Introduction

The great John Milton, referring to American eloquence, said: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” It seems that within the framework of what constitutes “liberty”, the lighted fire called “free-speech” is the greatest sight. The cracks and fissures in the monument we have to human solidarity – supported by the pillars Rights, Liberty, Freedom, Equality – is made to echo by simply the function of free-speech. In order to fix the problems, we must first identify them; this can only be done by the same tools that made them, that raised such a monument to the heights man has allowed himself. To such heights have we been able to gaze far into the future, deeply into grains of sand, and eloquently into our deepest selves. The problems we find – in the future, the grains and ourselves – are made apparent by the liberty to speak. Silence does not remove problems, it only covers them with a transparent veil. To fill the fissures, to smooth the sutures, we must open our eyes and minds and mouths and be prepared to engage with our own fallibility.

We dislike hearing of our own failings and here-in we must allow some support. None wants to be thought a failure. Yet, there is a vast chasm between missing a step and plummeting to the ground. People often mistake the latter for the former, their emotions matching the overzealous self-harm. Jane has forgotten her child at school, thus she is a failure as a mother. She feels the brunt and punishes herself emotionally even when she picks up her child two hours later. But she is not a failure, she is a fallible human. Yes, she has made a mistake. We do not aid Jane by mocking her, though we silently rebuke her to each other. As Bertrand Russell said, we do not gossip about each other’s virtues. The point remains however that she is not a complete failure, though her emotions are dictating as such.

Many will argue that such strong emotions prevent the recurrence of such a mistake. The punishment is done for the benefit of both Jane and her child. This is certainly true, but the problem remains to what extent do we allow such cross-firing to take in collateral damage. That is, how far do we take such a loathing of failing into the public sphere?

The Loathing of Failing and Berlin’s Concepts of Freedom

Jane is not a failure as human being to forget her child, though her actions are examples of what a terrible mother would do. However, it was not Jane’s intention to forget or leave her child (how does one deliberately forget anyway?). She made a mistake and, as a human being, this will happen. No one, not even Megan Fox, is perfect (though in the looks department, she comes “close”). Thus Jane must forgive herself and continue, trying harder. This is a healthy way to progress and better herself. Mistakes are not wooden-planks to produce our own crucifix, but to take higher steps toward an intended destination. This false-dichotomy plays out when it sets it sights on the freedom of others.

The reason to restrict anything within a society, that is curb liberty, is a form of coercion. This might be under the archway of what Isaiah Berlin calls “negative liberty”. To better understand “negative” notions of freedom (within Berlin’s context, freedom and liberty are interchangeable), we can also focus on its corollary.

Berlin states, in his famous essay Two Concepts of Liberty, that negative freedom is defined by the absence of coercion. As Nigel Warburton has succinctly stated: “Coercion is when other people force you to behave in a particular way, or force you to stop behaving in a particular way. If no one is coercing you then you are free in this negative sense of freedom.” An example might be that no curfew prevents one being on the streets, no police force prevents one from driving down to see friends, and so on. If one was prevented because of a curfew, police presence, threats of violence, then one would not be free (in this negative sense).

Berlin then goes on to define a positive conception of freedom. This is the freedom to do as one wants with one’s life, within that life’s context. As Berlin puts it with his usual beautiful phrasing: ” ‘positive freedom’ – the doctrine of self-adjustment to the unalterable pattern of reality in order to avoid being  destroyed by it.” The big concept is self-realisation and the actions toward exercising control over one’s life – rescinding such rights is absolving one’s positive freedom. The point is to help people realise their best virtues, their greatest strengths, their abilities. An example is someone who is stuck in a relationship with an abusive partner – no one is forcing her to stay in the relationship. The partner has told her to leave and abuses her emotionally and sometimes physically. Though the abusive partner is telling her to leave, she keeps telling herself she “loves” him. Her friends and family know this relationship is bad for her and if she could learn to love and appreciate herself more, she would realise she deserves better. In this context, she is not free – even though no one is stopping her from leaving this terrible relationship.

Thus, positive freedom is freedom to do something, as opposed to negative which is freedom from something.  Positive freedom might be thought of under the domain of “rights”. This means the allowance of slight paternalistic interferences – such that, someone who is wasting their life would be put on a better path. However, if the former part of the previous paragraph is troubling – talk of what’s best for the citizen, making them better people – then one is not in solitary company. Berlin himself maintains a heightened suspicion of positive freedom. Throughout history we have seen governments do the most horrid actions in the name of bettering themselves and their citizens.

So, positive freedom is the way one’s freedom is outlined – as outlined perhaps by declaration of rights and constitutions – and negative freedom is lack of coercion when performing certain actions.

Free speech is the ability to speak or express oneself without fear of being “coerced” into silence or violence. Thus, as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy also states, freedom of speech is a negative freedom. Curbing it thus rescinds liberty, not so much bending as breaking it.

Removing freedom of speech is done out of this hatred or loathing of failure (and perhaps other reasons, though I won’t be addressing those here, since I am dealing with freedom of speech in a societal framework). People do not want to hear contradictory remarks about their most deeply held beliefs. The important point here is that the very existence of a challenge to conventional views is evidence of liberty and freedom. It was of course the Greeks who started this idea that one should challenge tradition (what the classicist Peter Jones calls “the tradition of challenging tradition”), basing thought and inquiry into and, more importantly, from the human realm, since this is the only realm that has utility. Even if one is completely wrong to speak out against evolution or Darwinism or cosmology, the fact remains that the established view is forced to cement itself within a stronger foundation. This means more of those who accept the established views within a framework – so the majority of scientists and Darwinism, the majority of liberals and freedom – must almost relearn their views, express them eloquently and understand why their views are better than their opponents’. Notice: I did not say their views are “true” or “perfect”. According to Karl Popper, we should work with ideas that are strongest against its counter-theories. We have ideas that withstood the onslaught of prevailing criticisms. Beneath the storm of outrage, these are the ideas that bloom even in the fog of obscurity, the rain of anger and thunder of discontent.

But these ideas only come to fruition with the ability to express them. Hating an opponent’s view, simply because it upsets or hurts one’s feelings, is not reason enough to rescind freedom of speech.

Religions are often the  groups responsible for demanding censorship,  banning and burning. Throughout modern history, it has been the policy of papal instruction to burn books that speak out against god,  to restrict scientific inquiries which upset the geocentric world-view, and the demand from an Iranian leader to kill a man who lives in London for writing a work of fiction. Unfortunately, religions have been granted so much freedom within a liberal and secular framework that it has poisoned the well of freedom for all. The religions have taken hold of the bucket and laugh as we flail for our fingertips to touch the water’s surface. Instead, our wavering reflections on the water mock us and the bucket is punctured by the religions’ thorny retribution. Now, whenever we reach in to drink from freedom, most of it drains out because of the loopholes driven in by the religions.

This is not meant to sound extreme or to highlight that we have lost this battle. It is true that talking of liberty is hardly ever done in the context of praising it – it is usually done to defend it.

So to be able to express views, within the framework of rescinded coercion, is the most important element of any form of liberty. To encroach upon that fundamental framework for the purposes of avoiding hurt feelings is to ignore that one is rendering the framework hollow. The religious tend to forget that freedom of speech to criticise should be met by freedom to criticise back. In most other areas, it seems that many religious people share the fundamental principles of a liberal society. Yet it is no irony that we often hear about protestations (from where, ironically but unsurprisingly, Protestants derive their name), from religious groups, against the most important value within a free society: free-speech.

The Silencing of Mankind – Why Free Speech Matters

Consider any other fundamental right or important element of freedom – such as equality, justice, and avoidance of harm. All these would be close to nothing if freedom of speech was eliminated, undermined or restricted. Indeed, though freedom of speech is fourteen shades of grey, it is grey nonetheless – not black and white. We can only talk about freedom of speech with freedom of speech; we can only highlight restrictions to our rights with free-speech; we can only find power in numbers to eliminate despotism with free speech.  The first mark of a society that is ruled by a totalitarian regime is when there is no freedom of speech (this does not mean that all totalitarian regimes did not allow free-speech, only that it is a clear indication of a violation of an important freedom).

If we arbitrarily demarcate lines based on nothing but the “tyranny” of “majority” opinion, as Mill viewed it, then we have got no closer to doing best for mankind. All we have done is catered to the feelings of one group – even if it is the majority. Even if the whole of mankind believes the earth flat, the planet remains stubbornly spherical. A better writer than myself, John Stuart Mill, put it like this:

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. (”On Liberty”, Chapter II. Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, 1869 – Italics mine.)

“Silencing mankind”. The power of Mill’s image is a resounding call to prevent a gag being placed in the mouth of humanity. Mill’s point on the censor himself runs further. The censor must assume infallibility when censoring a work, since he must know beyond all doubt that a work is better off being censored. But this is blatantly incorrect since no one can be absolutely correct in their judgements. The difficulty of course could be shifted to the other extreme: allowing a work to be published which causes harm. The point however that we need to address is that people must be given the choice. When a work is banned, restricted or pulled from distribution, a censor has taken it upon himself to read a work for a whole society. This is paternalism of the worst kind, grinding our emotional maturity into a fine powder of obedience. It seems that on the whole it would be better that a work is presented, even if it does cause harm, as this leads to the overarching growth of maturity in our species. Censoring seems to only allow for juvenile and loud voices to find support for their views: for example, a work is censored, a few “liberals” cry out. No one is hurt. A work is not censored and someone is killed by fanatics who are offended by it. The latter of course we have seen occur to the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verse. Whilst it might appear harsh that we should risk our lives for the sake of some ideal, like freedom, it seems we risk our lives and freedom by not standing up for it. The allowance of religious arrogance threatens every aspect of freedom one can name: personal autonomy, sexuality, friendship, fashion, careers.

Yet some things should be contentious for the liberal agenda, such as racist or misogynist writings. But then, they should be rejected from publication not because it hurts people’s feelings, but because of poor scholarship. I for example would be very interested to read a case, based on reason, evidence and good logic, that states we are better off denigrating women, treating them like cattle, and reducing their minds to dull throbs of rhythmic idiocy. I would like to read this because I know – as far as I know anything – that I never will. The case for the equality of humanity and the emancipation of women is so strong, in terms of a Popperian paradigm, that we can easily backhand arguments against it.

Thus it seems the censor is useless. Who is this person reading works for society? Who is deciding for the average citizen that material is too harsh?

Progress in terms of equality comes about through discussion. Limiting access to the public domain of ideas is to prevent the growth of these ideas toward the betterment of society. Before we can allow the ideas to come to fruition, we must have a foundation open to the light of reason and comprehension. Lucidity, ease of access and an understanding that ideas are fallible and to be contested should be the benchmark for policies that we decide for ourselves. Arbitrarily limiting or restricting certain forms of information assumes, as previously said, infallibility from the censor and as Mill also highlighted, the problem that the restricted document could contain the truth we seek.

The final problem in limiting free speech or censoring a work is the assumption that: only one group is harmed, or, if the whole of society is harmed, that no one benefits. Both are wrong. If, as constantly occurs, Muslims are offended by a work of art or fiction or the way someone scratches their nose, those targets are censored to placate Muslims (similarly when other religious groups cry out that they are offended). Now, that work of art is gone completely and the Muslims are satisfied. But what about the artist, the producer, the audience, and so on, who do appreciate it? Their concerns are swept aside to placate one group because they are religious as opposed to artistic or academic. Religions should not have a moral high ground but should be on the plateau of equality with the rest of us. Then we can speak of judging something; not because the religious groups hanker over us, but because we are all equally horrified at a dog being tortured to death as a work of art, equally dissatisfied with publication of some poor novel. This would mean that religions are taken seriously, not because they are religious people, but because they are people. Mature people, treated as such to show that we want to put them in line with ourselves, as adults dealing with a chaotic world. Not as children who have loud voices and toys of mass destruction they throw out their cot of platitude.

And the second point, that no one benefits is also wrong. By a group censoring or crying for a limit to the free speech in this instance, they prevent themselves from judging it. How many Muslims read The Satantic Verses before deciding Rushdie & Co. should die? How many people bothered to see the cartoons made by Jyllends-Posten before they marched in the streets, demanding death and blood of those who mocked Islam? In these instances, the groups would have benefited by simply engaging with the work. They then have a choice: ignore the silly infidels who just do not understand the power of Allah or retaliate by drawing satirical pictures of the cartoonists, writing a strongly-worded letter (minus death-threats) and so on. There are ways of “retaliating” that do not cross the bounds of discourse to enter the minefield of violence. Muslims reacting in such brash, harmful and violent ways are not making Islam any more a “religion of peace” or their faith any more acceptable by behaving in such stupid, childish ways. If religions want to be taken seriously, they must accept the rules of adult discussion which govern our growth and not the monkey-bars of juvenile delinquency that lets them leap over the lines of conduct we have in place.

This even before equality, justice, and equal suffrage. This before the inducing of minds toward intellectual adventure and fulfilment regardless of race, sex and ethnicity. This all before we decide on how create a path to glory, unifying our shaking hands and raising a platform toward peace. Freedom of speech is itself the decider in what should be free. Not everything should be said or spoken but the decision as to what we shall say, read or publish can only be decided on an open platform, using reason and not emotion as the yardstick. All this can only occur with the freedom to speak, ideas flying across the mental landscape like a flock of migrant birds blackening the ground with their shadows. Freedom starts with the first flap of wings and the dilation of the pupil toward the horizon. Now we can set off and take our wings toward a more peaceful horizon.

]]> http://factonista.org/2009/08/08/within-liberty/feed/ 0 http://factonista.org/2009/07/25/our-generation-must-make-greater-strides/ http://factonista.org/2009/07/25/our-generation-must-make-greater-strides/#comments Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:08:16 +0000 Tauriq Moosa http://factonista.org/?p=2819 We are on the cusp of change. As the era of superstition wanes with the approach of a prevailing consciousness of reason, gods and ghosts fight a losing battle against naturalistic explanations. But the question as to why superstition, unreason, and absolutist mindsets have dominated much of society remains. Perhaps it is because most people follow the religion of their parents. Like a genetically acquired stigma on one’s eyesight, parents prevent their children from seeing the world in its full glory by passing on this virus. The vicious cycle of faith rolls on, quashing reason underfoot.

But now we can throw a wrench into that cycle. By “we” I mean my generation—those who are currently just above or below twenty years of age. It is we who will inherent that brilliance of the scientific method, we who will finally stand up to the ghosts of the past, and we who will carry forth the ignited flame of reason. We are the first generation to enjoy a compounded sentence of life with the sequencing of our genome. We are the first to experience the Large Hadron Collider and the power and potential it beholds. We can experience the wonder and beauty of the macrocosm and the intricacy and complexity of the microcosm.

From one pole to the other, our senses swing in a prevailing storm of wonder. Yet in the gaps between we are faced with those who would wish God into our society. With so much to be in awe of, so much to wonder over, why on Earth (please notice the pun) should we care about a being who is “one but three”? How will knowing how Muhammad drank a glass of water solve the lack of clean water in Muslim African countries? Travailing through the sinuous undergrowth of tortuous theological pap, the easy wonder and beckoning of beauty in the natural world withers into sterility.

No doubt this call to arms is made often. Each generation hopes it will at last overthrow the grips of gods and bring liberty to humankind. I make no such claim. Instead what I propose is awareness and realization. We are at point where we can—not completely but exponentially—severe the ties of superstition. Here’s why I am optimistic.

J.B.S. Haldane famously said: “the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” That is, what we can bring to the forefront of our minds is not limited by the immediate environment. We can make ghosts out of curtains and gods out of stars with all the reckoning of a mad wizard because of the power of our
minds. If nothing else, we can appreciate the creativity behind such claims as walking on water, demons in the sand, and winged horses.

All that need occur for us to render religion as the myth it is instead of the “truth” that believers want it to be is to reduce the penchant for acceptance. I do not mean acceptance of the claims but from where they stem—a need to explain life, the cosmos, beauty, and meaning. Those of us who reject religious explanations have found meaning in other things, but it is meaning nonetheless. By accepting that we all are longing for meaning and answers, Yahweh can be seen as simply another creative concept, like Zeus.

People are not stupid to hold such irrational beliefs; they are fulfilling their role in the cycle of unreason. While we are guided by the realization that the cycle works through natural forces, the believers invoke invisible gods pushing that same cycle along. We are both travelling and going forward, but when the cycle breaks down, who is more likely to  know the reason? While we would face and fix the problem, the believers would pray and simply hope things get better.

My generation, those who will be passed the torch from “godless luminaries,” as Richard Dawkins calls them, is in a better position than any to adopt a more assertive approach. How can I be accepting yet strident against belief? I respect people too much to allow irrational beliefs to dominate their lives. I want the members of my generation to bear this in mind as they face a present and future where most of us will not be punished because we do not believe.

We must not squander what the giants of the past have given us. We need to be strident in opposing irrationality for the simple reason that we care about our species. We have science, reason, and the ethics of humanism to achieve a fulfilled life, find meaning, and transmute exclamation points into question marks. My generation has learned that it is not a mark of insanity, pessimism, or distrust to not believe; we know that an attitude of questioning and skepticism is far more satisfying than the backdoor explanations of the faithful.

With this in mind, it is high time that we straighten our backs and walk proudly forward. No, we do not have all the answers and I, for one, would be disheartened if we thought that we did. Answers are full-stops but wonder is an ellipsis. It fills me with hope to keep moving forward, and my generation, those who are the next lot of great scientists, intellectuals, politicians, and human-rights activists, needs to grip the unveiling future with a white-knuckled ferocity. We cannot let the future be pulled from under our feet. We must be stronger and more eloquent in our dismissal of unreason in society, especially when it affects individual lives. We must be less accepting of those who would claim truth in religion, astrology, unproven medical treatments, psychic abilities, divination, and exorcisms.

In this day and age, in a civil society in which parents have let children die because they prayed instead of seeking medical help, we must not be moderate in our approach. When these sorts of parents claim that their child died because “they didn’t have enough faith,” we cannot dismiss it as crackpot and fringe mindsets.

I believe that most human beings are inherently caring, loving, and helpful people and that the religious as well as the nonreligious would be horrified by the actions of such parents. But we must not be passive and tolerant and excuse these actions. No. The need to protect human life takes precedence over the need to be “nice” and accepting of everyone’s beliefs. I urge you, my generation, those who have looked to the luminaries of the past and present—from Nietzsche to Russell, from Sagan to Dawkins—to rise up, armed with the ammunition of knowledge. We can create a better, more beautiful world. But to do that we must be more assertive and not defer to our elders. We must let go of the hands that helped us walk and begin taking our own hard strides into the teeth of superstition and dogma.

It has to happen at some point, and it is better to start right now, while we still have these elders’ support, than later, when they are gone.

Secular Humanist Bulletin Vol. 25, No. 1, Spring 2009

I believe…

• …nothing is sacred and the attempt at sanctification brings nothing but dogmatic human assertion onto an otherwise neutral world. This is not to be confused with not thinking certain thing highly important: for example, I do not believe in the “sanctity of human life” but I believe very strongly in fighting for people’s autonomy, freedom and their pursuit of happiness.

• …many current governmental policies, even in “Western” liberal democracies, are premised on knee-jerk emotional responses which cater to the masses. We need a thorough reassessment based on evidence rather than emotion if we wish to help our fellow Man. Thus, our policies on drugs, capital punishment, education and the automatic respect for religions to dictate on important moral issues needs at the most rescinding and at the least thorough consideration.

• …suppression only worsens rather than ameliorates most social problems. Thus, we should legalise drugs (from marijuana to cocaine), prostitution, pornography, abortion,  euthanasia and similarly related constituents of “immorality”. Conservative moralists tend to consider a slippery-slope that as AC Grayling put it works like this: “If you eat two bananas, you are going to want to eat a million.” We can already see the irrationality of such an approach. Firstly, if people want drugs, abortions and euthanasia, they will usually find a way to get it. Secondly, we already have arbitrary instances of various allowances of these prohibitions: we have legalised alcohol and nicotine (both of which are far worse than other drugs, like say marijuana); we don’t blink when we give a pet a good death (the literal meaning of euthanasia) but shudder when the gaze shifts to one of our own. This again goes back to considering something sacred, rather than looking at something humanely – that is, it is more important for someone to have life, even if it is filled with suffering, than to have no life and therefore no suffering. Also, those who chant the mantra “drugs are bad” should remember that for the most part, even alot of so-called hard drugs when taken in minimal circumstances do little to no damage.

• …when entering the public sphere, all ideas are open to criticism, debate, mockery and scorn. If we eliminate the stupid notion of sanctity, we can allow that ideas are man-made and therefore fallible. The point is to weed out the bad and keep the good but that can not be done if certain ideas are beyond criticism. For too long we have lived under the shadow of a respect for people’s faiths but no longer must that be the case. We should care more about people and creating a better world, than hushing our own important criticisms which could better more lives by being spoken rather than placating dormant lives with silence.

• …we should not be afraid to defend our point of views strongly, but more importantly we must be able to utter 2 three-word sentences: “I don’t know” and “I stand corrected”. Sure, we may feel like imbeciles when we vehemently defend a view which turns out to be wrong. We should then apologise and say so, rather than making the situation worse by deluding ourselves into naive dogmatism. Nobody really cares anyway because no one is keeping tabs on how often you were right. Also you will be right by acceding to your opponent or antagonist (even if there are say, your brilliant philosopher girlfriend), because you will be able to correct those who shared your previously held view.

• …religions are a disgusting affront to human sensibilities and are perverse for accruing various properties. It is both tedious and mortifying to constantly read about religious groups opposing abortions, same-sex marriages, prostitution, drugs, freedom of speech and expression, liberty, and so on. In each case, we can probably name a few cases where religious people who deem their actions sanctified (there is that notion of sanctity again!) by a god have killed someone who is part of these movements. Religious people often refuse to face facts and evidence, as is the case with for example evolution and contraceptives, and instead point to arbitrary passages in their arbitrary (sacred) book.  Religions not only reward people for horrifying actions like the slaughter of innocent people, but also rewards people for believing without evidence. It also rewards people for peering into other people’s private lives which, if ignored, would not hinder their own lives at all (how could a happy homosexual couple going about their business make the lives of say a normal family horrid, unless they were Christians and told by their holy book that homosexuality is an affront to god?)

• …the most disgusting affront to our species and the biggest fight we have is the continued emancipation of women and bringing their hands to tightly clutch the banner of liberty. Especially in such places as Africa, where we know that when women are allowed charge over their own bodies, we can end poverty. Poverty will not be solved solely though charity – we know that will not work. Instead, we must seek charity’s root, namely karitas or the love of fellow humans. This means liberating women which reduces poverty by not dealing out already low resources to an inestimable number of offspring, who themselves grow up to continue to breed and create more people to suffer needlessly. Aside from poverty, we need to push back the patriarchy of society to realise that women (who do better than the male counterparts in education) are human. Religions also aid this patriarchy by giving men a divine sanction to use their wives as nothing more than cattle. There are too many instances to name in Islamic countries that they might collectively be called Misogynia. By combating these arrogant and stupid men who think women are lower than themselves, we will be pulling the carpet from under the feet. The biggest wake up call that Muslims states could suffer would be a woman, wearing clothes of her choosing, smiling and enjoying her own mind and body. A respect for the minds and their bodies should be welcomed, not solely for the purpose of the male related urge to have sex, but also for the appreciation of the beauty of both. Personally, women are the better sex and it is often said that if god was a woman, the world wouldn’t be in such a mess – perhaps the only statement of an anthropomorphic god I could agree with.

• …we need a re-evaluation of why we procreate. To the Greeks, everything was an ethical dilemma: even the clothes you wore. To them the ethical life was a life well-lived and living ethically was a life-long challenge. We tend to forget this view, with its importance on self-reflection. Applying this to all spheres would end a lot of social problems but it needs to be consistent. Thus, to be consistent, there has yet to be a good reason laid out for the procreation of  our species. As I write this, I am of the opinion that it is immoral to create new people, since it is by definition impossible to have a child for that child’s sake – because the child does not exist when you conceive him. Parents do not know their children for quite some time, so it is impossible to say that parents have children for that child’s sake. To have a child is simply a selfish act, a biological need (arguably the most prominent and therefore the most overlooked!). Why have kids? It is a bizarre question to most people, but as of yet there has not been a satisfactory answer. To continue the human species is not good enough either, since I do not care for those who do not exist. I care and apply my moral sphere to those who exist. Those who do not exist do not suffer. Also, we must remember that our species will die out eventually and we only prolonging the inevitable. It seems harsh and to some horrifying, but it is rather simple. For this reason, I at this moment will not have children. Instead, I think our efforts in helping people to procreate and the “sad” fact that people are sterile, needs shifting to aid children who are already alive. That is, instead of focusing on children who do not exist, focus on those who do! Perhaps this is what irks me the most – there are so many children who need loving families and I do not doubt that people who want kids simply want a child to love. Therefore, they should not add to our overpopulated word, but simply adopt. Psychological testing has shown time and time again, there is no difference in affection and love between children who parents adopt and children born to biological parents. I believe it a human duty to shift our silly polices on those “unlucky people who are sterile” and who can not create new people; and instead promote the humanity and importance of adopting people who already exist.

• …reading is the gateway to living the good life and engaging in discussion with ideas its path. Epicurus was the embodiment of this, who thought the highest aim in life was sitting beneath a tree discussing philosophy. Whilst we can not reasonably expect such a life today, we can approach it with the same considerations. Reading is a joy and should be shown to young people when their minds are finding fruition and goal. Like education, reading should not be promoted by forcing children to read certain books, but how and why they should read in the first place. People find their hunger grow when reading and the acquisition of “knowledge” becomes a life long goal. There is nothing pretentious in reading Tolstoy and Faulkner’s books, indeed they are beautiful and actually simple writers. They are classics because even the general reader is able to enjoy its beauty, whilst stuffy introverts like myself could dissect it for in-depth literary criticism. There is also much joy to be gained in reading opposing viewpoints, thus reading books for and against evolution, for and against god, for and against postmodernism, and so on. We enjoy debates for their entertainment value and watching one side get overturned by the brilliance of the other; but we also allow people in better positions than ourselves to criticise more eloquently and with better information. It is a joy: try (really try) for example reading a work by Derrida (perhaps a short one) than try Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont’s Fashionable Nonsense or Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom’s Why Truth Matters.

• …by studying philosophy, I hope to bring it further into the public sphere where it belongs. Much is to be gained from the history of ideas and discussion within philosophy. Not least the clarification and use of critical thinking so important to this discipline. Moral philosophers need to be higher placed within our society than say, bishops and rabbis – for the simple reason that moral philosophy is not moralising – i.e.: it is not about setting out a list of “Thou shalt…” and “Thou shalt not…” but the clearing of verbose emotional reactions and alternate paths not previously considered. The first person journalists should contact when an ethical dilemma arises from medical advancement should not be the public or a religious don: it should be a bioethicist. After outlining all the paths and conjectures surrounding the topic, others can contribute more coherently. This should be the job of the philosopher in general, to clear the path for discussion to continue maturely.

• …sex is overrated. In nearly every sense, sex finds itself at the top of the list for both those who consider themselves godless liberals in their “FOR” list, and for the conservative moralisers in their “AGAINST” list. If sex was less the topic of focus, it could be allowed to be the healthy, enjoyable actualisation of affection two (or three or four) people have for each other.

• …I am not intelligent or bright. I reserve such terms for those who deserve it and find it a particularly insulting when an important property finds itself attached to me. As an example, I did terribly in high-school, barely passing. I did even worse in a tertiary institution, only managing firsts in English literature – a degree, nearly anyone could do well in. I am not exceptional in any way, save that I am particularly good-looking.

• …that last sentence was a lie.

I hope that by next year one of these would have changed, either to be replaced with something more informed, or elucidated more clearly. For example, I hope to be able to say that I am working from a tertiary institution. Until then, let us see what changes the world makes upon itself.

For those of you who have no interest in reading the entire article, here is its thrust: We need to stop paying attention to the private actions of those we label celebrities, for the simple reason that it is in domain of their private lives. If such actions are within their private lives, then it is none of our business. However, when they engage in the public domain, they – along with anyone in the public domain including, for example, religious groups – are subject to the open criticism of a secular, liberal society. By respecting the autonomy of such people, we can shift our interest and obsessions to more important matters and make life better for all, simply because we will be using what precious little time we have.

Full Article

In honour of the 4th of July, I would like to shift quickly and briefly to America, as this is often the breeding ground for my critique.

Whether it was Bill Clinton doing the naughty in the Oval Office (and he didn’t apparently, it was only “oral” sex, as far as we know), or finding some rock star in bed with a dozen strippers and cocaine – I frankly could not care and neither should you. The so-called moral outrage is a symptom of the horrible disease of peering over the fence at the Jones’.

This takes its unbridled form in “gossip” magazines: he is dating her, but she is actually married to him, but he was seen kissing his sister; she was wearing this dress which was not appropriate for her age and her daughter was seen with this guy, etc. etc. Many people lick their lips when a celebrity, for example, is found “cavorting with a stripper”, as happened here in South Africa a few months back. We need to stop this obsession when other people make apparently horrid choices in their – note – private lives. When they are good and just, we should praise them in the public; but when they act against the backdrop of a moral choice, in private, then we should leave it for the person, their family and their friends to sort out. It is none of our business if they want to do have sex with strippers or receive fellatio in the Oval office. (I recall Dylan Moran saying: “What else are you meant to give strippers in a hotel room!”)

The slight Freudian analysis is hard to resist here: those who are usually most outraged by the moral perplexity of our society are usually the ones who most desire said outrage. But often we can predict with pin-point accuracy that, when, for example, a gay couple gets married, when we advance in stem-cell research, and so on, usually people of a religious persuasion and often the one involving a man on a Cross are going to “comment”.  Their voices are raised highest when such things that outrage them are found stirring in their surroundings (if their voices are loudest, we can only wonder how badly they crave to be let loose from the chains of their society). There are too many examples of religious people marching against this and that, which, if they simply ignored it, would have gone away (recently, it was one that involved blasphemy, which you can find on this blog). But it’s not just religious people. Anyone who subscribes or is obsessively tracking the downfall of some celebrity due to a “sex scandal”, is partisan to such a mindset of “fence peering”.

We need to stop. There are more important things to focus on: how we can contribute to a just society, how we can help others, how we can advance our technology, and so on. Who cares if Britney Spears breasts have got larger, if this person is found doing drugs again, and so on. That is their business.

This is of course as a result of the freedom of the press: with so much freedom and information to collect, there will be garbage. Notice: I am not saying we should ban celebrity-focused websites and magazines, I am saying we should alternate our views and read something more intellectually stimulating. We should stop being drawn into the obsessive culture of “fence peering” and focus on ourselves. No one is perfect, least of all those who have climbed the acting-ladder in Hollywood, or the one made of guitar chords and broken hearts in the music industry. The intensity to which we hold such moral outrage against celebrities would be a better tool used against ourselves: are we succeeding in our goals of being better people, are we constantly striving (more important than succeeding, since the latter hardly occurs or matches to the expectations of the former)? We need to ask these questions or we are failing in our, in terms of philosophy, “epistemic duty” – to question, evaluate, pose alternate theories and evidence.

So, I am not asking the celebrity papers to be burnt to the ground. I am asking the readers to read something else – not by pain of death, but by pain of losing out on something far more fulfilling. Socrates said that the unconsidered life was not worth living and we might think that with all the focus and consideration our societies dumps onto celebrities, their lives would be most worth living. But they are not. We need to divide up our considerations mostly for ourselves to become better people.

No doubt many readers will say: How can we praise them when they do good but ignore them when they do bad? If you are thinking that, you have missed an important word: “privately”. Julian Baggini defends this same position I offer of turning our attention away from celebrity hogwash in his book Making Sense, stating that a shift in focus could alter our society dramatically. And this begins when we can understand the difference between “private” and “public” lives.

For most people this is a difficult concept. For example, when we deal with religious issues in a secular society, I for one will accept people practising their religious beliefs in the privacy of their own homes. When they begin to shift their god-given opinions into the public domain, say to stone women who are traumatized enough after having gone for an abortion – then we have a problem. The notion of freedom from and of religion is permitted within the domains of said religious people’s private domains. Their views are unwelcome in the public arena – only to the extent that they justify it with their holy book. Austin Dacey dissects this problem in his book A Secular Conscience: note again, I am not saying religious people are not welcome in the public domain. Their ideas are not. This is not to say that perhaps their ideas – say to protect the life of the unborn (a bizarre concept) starts with the Bible, then grinds itself along by the friction of non-biblical sources. If they can do this, fantastic. In most cases they cannot and simply assert it with dogmatic confidence fueled by the torrent of Biblical exegesis. Thus, we see the differentiation: the private domains of the religious are suitable arenas for religious worship and proclamation – when they bring it in to discuss such matters as health care initiatives, for example banning stem cell research on nothing but the whim of the bible, their ideas are at the least irritating and childish and at the most preventative in our endeavour to further medical knowledge. Private and public – acceptable in the former, worthy of mockery and derision in the latter.

It gets complicated if we ask ourselves: is a church a private domain? This is what I mean by it being a difficult question. It is not so easy to answer such things.

Now, if we bring back the moral outrage and focus again on celebs, I hope we can clarify my position on this. By private, I mean those things (I have to repeat) done in the privacy of their own homes and lives. If the celebs want to have affairs and do drugs, leave it there. It stays in the private domain and is none of our business. If the celeb however advocates cocaine to be sold to minors, then we can have an outrage and deride him for being an idiot. Bertrand Russell famously was hated for his advocating of a promiscuous marriage and relationships and he lost his position in America because of it (briefly and during this time, he managed to deliver the lectures that would make up his beautiful History of Western Philosophy). Here I can actually sympathize with those who were outraged, because Russell wrote a whole book about it. Thus, his advocating was in the public domain – if it is such a sphere, it is part of our culture of ideal freedom which means it is open to being criticized. That’s why when people, in this case, were outraged by Russell’s views, it was acceptable: if they were simply outraged by him having affairs with beautiful women, it would be unacceptable. In the latter case, it would be none of theirs, or our, business. (It must also be largely assumed that Russell was loathed because he was a brilliant, eloquent and ardent defender of freedom from religion and all areas and openly agreed with Lucretius, as he himself states, in thinking religion a virus).

Many people tell me that when you are a celebrity, your life is one that is constantly a public life. But that is nonsense and nothing but assertion by hungry, lecherous fools who have nothing to goggle at except falling stars of the wrong kind. Instead, we should shift our gaze and curiosity to the world at large, which is often far more beautiful than say the pestilential Jeremy Clarkson or Amy Winehouse – who is a very talented musician who just gets the worst pictures! We can do better than goggling, ogling and bumbling around celebrities’ private lives which are mostly quite boring and secondly not our business. We must stop the fence peering and instead try microscope-peering, telescope-peering or the one I can’t stress enough book-peering. Do you really want to waste precious reading time on how many babies Madonna has adopted (I think she is doing more good for our species and planet than people who just keep breeding for no reason other than to further their genes in an already overcrowded and scantly resourced planet)? Or perhaps reading on the latest naughty-naughty that <insert any celeb here> has done? Or would you rather brush up on your Carl Sagan, your PG Wodehouse, your Oscar Wilde? In fact, there are things called libraries where you can get the latter for free! Why pay for garbage when you can get gold for free? Feast your mind, dear reader, lest it rot in the bile of fence-peering.

UPDATE 13 July ‘09: Michael Jackson was apparently gay! Oh no! Oh my! I can tell you right now there will be:

1. People who say he’s alive

2. People who say he’s faked his death

3. People who will say it was a murder/conspiracy

4. Etc.

I really don’t care that Michael Jackson was gay. It really does not diminish the brilliance of “Thriller” nor his amazing dancing. Who cares!!! This is what I mean.

We understand her.

But its her actual decision which is philosophically interesting. Her decision is to literally severe the umbilical ties which unite Jason to her. That is, she decides to murder her sons to allow their hot blood to raise the heat of outrage within their uncaring, ossified father.

Stoics, Epicureans and sceptics have gazed upon this dilemma till their eyes were sore with wonder. Professor Julia Annas, in her broad outline of the various responses to Medea’s dilemma, states that the Stoics would have disagreed with Medea herself who thought that anger was dominating her reason. There are no “two parts” to Medea – she was a unified whole. Plato perhaps – we don’t know his actual position on most things since he spoke through characters and not from an official standpoint, like Aurelius – would have said there is a conflict, relating to different parts in Medea. Namely her passion and her reason really are in conflict. Someone like Galen, a late Platonist, would have thought that reason and anger were battling in the “soul” of Medea and eventually anger won.

Medea of course eventually kills her children.

What has this story or this investigation got to do with anything? As I stated in the beginning, it rests mainly in the need to be understood. Medea has an urgent need for Jason to understand her – post hoc, of course, but it seems that if he had understood what she had been through and (more importantly) appreciated it, he would not have left her so suddenly. The need to be understood is perhaps the central problem of philosophy, or at least an echo of the whole human enterprise, often called the “human condition”.

I don’t rightly kno what if anything is the human condition but I imagine it is this: What we consider internally often finds no harmony with what occurs externally and our need to reconcile these two incoherent and disharmonious constitutions leads to all manner of problems, with ourselves, others and the world as a whole. This we might consider a possible definition of the “human condition” (though I will be the first to say it is not a resolute or final one).

For example: We consider ourselves to be central to our lives, since the events and people we affect and focus orbit our sphere of knowledge. Yet to the universe at large and the earth as a whole, we are merely infinitesimal, insignificant bundles of perception, moulded by the fingers of nature and given a spark of consciousness as a cruel joke. We die and rot and amount to dust, which the closing fist of the universe will drive home into meaninglessness. We create meaning and yet we are largely meaningless, to the large expanse of time that has come before and will arise after. Meaning is meaning made in the face of meaninglessness.

For further illustration: We struggle and fight for things we believe in. We find certain books, careers, people important. Yet to most people, these important people (to us) are to most others unimportant because they do not know them.

These are illustrations of the incoherent nature of considerations between what occurs within our minds and what exists independently of our thoughts of them (I here take it for granted that, like GE Moore, I have two hands). This is labelled “absurdity” by many philosophers, like Mark Rowlands, and is thus central to all interesting and “important” dilemmas.

Absurd is of course another reason for the problem of lying; lying is thought to be bad for the simple reason that it is an echo of insanity. You are presenting reality as it is only to you, but reality does not actually exist like that. You lie and tell your parents that there is no girl in your bedroom, but there is one. Or perhaps you lie to your friends and say you were with a girl, when you were not. Both, if believed seriously by the speaker, would constitute madness since the girl is either there or not – independently of whether you assert it or not. Thus it only takes your parents checking in to confirm your statement. This makes lying, according to some philosophers, a resemblance to insanity, which is not a good thing if one is trying to formulate a coherent picture of reality. The only difference is that one is aware that the world is not as one says when one is lying; insanity, one does not know – or, rather, one believes the uttered falsehood.

Medea and her choices are “absurd” only to the extent that her inner feelings needed to find a balance or expression externally. This might be a reason for the need for humans to create art; our consciousness – which might be defined as the awareness of the incoherence of our external and internal spheres – allows us to take a full-throated cry of internal silence to a melodious utterance in the outer sphere of reality. (Reality, Nabokov once said, is the only word that was permitted to always be written in between quotation marks).

This is why we struggle to understand one another. We are already struggling to understand our significance in our immediate spheres and their ripples into the wider sphere of the world. Our creation of meaning is forever the building of sand-castles upon a stormy beach; we are fighting against a strong tide of reality, bashing against the rocks which themselves we hope will bleed. Reality will have none of it.

If we take this thought further into the sphere of the social world there are worse problems. Consider: the sphere which you represent, as a lawyer, academic or liberal fighter (for example) is part of a larger group. When you speak, you speak as “we”, which is nothing but a pluralised first-person viewpoint. Thus when you (plural) are fighting against, for example, the oppression of women, you are taking your internalised, important and, according to you, sensible beliefs into another wider sphere. It does not chime, it finds no harmony. Thus we have conflict, we have a forced view of reality thrust upon another sphere. We have the liberal secularist spheres attempting to free those who live under the conservative, Islamic one. For both, the absurdity does not rest with reason or logic or mutual understanding. It rests primarily with each sphere running down the rocks of reality and being pulled in by the tide of the external world.

One way we can begin to change does rest however in the use of reason to justify our beliefs and our ideas. This is why we need to begin to shift our own positions on many things we take for granted, which I will speak about next time. These might be thought of as the target areas of applied ethics, though one is often ignored by many: namely, the creation of new people. But with these thoughts in hand, I hope the reader will be able to follow me as I target key issues next time: things like science, drugs, creating new people and abortion, and animal ethics.

Yes, we have people debating about the nature of a being whose nature is by definition unknowable; who discuss whether Jesus lived or died or was resurrected or flew to the land of the unicorns on a blue starfish called Zimbo; or perhaps to debate the merits of “both sides” of “science”, portioning out “equal time” to both astrology and astronomy – uh, I mean creationism and evolution. And yes, perhaps debating bishops is as impressive as debating crystal-gazers, astrologers or aromatherapists – but I would point out that critical thinking is still the undertone to the entire instigation in itself.

It seems that perhaps we can hammer this final nail in the coffin of bad ideas that debating and defining bad ideas is itself the cure of them.

Engaging the art of rhetoric does not lead to evidence or the culmination of evidential claims, but certainly viewing them with the eye of articulation, eloquence and subtle imagery will help convey, even to those who do not believe, what our position is.

For example, CS Lewis attempts to answer how his god is one but three. In Mere Christianity, he says that the same way a single cube is drawn as three squares hints at how we should conceive of his deity, as being one (cube) but three (squares). It is quite lovely imagery but one I believe to be pointless, inane and thus derivative of most of Lewis’ enterprise. It does not however repudiate that claim that I understand his point. The art of articulating (notice the first three letters of said word) rests primarily in displaying your idea as fully fleshed – or at least partially clothed – as possible. Thus, whilst the idea or opinion may grab at its skirts like a Monroe-esque bimbo upon an airvent, it retains its attire long enough for you to see some hint of flesh.

When writing or expressing, it is important to focus on ones idea to the greatest extent possible. Not to the point of refusing to bow down when it is shown to be wanting, but to the point where, even if its proved wrong, one can show what it is that has been shown wrong. (I do not give this advice as an expert and I offer mea culpa if it has been conveyed as such. I do so only in the spirit of engaging with those who at the moment are coming to terms with complex ideas, opinions and defending them against those who are louder, articulate and boistreous.)

Thus I do not believe in a deity but I certainly understand Aquinas’ articulation of her. We can for example understand the First Cause argument – but it doesn’t mean we have to believe it. Understanding and believing, I am attempting to stress, are two different things. And we should not let our lack of belief undermine our attempts to understand. We must, of course, be sparing with how our knowledge is parcelled. Thus I do not think I would gain much in terms of knowledge – or applicable knowledge – by learning and reading 1000 theology books. Similarly, I would gain nothing by reading about Tarot cards – except maybe I can gaze at some gorgeous artwork. But, of course, how can I know unless I’ve tried? This is the Courtier’s Reply in new clothes, which is often offered as a response to atheist writers and commentators who do not believe but who are not interested in theology. The usual reply, as I believe, is does one have to read all of faerology to disbelieve in fairies?

I think not. Since it is not that we are completely unaware of the implications of things like fairies, hobgoblins and gods. Indeed, it is not books that will change whether we believe in them. Many people will say that someone like Bertrand Russell, Salman Rushdie or lately Richard Dawkins changed their views on god. But it is not just these great men. Ones own mind finds experience through all manner of incremental knowledge: conversations, television ads, dialogue between real and fictional characters, columns, and so on. Through years and years of interaction, we come to form our views on the world and opinions cement into a monument we call our reason. This means that we have dealt with fairies and gods enough to dismiss them, since there is nothing in the deep myriad of complexities which are involved in the subject matter of fairy-tomes or god-scripts which could alter that by themselves. I doubt that reading every theological piece of writing would change an atheist’s mind (I suspect he would be driven mad by pretty, but meaningless, sentences). The world is not blind to our experiences and it is not enfolded by our past exploits. We live and breathe and experience every day. This is part of our knowledge and our reasoning and thus we are able to engage with fairies and gods and ghosts.

Thus, when someone takes time to explain to us their position which would be the polarised opposite of our own, we are still able to understand them. What? You believe in ghosts – sure, I can imagine what that means. No I do not believe in them myself – but by nature of being human I can identify with you. It will rest however in ideas being shrouded in lucidity and tossed out of mouths with clarity and precision. Opinions must not be guards at the fences of our minds, but gate-keepers who allow brief passages to welcome visitors able to identify themselves. As soon as we all learn to be more articulate, more coherent, lucid and eloquent – one can never be too articulate, coherent, lucid or eloquent, it is a journey rather than destination – we might solve most of our insolvable problems. Most of them rest in the lack of understanding from two opposing parties. If they are each able to create the bridge from both sides, instead of tossing their ropes randomly to the other side blindly, we should be able to at least meet in the middle and gaze at the other side we so vehemently oppose.

The only way we can become more articulate is to cotemplate articulately. Why do you think what you think you think? What do you believe and why? It is no fault that most of philosophy is well-written, since by its (one of many) definition(s) it is a constant attempt to articulate, define, clarify and reify opinions and ideas. This is the mighty weapon against bad ideas. I think that bad ideas are bad not because they are (only) silly or illogical, but because if one was to articulate them, one would find them severely lacking as opposed to their opposites. Thus, for example, creationism is not at all beautiful but it is simple, whereas evolution is not only beautiful but simple. This does not make it true, but it begins to highlight the faults and faultlines of bad ideas. It is but a small point and perhaps one I am wrong on, but at present I do think there is a corollary between articulate and clear ideas being ‘good’ or worthwhile, and those which are bad being blurry, transient and incoherent.

“Freedom of thought,” says the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville, “is the only good more important than peace. Without it, peace would be another word for servility.” This is the basis for the first amendment in the American constitution; itself formulated from the thoughts from the man who perhaps coined the term “United States of America”, namely the great Thomas Paine.

As Paine wrote in Common Sense:

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.

Those last words are resounding and might be the distant echo to the so-called Rushdie Affair. The “defense of custom” seems to have become the staple diet for the majority. We have fought so long and so hard for tolerance that we tolerate the intolerant; We defend their customs and their ideas which themselves are based on bullying strategies that renders a cloud of protection on “men of faith”. When someone who is not of the cloth utters that the 2007 floods in Northern Yorkshire are a deity’s judgments on homosexuality, as the then Archbishop of Carlyle, Graham Dow, did, we would think them insane. But because he has archbishop next to his name we are meant to “respect” such barbaric, backward and unhelpful thoughts.

Recently, my friend the great Johann Hari has faced a horrible string of threats, underpinned by death, fear and Islam. He alerted his faithful readership to the horrid poison, weaving a noose within the veins of equality in the UN. Islamic countries are demanding that we respect their hideous misogynist notions of shari’ah, to steer clear of criticising an illiterate pedophile who flew on horses to heaven, and to never raise reason as an ecumenical notion for everyone.

They are demanding this because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stresses the right to free-speech, free-thought. This logically means the ability to criticise openly any and all ideas. The only thing that the UDHR even alludes to being “sacred”, in the normative sense of the word, is the unified human spirit to unite without superstitious, overzealous boundaries. Muslims fear this, as Hari correctly highlight, because it would mean that young people would do the one thing all religions fear: THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

“Sapere Aude (Dare to know)!” says Kant in his essay on the Enlightenment. ” ‘Have courage to use your own understanding’ – that is the motto for the Enlightenment.” Islam – and all religions – would quiver under such scrutiny. The use of intellect is hardly encouraged unless it is in accordance with Allah’s will. Everything is supposed to be through Allah; but everything includes good and bad, right and wrong, evil and misconceptions. So wouldn’t this religion, which is mistakenly called a “religion of peace” by many world leaders, cherish such open-mindedness? Why then the fear of Enlightenment values?

Because then the foundations would fail, it would flounder and like a hydra dying and frothing red beneath the sea, it would sink into the bottom depths of our history. Muslims realise this. They realise their grips would falter on the minds of their flock; so much so that they are willing to arrest the Indian editors of Hari’s article.

How could Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha be arrested for publishing Hari’s article? Because hurting religious feelings is part of the Indian penal code. Under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code it forbids “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings”. The irony rests in the double-standards. And what religions are included in section 295A? Why some religions, Islam, but not others, Norse or Roman? And, of course, what about those who are outraged but are not religious? Why do we never get any “special treatment” for our “feelings”?

Boo-hoo, my childish Islamic friends. Your feelings were hurt? Shame. I can tell you exactly why those of us without religion neither have any law against offending us, in India (and most places), and more importantly, why we usually don’t fight for one: Because we believe in the freedom of open criticism. We believe in the right to express any ideas, in a rational, open way.

This means I do not care whether you worship Zeus, Allah, or Yahweh: If it makes you happy, go ahead. If it consoles, by all means do it. But you can not demand me to respect such ideas and to not criticise them. I am open to you criticising my ideas, any of them. I will not be privy to respecting any ideas just to make the faithful happy. To quote Hari:

[A] free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence.

Whilst we writers against religion limit ourselves to words, our antagonists would find vent in bullets. Whilst we would change and let the plateau of equality be the ground on which we all walk, Muslims would have the high-ground to censure equal human rights. They would rather we shut up and step away from hurting their poor feelings.

I support Hari in his criticisms, as is apparent. Hari had every right to write what he liked, as did people in my country’s past. Consider that Steve Biko’s book is entitled I Write What I Like. I even support the freedom to write tripe like creationist or Holocaust-denial literature. Because scientists and historians can then openly criticise and point out the flaws in the creationist and “revisionist” literature. I don’t believe in banning books or writers or the stultification – in fact, my life is dedicated to fighting for anyone to say anything, in an open minded, discursive way.

Not so for the religious, as this reaction to Hari’s article displays. If that is not a sign of backward thinking, pointing away from the path of reason into the dark woods of dogma, then I am not sure what is. Perhaps the Quran and its horrible statements of death to infidels (”Kill them where ye find them!”)? Perhaps the terror Muslims invoke, when we draw cartoons of their Prophet, or the death-threats when a Teddy-bear is named after him?

I want us all to be amenable to change, criticism and open to ideas. This is a grownup way to look at the world. But the neotony inherent in our species finds vent in that which is itself a product of our mind’s infancy. Consider this bounder, called Abdus Subhan, who “[was] prepared to lay down his life, if necessary, to protect the honour of the Prophet [against Hari]” and Hari should be sent “to hell if he chooses not to respect any religion or religious symbol … He has no liberty to vilify or blaspheme any religion or its icons on grounds of freedom of speech.”

But why not? We need to all grow up and face the fact that many things will “offend” us. We are diverse and diversity inculcates a sense of realisation of many different things.  So, using “that offends me” as a reason and argument to cease that which causes offence, is no grounds at all for it to cease. Before you think me venturing into the territory of cultural relativism, I mean it simply according with what we understand to be human rights, personal autonomy, the right to liberty, freedom of thought, and so on.

I stand by what I write here as I stand by Johann Hari. Muslims should be more horrified at me, someone who was once Muslim, now admonishing them; I deserve their scorn and outrage more than someone who won the Amnesty International Newspaper Journalist of the Year (2007). Please let us all grow up, face the beauty of the world and time we have. Muslims must realise that we are fighting for them and their freedom as much as anyone else. The ones who suffer the most from the dogmatic assertions of clerical bullying are other Muslims.

We want everyone to be free, we want everyone to have the right to liberty and freedom. Let the ashes of dogma settle to allow some growth of a newfound liberation and reasoned tolerance. If we hurt each others feelings so be it. But that does not mean we are allowed to kill, arrest or maim each other. Growing up and opening our eyes means we see and experience more, which means more opportunity for pain. But it also means more opportunity for growth. Like trees entwined at the roots, our growth rests in each other. The faster we all severe our ties from celestial propitiation, the faster our own lives can be rendered to soar with freedom and openness

I know this will do nothing to stop or cease Muslim’s anger. It might incite more. But, I will quote Paine again to finish. Immediately after the first line I quoted above, he says:

But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Let it be so.

Are you black, white or Asian? Are you Arab, Dutch or Spanish? Are you Reformed Hassidic Jew or a Secular Protestant? Are you an “atheist” or an “agnostic”?

When my parents moved into their second house during apartheid, they were faced with typical bureaucratic nonsense. The National Party, then the ruling party and the continuing antagonist to human rights, had assimilated the ultimate forms of racism into politics. This meant unreason had poisoned the very foundations from which a society grows, its fruit withered before it could grow, its leaves never to open. The documents my parents had to fill out were an example of your typical rotten fruit grown under the darkness of irrationality.

The question they faced was this:

WHAT RACE ARE YOU?

My father shrugged and simply ticked the box “COLOURED”. According to their actual ID documents, both my parents were “INDIAN”. This, they told me, was the first and only time they had lied to their government (as much as they despised the apartheid government, it was still their government). This brazen display of ignorance listed itself on the rest of the page, running parallel to open boxes to define oneself: “WHITE” “BLACK” “ASIAN”. If my father had not opted for “COLOURED”, my parents would not have been allowed to live in their desired area.

HL Mencken, reporting on racist policies in the USA some years before, said of these policies:

Is such a prohibition, even supposing that it is lawful, supported by anything to be found in common sense or common decency?

But this is not about apartheid or racism; it is about labeling. Consider the questions at the beginning of this article. Race is a good entry point to highlight some particular brands of unreason regarding labeling. Perhaps it is simply my sensitivity to notions of “race” but I find them all to be quite unhelpful and stupid.

And I am not the only one.

In the 1994 book (ironically the same year apartheid ended), The History and Geography of Human Genes , the authors state:

[F]rom a scientific point of view, the concept of race has failed to obtain any consensus; none is likely, given the gradual variation of existence.

Commenting on this quotation, Michael Shermer says: “In other words, the concept of race is biologically meaningless.”

Think about it for a moment: Yes, you can say you are Indian though you live in, say, South Africa. You can say you’re Indian because your grandparents were both from there. But which grandparents? And how far back are we allowed to go to call ourselves Indian, Asian or Arab? What if, as in my case, it was only your great-grandparent who was originally from India? And what if your maternal grandmother is “white”, which is also my case?

It seems to me quite arbitrary to assign a random number of grandparents or great-grandparents, to put a full-stop after their names, and proclaim oneself their nationality. I was born in South Africa – that’s all that should concern anyone. Why does “race” matter, why is it even on surveys, forms, etc.? I have yet to find a satisfactory answer is to how indicating your “race” (which one? Your mothers? Your fathers? What if you are “black” but your mother is white? Are we judging simply then by pigmentation? If that’s the case, why is it in the survey or form at all?) What does the colour of one’s skin indicate about one’s abilities as a worker or employee in the environment? This is to forget the individual human who we should judge as a fully-formed human being, consciously – not according to some non-evidenced based category (horribly, astrology does this too, with 12 random signs; this is another form of torrid prejudice in my opinion).

There is much politics surrounding this: For example, in South Africa, there is a policy to empower “previously disadvantaged groups”. Thus, in deciding between a “black” or “white” candidate, the employer should choose the black one to win favour from our government. This is not the place to debate the pros and cons of this policy, but it certainly indicates the elaborated intricacies of “race”. Yet in this case, it is not judging by his “skin colour” but by the candidates disadvantaged past.

Anyway, enough of race. What of labeling ourselves in this so-called battle of reason versus faith? I myself loathe the term “atheist”. It is unhelpful: We shouldn’t use it. Too many co-thinkers have attempted to formulate ways of integrating atheists or assimilating nonbelievers, or referring to atheism as a mentality, a mindset, a world-view, a philosophy. “Atheism” really and truly is nothing. The reason I find the term unhelpful is its superfluous nature: Everyone is an atheist.

Presumably no one reading this believes in Fidi Mikullu, the African god. Therefore, we both, dear reader, are atheists. The latest kid to hit the scene, that Yahweh character, is no more special than Fidi in existing. Certainly the Old Testament indicates a vindictive, puritanical, homophobic, racist misogynist but adding such adjectives does not make him exist more than Fidi. And simply because more people believe in him, those who do not are somewhat estranged. It’s why the requisition of the term “atheist” is so strange: When we call ourselves atheist, for some reason the logical assumption is a “nonbeliever in the monotheist god”.

But why? Why is he so special, just because the majority of the world believe in him? We need to address this immediately and forcibly elaborate to those who would leap to the conclusion that we are atheists of their particular god. Hence, I find the term “atheist” a silly label; we are, as Sam Harris stated (in a similar and better appeal than my own current one), drawing a chalk outline and stepping into it, killing our ideas off for our antagonists.

Not atheist. We should not label ourselves anything and I find it hard to deal with people who would willingly mine a term from my depths. We give labels and more often than not they turn out to be gravestones for further conversations. Buried beneath the soil of unremitting stereotyping, labels can do nothing but fester and quiver in their tombs. So I say: Let them have their graves and let us build a garden. We need to allow sentences, ideas and reason to breathe. It will not do so, encumbered by labels and terms, and unhelpful connections – such as the atheism of co-thinkers and the atheism of Stalin.

I do not call myself a humanist, either. The only one I find helpful, strangely, is the anti-theist position. This, basically, means I am glad that all the monotheisms have no evidence to show their supernatural claims, of heaven, hell, their god, etc. to be true. As a corollarly, I would be unhappy if these claims of the theisms were true. When even the “good” ideas are shown to be undesirable, this usually engages believers in far more fulfilling ways then simply nonbelief. However, I am still weary of labels.

The use of labels must end and the clear, concise explanation of ideas and reason must prevail. We must stop digging in the graveyard by night, conjuring defeated labels like necromancers. We should gently pluck the shrubs from a garden of constant elucidation, of flowing ideas and of ever-growing discussions. Without labels, stereotyping will whither; and perhaps then the full-stops will be erased and conversations can begin.

Thus I allow leeway because this involves the people I love.

I live in Cape Town, but my mother’s family lives in Pietermaritzburg (most readers will not care but it means I had to take a flight to see them). I arrived to warmth and happiness which is the stable diet of my maternal family. It is unlike any other reception one can have. Thus I cherish it. My cousin, 24, had found the woman who he was ready to “spend the rest of his life with” (as they say).

Now, personally, I find marriage, romance and romantic love quite silly, crass and shallow. It is not fulfilling for the most part and simply bizarre for the rest. I did not tell my family or cousin this – I do not tell most people. It simply is not appropriate. They do not even know about my views on god, religion and so on. And, as with most nonbelievers I’ve met, I have spent more time than they have on the topics of gods, faith and the afterlife. It is using thinking and self-reflection that results in the abandonment of faith after all (if you ever had it in the first place).

We attended the wedding ceremony today, in a beautiful church. The wedding began with the pastor speaking. What I noticed was this: 90% of his subject was his god, 5% had to do with how marriage is eternal and will be hard, and 5% had to do with my cousin and his bride. I was appalled by this brazen display of dismissal. I could stand all that, but I got protective when he uttered following statement: “You may be able to live without god, as many millions of successful people do…” this was followed by silence, then… “but you can not die without god!”

That sounds like a threat to me, with an undertone of Pascal’s Wager. Correct me if I’m wrong but did he not just say – ignore the smile and warm face, many pedophiles and sociopaths were better looking and more eloquent before making smiles in people’s necks – “You better believe in god or else you will die and burn in hell.” I can find little else he could be speaking about. He is obviously referring to the afterlife; and given that the notion that you will be tortured and decapitated and other torrid examples of dehumanisation only occurs in the New Testament (not the Old, as far as I know), this must be the case.

This proved to me quite finally that when it comes to weddings, funerals and so on, the faithful often have a disgusting appraisal of normal human sensibility. The argument that one needs religion for human binding and self-expression is as patronising as saying all religious people are stupid; or, all atheists are immoral. None of those latter statements are true. However, the religious have no argument when it comes to ceremonies except that their establishments have the two major advantages that will conquer everything: time and money.

When it comes to secular events, it will usually have the undertone of being personalised to the nth degree. Readings from their favourite writers, poets or songwriters. Or their favourite artist. Something that can be researched and have the flavour of the persons involved. Afterall, it should be the couple’s day not god’s. Naturally, I would like to see my fellow man remove the shackles and cull the living flower, to paraphrase Marx, but I do not see that happening. Instead, it should at least raise our hackles that god is mentioned more than those we love during ceremonies made for them. Notice how much the focus is refracted toward their god and consider if you think this is a good thing. If you do, why is the focus on a god more important than the focus on the couple in a wedding? If you want to add god, fine, but why more than the couple? (Ignoring for the moment the argument that marriage is a religious duty; to people I know it their expression of love and that is what I’m focusing on).

The major point is this: Religious festivities only appear to have the power of rituals and expression from groups. But secularists and nonbelievers have as much, if not better ones. The reason: It is focused on the individual people, thus meaning more work and personalisation. Once again, religion has outlived its purpose and needs to go the way of alchemy and the belief that Elvis is alive. It can hold no water against the nature of one’s fellow man, his self-expression, compassion, art, and individualism. It is truly more beautiful than the constant reference to the deity, whilst the couple fades into the background. This is their time to shine.

I will leave you with one last thought: Think of any ceremony that is traditionally performed by religions, (funerals, weddings, etc.) and think of one example where adding the notion of a god would make it better than one which does not mention gods, but simply focuses on the person or couple. This does not make it atheist or anti-theist, but keeps gods simply out the picture to cater for everyone. This to me seems reasonable. But I write this for interesting responses and bitter critiques.

So much for the beginning, not even our own individual one! What about the end? And by this I mean our “The End”. Death, the current of thanatos, which resides like the shadow of carrion over our heads.

I consider the two most horrible combinations of aspects one could attribute to a being are:

(1) Consciousness

(2) Mortality

And it is these two with which we are “blessed”. You are aware of yourself and your existence… and you are aware of your oncoming demise. Truly, what a joke life turns out to be. A cruel one, but one we should laugh at. Regardless, one question which arises and of which we must contemplate is voluntary death.

In the sense of giving rise to autoeuthanasia, what is it we are willing to die for? My point here is to raise the contention that the only thing I am willing to die for are my loved ones. There is not a single idea, or belief, or abstract philosophical concept for which I am willing to die or kill. The extenuation and recession of life is only in my fist and aimed toward those I love (whether in defence of their lives, or the replacement of my own).

No idea, I repeat, no idea is worth dying for. I have made the case before that even ideas we greatly respect and admire, from the equality of the sexes, and so on, are not worth dying for. They are not sacred or beyond criticism. Ideas are open to a kind of agora mindset – or the market place of ideas the Greeks so loved.

So, consider the question: What are you willing to die for? It is more important, in my opinion, than redundant and ignoble questions about the existence of gods and so on. I do not think that the question of a god’s existence is important to one’s life. I know many nonbelievers who do. What I think they mean is this: The question of whether to believe the current trend of thought, which many believe, and which many find comforting, is central to one’s life. This says nothing about gods – which I think is a rather silly topic and unimportant.

What matters are those question we can answer: How can I be good? What is “love”? Who should I “love”? How do I help my fellow man? These have answers though not end-answers. That is, the answers are the endeavours to achieve those goals rather than actually achieving them. For example, we can continue to do volunteer work in the liberation of women (which is central to solving poverty), but it doesn’t mean we have any hope of eradicating poverty in our life time. The journey is the destination. Most of our answers will simply be winding paths and not glass palaces, in which we can put our feet up and be content.

Kenneth Minogue described ideals like stars, by which we guide ourselves. We never hope to actually reach the stars, but we certainly use them as guidelines, as reflections on the current path. And ideals and ideas are similarly entwined. None are worth dying for because they are echoes of where our hearts should be: Namely, those we love.

So, I reiterate: What are you willing to die for?