Re: Mr. Journal
Okay, here's one I originally posted on another profile/blog thingy elsewhere. I never got past this one post, but it's something to think about. This was when I was younger, smarter, and much less lazy with my prose than I am now.
PHILOSOPHICAL CORNERSTONES
Or: Why I Think in This Messed-Up Way
The minimum number of supports you need to create a stable structure is three. Not uncoincidentally, I have defined three guiding truisms in my personal philosophy: 1) life is even more complex than we think, 2) humans inevitably have filters that blinker them to parts of reality, and 3) truth will always end up better than falsehood, no matter how well-meaning the lie. Occasionally complex for truisms, but they are the basis for a large portion of my philosophy. Other ideas may be important, yes, but these three can be said to guide me through my mental acrobatics. It's one thing to sum them up like that, but how do they operate in practice? Well, let's see...
I think it's a human tendency to boil everything down to a few basic ideas. For example: "Democracy good, communism evil." "America, right or wrong." "There is no morality without religion." All of these statements sound simple, easy to understand, but all ignore huge swaths of reality. Democracy is certainly good, if it's true democracy, if the representatives aren't corrupt, if the people's vote is actually counted and actually means something in the governance of the state. America is an excellent nation, but only a fool would say it is perfect, and the idea that you are compelled to support something you think is wrong, even evil, is simple tyranny, hardly what is meant by "the American spirit." And while religion has traditionally instilled moral values, there's also the question of what other values each religion instills, whether the result is more harmful than good, and what's wrong with a code made of rational awareness of the needs of the community and the individual? Things aren't as simple as they seem.
Simplistic maxims go nicely with speeches, but for realistic consideration of the world, they don't reflect the sheer multiplicity of options the universe offers. Sure, you can boil things down to "you're with me or against me," but that's simply not true; there's always at least "I don't agree with you but I'm not going to act against you." Binary choices are an illusion; the universe rarely does anything just one way or the other. And even when it does, one can always add "that we know about," because we simply don't know everything about the universe yet. Science constantly discovers answers that raise more questions, and there's always something new to discover, and I suspect it will be that way until the heat-death of the universe, and possibly beyond. So no matter how much we like to keep things simple, life is not simple. We can approach life simply, but that's coming from our end, our choices and views, not from any intrinsic quality of the universe. So that's one of my guiding philosophical points.
Another comes up when I consider how tied we all are to the conditions of our own lives, our own upbringing. You see it in art and fiction all the time: people thrust into new situations where they have no idea how to cope, giving up the safety of their previous beliefs, their own mental filters, to cope with the new setting where those filters are useless, possibly fatal. What boggles me: many people seem to coast through life ignoring that they even have filters, or that other people's filters might not be the same as theirs. This leads to thinking such as "it's good for me, so it must be good for everybody." We find this attitude ruling the day in politics and business (the majority of which is run by rich white guys, so that answers the great mystery of "why is everything geared toward the benefit of rich white guys?"). It seems as if some people can't believe others don't see the same truths they do, but the fact of the matter is, if you hadn't lived your life the way you had, if you hadn't taken the same breaks, good and bad, then you wouldn't see things the same way, either. And I find it especially baffling when I see people who not only don't recognize the difference, but won't even admit that difference can exist.
I have my blinkers, the same as anyone else. I will always be, at some level, the Midwestern American, Presbyterian, bookish nerd I've always been, no matter where I may live or what I may do or what I may come to believe. That part of me is intrinsic to the whole of me. But at least I know I have filters, and I can identify them, even if I don't always feel the need to remove them. I can attempt to see another's point of view, to judge another person's actions on their own motivations as well as mine. I find that ability useful as a writer. It's not a weakness that I'm able to put myself in another's shoes; if anything, it sharpens my capability to respond accurately and effectively to others. I don't know when basic empathy became a limitation, but I think it may have been when our culture came under the sway of those without it.
My point is, you can only understand how other people work, how the universe works, if you can recognize and try to account for your own particular filters. In optics, if you know you've got a filter that will red-shift any observations, then you can make corrections to determine the true observation. Unfortunately, human filters are more subtle and more insidious, and incredibly persistent, to boot. The best we can do is honestly try, and our accuracy will be marginally better for the effort. That's another of my guiding philosophical points.
And that brings up my third: I think all rational beings dislike lies and hypocrisy. Even professional liars hate it when those tactics are turned against them. Because if reality is reality, then what about a person who says one thing is true, then acts as if the opposite were true? What happens when said person makes a promise to help you if you help them, but once you've done your part, goes and does the opposite of what they promised? Obviously, somebody lied. Somebody's a hypocrite. And if that's the case, how can you believe anything that they say, ever? This is a problem I have with the current government (written in America in the middle of 2006). I mean, previous administrations had lying and deception, but this administration makes a huge case out of how honest and forthright and committed they are, and used that to hammer the opposition into the ground, when even a cursory examination of their actual track record reveals them to be the kind of liars previous administrations only wished they could be. And yet they're getting away with it, and I don't know how that even happens.
On the personal level, particularly with one's self, deception and falsehood are never as good or as lasting as honesty, even in failure. Lies are difficult, because the larger, more complex the lie, the harder it is to keep it straight, and the more chance of being found out. Nobody likes a liar. Of course, everybody lies at some point, and there are levels on which lies can serve good purposes, because life is complex, and people have filters, and occasionally a small lie saves big trouble in the long run. However, the basic idea remains true: you get better results with truth. This is unequivocally true when dealing with yourself, and your own issues and failures. Without an honest evaluation of your own filters and weaknesses, you can never change them. You have to know what to work on before you can do any meaningful work. So the worst dishonesty is that which you serve up for yourself.
I know, after my claims of universal complexity, my reliance on simple truth seems counterintuitive, but I feel surrounded by hypocrisy, and it's wearying. I don't want to be part of it, because I see what it does to others, the community, the nation. What's wrong with admitting your motivations? You want to be a rapacious bastard who's in it for the money? Fine. Own up to it! Doesn't mean I'll like you, or buy your products, but it only hurts worse when you lie to me, tell me you're trying to "spur economic growth," or you lie to me, tell me you believe in the same God I do just to get my vote so you can go forward with your exploitation once you're safely in power. Don't lie to me, tell me I'm safe when you won't even pony up the money for half-effective protection. Don't lie to me, say you're looking after my health when you allow more pollution and poison into the air and water and then slash health benefits and drive up the cost of medicines. Most particularly, don't spy on your own citizens and tell them it's for their own good. That's how tyranny starts, and that's not good for anyone but the tyrants. But I digress yet again.
As for me and chasing ever-elusive wealth and success, I'd be lying if I said money wasn't nice, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't need some. At this rate, we'll never own a house, or take a big trip or anything, beyond visiting other family. But money's not the most important thing. There's justice, and fairness (not always the same), and compassion, and love for the world (any aspect of "world" you want to use). There's things I wouldn't do for money, which automatically puts me a notch above those greedy bastards in power (who then have the unmitigated gall to complain that they're an abused minority â shut up, rich white guys!). With me, you know what you get, because I'll tell you, and I don't like to lie, and I won't change my mind without a good, defensible reason that I can explain later. I'll make mistakes, sure, and I'll make decisions with filters obscuring my view, or with imperfect information (thereby providing the good, defensible reason to change my mind), but you'll know I'm coming from the right intentions. Honesty is transparent, like good government, and that's the only way we can really see Truth, in the grander sense, in an increasingly complex universe. Maybe I'm getting too metaphorical, but I think you get the idea: liars and phonies bad, honest villains bad but not for being honest, truthfulness good. And that's the third cornerstone of my philosophy.
Addendum from the future: Honesty is important, and I like to be transparent, but even I don't show everything in my life to everybody. So I have my secrets, even here. Still, specific instances aside, I think the essay holds up reasonably well.
More later, I suppose.
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