Romanticism and utilitarianism
Ilya Shambat
being based on evolution, need to survive. This is used as a
justification for a belief structure that expropriates all of people's
talents in service of powering a mechanism that, in the name of
providing for economic growth, takes control of people's lives,
utilizing what can be utilizing and destroying what cannot. This is
then tied into the notions of realism, pragmatism and responsibility,
which ties into the Lutheran notions of hard work and the media
culture notions of common sense.
It is not hard to see the flaw in this belief structure. First of all,
evolution, if that is indeed the mechanism by which we have come here,
tends not toward mere survival but rather toward ever-greater
complexity. If evolution is the mechanism by which we have arrived,
then it does not tend to survival but toward refinement, allowing for
ever-increasing complexity, from bacteria to human being. If survival
had been the purpose of evolution, then life would have never envolved
past the stage of the lichen and other hardy life forms that can
survive on the barren rock. Rather, the complexity - the complicity -
the refinement - of life form is a higher stage in development of the
evolutionary mechanism, with such human innovations as imagination,
original thought and invention the highest form of development of
nature. Which deserve to be given respect and protection, as things
that are the consummation of evolution and that give the process
fulfilment beyond its roots.
Things that are on a higher stage of evolutionary development are, by
nature, more delicate than the things on the lower stage. This is
because it takes greater energy - greater cultivation - greater
refinement - to sustain life at that level. The dolphin is far more
fragile than lichen; however, it is also far more complicated, far
more glorious, far more beautiful. The things that are refined are a
testimony of the hard work it took to get them to that level and, as
such, are a testimony of the success of the process and its
justification. They are, indeed, the manifestation of the process's
fulfilment.
The ideology of might-makes-right is then a negation of the
evolutionary process. Rather than rewarding higher levels of
evolutionary success - higher levels, that is, of refinement - it
punishes them instead and rewards rather the things that are less
evolved and as such find survival easier. This is a negation of the
process, and a degradation of it from producing its fruit - which is,
very much, refinement of substance and matter into the highest thing
it can be.
Justifying the dog-eat-dog tendency - the world of each man for
himself - is then a betrayal of evolution. If we have this motive
within ourselves as a result of evolution, then our other motives -
motives such as compassion and altruism; motives such as desire for
meaning, for passion, for beauty, for romance, for affinity with all
of humanity - are also a result of evolution, and result of a higher
evolutionary development. And if one is to be loyal to evolution, then
one is to reward these motives - motives that are higher in the
evolutionary development - and not to prevent them from achieving
manifestation.
At this point some would say that competitiveness is human nature. If
that is the case then so is altruism! If it is human nature to want to
beat the next guy, then it is also human nature to want to make the
world a better place. From evolutionary perspective, this is something
that helps the species to improve its condition, and if the people did
not have this motive then they would have never evolved their way out
of the cave. The belief that good things come from competition are
false. The basic form of competition is war, and the society that
thinks entirely in competitive terms can be exemplified in
warlord-ravaged portions of Africa. The Internet is a government
project. All true benefactors of humanity, from Jesus to Jefferson to
Edison, strove for the benefit of humanity and had a perspective
beyond self-enrichment. The myth of Prometheus is that of someone who
would risk having his liver eaten out by an eagle in order to improve
the benefit of humankind. Altruism - as a perspective beyond one's gut
and beyond one's status - is responsible for most of the good that
humanity has achieved.
John Nash proved that the best outcome for the group is achieved not
when one strives for one's own benefit as in Adam Smith model and not
when one strives for the whole's benefit as in the Communist model,
but when one strives for the benefit of self and the whole. This ought
to be common sense. From the perspective of the self, the world
consists of oneself and of others; the world thus benefits when one
strives for the benefit of one's self and for the benefit of others.
What exactly is it that benefits self? That's up to oneself to decide.
What exactly is it that benefits others? That's up to the others to
decide in an informed fashion aware of all alternatives. It
emphatically does not benefit the self to keep up with the Joneses if
that is not what one seeks to do, and cultural values that demand such
a thing result in wasted lives and misspent potential. The world
benefits, when one does what makes oneself happy and what improves the
lives of other people - the people who don't desire to control one's
existence but rather desire to live better lives. The values of
conformity are a hindrance to both developments and are as such a
counter-evolutionary force. Quite frankly, there is no legitimate
reason for their existence, as they are a degradation of humankind.
The artistic talent, like scientific inquiry, are highly evolved
capacities. They are, as such, not respected by those who cannot think
in terms other than utilitarian. A being that has those capacities
comes under attack from those who do not have those capacities within
them. These things seek to undermine it and degrade it. This results
in degradation of humankind, because it is precisely from art and
science that all improvement springs.
What is it that seeks similitude? It is, quite frankly, something
subhuman within the human being. It is something that is afraid of
difference and afraid, as such, of thought. It is something ghastly,
vicious and hideous. And it is something that, in the interests of
evolution, needs to be overcome.
If we do not come here based on evolution but based on God, then of
course beauty and talent are a creation of God. These, then, need to
be cultivated and placed in service of God's glory. The works of
Renaissance artists are then far superior manifestations of God's plan
than the works of the Puritans or the 1980s materialists; works that
still attract admiration and awe from people the whole world over.
This is because they are based on a belief, reinforced over time, that
the divine manifests through human talent, and that human talent in
service of the God's glory produces magnificence that God created for
us to manifest. This, then, is the true, glorious, reification of the
belief in God; reification also of the understanding that man is
spirit and, as spirit, has the qualities of the spirit that are talent
and intelligence.
If we come here based on God, then furthermore utilitarianism is
unjustified. Quite simply, competition and Christianity cannot
coexist; it is one or the other. "You cannot serve two masters, God
and money, at the same time." The mindset that claims to be Christian
on Sundays and Darwinian every other day of the week is a hypocrisy,
an intellectual perversion, an abomination. It's either one or the
other! Either believe in Christ and, pursuant Christ, believe that you
need to love everyone, or believe in Darwin. And if you believe in
Darwin, also have the good grace to have the honesty to admit that the
human being is a more refined form of life than is a bacterium, and
loyalty to the dynamics that made us demands loyalty to the best, not
to the worst, thing that is within ourselves.
There is thought spread by canon orthodoxies within the academia that
there is no such thing as genius. THen what invented the light bulb?
What painted Van Gogh's paintings? What wrote the American Declaration
of Independence? Genius exists everywhere in nature, and it exists in
many places in mankind. It is the creative force of nature. It is the
source of all good that is here, all that manifested past the stage of
rock.
The disparaging attitudes toward imagination need to be dealt with
from understanding that all true reason that has produced anything of
value was powered by creativity. This is known to anyone who has ever
been a part of either scientific inquiry or anyone who has ever been
an inventor, and all improvement in human condition is based on that
nexus of creativity and thought. A scientist who studies the
ecosystem, or a scientist who works on artificial intelligence,
develops, if he is honest, tremendous respect for the imagination and
the creative power of nature, and anyone who does not and still claims
to be a rationalist is motivativated not by science but by fear,
greed, nastiness and desire to abuse.
There is a lazy pattern of thought, initiated particularly by
ex-Soviet intellectuals, that all Utopian ideas lead to bad places. It
is to be understood that America is itself a Utopian place, founded on
idealistic philosophy of Franklin and Jefferson; that some people
think those ideals to be common sense is a reification simply of their
failure to be conscious of assumptions that have been reified within
their culture. That the industry has gone from agriculture to software
in two centuries is a reification of the ideas that are implemented in
the culture. Life without ideals is not life in and of itself; it is
life without the best that exists in the human psyche. It is life
without goal - without purpose - without striving. It is life as the
lowest thing man can be.
Self-esteem is a social con. It is an internalization within the
psyche of the values of the social construct. It is a reification
within the mind of the thing that wants to define the mind in terms of
its usefulness to itself. As such, it is a false argument, and the
correct way to empowerment is not through getting a self-esteem as
advocated by the social psychology but through attainment of will
regardless of social construct.
The same is true for personality psychology, as it assays the
essential in terms of the adaptation. The goal of personality
psychology is to eviscerate the personality, which is of course an
absurd thing to do. The personality is an adaptation, and underneath
it exists something essential. Claiming that someone has a personality
disorder is therefore an absurdity. What they have is an essence that
refused to be overlaid with manure, and as such deserves a pathway to
rise into fruition.
Through smarmy arguments based on "responsibility" or "social
adjustment" the mind is typically confused into negating the process
from which it comes, whether it be evolution or God's creation. In
either case, this is a power trip, on the part of those who don't
deserve to exercise the power trip, over processes in which they have
absolutely no part. Evolution (if this is how we got here) and God (if
this is how we got here) exist entirely independently of whatever
covenant has evolved in whatever place that exists in the world, and
loyalty to one's makings demand not loyalty only to that covenant but
loyalty also to the things that have made one's talent. Which means,
loyalty either to the universe or to God. The first demands
cultivation of the highest capacities of which one is capable as
manifestation of refinement toward which evolution strives; the second
demands cultivation and implementation of what God gave us.
In either case, the creative power is justified, and so is applying it
for the purposes of refinement of mind-substance into the higher
states.
Norma
Rather than bitterness, this sounds like ethics.
"Ilya Shambat" <isha...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:6d8c5a02.0303...@posting.google.com...
Leonardo Dasso
> being based on evolution, need to survive.
Says who?
[snip]
>
>If survival
> had been the purpose of evolution, then life would have never envolved
> past the stage of the lichen and other hardy life forms that can
> survive on the barren rock. Rather, the complexity - the complicity -
> the refinement - of life form is a higher stage in development of the
> evolutionary mechanism, with such human innovations as imagination,
> original thought and invention the highest form of development of
> nature.
Please. Evolution has no purpose. It's blind.
>Which deserve to be given respect and protection, as things
> that are the consummation of evolution and that give the process
> fulfilment beyond its roots.
Seriously, now. Things are as they are. You cannot derive ought from is.
> Things that are on a higher stage of evolutionary development are, by
> nature, more delicate than the things on the lower stage.
Sure, that's why butterflies are so strong whereas whales are fragile
creatures.
>This is
> because it takes greater energy - greater cultivation - greater
> refinement - to sustain life at that level. The dolphin is far more
> fragile than lichen; however, it is also far more complicated, far
> more glorious, far more beautiful.
LOL. So, beauty is an intrinsic property now.
>The things that are refined are a
> testimony of the hard work it took to get them to that level and, as
> such, are a testimony of the success of the process and its
> justification. They are, indeed, the manifestation of the process's
> fulfilment.
Success and fulfillment imply purpose, design and intent. There is no
such thing in evolution.
[Snip blah blah blah, etc]
regards
leo
St-Jennifer-of-the-Knife
> > testimony of the hard work it took to get them to that level and, as
> > such, are a testimony of the success of the process and its
> > justification. They are, indeed, the manifestation of the process's
> > fulfilment.
>
> Success and fulfillment imply purpose, design and intent. There is no
> such thing in evolution.
Heh. Logic doesn't work on Ilya.
The interesting thing about him is that unlike most
illogical people, he knows and accepts this.
He isn't right but he's interesting to watch.
I figure that's about as much as can be said for anyone.
Matthew S. Mullins
> The tenet of the utilitarian argument is that all things on earth, being
> based on evolution, need to survive. This is used as a justification for
> a belief structure that expropriates all of people's talents in service
> of powering a mechanism that, in the name of providing for economic
> growth, takes control of people's lives, utilizing what can be utilizing
> and destroying what cannot. This is then tied into the notions of
> realism, pragmatism and responsibility, which ties into the Lutheran
> notions of hard work and the media culture notions of common sense.
>
Where did you come up with this version of Utilitarianism?! It is unlike
anything I ever came across in school or in any book. I suppose such a
definition may be usefull as a straw man for the rest of your argument.I
wont argue that consequentialist accounts are probably flawed but I
wouldn't use them to launch into an attack on evolution.
Being a philosopher and not a scientist I can't verify all of your claims
off hand, but it does seem to me that lichen is probably just a fragile
and complex as a dolphin. That a dolphin is more glorious or more
beautiful seems to be a subjective view that would be open to plenty of
debate. I'll agree that evolution does lead to more complex organisms but
I think your giving the process way to much intention. I gues I could go
on but as I read on I think why bother.
MSM
Courageous
>> The tenet of the utilitarian argument is that all things on earth,
>> being based on evolution, need to survive.
>Says who?
Certainly not the evolutionists. Consider the male preying mantis
for a moment. Why, pray tell, heh heh, does it offer up its head?
C//
Lance Delacroix
wrote:
>
>Rather than bitterness, this sounds like ethics.
Top-posting maggot.
Keynes
<Lda...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>Success and fulfillment imply purpose, design and intent. There is no
>such thing in evolution.
>
Everyone is full of good intentions. Hitler believed the
world would be a better place if 'inferior' people could
finally be got rid of once and for all. His dream failed
just as all gigantic dreams fail. Even on the personal
scale one's good intentions lead him into difficulty,
particularly if he is able to accomplish his dream and
discover the results to be completely unsatisfactory.
Intention appears to be idle and counter productive
in more or less all cases. This is shown in all the folk
tales of the three wishes. Yet good intentions are
still presumed to be one of the best of human features.
Without intending it, evolution has produced greater
and greater complexity. If a human could be so creative
he would be a legend in his own time and a god forever
after. That's because we must assume he did it all
on purpose.
If we consider results alone, nature is the supreme
inventor. Edison may have invented the light bulb
on 'purpose', but he had to try and fail with hundreds
of different filaments before he succeeded. He called
invention 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Nature tries and fails. Fortunately, humans always
try and succeed. Or do they? Oddities that we are,
we assume powers that we don't possess. Nature
has made us by mistake, but even so we are clever
enough to spot the mistake and put our lance through
the heart of mother nature in gratitude.
Lance Delacroix
>On Sun, 30 Mar 2003 03:55:06 +0100, "Leonardo Dasso"
><Lda...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Success and fulfillment imply purpose, design and intent. There is no
>>such thing in evolution.
>>
>
>Everyone is full of good intentions. Hitler believed the
>world would be a better place if 'inferior' people could
>finally be got rid of once and for all.
Hey, you know, that's NOT a bad idea.... His problem was his
definition of "inferior".
> His dream failed
>just as all gigantic dreams fail. Even on the personal
>scale one's good intentions lead him into difficulty,
>particularly if he is able to accomplish his dream and
>discover the results to be completely unsatisfactory.
>
>Intention appears to be idle and counter productive
>in more or less all cases. This is shown in all the folk
>tales of the three wishes. Yet good intentions are
>still presumed to be one of the best of human features.
>
>Without intending it, evolution has produced greater
>and greater complexity. If a human could be so creative
>he would be a legend in his own time and a god forever
>after. That's because we must assume he did it all
>on purpose.
>
>If we consider results alone, nature is the supreme
>inventor. Edison may have invented the light bulb
>on 'purpose', but he had to try and fail with hundreds
>of different filaments before he succeeded. He called
>invention 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
>
>Nature tries and fails. Fortunately, humans always
>try and succeed. Or do they? Oddities that we are,
>we assume powers that we don't possess. Nature
>has made us by mistake, but even so we are clever
>enough to spot the mistake and put our lance
Lance??
Courageous
>Edison may have invented the light bulb
He didn't. This is one of popular science's most notorious
bits of apocyrphia. There are 17 records in the U.S. patent
record alone for light bulbs before Edison's. One might also
presume that other inventors in other countries were likewise
endeavoring.
Edison's contribution was a _better_ light bulb, not the
invention of it.
C//
Leonardo Dasso
"St-Jennifer-of-the-Knife" <mli...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3E8669D3...@hotmail.com...
Anyone in a zoo, at least.
regards
leo
Christian Ebert
> If we do not come here based on evolution but based on God, then of
> course beauty and talent are a creation of God. These, then, need to
> be cultivated and placed in service of God's glory. The works of
> Renaissance artists are then far superior manifestations of God's plan
> than the works of the Puritans or the 1980s materialists; works that
> still attract admiration and awe from people the whole world over.
Renaissance is not Christian. It's the old Greek gods
born again. Think Monteverdi - who could therefore write
the first opera "Orfeo" - vs. Bach - ad maiori dei gloriam.
c
--
Ich mache keinen Krieg mehr, sondern ich gehe jetzt heim gradewegs,
ich scheiße auf die Ordnung der Welt. Ich bin verloren.
(Bertolt Brecht, Der Untergang des Egoisten Johann Fatzer)