An Artificial Intelligence Rebuts Me!

I’ve been rebutted by an Artificial Intelligence bot.

My nephew, Ben Broderick Phillips, works for Microsoft, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) within his wheelhouse. For Christmas, he fed one of my recent blog posts — “Ai Weiwei and Bono on Art and Capitalism”* — to an AI program (“ChatGPT”), asking it for a summary, and then a rebuttal. (Note the synchrony between the name “Ai” and AI.)

The AI was operating not just on my blog post’s bare words, but bringing into play a ton of information it had previously been fed about the world, presumably including many other polemics. That is the kind of “deep learning” making AI powerful.

So, here is its summary:

“This blog post discusses Ai Weiwei’s critique of capitalism in the art world as expressed in an essay he wrote for The Economist. The author of the blog post disputes Ai Weiwei’s assertion that contemporary art is primarily focused on entertainment and wealth accumulation, rather than addressing important social and political issues. The author also discusses Bono’s belief that capitalism is the solution to poverty and asserts that it is the default mode for human interactions. The blog post suggests that while capitalism has contributed to economic growth and the lifting of some out of poverty, it is not the only solution and can often perpetuate or exacerbate inequality and exploitation. It is important to consider alternative economic systems and how they might better serve the needs and interests of artists and the broader society.”

It’s quite well written — better, I daresay, than most humans would do, reading smoothly, intelligently and concisely. I think it passes the “Turing test” — Alan Turing (1912-54), the Brit who really invented the modern concept of the computer, posited one whose answers to questions would convince a human interlocutor that he’s talking to another human.

The first three of the AI’s five sentences are spot-on, recapping what I wrote. However, the last two sentences strangely detour, reading like something the AI might imagine the blogger saying, but it’s not what I actually said. (Maybe a tribute to my independent thinking.)

The AI’s rebuttal is rather longer, six paragraphs. (Interestingly, I’m told the AI initially produced only the first two, and added more on further prompting.) Here’s the full text:

“Ai Weiwei’s critique of capitalism in the art world is not unfounded. While it is true that art has always been a means of expression and personal development, it is also a reflection of the society in which it exists. In a capitalist society, it is not uncommon for the commercialization and commodification of art to take precedence over its intrinsic value. This often leads to the neglect of important social and political issues in favor of wealth accumulation.

“It is not fair to say that all contemporary art is solely focused on entertainment and detached from spiritual life. Many artists, including Ai Weiwei, use their work to address important issues and bring attention to injustices. However, it is important to recognize that the capitalist structure of the art world can often hinder the ability of artists to fully explore these issues and have their work recognized and valued. It is also worth considering alternative economic systems and how they might impact the art world. While capitalism has certainly led to economic growth and the lifting of some out of poverty, it has also contributed to inequality and exploitation. It is important to consider the ways in which different economic systems might enable artists to more fully express themselves and address important issues without the constraints of capitalist values.

“Furthermore, it is not fair to dismiss Ai Weiwei’s critique of capitalism in the art world as simply self-promotion. While it is true that he is an artist who addresses important social and political issues in his work, it does not necessarily follow that his critique is motivated solely by self-interest.

“In addition, Bono’s assertion that “commerce” and “entrepreneurial capitalism” are the only ways to lift people out of poverty is reductionist and ignores the complex factors that contribute to poverty. While economic growth can certainly play a role in reducing poverty, it is not the only solution and can often perpetuate or exacerbate inequality and exploitation.

It is important to recognize that the art world, like any other industry, is shaped by the economic and political systems in which it exists. By acknowledging the ways in which capitalism can impact the art world, we can better understand and address its limitations and explore alternative systems that might better serve the needs and interests of artists and the broader society.

“Additionally, it is important to recognize that the art world is not a monolithic entity and the experiences of different artists will vary. While some may find success and financial stability within the capitalist system, others may struggle to have their work recognized and valued. It is important to consider the ways in which the capitalist structure of the art world may disproportionately impact marginalized artists and communities.

“In conclusion, Ai Weiwei’s critique of capitalism in the art world is not without merit and it is important to consider the ways in which the economic and political systems in which we live shape the art world and the experiences of artists. While capitalism has certainly contributed to economic growth and the lifting of some out of poverty, it is not the only solution and can often perpetuate or exacerbate inequality and exploitation. It is important to consider alternative economic systems and how they might better serve the needs and interests of artists and the broader society.”

[End of rebuttal]

Note first that this essay does not (like the summary did) miscast what I said — it’s indeed a pointed response to it. It may be a bit repetitive; and a trifle wooden; yet a fairly coherent, even glib essay, sounding judicious, reasonable, and persuasive. (Its talk of alternatives to capitalism is facile — as my blog post said, capitalism’s critics never really offer a workable alternative.)

Thus the rebuttal demonstrates the benefit of all the AI’s prior deep learning — spitting out a point of view that actually mirrors what a lot of people might think in response to my blog post. If most would not be able to express it so nicely!

This shows the huge power of AI, how far it has come. Prompting, at our holiday gathering, some discussion of uses for it — someone mentioned writing grant proposals. But the potential is far vaster. How many human jobs can be done — and done better — by AI? Another example: we already know AI does better than human doctors at making diagnoses from X-rays. The world of the future is going to be very different.

The question arises — when does AI become conscious? It’s hard to avoid thinking (what does that word really mean?) that the AI that rebutted my blog is, on some elusive level, sentient.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil has foreseen a “singularity” when machines become smarter than people, and thereafter propel their own further enhancement. Leaving us in the dust? In my seminal 2013 Humanist magazine article — The Human Future: Upgrade or Replacement?** — I envisioned a convergence between biological and non-biological aspects of humanity.

* https://rationaloptimist.wordpress.com/2022/12/13/ai-weiwei-and-bono-on-art-and-capitalism/

** https://rationaloptimist.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/the-human-future-upgrade-or-replacement/

Trumpery Recap

His tax returns have finally been made public, after a years-long legal battle. What was he hiding? The New York Times already reported in 2020 that he’d been paying almost no income tax, due mainly to business loss deductions. According to his tax returns, literally the nation’s losingest businessman.

If you believe the returns. Trump’s business has meantime been convicted of tax fraud in New York State.

And remember his claiming he couldn’t release his tax filings because they were under audit? A lie, because audit was no bar to disclosure. But it was was also a lie that he was under audit. In fact, we now learn the IRS even violated its rule requiring audit of every president’s tax returns. Only in Trump’s case did it skip auditing. And when they belatedly started, assigned only a single agent. Something smells very stinky there.

The Congressional January 6 committee has now formally recommended that Trump be prosecuted for four serious crimes, betraying his oath of office to uphold the constitution. Incontrovertible evidence makes clear his guilt for an attempted coup, in which police officers died.

The House GOP has produced its own rival report, saying — wait for it — the problem of January 6 was one of proper police oversight. Not a word about Trump’s criminal effort to overthrow the election.

The Justice Department had already appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith (a highly regarded veteran prosecutor), to investigate Trump’s January 6 related actions. Also his improperly taking White House documents to Mar-a-Lago. Both cases entail indisputable criminality, now likely to result in indictment and trial.

There’s also the grand jury investigating Trump’s attempt to corrupt the 2020 Georgia vote count, by pressuring officials to “find” him 11,780 phony ballots; and to send a slate of fake electoral votes to congress.

Lately Trump, never missing a chance to fleece his suckers, has been selling $99 “digital NFT trading cards” depicting him in various superhero guises. “NFT” means you don’t even actually get a card, it’s just digital. Trump’s video hawking these non-items was so puke-worthy that even Steve Bannon himself, watching it, reportedly moaned, “Make it stop!”

In September I noted a fellow at a Trump rally, interviewed by a TV reporter, saying “If the guy had done anything wrong, it would have come out by now.” So many otherwise sane, intelligent people so completely ensorceled by so obviously evil a character. I’ve mentioned a friend — with a masters degree in history! — spouting internet “alternative facts” whitewashing Trump and January 6. At a recent holiday party he waved away my Trump book — despite being told it quotes him — declaring “I do my own research.”

I do my own research. We started hearing this line, especially regarding Covid vaccines. It means marinating in whacko online nonsense while blocking out information from credible sources. It means having no concept of what’s credible.

Such true believer cultists cannot be reasoned with. A recent radio commentary (by Rex Smith, former Times Union editor) highlighted scientific research showing that human beings on average have less mental flexibility, less ability to change their thinking in light of new information, than monkeys.

Nevertheless, MAGA ranks are inexorably shrinking under the relentless assault of reality. But are they still numerous enough to gain Trump the 2024 nomination? Some polls have actually shown DeSantis ahead. However, primaries are dominated by small turnouts of zealots. And if a bunch of candidates divides the vote (why does Pence fantasize winning?), Trump could ride to nomination with 30% pluralities — as, indeed, he did in 2016.

Democrats might relish this, thinking Trump sure to lose in November — as, indeed, they did in 2016. Be careful what you wish for. Though Trump does seem to be a much more damaged candidate now, thoroughly repelling a big majority of voters. One might even hope he’d take down with him the whole rotten Republican party, once and for all.

A recent column by Ross Douthat warns against such dreams of final triumph. American politics doesn’t work that way. One might have wondered why the GOP — though not doing as well as widely expected in 2022 — actually paid scant electoral price for January 6 and all that. Voters simply do not hold parties accountable for past misdeeds absent obvious continuing effect. And Douthat doesn’t even foresee some kind of final comeuppance for Trump himself. He’ll “go out with a whimper,” says the column’s title. All the disgusting Republicans who so cowardly enabled Trump will merrily go on with their political careers.

Final vindication will have to come from the judgment of history. But history too can be a fickle judge.

I wish I could see how a 22nd century history book will treat all this. Assuming there’s even such a thing as “history” in the 22nd century.

Reunifications and Republicans

Germany had long been divided, by a physical wall. It was opened, on November 9, 1989, and I’ll never forget seeing East Germans literally whooping with joy to finally pass through those gates. Political reunification then took less than a year — because people on both sides wanted it.

Chinese talk with irredentist obsessiveness about “reunification” with Taiwan. I put it in quotes because there’s nothing in common with the German reunification. Taiwan was never truly “unified” with China in the first place. Long held by Japan, it was part of China only briefly in 1945-49. When Mao’s Communists conquered the country by force of arms, they were stopped at Taiwan.

But in any case, the key fact is that “reunification” would elicit no joyful Taiwanese whooping. Instead the islanders, enjoying prosperity, freedom and democracy, know those would be crushed by Chinese rule, and totally oppose it.

Yet their wishes enter not at all into China’s fevered “reunification” dream. As though it’s all about some barren uninhabited island. A bizarrely inhuman mind bug.

For a while, the Chinese imagined sweet-talking Taiwan into an anschluss. The putative model being Hong Kong, run by Great Britain until 1997, when China reabsorbed it with the “one country two systems” line. Promising preservation of Hong Kong’s democratic and rule-of-law culture — for fifty years at least. A pledge China spectacularly broke in less than half that time, unleashing brutal repression. So now we no longer hear “one country two systems” regarding Taiwan. No more pretense of amicable “reunification.”

Instead China unapologetically insists upon a right to seize Taiwan by military force. And by what right? A cooked up theory of historic ties, to clothe conquest in moralistic garb. In which the human element doesn’t even factor. A deranged moralism.

A rational China might say, why not have two countries, us and Taiwan? We can be good buddies. Better for both. Somehow that happy thought never occurs to them.

This story parallels Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Which Putin tries to justify similarly, by invoking some historic cultural ties or shared destiny between the two nations (and lies about fighting Nazis). To this messianic narrative, the actual human beings inhabiting Ukraine are irrelevant.

In fact it’s even worse than that. Ukrainians’ resistance to Putin’s fantasy is not just disregarded, it’s punished. With untold human suffering, a holocaust of pain at the altar of the idea of Ukraine-Russian cultural solidarity!

And the great irony is that the two countries did have strong historical cultural affinities — could have been good buddies — until that was throughly smashed by Russia’s cruel crimes. So that today, Ukrainians, including indeed most of its many Russian speakers, have acquired a justifiably intense hatred toward Russia.

In a spirit of whataboutism I’ll acknowledge America’s own record is stained, as with our “Manifest Destiny” treatment of indigenous peoples. But that was in an earlier time when such things were standard behavior everywhere. I had hoped humanity had progressed beyond such crude might-makes-right (im)morality. In many ways we actually have, but bad ideas are sadly persistent. As indeed are (a small minority of) bad people.

We see a similar syndrome among today’s Republicans. Many of them believing they have some sort of moralistic entitlement to rule regardless of the wishes of the people they seeks to rule over. The “stolen election” lie is only a veneer; what they really think is that elections are anyway illegitimate if they don’t win. They should rule regardless. God said so.

I believe people have a right to decide their own destinies. God or no god.

The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action

The way to stop racial discrimination, Chief Justice Roberts has said, “is to stop discriminating by race.”

The Supreme Court will yet again revisit affirmative action this term, and almost surely outlaw it. Affirmative action in school admissions (and also workplace hiring) is intended to rectify the disadvantage certain minorities (mainly Blacks) have suffered due to past unequal treatment. For all that America has done to fix it, it’s a reality that that past, which included slavery, still causes lingering disadvantage. One glaring example is that schools for Black kids are too often shamefully substandard, handicapping their future prospects. Applied to such students, compensatory affirmative action, in college admissions, makes some sense.

There are two offsetting considerations. One is a tendency to stigmatize the achievements of Blacks as not truly earned but rather the results of preferential treatment. The other is the resentment created in whites; the idea that they are being discriminated against, disadvantaged unfairly, in favor of people not deserving on their merits.

Asian-American students have a particular beef. Tending to excel academically, they claim that if school admissions were strictly merit-based, more of them would get in; but colleges apply tacit quotas to avoid being swamped with Asian-American students.

“Reverse discrimination” is not a completely baseless idea. For every applicant admitted to a college there must be one rejected who would otherwise have made the cut. The “reverse discrimination” of affirmative action has provoked a backlash and the rise of white nationalism, a very bad thing for the country.

Meantime, it cannot be said that affirmative action in college admissions has been a great success at rectifying the kind of racial disadvantage described above. If you simply give extra points to an applicant for being Black, you are going to admit mostly Blacks from middle and upper class families who were thus able to build good resumes, while still excluding the really disadvantaged ones from poor backgrounds. Who, of course, also face financial obstacles to attending college.

So in fact, while colleges and universities have broadly succeeded in achieving racial diversity in student bodies, they have blatantly failed at socio-economic diversity. The overwhelming majority of students are from middle and (especially) upper class families; very few from disadvantaged ones.

It would be no tragedy for that kind of affirmative action to be outlawed by the Court. Though it must be said — why should racial preferences be disallowed, when so many other sorts of preferences remain — notably “legacy” admissions for the children of alumni and donors. Those too are a big factor behind the mentioned socio-economic imbalance in student bodies. And there’s surely less justification for such preferential treatment than there is for the racial sort.

If higher education wants true “diversity” among students, extra points should be given not to race simpliciter but, rather, to students who come out of disadvantaged circumstances and crappy schools and who nevertheless manage, against all odds, to build at least a halfway decent record of achievement. Giving those students a leg up would be the kind of “affirmative” action that will advance true justice and also make a better America.

Surely the Supreme Court’s decision should allow for that. If only the Court were sane.

Ai Weiwei and Bono on Art and Capitalism

No word triggers more nonsense thinking than “capitalism.” For centuries, when Christianity reigned, the ubiquitous bogeyman was Satan. As that superstition wanes, now it’s capitalism. (At least capitalism exists.)

China’s economy is in some ways the world’s most free-market capitalist — while its political system is an Orwellian dictatorship. China’s most famous artist is Ai Weiwei, who often pushes a thumb in that regime’s eye. But not his essay in a recent publication of The Economist he titled “Reclaiming art from capitalism.” Which is the bogeyman here.

A Martian reading the essay would never guess at the global confrontation between tyrannies like China’s and open democratic societies. Not mentioned as something art should be concerned with. No — it’s capitalism!

Ai complains that today’s global culture, very much including art, forms a “complete system” which “reflects the values and aesthetic tendencies of capitalism in every respect.” Characterized “by capitalism’s fervent advocacy of individual freedom, its encouragement of so-called ‘creativity’ and the idealisation of unfettered personal development . . . observed in the overwhelming tendency to consider art from a purely commercial perspective, neglecting spiritual concerns in favor of wealth accumulation.” While “societal injustices, regional inequalities, exploitation of the weak and unsustainable use of natural resources are ignored. By dodging these questions, contemporary art has become just a form of entertainment, detached from spiritual life. Art’s power . . . has been compromised. The outlook is dim.”

In other words, artists are selling out, sacrificing social concerns for filthy capitalist lucre.

What planet is he talking about? Is he on Mars? It sure doesn’t sound like he’s been to any modern contemporary art shows. Ones I’ve attended have been chock full of work concerned with exactly the kinds of “socially relevant” subjects Ai deems ignored. If anything, overbearingly so, in-your-face.

Unsurprisingly, Ai asserts that his own art fills the void he claims to identify: “concerned with life and death, the bigger sociopolitical context . . . all connected with the human condition and human dignity.” Well, bully for him. But to cast himself as some unique hero in that regard smacks of “mankind’s exaggerated self-esteem, extreme arrogance” which he later decries.

Rarely do voices flaying “capitalism” ever seriously offer an alternative. Meantime, a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial discussed an interview with pop icon Bono, known for his anti-poverty crusading. It “may give progressives vertigo.” Quoting Bono: “I thought that if we just redistributed resources, then we could solve every problem. Now I know that’s not true.” Rather, “the off-ramp out of extreme poverty is, ugh, commerce; it’s entrepreneurial capitalism.”

Because it enables people to keep the fruits of their efforts — an incentive to work harder, producing more goods and services. Businesses make profits by providing things other people want.

Adam Smith nailed the point: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

What we call capitalism (or a market economy) is not some concocted system, but simply the normal default mode for human interactions. A has something B wants or needs; B has something A wants; an object, or labor, or an intangible, etc. When A and B agree on its terms an exchange occurs. True, they don’t always have equal power. B may consent to work for A for pittance wages. But wouldn’t do so unless better off than not. Life is unfair; a market economy is how such unfairness is negotiated to maximize people’s aggregate welfare.

“Globalization has brought more people out of poverty than any other ism,” Bono said. “If somebody comes to me with a better idea, I’ll sign up.”

Myanmar’s Agony: “The Road Not Taken”

“The Road Not Taken” is a film (created on an iPhone) by Ko Pauk, of Myanmar (Burma), illustrating the country’s situation. My wife and I were invited to a screening at a local hotel, by Zaw Nay Myo, a gentle soul, poet, and former student leader in resistance to the military regime. He calls my wife his “teacher.” In the sizable audience, we seemed to be the only non-Burmese.

Backstory: Myanmar has been a military dictatorship since 1960. Ruling the country like Al Capone ruled Chicago. In 1990 they allowed an election, but were cluelessly shocked by an overwhelming victory by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. They annulled the vote and put her under house arrest. Eventually a new military leader, Thein Sein, sought to start Myanmar on a path to democracy.

Suu Kyi was freed and her party again won elections; she became the country’s de facto head. But Thein Sein was apparently sidelined by harder men; and when the NLD won another huge election victory, they called it fraudulent, staged a coup, retook complete power, and imprisoned Suu Kyi, in February 2021.

The film (a basically true story) starts at a small military encampment out in the bush. Despite a false scare of an “enemy” attack, the soldiers seem to be leading a quiet, even dull life. But I was thinking about their actual mission. Myanmar has been beset with endless ethnic and separatist conflicts; and notably, the army has prosecuted a horrifically vicious pogrom against the Muslim Rohingyas, whom the Buddhist majority refuses to accept as fellow citizens. The violence belies Buddhism’s peaceful image.

Then we meet a young woman and her pre-teen daughter. Turns out she’s married to one of those soldiers, a Captain, a contemplative fellow, seen reading a philosophy book. When word of the coup comes, the troop is ordered back to the city. The Captain phones with the good news that he’s coming home. She asks if he’ll be shooting anti-coup protesters. He says yes, if so ordered. But what if she and their daughter are among them? Then of course he wouldn’t shoot. She upbraids him for a lack of human empathy. The call ends unsatisfactorily. The Captain has something to think about. (Apparently he will join the rebels.)

Meantime we do see something of the regime’s ferocity toward the massive protests. Accompanied by a repeated song about their being heroes, giving their lives for democracy. One couldn’t help wondering if things could come to that here in America.

As the wife and daughter of a soldier, the pair become outcasts. Vendors in the marketplace, previously very friendly, now put up signs saying they don’t sell to soldiers or police. Seems awfully brave if anyone actually did that, given the army’s murderous brutality to anyone not knuckling under. Which is most Burmese. In fact the coup, and the repression, plunged the country into full civil war, with the pro-democracy forces linking up with some of the pre-existing insurgencies to fight the national army. It’s wrecking the economy. The soldiers don’t care.

The film ends with another military encampment — this time a rebel force — spiritedly going into battle.

It wasn’t immediately obvious, in each case, what side the depicted soldiers were on. It almost seemed they could be interchangeable.

Mankind’s worst-ever invention was the gun. No guns, no dictatorships. Imagine how much better off the whole world would be if guns did not exist.

What Does Ancestry Mean?

My wife was intrigued by a statistician’s writing that if you go back 3400 years, we’re all related. Not actually surprising if you think about it. After all, you’ve got two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents . . . that’s exponential progression and it’s mathematically powerful.

My previous partner’s nine-times-great-grandfather was Roger Williams (founder of Rhode Island). But she had a lot of forebears in that generation — over 2,000. Go back twenty generations and it’s over a million. That’s only around 500 years. Go back a few centuries more and the number of your ancestors exceeds the entire human population.*

How could that be?

Family trees are not rigid lineages separated from each other. To the contrary, they are all tangled together. Your ancestors were of course not yours alone, but the ancestors of countless other people. And those long-ago ancestors with innumerable modern descendants likewise share those descendants with similarly huge numbers of other forebears.

That suggests you are indeed related to every other human being; a cousin many times removed.

But you may have to go pretty far back for that link. Because while our lineages are tangled together, it’s not random, there is a lot of segregation, notably geographic, among genealogies.

Though there has of course been mixing of disparate segments of humanity, for most of history people in a given geographic locale had limited opportunities for mating with foreigners. So someone like me, with European Jewish ancestry, might have a hard time finding a common ancestor with a Bornean. Yet on the other hand, with each of us having millions of ancestors, a single match is not implausible.

Humanity’s more distant antecedents also show our relatedness. There were many different “homo” species, but all except one went extinct. And the environmental challenges that defeated all those others nearly did us in too. Apparently at some point there was a “bottleneck” that only a very small group managed to scrape through — ancestors of all modern humans. In fact, scientific DNA analysis suggests we may all have descended from a single woman in that band. Her name was Eve.

Going back further, our closest related species is the chimpanzee, with whom we shared a common ancestor around six million years ago. Our DNA is 99% identical to chimp DNA. Among all humans DNA is 99.9% the same.

We are in fact related to every other living thing. Mouse DNA is around 90% identical to ours. Go back to your millions-of-times-great-grandpa and he’s a fish.

DNA tests give ethnicity percentages. For American Blacks, there’s typically a high percentage of West African, but also a significant percentage of northern European. For obvious reasons. I never did a test because I’m pretty sure it would come back almost 100% Ashkenazi Jewish. I’d be shocked if it said something like 12% Cherokee. Though again, somewhere along the line, some other DNA might have crept in there.

My wife’s forebears all came from Ireland. But she queries what it really means to say she’s “Irish.” Questioning whether there’s really any such thing, given Viking incursions and so forth, and again that all our DNA is 99.9% the same anyway. But calling someone “Irish” can mean merely that their not-too-distant forebears were born there.

As to that 99.9% human DNA identicality — the variations within any human subgroup (like “Blacks”) actually outstrip variations between such groups. Yet DNA — which is a string of many thousands of molecules of which there are just four variants, labelled A, C, T and G — does contain sequences which can be identified as unique to particular subgroups.

Thus if I am (mostly) genetically Ashkenazi, that’s a biological difference from a person who has little or no Ashkenazi DNA. Likewise for someone “Irish.” But it’s very important to say that it’s entirely up to us what significance, if any, we place on such differences. Perhaps the answer should be “very little,” given again the 99.9%.

But human life is not that simple, and maybe an even better option is to make the differences something positive. Culture is more important than biology. It’s the cultural differences that really matter; and we can embrace, even celebrate, our human cultural diversity, enriching and strengthening us. That’s how I see America.

I call myself an American rather than a Jew. I don’t follow the Jewish religion, nor even see myself as part of the related culture. Rather, always steeped in history, I see myself as embedded in the great global human project, as my prime source of meaning. And yet my particular ancestry does have a part of that meaning. I’m mindful how it fits in the bigger picture and illuminates it. And how it shaped my own life. For my grandparents and mother in Nazi Germany, Jewish identity was not something they could set aside.

* At 100 generations — before you even hit the 3400 year mark — the number would contain 31 digits.

Epicurianism for Today: Freedom and Happiness

At a humanist meeting there was some pamphlet including a list of worthy thinkers. My friend Peter Delivorias remarked upon the omission of Epicurus. A strange omission indeed; Peter’s noting it impressed upon me his intellectual discernment.

Epicurus (341-271 BC) was the best of ancient philosophers. He operated when Greek civilization was still fairly new, and thinkers were feeling their way through virgin territory. Like Plato, oft seen as the very father of philosophy. He was Epicurus’s bête noire, his own work a total rejection of Plato’s. To me Plato’s writings are full of pernicious nonsense; Epicurus’s are full of wisdom.

Human beings have always striven to understand existence, but reading a book about Epicurus* illuminates how far the ancients still had to go, handicapped by fundamental knowledge gaps. Thus might Plato’s errors be forgiven, though I think he was just a nasty character. Again in contrast to Epicurus, who speaks to the human heart — and who, despite the epistemological deficiencies of his time, got a lot right.

My favorite Epicurus story (possibly apocryphal) concerns his viewing a display of portraits of sailors who in storms prayed to the gods, and survived. “But where,” said he, “are the pictures of those who prayed and drowned?”

Thus the rationalist. However, Epicurus did not actually put human reason on a pedestal, subordinating it to nature. But he did liken reason to a judge, weighing evidence, the testimony of the senses. And of course we use our reason to understand nature. Thus Epicurus differed greatly from Plato, with the latter’s notion of perfect “forms” existing somewhere ethereally while what we see on Earth are just imperfect corrupted shadows. For Epicurus, what we see is what we get, that’s all there is.

So his two feet were planted in reality. Yet he did profess belief in the gods, even urging performing all the attendant rituals, as being right and proper from a social standpoint. Deeming faith a principal virtue. However, he was somewhat unique in holding that the gods could not be messing about with earthly matters (too much work, incompatible with their perfect happiness) — hence no one should fear the gods.

Consistent with putting nature above reason, Epicurus held that knowledge of the gods was instilled in people by nature as a “given” of existence. And he spun quite elaborate theories justifying this (as full of absurdities as any religious apologia). “The gods” were not some abstract picture, but highly specific, with names and backstories and everything. Yet even if nature told us about gods, could anyone know such concrete details? It all seems contrary to Epicurus otherwise being such a clear-eyed materialist. Perhaps god belief was so deeply embedded in his society that not even an Epicurus could break free of it. Or — given that so much of his philosophy already contravened contemporary sensibilities — he didn’t dare so complete a breach as atheism would entail. Epicurus, before founding his school in Athens, had already experienced being run out of town (from Mytilene).**

Epicurus deemed pleasure the purpose of life — widely misunderstood as shallow hedonism. His actual stance accords with my own oft-repeated bedrock idea that the only thing that can matter is the feelings of beings capable of feeling. Those feelings can be divided, most fundamentally, between pleasure and pain. The more pleasure there is in the world, and the less pain, the better. That’s the essence of Epicurianism.

Here again Epicurus took issue with Plato, who deemed some pleasures good and others bad. Such censoriousness has persisted into modern times. (Certainly true in Christianity.)

Epicurus did not tell us to go out and load up on sensual “hedonic” pleasures. Rather, his concern was happiness. That’s something experienced over time; ideally, a lifetime. Whereas a pleasure (like food or sex) is durationally restricted. Experiencing such pleasures (and, I would add, anticipating them) do not constitute happiness but do contribute to it.

Epicurus actually preached a simple diet, rather than indulgence in rich foods, as more conducive to health, which is a key ingredient in happiness. Yet at his Athens school, there was a monthly lavish feast. Epicurus said this conferred more pleasure in the foods than if they were everyday experiences.

Also rejected were quests for wealth, power, and glory. Thus he urged against a political career. He did recognize the value of wealth, particularly as enabling one to help out friends when needed — and Epicurus considered friendship absolutely central to a happy life. The problem with power and glory (or fame), however, is their dependency on how other people see you, making you beholden to their fickleness.

Thus conflicting with what Epicurus considered the real key to happiness: freedom. That is, the ability to control your own life, by controlling, to the degree possible, its circumstances. In this he was going against the prevailing ethos regarding fate or fortune or luck, of which most people thought we are playthings. The Romans had a goddess, Fortuna, appearing on many coins, holding a rudder, meaning that she steers us. Epicurus recognized no such force; instead dividing circumstances between those beyond our control and those we can control. With happiness built upon expanding one’s ambit of control — defying fate.

Note that this also argues against unbridled hedonism — that is, letting your appetites and passions control you rather than you controlling them. Not a recipe for true happiness.

The watchword here too was safety. The main aim of controlling your circumstances was to make you safer. That might seem a timorous, cramped idea of happiness; however, life in those times was a lot more perilous and contingent than it is for modern Americans. So the safer you could feel, the happier you’d be.

Hand in hand with safety is the idea of peace, which Epicurus also advocated for the sake of promoting human happiness. And he was also arguing here against Plato’s prescription for an authoritarian state. Plato’s ideal polity would be North Korea. Epicurus in contrast believed the state that governs best is the one that governs least. That is, protecting the safety of its citizens, not threatening it.

His physics was grounded in there being only stuff (made of atoms) and void — so the gods had to be corporeal. This also left no room for an incorporeal soul (two millennia before Descartes!) — so Epicurus ruled out any life after death. This was integral to his identifying pleasure as the purpose (telos) of life — since life’s purpose could only play out between birth and death. Actually then, life itself was what mattered most (indeed, solely); the supreme good.

Verified for Epicurus by one’s greatest fear being death, and greatest joy being an escape from it. Both being embedded by nature — thus again exemplifying his putting nature above reason.

Epicurus wasn’t happy about mortality, but he was, well, philosophical about it. It falls within the realm of things we cannot ultimately control. But we can control how we think about it. Epicurus seems to have been of the “where I am, death is not; where death is, I am not” school. I’ve never found that logic very comforting. The idea of nonexistence is terrifying. But the Epicurean control I exercise is to avoid focusing on it. I’m a believer in worrying about things only when I must. So I’ll deal with nonexistence when I get there.

* DeWitt, Epicurus and His Philosophy, written in 1954 by an academic, and unfortunately reading like it.

** DeWitt does not explore what might really have been going on with Epicurus and religion. He defends him against ancient critics, writing as though endorsing Epicurus’s theology. I infer DeWitt was a Christian; he sees Epicurus as prefiguring much of Christian thinking.