningless? That everything is relative and anything goes? George Pell will tell you that they do, but then, as Mandy Rice Davies would say, he would say that wouldn’t he. That is part of his marketing spin.

On the other hand the Freedom Paradox attempts to provide some sort of ethical guidance now that the old stories have gone, and it is to be praised for attempting that. I just don’t think it gets there for reasons I have already pointed out. I have to say that I can't come up with anything better.

But in any event, I don’t share all this pessimism. Perhaps I mix in different circles or just have a natural tendency to see the glass half full.

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by Debb , Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 12:00 (1598 days ago) @ James

» On the question of stories, I agree stories do give people a sense of
» coherence whether one is talking about the aboriginal dreamtime stories,
» the Christian or Buddhist stories or even the Anzac story. But I see these
» stories like the Anzac story as creating a connectedness between the
» present and the past, rather than as providing some guidance for living
» beyond the merely material. At least I hope it isn’t because it might mean
» just a lot more enthusiasm for going off to war.

James, your list of story-sources makes me realise that we need to choose our story, not just accept anything that presents itself as a story. Finding a story that "provides some guidance for living beyond the merely material" is quite a challenge, even more so honing it and celebrating it together.

In Alexander McCall Smith's latest book on Edinburgh "The Incredible Lightness of Scones". he has two characters bemoaning the loss of a bonded, civil society. They wonder how they can recreate it. Perhaps as a part-answer, McCall Smith ends the book (as he often does) with a gathering of friends for dinner, at which one of the characters recites a simple, but inspirational poem. I notice that in this latest book the author keeps revisiting the theme of "forgiveness", surely something we need in whatever story we all end up creating/choosing.
»
» And I don’t see young people’s enthusiasm for environmentalism as being
» part of seeking for some transcendence or “universal essence”. It reflects
» more the idealism of youth that affected all of us in one way or another,
» and is spurred on by what we have been told about what we are doing to the
» planet. And if they have thrown the Christian stories into the same basket
» as Santa Claus, does that mean that that “fabric of society” that
» conservatives love to throw about is going to crumble?

I regularly receive a magazine that young people write for, mostly about issues to do with our treatment of animals. The writers are idealistic but typically completely endorsing of reductionist-materialism (We are all "hard-wired" etc). The culture is also one of beautiful appearances - all the photos of people show young, beautiful, smiling faces with even white teeth etc. I think that anyone who wants to engage with idealistic young people will have to start by recognising those two aspects of their culture.

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by James, Australia, Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 14:18 (1598 days ago) @ Debb

Finding a story that "provides some guidance for living beyond the merely material is quite a challenge, even more so honing it and celebrating it together".

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "story". There are stories like Sophocles Oedipus the King, about the at times grim necessity of finding out who you are, no matter what the consequences, like Shakespeare's Macbeth about the bitter taste of ambition, like Cervantes Don Quixote, about that fine line between sanity and insanity, but I don't think you are talking about stories in literature but ones that bind a society together.

Do you think that the Christian stories really did that in Australia for the last 200 Years? I remember Catholic stories about the black and tans and the Protestant prosecution, and no doubt there were Protestant stories about the Catholic inquisition that maybe bound them together. They were hardly stories that united us as Australians when people who professed the same religion barely could stand each other.

Now that the churches have become ecumenical and nicer to each other, their adherents have deserted the pews. That is probably why the politicians jumped on the Gallipoli bandwagon because at least it was on neutral ground. I think it is just a bit unfortunate that this archetypal story is so connected with a stupid war. And if Burke and Wills and explorer's bravery is another one to emulate, well, the lesson should really be how unbelievably stupid they were not to accept the assistence of the aboriginal people who had survived in that desert for 50,000 years.

That is the trouble with these archetypal stories. Good bits are extracted as if the bad and stupid bits didn't exist. The same can be said of the Christian stories which are very uplifting, but then you have to ignore at least 1600 years of Church history once the institution got into bed with Constantine.

I don't think we can just point the finger at the young for this. Just have a look at the magazines for "Mens Health" and "Women's Health", and all the stuff on botox, face lifts, and boob jobs for the middle aged and older. These are things spread right throughout our culture that I do not particularly like.

I am not putting up young people as paradigms of virtue and they are going to have to cope with the stupidities of modern culture too. If "stories" are a way of avoiding its pitfalls, then so be it, but I suspect they are going to have to find their own rather than rely on ones handed down by established religions of whatever persuasion. And certainly not ones from us old fogeys.

But getting back to the whole point of this discussion, I don't think that Clive Hamilton's noumenon is going to convince too many of them, despite his attractive prose and argument.

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by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 16:04 (1598 days ago) @ James

Peter, thank you very much for your, what I think is a beautiful, post. I understood most and am greatly encouraged and complimented.

I do not have your magic stick, I regret, but I had my day up to 5-6 years ago when, on a good pony and with a good dog by our side, smiling young women would stop the car, ask directions, compliment the pony, the dog....and, at last, me!

They are some of my golden memories but I must say, this morning, when Bett came out of the bedroom ready to shop, once again I knew I had won the best all those years ago.

Thnaks again, Peter.

Debb., please, what does this sentence mean? "The writers are idealistic but typically completely endorsing of reductionist-materialism (We are all "hard-wired" etc)."

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by Debb , Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 16:12 (1598 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

»
» Debb., please, what does this sentence mean? "The writers are idealistic
» but typically completely endorsing of reductionist-materialism (We are all
» "hard-wired" etc)."

Bill, I mean that they see that everything can be reduced to a material explanation. For example, they accept that the brain is a material organ, that causes us to do things - what we do is built in to the matter of the body. Once you know how the body works, then you know everything you need to know to understand why we do things.

They do not seem to entertain the idea that there might be mind, spirit or whatever choosing, valuing, willing certain paths in life.

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by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 17:18 (1598 days ago) @ Debb

Thanks very much for taking so much trouble, Debb.

It is a little cooler now, so I shall water a few pot-plants, come back to your post, print it so that I may absorb it, possibly!, and reply tomorrow, if I may.

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by James, Australia, Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 21:25 (1598 days ago) @ Debb

I don't want to comment on whether the younger generation is materialist/reductionist, because I don't know enough of them. But the suggestion you seem to make is that people who do not believe in an immortal soul or "spirit" or whatever you want to call it, are determinists who do not think that mankind can change for the better.

I don't think that is true. Most people I know who do not believe in some separate entity called the "soul" still think that behavior can be changed by cultural means, but that is going to take a long time because we have thousands if not millions of years of biological evolution to struggle against.

The main problem with a belief in an immortal "soul" is that anyone who has had a loved one suffer brain damage, or have seen them suffer the slow death of Alzheimers has to wonder where "they" have gone. They have not gone to heaven because they are still here on earth in a nursing home.

The only conclusion that I have been able to come to is that not only is the soul not immortal, it is in fact more mortal than the body.

What has been interesting in these last 20 years in the development of neuroscience is that we are starting to understand a little better how this amazing organ called the brain works, and the evolutionary forces that have made it the way it is.

By understanding these forces we are in a much better position to try to change behaviors, like aggression and war by cultural means. Non belief in the immortal soul does not mean a descent into a mindless mechanical determinism.

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by Debb , Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 12:16 (1597 days ago) @ James

» But the suggestion you seem to make is that people who do not believe in an
» immortal soul or "spirit" or whatever you want to call it, are
» determinists who do not think that mankind can change for the better.

I am sure there are many people who have a materialist outlook who are not reductionist, but there are many who are. For example, one young man wrote that a certain personality type is caused by the lack of a chemical in the brain and the lack of that chemical stops the individual experiencing prosocial emotions. It is that kind of reducing of everything to a chemical action that I find difficult to accept. I am not denying that chemical actions and interactions do take place, and that they have their part to play, but I would not want to explain human personality and behaviour in those terms.
»
» Most people I know who do not believe in some
» separate entity called the "soul" still think that behavior can be changed
» by cultural means, but that is going to take a long time because we have
» thousands if not millions of years of biological evolution to struggle
» against.

There was a long period of time when I did not believe in anything called soul or spirit. It was as though all the years of Christian experience just petered out, and I was left with something that felt less muddled, clearer. I started to believe that this material reality was all there was and that when we die, that is that. We leave behind only the effects of our actions, nothing more, and so it was important to do what good I could while I was alive to contribute to life on this earth. I would have agreed then, and I still do, that change can take place by cultural means and also that it will take millions of years to come to fruition.

After about a decade of that kind of thinking, I sat for some weeks with a close friend who was dying, and was there when she died, and was conscious of her spirit lingering in the room where she died. After that, I set out on a path towards a new kind of spirituality and eventually back to a new kind of Christian belief. So, now I believe in the soul and spirit (which I see as two different aspects of life), but it took a long time to get to that belief.
»
» The main problem with a belief in an immortal "soul" is that anyone who
» has had a loved one suffer brain damage, or have seen them suffer the slow
» death of Alzheimers has to wonder where "they" have gone. They have not
» gone to heaven because they are still here on earth in a nursing home.

Yes, it is a painful experience to watch someone "lose it", especially when someone who has always been calm and kind becomes so violently aggressive that they have to be restrained. For me that is the worst change that can come with some kinds of dementing illness. Where has the person gone? I don't think anyone has the answer to that.

» By understanding these forces we are in a much better position to try to
» change behaviors, like aggression and war by cultural means. Non belief in
» the immortal soul does not mean a descent into a mindless mechanical
» determinism.
I agree, James.

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by Debb , Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 16:06 (1598 days ago) @ James

» but I don't think you are talking about stories in literature but ones that bind a society together.
Do you think that the Christian stories really did that in Australia for
» the last 200 Years?

No, I don't think it was Christian stories, but the sort of myths that we learned in social studies and poetry at school - the wide brown land, the brave explorers, the valiant horsemen of the outback, the long-suffering Drover's Wife, the larrikins etc. It was mostly a masculine story, of courage, adventure, hard work and success in wresting a living from a hard land. Of course we did not learn that much of the success was based on the slave labour of Aboriginal and Islander people and free labour from convicts, that our "heroes" were the privileged elite in a land of exploitation. So, it was not a healthy binding myth, and, in any case, I don't think it could speak to all of the people of many races and cultures inhabiting our large cities these days.

There is an interesting article in today's New Matilda about the Myth of the Holy Land, a good example of the ways in which myth can be used to produce terrible conflict and suffering:

http://newmatilda.com/2009/02/02/myth-holy-land

» But getting back to the whole point of this discussion, I don't think that
» Clive Hamilton's noumenon is going to convince too many of them, despite
» his attractive prose and argument.

I agree. We need stories that speak to us about our origins, our common humanity and purpose and our common destiny (by "our", I mean not just Australians, but all of us in the world.) We need some charismatic story-tellers to inspire us. I think the Christ story has much to offer, but the way it is usually told is not particularly inspiring, unfortunately.

With regard to the Australian part of it, I found Alexis Wright's "Carpentaria" rich with food for thought.

Lots of trains of thought - thank you for setting them off James.

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by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 17:13 (1598 days ago) @ Debb
edited by unknown, Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 19:45

Debb., I am sorry to come on again so soon.

I agree with your "lots of trains of thought", certainly, but I do rise to defend some, at least, of our ancestors.

You wrote, "No, I don't think it was Christian stories, but the sort of myths that we learned in social studies and poetry at school - the wide brown land, the brave explorers, the valiant horsemen of the outback, the long-suffering Drover's Wife, the larrikins etc. It was mostly a masculine story, of courage, adventure, hard work and success in wresting a living from a hard land. Of course we did not learn that much of the success was based on the slave labour of Aboriginal and Islander people and free labour from convicts, that our "heroes" were the privileged elite in a land of exploitation."

In my opinion they were not 'myths'. The country was hard and those men, and women, were "brave, valiant, long-suffering", and hard.

It cannot be denied, although it is by some 'revisionists', I am talking your language now!, that many fortunes are founded on the 'slave labour' of, first, the convicts and then the Aborigines and Islanders.

My maternal great-grandfather was one of those convicts,a 'ploughman, RC., no reading or writing', Irish I am proud to say, arriving on 'Norfolk' in 1832, put to work about Appin, then in irons on the Great South Road from the Stockade 11 miles north of Goulburn, then around Bong-Bong, now Moss Vale.

In 1834, his fiancee, Brigid, came out free, took a position in service in Goulburn and on her free afternoon, Sunday, filled a 'sugar-bag' with food and clothes and walked the 11 miles to the Stockade, then walked back home.

Given his ticket-of-leave, Patrick and Brigid married in 1841 in Appin. Patrick worked about Bong-Bong until they took up a sheep place in the hills south of Collector.

In 1854, Patrick was kicked by an horse being shod and died a couple of months later leaving Brigid with five children.
Brigid and a man worked the place until the sons could take over and the place is in the family still.

One of the sons was my grandfather, William. He married and they took up a place outside Cootamundra. In 1888, declaring the place was so small you could not swing a cat, he put his wife, baby and toddler into the dray with hens, his other children on ponies and droving sheep and cattle, they went overland to outside Condoblin, on the Lachlan, where they thrived, ending with 13 children and some wealth.

In the summer of 1902, fire came through the paddocks, travelling frighteningly fast as grass-fires do. The gates were opened, the horses and stock set free to give them some chance.The house tank was emptied on to the lawn and verandah.

My grand-mother went about the inside of the garden fence sprinkling Holy Water before getting into the sulky and driving away with her husband,children, men, riding beside.
It has come down to us that the fire went to the garden fence but no part of the lawn was singed!

William was an hard man. His sons could not speak about him in later years whilst his daughters adored him. He left each son a property.

I know you know this is how it was for so many, Debb., but I must write for others.

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by Debb , Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 19:15 (1598 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

»
» In my opinion they were not 'myths'. The ecountry was hard and those men,
» and women, were "brave, valiant, long-suffering", and hard.

Bill, I am not using "myth" in the sense of "a complete lie", but a story that we all knew and that inspired our sense of being Australian - a story imbued with much emotion and meaning. I think that when I was young, it was this myth that gave us pride in our country.

I agree with you that many people, especially those who came to Australia in the early days, had hard, and often very short lives.

I suppose I think that that "myth" is not going to sustain our nation these days, for a number of reasons, including our increased understanding of how complex our history was. Also, a very large proportion of the population knows nothing of life outside a city and many of them are recent newcomers. It is not so easy for people to have experience of country and farming life these days, as many of the rural enterprises are huge and run, not by families, but by big business.

I have not seen the film "Australia" (we always wait until films come out on DVD, hopefully with subtitles, due to deafness in one of our household) but from what I have heard about it, perhaps it will succeed in providing some sort of retelling of the story.

» In 1854, Patrick was kicked by an horse being shod and died a couple of
» months later leaving Brigid with five children.
» Brigid and a man worked the place until the sons could take over and the
» place is in the family still.

Thank you for telling this story of your family, Bill. Your great grandparents did indeed have a hard life, and no doubt they were typical. You are right to remember them with some pride, especially since you yourself have carried on the work they began. I am glad you keep responding to my posts, I have learned a lot from you and continue to do so.

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by PeterR , Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 19:21 (1598 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

Without comment.

Peter

They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,
The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,
The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best:
For love they faced the wilderness - the Women of the West.

The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away,
And the old-time joys and faces - they were gone for many a day;
In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock chains,
O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains.

In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run,
In the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun,
In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man's unrest,
On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.

The red sun robs their beauty, and, in weariness and pain,
The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again;
And there are hours men cannot soothe, and words men cannot say -
The nearest woman's face may be a hundred miles away.

The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desires,
When the white stars in reverence light their holy altar fires,
And silence, like the touch of God, sinks deep into the breast -
Perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West.

For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet plies his arts -
They only hear the beating of their gallant, loving hearts.
But they have sung with silent lives the song all songs above -
The holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love.

Well have we held our father's creed. No call has passed us by.
We faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die.
And we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o'er all the rest,
The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West.

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by Tom Lee, UK, Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 06:16 (1597 days ago) @ PeterR

Hi folks, but especially Debb and Bill, my great great grandfather Griffith was reputed the first white child born in Tasmania. I knew his son, my Great Grandfather William in his 90s when I was just a whipper-snapper. He was a lovely old man, had been a labourer/builder of the Parliament House in Canberra, and was the umpire for the Belmore ladies cricket team, strolling stately with his walking stick to oversee "His gels." He'd also been a miner at some stage and often cleaned himself with methylated spirit. My grandmother was certain he would someday set alight to himself when lighting his pipe. He was not at all religious, but had very high ethical standards, and a labour man to his core. He lived out his days with my grandparents, and unfortunately I was too young and stupid to talk to him and ask him about his life. But, I've always felt uneasy when thinking about that child born in Tasmania. Was his father involved in the massacre of the indigenous people of that fecund island? I toured there with relatives from America in 1965. I'd just been a guest star on "Homicide" in Melbourne so was part-way there. Then in 1967 I travelled with a company from the Playhouse in Perth to the Theatre Royal, Hobart, where we played the American comedy "Mary Mary" for a week, and did a lot of radio plays for the ABC director Brian Paine, who was usually starved for actors. Brian had been my first director in a stage play in Sydney, and I spent time with he and his wife and toddlers on their goat farm - a lovely interlude.
It seems not a lot of time to imbibe a place, but I've always felt close to Tasmania as a part of my heritage. I know that those original settlers must have had a hard time of it, but still regret that their presence, with disease and outright slaughter, spelled the end of the aborigines. It is for me an ethical dilemma that I can do nothing about. I think we all probably have something like that in our past, among our forbears. But it's difficult to have no regrets.

Tom Lee

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by PeterR , Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 12:08 (1597 days ago) @ Tom Lee

Tom wrote:

"I'd just been a guest star on "Homicide" in Melbourne so was part-way there."

Tom,

I enjoyed many a Homicide show. Great stuff.

Now we are to have our second series of real crime: "A Tale of Two Cities" dealing with the crime in Sydney and Melbourne (around the seventies, I think).

It is also referred to as "Underbelly Two". I don't concentrate on these TV notices so often get the details wrong: I'm usually distracted by some of the good material I have read on CA during the day.

Peter

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by Debb , Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 11:56 (1597 days ago) @ PeterR

Thank you so much Peter. A wonderful poem which I, too, learned at school and have long since forgotten, so good for it to be brought back to mind.

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by James, Australia, Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 08:19 (1597 days ago) @ Debb

Thanks for the reference to the Matilda article, Debb. It is a great article. I have to say that I have seen several interviews with Jewish settlers in the new settlements who have justified what can only be a new form of colonialism by reference to Abraham's footsteps.

I always found this quite disturbing because once those myths take over, there is very little chance for dialogue. The article is interesting too from the point of view of the Palestinians creating their own myths of being the oppressed Canaanites. This is quite understandable, because playing the victim certainly worked for the zionists.

But getting back to your main point, what about Australian myths? Undoubtedly they are useful in providing some direction and motivation, but the article shows quite convincingly how myths can be dangerous things as well.

I actually quite like the Australian skepticism about our myths, whether it is about the flag, Anzacs, or explorers and other heroes. And speaking of the flag, this increasing tendency for yobbos to wrap themselves up in it, particularly on Australia Day will probably do more to get rid of it than complaining about the Pommy cringe in the corner.

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by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 11:19 (1597 days ago) @ James

Debb., thank you for your kind words. I do not think anybody learns anything from me, though!

I am sorry I misunderstood you when you used the word ‘myth’ and you are quite correct, of course, in writing our country has changed, is changing, but I like to believe that ‘Australianism’ will absorb, to a great extent, the new cultures, practices, beliefs and, within three-four generations the old ‘myths’ will have been added to others and will live on.

As you write, many people know nothing of life outside a city and, whilst I may be misleading myself by my instinctive love of country life, I do feel that, deep down, that love burns quietly in many, especially in those who have come here from agricultural lives in other lands.

Many of our young people, in their idealism, I suppose, feel a great warmth, apparently, if or when they are given the opportunity to ‘connect’ with country people, and country life.
You will agree, I feel sure, that the great love of horses felt by seemingly the majority of girls and young women illustrates this.

We have not seen ‘Australia’ either as my deafness precludes this but a friend told us the other day that she and her husband had seen it twice, so much had they enjoyed it.

Thank you again, Debb. It is I who am learning from you. As do so many women, not least here, I am sure you do not recognise the width of your knowledge and your feminine wisdom, not to mention your intuition. It is a fool of a man who thinks he knows more of the truly important things.

Aaahh, Peter, you know how to speak to me. Thank you for the poem, one I have loved since we ‘did’ it at Boarding School.

I have a feeling I have quoted here previously Will Ogilvie’s “The Riding of the Rebel”. I do not wish to take more of James’ thread so perhaps you may Google it, if you feel so inclined.

Our Dad, a big man, athletic, an handful when aroused, wonderful with his animals, adored by his sons and dogs, trusted by his horse would tell his beloved wife it was she who rode the Rebel, and Mum could have done so, certainly!

Tom, my word, you have packed a great deal into your life. Thanks for this glimpse. Please come again!

I very much like the sound of your great grandfather. “Labor to the core”. That’s a man!
They were mighty men and women and we Australians owe them so much.
It is not pc but, as I have mentioned previously, I met some Commos, men and women, who were admirable, too.

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by James, Australia, Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 11:44 (1597 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

I wouldn't worry too much about taking up "too much" of the thread, Bill. I quite like these little distractions and tangents. Stops the discussion getting too heavy. In any event, the topic has probably exhausted itself a bit, at least until Clive Hamilton replies. I am hoping he does. He knows about his book being discussed here.

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The Riding of the Rebel

by PeterR , Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 11:56 (1597 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

Bill,

We need to keep our stories alive.

http://www.abpa.org.au/Bush_Poetry/Traditional_Poetry/the_riding_of_the_rebel.html

Peter

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The Riding of the Rebel

by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 13:32 (1597 days ago) @ PeterR

James, thanks for that.

Somehow, in copying my post to which you have replied kindly, I cut off the first para. which was an apology to you for hijacking your thread. Thank you for your grace.

Yes, that's it, Peter, a bewdy!

It does not have the rolling rhymes of Evans, in my opinion, but it means much to me.

You might know that, in the Australian horse world, and for all I know that of the US, there has been a movement praising the gentle breaking of horses practised by women and a couple of blow-in men from the States, and a denigration of the methods, supposedly, used by men.

As I have written here previously, horses and dogs look at us differently and must be broken differently.

I abhor any cruelty to any animal and, since an horse never forgets, it is counter-productive in their breaking. There is the old saying that we cannot apologise to an horse.

Nevertheless, an horse can be dangerous, especially an young, full- of-itself unbroken horse, not yet as the word makes plain, broken to accept our will.

More than once, after watching me in a breaking session, I was asked, “Is it necessary to be so cruel?”

There had been nothing of cruelty but it is essential that the horse come to realise that man/woman is superior and his/her will must prevail.

A well-broken horse accepts this reality happily, will never forget and, whilst its feelings towards us are not that of our good dogs it will obey evermore.

A good dog loves; a good horse trusts.

Of course, as cat-people will take great delight in telling us, “A dog has a Master; a cat has Staff!!”

There were many times, too, when the query was, “How can you be so patient?” Patience with many animals is absolutely necessary. What is sought is a small learning each day.

I have written this to defend the breakers who were killed by The Rebel or failed with him.

The horse, magnificent in his fire and courage, ‘bent to the bridle’ only because others had taught him something before they had come to grief . The beautiful wife, brave, skilled, used her calming touch to calm and, in doing so, earned his trust, which he was happy to give.

‘The lady’s hack’ quite possibly remained such all of his life, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it added to his value and, for me, to his beauty of spirit which had him trust completely.

I apologise again to James, sorry to have gone on so long and I know others will disagree with my philosophy but that is the horse-world, isn’t it??!!

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