Tag: culture

Elephant Epistemology

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Ceramic sculpture of Lord Ganesha hiding among the shrubbery.

How perspectivism can make you a better thinker 

Ceramic statue of Lord Ganesha hiding among shrubbery
Photo by Chinna Hyderabad Jalsa

Storytelling is one of my favorite ways to communicate ideas. I remember stories more easily than I remember boring lectures.

Have you ever heard the story of the blind men and elephant?

The story goes like this: several blind men approach an elephant. The first man grabs the elephant’s trunk and thinks that it is a rope. The second touches the elephant’s leg and thinks it is a tree. A third blind man touches the elephant’s ear and thinks it is a blanket.

The story goes on like this. Each of the blind men has a piece of the truth, but none of them can see the whole elephant.

My elementary school librarian introduced me and my classmates to this story as a child in the form of the children’s book Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young. In the book, the role of the blind men is played by mice. I remember thinking about it a lot as a child.

I’ve heard several different versions of the story since then. I discovered through research that the story has its origins in the folk mythology of the ancient East. It was popularized in the West by John Godfrey Saxe, who called it “A Hindoo Fable.”

The story is currently used by the Peace Corps to teach about cultural differences. It’s also a great story for teaching perspectivism.

What is epistemology?

Most Americans barely (if at all) even know what epistemology is, but it affects each of us in our daily lives in countless ways. For those who don’t know, epistemology is the branch of academic philosophy which deals with knowledge production.

Epistemology is what helps us distinguish the ideas we consider to be factual and true from the ideas that we consider to be subjective opinions. It helps us establish the “Overton Window,” the socially acceptable boundaries of the arena of public discourse.

Nietzsche and Eastern Philosophy

When I was going to college for philosophy and doing research on Friedrich Nietzsche, I found lots of evidence that his epistemology and ethics were influenced by Eastern thought.

I first read Thus Spoke Zarathustra when I was about twenty-two, and I found the spirit of the book to be too similar to stories from Hinduism and Buddhism to ignore. The protagonist of this book is named after Zoroaster, an Iranian prophet similar in character to many of the Buddhist Bodhisattvas.

In the story, Zarathustra speaks to a dwarf who I recognized as resembling Vamana, an incarnation of Vishnu, who is the preserver and balancer of the universe in Hindu mythology. Vamana made sense to me as the deliverer of information about eternal recurrence in Nietzsche’s mind, as Vishnu is the upholder of moral order and associated with time.

Another avatar of Vishnu, Krishna, declares himself in the Bhagavad Gita:

“I am mighty Time, the source of destruction that comes forth to annihilate the worlds.”  

Like the god Shiva, who is better known for being the the “destroyer” of the Hindu canon, Vishnu is often depicted with snakes, or nagas in Sanksrit. Shiva is usually depicted as holding a snake named Vasuki wrapped around his neck while Vishnu is often depicted as reclining on a snake named Shesha. Shesha represents the fabric of space and time in Hindu metaphysics. 

Snakes are associated with the eternal cycle of death and rebirth in Hinduism, and also in Western culture in the form of the Ouroboros symbol, the snake eating its own tail. I believe this mythology was part of the inspiration for Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence.

Perspectivist Epistemology 

When I was in my late twenties, I started doing further research about Nietzsche and Eastern philosophy, and I began to seriously consider the elephant story again.

Part of what separates Eastern perspectivism from Western Kantian epistemology is the idea that the noumenal world (the “real” world that is never fully knowable to us through empirical observation as the blind men in the elephant story) is at least partially knowable through introspection, like the kind encouraged by Eastern meditation practices. 

Arthur Schopenhauer, one of Nietzsche’s influences, made a similar argument.

I found that this story, while helping me to explain Nietzsche’s perspectivism, also provided an eloquent introduction to Eastern views on epistemology more generally. 

Western philosophy is more likely to tell you to look outside yourself for an answer to a philosophical question, while Eastern philosophy is more likely to tell you to look within yourself. While this might seem self-centered on the surface, in practice, it actually leads to greater empathy and understanding of opposing perspectives. 

When I looked at both Eastern Philosophy and Nietzsche’s ethics, I found mostly Virtue Ethics, which are basically just theories about how to be a good person. Virtue Ethics is also a theme throughout many stories about Eastern sages: they tend to be tales about the many different ways that there are to be a good person.

You can’t have ethics without epistemology, as it determines where you get and how you interpret the information on which you base your values. You can’t have epistemology without ethics, because your values inevitably guide your knowledge-seeking. I think that virtue ethics naturally follow from a perspectivist epistemology. 

Eastern Philosophy and Nazis

For Nietzsche, a misinterpretation of his perspectivist epistemology resulted in his ethics being misappropriated and warped by Nazis.

Nazis learned about Eastern philosophy from Nietzsche and from a Hindu woman named Savitri Devi. They used Nietzsche’s work as a vehicle to misappropriate and warp the principles of Eastern philosophy that Nietzsche admired. Some of these stolen ideas became part of Nazi philosophy and culture.

This was some of the most effective political propaganda ever created. Centuries earlier, European Colonialists used the same kind of ideological misinterpretations to exploit the Hindu caste system. Both this and the Nazi misinterpretations of Hindu ethics influence modern Hindu nationalism and Nazi occultism.

I think that the Nazis wanted to appropriate and smear Hinduism because Eastern asceticism, like fascism, preaches a disciplined lifestyle. The difference is that Hindu ascetic discipline comes from within, while fascist discipline is forced on a population by corrupt authority figures.

The Nazi misinterpretation of Hinduism is fundamentally a misinterpretation of what it means to be powerful. Nazis preached the power of the boot and the fist while Hinduism preaches the power of self-discipline and fearless compassion.

Smearing a symbol

Probably the most commonly known example of this philosophy mistake is the story of the swastika symbol. The symbol adopted by the National Socialist Party in 1918 originated as a Hindu symbol for peace. There are also many similar-looking symbols in other cultures.

The swastika is sometimes thought to be originally based on the swirling shape of galaxies in the cosmos, or on the shape of the movements of the sun in the sky. Because of the Nazi smear-job, the symbol seems to be permanently associated in the public consciousness with Adolf Hitler and the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

So why is epistemology important?

Mistakes like this are common throughout history in both philosophy and science, and they serve as ridiculous and terrifying examples of why the disciplines of philosophy and science need each other and always will.

Epistemology is a critical intersection of philosophy and science, because it’s the part of philosophy that convinces us that we should trust science in the first place, and whose science, and why. It’s also a critical intersection of philosophy and politics because it tells us which politicians we should trust and listen to, and when, and why.

When the consequences of a philosophy mistake are the facilitation of the literal Holocaust, it makes sense to pay attention to how that mistake was made and how to avoid that mistake and other mistakes like it in the future.

That’s what I’m aiming to do by telling you this story.

A horrible epistemology mistake led to the peaceful, compassionate philosophies of the East being misinterpreted by Westerners (and some Easterners) as the building blocks of literal fascism.

I want to show you how to avoid making the same kind of fatal mistakes in your own thinking, and how to correct them when they happen.

Elephant Epistemology

Another thing about elephants: it is said that they have excellent memories. It is said that they “never forget.” I’ve never forgotten the lesson of the elephant story.

Now, every time I think about my own epistemology, I start by thinking about the elephant. Since my perspective as a single human being is limited, I can only perceive one part of the elephant at a given moment.

When I begin pondering how much I know about something and why I know it, I keep in mind that the other perspectives on whatever I’m pondering are probably different. That doesn’t mean that what I’m seeing is right and what others are seeing is wrong or vice versa, just that I have to keep an open mind to the parts of the elephant that I can’t see.

The thing about life is this: just when you think you have it figured out, there’s always more to the story.

How to use Elephant Epistemology

By talking about the history and practice of epistemology in a more casual and less academic format, I’m hoping to get people interested in a way of seeing the world that will broaden their perspective and empower their ethics and decision-making.

The sad truth is that people mostly think about their own perspective and the perspective of those like them in most situations. That’s not the best way to get an accurate picture of what the world looks like.

The best way to do epistemology like an ancient Eastern sage is to gather your knowledge from a variety of viewpoints and to try to think from the perspective of each of those viewpoints.

It’s the old story of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. The other person might be living, dead, or not even a person at all. Try thinking from the perspective of a plant or animal, for instance (maybe an elephant?). Then you’ll start to get a feel for the kind of epistemology that I think is effective for producing good knowledge.

Remember that, like the men in the story, your own perspective is always going to be limited to whatever part of the elephant is near to you. No one is omniscient (not even God, in my opinion), and learning is best approached with as much humility as you can muster.

A word from Lord Ganesha

In the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata, the Hindu god Ganesh is creatively credited as the one who wrote down the tale as dictated to him by the Hindu sage Vyāsa.

The elephant-headed god Ganesh is depicted in the story as having written down the story with one of his tusks, which he removed and dipped in ink after the feather pen he was using broke during the dictation. This story highlights the importance of the elephant in Hindu culture as a symbol of the processes used to obtain knowledge and wisdom.

Ganesh is seen in the Hindu faith as the placer and remover of obstacles.

An important lesson from this story about Ganesh: when you are searching for the truth, you will always encounter obstacles. What’s really important is your ability to overcome these obstacles and adapt your thinking to your changing perspective on a changing world.

Keep the elephants of Hindu mythology in mind as you embark on your journey to find the truth.

Vegan Fashion Alternatives That You Didn’t Know Existed

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a pineapple wearing sunglasses placed on a wooden table in front of a yellow wall

Cactus leather and more

a pineapple wearing sunglasses, placed on a wooden table in front of a yellow wall
Photo by Lisa From Pexels

Looking for a vegan alternative to products like leather and wool? Me too. If you’re like me and have already done a little bit of background research, you have probably run products like hemp, bamboo, and organic cotton, while looking for sustainable alternatives to the animal products used in your clothes and accessories.

There are also plastic alternatives to the animal products we consume — and they are often less sustainable than the aforementioned hemp and bamboo. 

Here are a few more alternatives that you might not know existed. These alternatives can help to replace both animal products and some of the less sustainable vegan alternatives that are made out of plastics. 

1. Seaweed

Vegans already have a reason to love seaweed, because it’s one of the only plant-based sources of vitamin B-12 with a high concentration of the vitamin. 

A company called SeaCell has developed a fiber from seaweed which has many practical uses. According to the company the fiber has a “soft and silky” feel, and is easy on sensitive skin. It’s also biodegradable and helps to regulate moisture. 

I think the fact that seaweed is chalk full of B-12 and can also be used for vegan fabrics is a good argument for cultivating seaweed! Some people are even growing seaweed at home. 

2. Nettle

Apple Oak Fibre Works makes handwoven fabrics out of stinging nettle fibers. 

Nettle fabric is said to look a bit like silk and is sometimes spun together with cotton. Like cotton, the fibers are breathable, absorbent, and soft. 

Nettle (Urtica dioica) is also edible and can be used medicinally to reduce inflammation and may help control both blood sugar and blood pressure. 

However, nettle fabrics are more often made from Himalayan Nettle (Girardinia diversifolia), a different species of nettle which has fibers with different qualities. The Himalyan Nettle grows in countries like India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. A third species Ramie (Boehmeria nivea), has also been used in Asia along with in Ancient Egypt and feudal Europe. 

3. Cactus Leather

Looking for a product that is tough, durable, and water-resistant like leather, but not made from the skin of an animal? Cactus leather might be a good alternative for you. 

Cactus leather can be a good alternative to the existing plastic vegan alternatives to things like shoes and handbags. The leather created by Mexican designers Adrián López Velarde and Marte Cázarez was shown to be breathable, durable for up to 10 years, partially biodegradable and a more sustainable alternative to current synthetics. 

Cactus leather like the kind made by the company Desserto can sometimes be made from agave fibers, which are a byproduct of the tequila industry. Finding a use for this waste makes it a sustainable alternative. Desserto also swears by “holistic sustainable” farming practices. 

4. Fruit Leather

Like cactus leather, fruit leather is an alternative to leather that is made from plants. Like real leather, it can be durable, heat resistant, and water resistant. 

The vegan company Vegatex makes a product out of apple skins that are byproduct of cider production. It’s called AppleSkin.The company also has a product called BarleySkin that is made from the spent grain used by brewers, and another product called LemonSkin made from lemons. 

The company Ananas Anam makes a similar product called Pinatex out of pineapple leaves, which are recyclable and compostable. Again, this is a way of reducing waste, increasing the sustainability of the product in addition to providing a vegan alternative. 

5. Mushroom Leather 

A company called MycoWorks makes leather-like fabrics from Reishi mushrooms. They also make a product from the mushroom’s mycelium. 

MycoWorks Designer Philip Ross has a background in mycology. Philip first used reishi mushrooms for medicinal purposes after discovering their immune-boosting qualities while working in AIDS hospice in San Francisco. 

Mushroom leather is said to feel like real leather and is sustainable in addition to being vegan because it takes a small amount water and energy to produce relative to other products. It’s also extremely stylish — everyone at the party will know you’re a “fun guy.”  

The sky is the limit

I really think that product designers are leaving a lot of money on the table when it comes to producing vegan and/or more sustainable alternatives to the products we love. 

It’s not only a matter of ethics, it’s a matter of money! There is a lot of money to be made selling products like these. Vote with your dollars! Buy the products which are durable and functional, and which are produced sustainably and ethically. 

The West Desperately Needs More Eastern Philosophy

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Americans would benefit from more diversity in their spirituality

monk greeting the sunrise with “namaste”

Photo by THÁI NHÀN

I feel like being a spiritual or religious person is almost becoming taboo in my culture. People who are really into their religions tend to be seen as eccentric by your average, reasonable person.

Religion can seem a little crazy to anyone who is rational, and I certainly understand why. But I think a lot of people are sort of missing the point when it comes to religion. This isn’t their fault! It’s based on a lack of education on the matter.

I think it’s time that religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism made a serious comeback in the West. I’d like to see the histories of these religions taught in schools more. I’d also like to see their philosophies taught in colleges more alongside the plethora of Western traditions available to college students.

Religion isn’t really about the supernatural. It’s about the natural. It’s a way of explaining the vast beauty of the natural that is beyond human comprehension. Eastern traditions helped me understand that, and I think they have the potential to help many people understand that.

Religion, in general, needs a comeback

Religion can offer a lot of things that many modern Westerners are really missing in their lives, like a sense of purpose, stronger connections to their local and/or faith community, a higher degree of self-mastery, and a greater ability to understand oneself.

A lot of people are sort of burnt out on religion in the US, where I live. Some of them have had bad experiences with it. They aren’t very willing to consider it as a possibility when it comes to life changes that could have a positive effect on their quality of life or on their family or community.

Religion, when done right, in my opinion, should make you a happier and better person. It can and certainly has been done wrong throughout history. It has also been done right on many occasions.

Religions and religious people have also done an immense amount of good in the world. I believe that we are undervaluing this potential for good in modern societies, especially in the West.

Religion can be traumatic and a lot of people hate it

Something I’ve noticed about all religions is that they all tend to preach peace, but the folklore and history behind them always tends to be wrought with violence. I think that people misunderstand their religious texts and believe that the violence of the Gods is something that is meant to be wielded by human beings.

Many Americans have religious trauma from growing up in major religions like Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. There are also a variety of cults that reside in the West. I’ve met a lot of people who have left religions or cults, often complaining of things like sexual abuse, psychological abuse, or ideological hypocrisy.

Personally, I’m not totally clear on what separates a cult from a religion besides the number of followers. The two seem pretty similar to me. I think that most people join cults because they are looking for meaning in their lives. The negative social connotations around cults come from the fact that cults are often scams which advertise spiritual meaning but don’t provide it to their followers. Religions can, unfortunately, be the same.

All faiths have good things and bad things in their histories and current practices. There will always be predatory or sanctimonious people within pretty much all of these communities. There will always be religious groups that will be nonfunctional as far as giving people the personal answers they seek on their spiritual journeys.

Changing religions can help

Some people become atheists or agnostics when they leave religion, sometimes because they’ve lost their faith in God or the divine. People also sometimes do this because of the bad experiences they’ve had with being raised in a religion or cult or with joining a religion or cult as an adult.

Some people still believe in the divine or in God but don’t want to associate with the religion, cult, or other spiritual group that traumatized them or to be reminded of it. Or perhaps there are things about the belief system or religious practices of the person’s religious alma mater that just don’t sit right with them.

It’s possible to feel negatively towards religion because of certain experiences you’ve had but also to still benefit from religion and spirituality. Offering Eastern traditions to people in the West gives them the chance to experience religion, spirituality, and philosophical questioning in a new way that might feel or function better for them.

Eastern traditions mostly preach peace

While there is violence in both the scriptures and history of the East, just like there is in both the scriptures and history of the West, Eastern traditions have a big emphasis on peace and nonviolence. Many Buddhists and Hindus, for example, are vegetarians and are vegetarian as an act of compassion towards animals. These kinds of acts of compassion are encouraged in Eastern traditions.

Eastern traditions have a lot in common, philosophically, with Western traditions, like the idea that stealing or murdering is wrong or the idea that prayer will produce good results in your life. They really aren’t that different, but I think some people get confused about things like their personal ethics when they learn them from Western traditions.

Something about Eastern religions that drew me to them more than I was drawn to Western religions is that I found it easier to make a connection between the religious practices and the positive results in my life. Certainly, this kind of tangible connection is possible in any religion. A Muslim might get a sense of community and belonging from daily prayers with other Muslims. A Christian might find a sense of purpose by feeding homeless people or caring for the sick. A Jewish person might gain a sense of personal identity from their Bar Mitzvah rite of passage.

Religious diversity and tolerance are good things

I think that different religions have a better chance of causing tangible positive changes in people’s lives based on what kinds of practices and beliefs are best suited to them. Everyone is different.

For me, certain beliefs and practices ring true and serve me better more than other ones. I think this is true for many people, partly because of how there are differences in the ways that different people’s brains work and because people have different life experiences and preferences, more generally. It’s kind of like “learning styles”– certain people “learn” religion better in different ways because that’s how they are wire.

More diversity in religion and better tolerance of different religions and religious practices would, I think, give many people an incentive to pursue a spiritual path. Spiritual paths can be long and winding. They aren’t always happy or fun, and sometimes they can be scary or painful. Doing spiritual work in your life is worth these risks, and people deserve as many opportunities as they can get to do that work.

Eastern religions can cut out the middle man

One thing that led me to Eastern spiritual practice is the idea that practice is often possible without the aid of a priest, monk, or other religious official. Something that people often don’t discover for way too long of a stretch on their spiritual path is that the answers they are looking for are usually available through internal reflection.

Eastern traditions, like meditation, encourage the kind of internal reflection that is necessary for spiritual growth. They also don’t necessarily require that you go to church or consult some kind of guru in order to have a relationship with the divine. They encourage a relationship with the divine that I feel, at least for me, is more personal. I think that more Western religious leaders could and should take note of that and encourage that kind of divine relationship in the faithful who follow them.

No one can really tell you who you are, what to believe, or how to behave in the world. Only your God or Gods really truly have that power. If you’re an atheist or agnostic, one thing you might have an easier time doing than most religious people is recognizing the strength of your internal power.

Personally, I believe that God/s lives within all of us and that everyone has access to spiritual truth through their own thoughts, words, and deeds.

If Christianity or Islam hasn’t been working for you, try Buddhism or Taosim! If you’ve just left a religion or cult, try reading religious scripture or making up your own religious rituals. You might find that some of the things you previously found fulfilling or comforting about your spirituality are still there! You don’t have to give it up entirely.

If you’re an atheist or agnostic, and you’re looking for more structure or meaning in your life, I’d recommend giving spirituality or religion another try. A belief in an anthropomorphic or wrathful supreme being actually isn’t necessary. You might also find that many religious practices work great when applied to a secular lifestyle!

Westerners: please give the peaceful traditions of the East your attention and consideration. I can’t promise anything, but you might find something there, even if it wasn’t what you were looking for.

Previously published on wordpress.com and medium.com

Mentally Ill People Are Not Inherently Violent and Dangerous 

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Negative stereotypes place vulnerable people at higher risk 

man in straight jacket and laughs to himself with a disturbed look on his face in a darkened room with one window and a small amount of light shining through the window
Photo by Marko Garic 

Billions of people worldwide suffer from mental illness. 

While it’s true that people with mental illness are more likely to be violent than the general population, they are also more likely to be violently victimized than the general population. In fact, the average mentally ill person is more likely to be violently victimized than they are to be the perpetrator of violent acts. If they have some other identity characteristic that is stigmatized, like if they are black or trans, the risk gets even higher.

The images of mentally ill and otherwise neurologically disabled people presented by the media aren’t helping the situation. Mentally ill people are often depicted in a dehumanized way, as evil villains or as monstrous, beastly, out-of-control characters who are disposable to plot lines by virtue of their differences.

Mentally ill people are also often portrayed as helpless victims. This false dichotomy obscures the reality of mental illness. As someone who suffers from mental illness myself, I know that the vast majority of people who do are pretty normal people. Most of us aren’t scary monsters or scared, witless adult children, regardless of how we are portrayed in the media. 

The media demonizes common mental health symptoms like psychosis, hypersexuality, or self harm, feeding into social stigmas surrounding these kinds of symptoms. This stigma makes it more difficult for people to talk about these symptoms. This makes it more difficult or frightening for people to seek treatment, which then leads to less people getting help for their illnesses. 

We have to accept the reality, as mentally ill people, if we want to be functional, that we are both more likely to be dangerous, and more likely to be placed in dangerous situations. It’s also good for us and the people around us to have an awareness of how these realities affect our lives and how they can best support us for our own good, their own good, and the good of everyone around us. 

Mentally Ill People Are More Likely to be Assaulted

Studies show that mentally ill people are more likely to be physically abused or sexually assaulted than the general population. We are also often targeted for property crimes, such as internet or phone scams that also target groups like the elderly. 

Mentally ill people are more likely to be targeted for such crimes for multiple reasons. One of these is that, because mentally ill people are perceived as violent, it’s easier for an abusive person to blame their violence on the mentally ill person who is their victim. Mentally ill people are seen as less credible in general. We are less likely to be believed if we go to the police or to anyone to report a crime. 

Mentally Ill People Are More Likely to be Shot by The Police

It’s estimated that between about one quarter and one half of all fatal police shootings involve someone with a mental illness. People with untreated mental illnesses are possibly as much as sixteen times more likely to be killed by law enforcement. 

In a police encounter, it may be difficult for an officer to determine whether or not a person with a mental illness really is or isn’t a violent threat. This problem is exacerbated by racial factors.

 Bad public policy creates a vicious cycle 

A lack of public resources for things like mental health, housing, and addictions contributes to these problems. 

When mentally ill people are violent, or when we become so sick that we are unable to care for ourselves, we often become the responsibility of the state. The state often seriously fumbles the care of vulnerable people with mental illness or other disabilities. 

If someone doesn’t get treatment for their mental illness, often it will get worse. And if they are arrested for a violent crime or another crime due to their mental illness, incarceration often makes things worse instead of better. The standard of care for people with mental illnesses in jails and prison is very low. According to NAMI, around two thirds of people with mental illness don’t get proper care while incarcerated.

Fight the stigma 

It’s vital to make sure that mentally ill people receive a high standard of care. 

When people with mental illness receive a high standard of care, we are less likely to become dangerous towards ourselves or anyone else. We are also less likely to end up in danger ourselves. The best way to make sure that we get the care we need is to help the world see us as fully human and deserving of the same level of respect as other humans. 

Remember that the schizophrenic man you see shouting racial slurs on the street corner is still a person. So is the woman who is huddled in an empty store doorway wrapped in wool blankets and talking to herself. So is your co-worker who has emotional outbursts. So is your family member who is so depressed that they can’t get out of bed. 

We don’t stop being human because we are sick. Being sick isn’t a moral failing, or at least not a moral failing of the individual who is sick. Civilization is built on cooperation towards common goals, like the safety-and well being of everyone. If we cannot help people who are sick or otherwise incapacitated live healthy, normal lives, we are failing as a civilized society. We are failing at the very thing which makes us a civilized society.

I Will Not Die For Your Stupid War

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You gross old war pigs

child wanders through war rubble
Photo by Jordy Meow

We are literally at war with Russia right now. Take it from me. My grandpa literally fought the Nazis! 

You could call it a “proxy” war, because we are providing weapons to Ukraine, which Russia has invaded, but that does not make it any less of a war between Russia and the United States. 

We have a history of doing stuff like this! We arm one side of a conflict when we believe that it benefits our interests as a country. Sometimes we even arm both sides of a conflict and make ridiculous profits from selling weapons and construction contracts to rebuild the cities that are destroyed with American-made bombs. 

When I was a kid, my mom took me to anti-war protests and she made sure that I knew the phrase “conscientious objector.” She made me repeat that phrase back to her. 

My mom grew up during the cold war. She, like many members of my heavily military family, knows that war is always a possibility. She also knows that the last thing that someone like me wants is to participate in a war. 

I’m going to say it right now, because I want to make myself absolutely clear. 

I am not going to die for your war, you gross old war pigs. 

I am not going to sign up to get blown up or blow up other people so that you can secure access to natural resources or settle some old score among the lizard-brained overlords who treat the planet I live on like some kind of macabre chess board. 

I am not going to carry an assault rifle and use it to shoot kids or people who are adults but who already look like kids to me, at the ripe old age of thirty. 

I am not going to participate in propaganda campaigns smearing Russia and China as evil communists who need to be liberated by American freedom. It is reasonable to criticize the domestic and foreign policies of these countries, just as it is reasonable to criticize the domestic and foreign policies of this country. 

What is not reasonable is playing a gigantic game of Chicken or Russian Roulette with nuclear weapons pointed at all of our heads. 

I will not die for your war, you sick fucks. 

I’m staying home. 

The Eurocentrism of Academic Philosophy

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How an imbalance of cultural perspectives robs the next generation of thinkers

a model skeleton posed so that it looks as if it is thinking
Photo by Mathew Schwartz

In their New York Times opinion piece, “If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is,” Jay L. Garfield and Bryan W. Van Norden made a strong argument illustrating the current lack of cultural diversity in academic philosophy curricula.

The two professors provide a troubling piece of evidence:

“Of the top 50 philosophy doctoral programs in the English-speaking world, only 15 percent have any regular faculty members who teach any non-Western philosophy.”

This issue alone seems big enough to be cause for alarm, but the authors also raise several others, like the facts that “of the 118 doctoral programs in philosophy in the United States and Canada, only 10 percent have a specialist in Chinese philosophy as part of their regular faculty,” and that “no other humanities discipline demonstrates this systematic neglect of most of the civilizations in its domain.”

Garfield and Van Norden proceed to exhaustedly declare that it would be “futile to rehearse arguments for greater diversity one more time,” because of the apparent commitment of the academic philosophy community to its Eurocentric perspective.

They continue with an ad absurdum argument, suggesting that any philosophy department offering courses in only Western philosophy declare its true intentions by renaming itself “Department of European and American Philosophy.” While amusing, this argument is not particularly compelling.

I disagree with Garfield and Van Norden in their assertion that it is the “intention” of the philosophy community to teach a curriculum heavily weighted towards Western thought. Instead, I believe this situation to be a lingering side effect of broader and more complex systemic issues.

Everything in our world needs constant updating as our cultural and global values evolve. While other academic disciplines do appear to be leaving philosophy in the dust in their pursuit of diversity, this is not intentional, but is rather due to the common nature of those who choose a life of contemplation: we often consider it to be superior to a life of action.

This trait is often disappointingly revealed in our all-too-frequent unwillingness to act. It’s not that a majority of us within the discipline stubbornly refuse to change, it’s that we are often paralyzed by own analysis and that we are prone to make excuses for ourselves on that basis.

I also disagree with Garfield and Van Norden’s claim that to continue to argue for diversity is “futile.” Not only is it worthwhile to argue this point, but it is also our specific responsibility as philosophers to argue such points.

As John Stuart Mill explains in On Liberty:

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case, he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

We in philosophy must hold ourselves justly accountable for the injuries brought about by our inaction. As philosophers, we cannot condone this kind of intellectual or moral laziness, as this is the antithesis of every goal at which philosophy has aimed throughout history.

Garfield and Van Norden conclude their case with a Stoic adage: “The Fates lead those who come willingly, and drag those who do not.” It is true that those sticks still stuck in the mud are likely to find themselves “dragged” forward into a more diverse future; but what about those of us who would come along willingly?

There are some obvious consequences of keeping things the way they are, like supporting an overall cultural narrative rooted in xenophobia, and further marginalizing the groups whose ideas have been left out of the discourse. However, there’s another group being cheated by this paradigm: philosophy students.

When an LA Times op-ed asked why it was that “Like the Oscars, #PhilosophySoWhite,” it wasn’t just a question of “political correctness,” but a cry for correctness in cognition. The authors of this article, Myisha Cherry and Eric Schwitzgebel, cite troubling statistics regarding the lack of diversity in philosophy departments, like the fact that only 28% of philosophy PhDs are women, and only 2% are African-Americans. They go on to explain a possible reason for why this is:

“It’s not that white men are innately better philosophers than women and people of color. It’s that white men have better command of the cultural apparatus of seeming smart.”

In a culture with many conditions that favor white men, it’s much easier for white men to appear wise and insightful. Illogical as it obviously is, this appearance is key when it comes to getting recognition in academic philosophy circles. The fact that our archetypal image of a philosopher is a white, Western man hurts the credibility of anyone who doesn’t fit that mold before they ever speak.

We are committing a collective ad hominem fallacy by poisoning our own well of ideas. This must certainly discourage women and minorities from entering any debate. While this is bad news for these groups in both the context of the philosophy community and the world at large, it’s also bad for everyone else in philosophy, and as a result, bad for society.

We are ironically sabotaging our own community and culture with our own bad logic. “Before you listen to her, let me remind you that she’s been in jail…”

Even if we completely ignore the race and gender-based political implications of what is happening here, we are still left with other ethical issues, as well as practical ones.

We shouldn’t change the academic philosophy narrative just because refusing to do so is racist, misogynistic, archaic, and wrong; we should do it because there is an undeniable intrinsic value to cultivating broader views of life in our society’s future thinkers, as well as to cultivating diversity in the pool of said thinkers.

Without politicizing the issue at all, in maintaining the status quo we are still guilty of failing to do our jobs as seekers of truth. The motto of my university is, “Let knowledge serve the city.” We are failing to facilitate this, though ours is the department that is perhaps most concerned with how knowledge serves us.

I, myself, serve as an example of someone who was frustrated with the lack of cultural diversity in my department’s curriculum even before I started reading the opinions of others on the subject. There are many parallel ideas across cultures, and exploring their similarities and differences can help us to better understand the nature of human thought.

Excluding non-European thought from the academic philosophy narrative doesn’t just hurt the interests of non-Europeans overall, it also hurts the ability of students like me to learn the thinking skills which we are studying philosophy in order to obtain, and narrows our perspectives of the world. These are serious consequences when it comes to nurturing our minds, because our minds will be responsible for passing on the legacy of humanity’s centuries-old pursuit of wisdom.

The ancient Aztecs believed that a good life is a life spent doing what is worthwhile. It was a common aphorism in their culture to say that the earth was “slippery.” They thought it was unrealistic to live a life in which we are expected not to make mistakes.

According to philosophy professor Sebastian Purcell:

“The Aztecs held, in short, that it’s unrealistic to think that anyone can lead a perfectly good life, one in which you never slip up. A better goal, then, is to try to lead a rooted life, which they called neltiliztli: literally, rootedness. In this kind of life, one is able to manage the mistakes and slip-ups well, rather than avoid them altogether. The reward is not happiness necessarily, but the promise of a worthwhile life.”

Purcell goes on to mention that public drunkenness was severely punished in the Aztec capital. Nobles could even be put to death for such careless behavior. Among my own friends, when someone behaves carelessly like that, we say that they are “slippin’.”

According to Urban Dictionary, this colloquialism is defined as, “Off guard, not paying attention to your surroundings and not putting in the right effort.”

Philosophy: You are slippin’.

Those of us who have chosen the contemplative life have a responsibility to ourselves and to the world to relentlessly pursue knowledge. In this worthwhile pursuit, we must learn to manage our mistakes.

Originally published on medium.com on December 9th, 2019. 

The One Million Dollar Elk

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Is my hometown f*ing serious?

Thompson Elk Statue 2006 | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Thompson Elk Statue circa 2006, Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that 1.5 million dollars has been designated to replace the historic David P. Thompson elk statute downtown. 

I remember growing up with the elk statue! It’s near the college campus where I lived with my Mom when I was small. I was also a witness to the destruction of the elk statue over the past three years. Protestors really did some crazy stuff to mess up that elk, let me tell you. 

Here’s a photograph I took at a protest in May 2020: in this photo protestors are roasting pig’s heads over an open fire that they lit on the stone base of the statue. 

pigs heads being roasted on elk statue base with “fuck 12” graffiti and “black lives over capitalism” sign
Photo courtesy of author

Do we need a new elk?

While I loved the elk statue, and it made me sad to see it get totally destroyed, I understood the anger of the people who were doing it, and why they felt that destroying a piece of property might be an acceptable way to express that anger. 

Personally, I’m not really big on the “tear down statues” method of protesting. I get why it happens, but something like an elk (it’s an animal, dude) seems pretty benign to me. The elk was pretty to look at, and I’m pretty sure that the local elk population isn’t guilty of anything bad. 

It didn’t seem fair to me that the elk face the wrath of the protestor’s anger when it wasn’t really the elk’s fault or the fault of the artist who made the elk. 

I’m not opposed to replacing the elk. I kind of miss it. But one million dollars seems like a lot of money for an elk statue. Money that could be going to say, things like helping the homeless get off the street or deal with their drug addictions and mental illness. 

Or maybe the money could go to pushing for the kind of criminal justice reform which is needed in order to prevent the kind of misplaced rage in the populace which caused the destruction of the elk in the first place. 

Remember the tram? 

The one point five million approved for the elk reminds me of when the OHSU aerial tram was built in Portland. Essentially, the tram is a giant and terrifying way for the local hospital to give people more access to parking. 

The tram cost A LOT of money, and it didn’t really have the full support of the community. It was marketed as something that would It was marketed as something that would look good as a part of the Portland skyline. But not everyone was into it. 

People who live underneath the tram even went as far as to put up a sign that said “Fuck the Tram.” They felt that it encroached upon their privacy and other rights. 

large sign on fence which reads “FUCK THE TRAM”
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Is the elk another tram?

As OPB reports, ten years after the tram’s construction, the tram costs millions of dollars, much of which came straight out of the pockets of local taxpayers. It was controversial at the time of its construction and remains so today. 

“Accusations of mismanagement and subterfuge flew,” writes OPB’s Randy Gragg of the funds used to build the tram. The people who designed and built the tram ended up going way over budget. Gragg also notes that the affordable housing in the south Waterfront neighborhood went unfinished as the tram was finished. 

Is the new elk statute another expensive and ridiculous boondoggle put in place by the leaders of the city of Portland to make it seem like everything is going well when it isn’t? 

Wouldn’t the money be better spent feeding the homeless?

Why I Treat Spirituality Like a Buffet

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There are truths in all traditions

altar with Buddha statue and crystals
Photo by Samuel Austin

“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”―Anais Nin

My mother was raised Catholic and is not totally happy about it. She has expressed to me that she experienced trauma related to ideas about original sin that were taught to her as a child. Not wanting to instill in me the same feelings of guilt and shame, she chose to raise me outside of organized religion.

Feeling unsure about her own spirituality but not wanting me to miss out on the experience, my mom ended up raising me in an eclectic neo-pagan tradition. She taught me about different spiritual practices from around the world and practiced a variety of rituals with me.

My mom is now a staunch Atheist, but I’m glad that she chose to raise me with some kind of spiritual tradition.

Growing up, we celebrated holidays like Christmas and Halloween, but we also celebrated things like Winter Solstice and Samhain. One year on May Day, we made gift baskets and left them on the unsuspecting doorsteps of our friends and family, a throwback to the pagan traditions of my Celtic roots. We attended church masses with our Catholic family and Passover Seders with our Jewish friends, and at home, we sometimes even cast spells.

In the absence of a strict religious dogma, my mom taught me ethics that were based on treating others how I would want to be treated.

The Golden Rule

To explain the Golden Rule my mom gave me a Wiccan rhyme:

“Ever mind the rule of three, what ye send out comes back to thee!”

These days, I relate this memory to things like Kant’s Categorical Imperative, Newton’s Third Law of Motion, and eastern ideas about Karma. I don’t take this idea totally literally. That is, I don’t believe a cartoon God sits in the sky punishing or rewarding us for our actions. Instead, I’ve come to accept this pervasive idea about the world as a useful, if more ambiguous kind of spiritual knowledge.

The Rule of Three is a kind of truth about the world that’s been expressed by many in many different ways and seems to be true in practice. While I don’t believe in an arbitrarily judgemental universe, it does seem that the scales of our lives and the world always “balance” themselves somehow in the end, however complex the circumstances are. While it’s true that sometimes bad things happen to people with good intentions and good things happen to those with ill ones, the wheel always turns.

My spirituality is based on finding ideas like The Rule of Three and applying them to my own life.

These are ideas about life that seem to persist throughout most faiths and practices, despite their vast diversity and disagreement. As I grew older and I read more philosophy, theology, and mythology, I discovered that there are many common themes like this throughout all faiths and cultures.

While we all have our own traditions and ideas about God, life, and morality, I truly believe that most of us share certain basic human values at a deep level.

My opinion is that it doesn’t matter if you’re religious or spiritual, what your practices are, or if you believe in God. There’s a utilitarian value in spirituality whether you’re a fanatical fringe zealot or a calm, rational atheist.

You don’t have to take it too seriously, either. Spirituality has a sense of humor.

The Spiritual Wisdom of Religion

Spirituality helps us understand the values that bond us together as human beings, across race, nationality, gender, age, class, and ideology. It helps us pass on fundamental truths about life, ethics, and meaning through rich and layered metaphors, through stories and speech, through dance and song, through food and wine. It helps us connect to our roots and stay grounded in rituals and traditions. It helps us stay supported and connected by creating community.

Sure, it’s easy to point out the atrocities perpetrated and justified by religion throughout history– but true spirituality isn’t about submitting to some false authority with human flaws. True spirituality is about love, introspection, learning, and growth. It’s about putting in an honest effort to be a better person, and connecting with others who are trying to do the same. It’s about allowing yourself to be at peace in an uncertain universe.

While I’ve never fully committed to any one spiritual tradition or practice, I try to treat spirituality like a buffet. Faced with unlimited options, I take what nourishes my mind and soul and leave the rest.

I guess I’m an Omnist — but I don’t really like to put a label on it. Labels are limiting.

Even if you believe that your particular holy book was literally written by God, you have to admit that s/he’s sort of hard to understand sometimes. I’ve never read a religious text that doesn’t try to say things without quite saying them outright, and in my opinion, this is because of the nature of what they’re really for.

Spiritual ideas aren’t instruction manuals for how to live. They exist in order to encourage us to write our own.

These stories and adages are designed to be a little bit confusing because they are for our souls what a puzzle might be for our minds. We don’t do puzzles to find the solution, we do them because we enjoy and benefit from the process of solving them. The relatable vagueness of these stories makes them accessible to a wide audience.

We shouldn’t be good people because we are told to be, or because we are afraid of punishment. It’s better to act in a way that you truly believe in your heart is right. This kind of honest intention always produces better results than following instructions or trying to avoid pain. No one can tell you what to believe, and belief has no power unless it’s authentic.

I’ve found spiritual wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita, The Vedas, The Bible, The Torah, and the Qu’ran, but I’ve also found it in children’s books, sci-fi novels, poems, songs, and folklore. I’ve also gained the same kind of insights from simply observing the people around me, or having a conversation with a random stranger. Opportunities to learn and grow are everywhere, as long as you’re paying attention.

Belief Has Power

Regardless of what you believe, you can’t deny that believing in something is a powerful thing to do. We’ve all experienced this in our own lives — it’s hard to accomplish anything if you don’t at least have faith in yourself.

I’m on the fence about a lot of things when it comes to spirituality. I’m not sure if there is God, or what God is, or of where, if anywhere, I’m going to go when I die. I’m not sure if I’m a good person for trying to learn and grow and be better, or if I’m a sucker for not doing whatever I want all of the time, regardless of the consequences. I’m not even completely sure if I have free will, or if my choices really matter.

I think there are many questions in life that we will probably never get the answers to. If our species figures out a way to survive after the Sun burns out, I think it’s likely that we will still be combing the universe for answers, desperately trying to satisfy the insatiable curiosity that is part of what makes a human being, a human being.

But belief is a choice. I can choose to believe in something because it makes me feel happier, or more at peace. I can choose to follow a rule because it benefits me and those around me. I can choose to practice a tradition in the service of programming my brain with positive habits and ideas. I can choose to believe that I live in a benevolent cosmos because it helps me sleep better at night.

So I will. I’m always nicer when I get a good night’s sleep.

Originally published on medium.com on December 25th, 2019. 

War is Hell–As Usual 

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Why Can’t We Stop?

Photo by UX Gun

If you wander about Oregon Country Fair enough you’ll find the free library! 

As a child, I found this book there: Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism. 

When I was a kid, I read this comic book about the military-industrial complex over and over again, and it really impacted me. Now when I read about conflicts like Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Palestine, I ask myself questions like: “who is going to profit from this?” and “what innocent people are going to suffer?” 

For many years, the US government has painted itself as a sort of “world cop,” interfering in global conflicts in what it claims to be the best interest of the countries it invades. In reality, this image couldn’t be further from the truth of what’s really going on. 

The truth is that it’s the same story over and over again. We recruit and train the very same terrorist forces that then attack us, and then we use their attacks to justify further violence. We sell weapons to the fabricated governments that we install to serve our interests. We arm both sides of conflicts, and then our construction companies rebuild the cities that are flattened by the same bombs and drones that we manufacture. 

We design some of the best medical treatments in the world and then withhold them from the women and and children whose hospitals and schools we flatten with our explosives, and to our own soldiers who come home maimed and betrayed by the country that they swore to defend. 

Like George Orwell said: “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” The war doesn’t exist to defend freedom or fight evil, it exists to generate profits and to keep the vast majority of the planet on its knees in abject terror before a select few. 

We use the oppression of women to justify invading the middle east, and then oppress women at home under a similar guise of empowering them. Women in Afghanistan are “liberated” by sanctions that are starving their children to death before their eyes the same way women at here in the US are “liberated” by having their livelihoods taken away when they fight back against male violence. 

We complain about the lack of civil liberties in countries like Russia and China, and then we imprison or banish political dissidents at home, while bombarding our own populace with endless propaganda that is designed to stoke civil unrest and blind hatred between human beings. 

The United States is like the abusive parent who uses the threat of a foreign boogeyman to frighten its children into blind obedience in the household. Our government says to us: “how dare you complain about how I treat you? Would you rather I let the boogeyman get you?” 

These boogeymen are nothing more than old worn puppets, sewn hastily together for purposes of drumming up fear and coercing compliance. 

It turns my stomach knowing that any portion of the money I’ve paid in taxes throughout my life has gone towards murdering and crippling innocent people, but I can’t deny that it’s the case. I’m complicit because I’m afraid, and so are you. 

When I read about the atrocities committed by terrorist groups I do not see monsters and boogeymen. I see the faces of the women who kill their own children because they are abused by their spouses and the mentally ill who are shot by the police because they were abandoned time and time again by a broken system and became so ill that no one around them could see their humanity any longer. 

I see human beings. Human beings who were children once and who have hopes and dreams and families just like you and me. 

Kamikaze soldiers and militant dictators are not less human than you. They are very sick human beings whose personal and collective pain has exceeded their ability to cope with it in a sane way. 

In the United States, so many of us are so sheltered and so far removed from real violence that we have forgotten why it exists in the first place. Wherever there are people in pain, there will be people waiting to exploit that pain for their own nefarious purposes. 

Don’t be a pawn in their barbarous chess game. Think for yourself. Choose the path of peace.