Group Membership

Jean-Paul Sartre turned down the Nobel Prize for Literature in part because "He stated that a writer's accepting such an honour would be to associate his personal commitments with the awarding institution." As an existentialist, Sartre was staunchly individual. Furthermore, as a philosopher and artist, he may have had keener reasons to keep his own work separate from the commitments of an institution--associating himself with an institution may have tainted his independent artistic and philosophical commitments.

Does the same standard apply to any individual joining a group? Though an advocate for animal rights, I have refrained from personally joining any animal rights or animal welfare organization. PETA stands for and fights for many things I stand for, but I've often taken issue with PETA's focus and methods (I think self-promotional publicity is a close second to animal welfare in their list of priorities). Should I support a group that mostly fights for what I believe in, but which often does things I don't support? I finally did decide to join the group.

Of course, I knew they would do things that would make me embarrassed to be a part of it. As Jim Rome said on the radio today, they're over the top, and that's why you don't want them on your bad side. It's also a point my wife has made: PETA is a pushy, persistent organization--they get shit done because they're so bothersome.

But PETA, regarding Michael Vick, let it go. If you don't want to do PSAs with him or support his entry back to the NFL, fine. But brain scans and psychological tests? The man committed a crime and has spent time in prison for the crime. You should let him move on. If you don't think Vick is a good role model, that's fine: don't cheer for him. But professional football is about adults playing a game for our entertainment, not about athletes being role models to children about kindness toward animals.

This sort of inanity embarrasses me. There are all sorts of serious problems in the way animals are treated in this country--trying to prevent Michael Vick from continuing his football career, and making blatant publicity grabs with inflammatory language and demands for psychological tests, does little to help those animals.

I'm again reminded of Les Miserables. Javert cannot accept Valjean's redemption and reformation, insisting that there is something inherently criminal in Valjean's nature that cannot be changed and demands punishment. When PETA requests brain scans and psychological testing to find out if Vick is a "psychopath," they dehumanize him. They want proof he's even "mentally capable of remorse." Ingrid Newkirk, do you really want to play the role of Javert?

See
"PETA Withdraws PSA offer to Vick" (Sports Illustrated).
"Is Michael Vick a Clinically Diagnosed Psychopath or a Reformed Dogfighter?" (PETA)
PETA's letter to the NFL (PDF).

Individualism and Communalism

Solomon Asch in "Opinions and Social Pressure:"

"Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of his experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the power on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends."

I had a drunken bar discussion long ago about the freedom of an existentialist to choose to belong to a religious group. Again I am reminded: communalism and individualism are not mutually exclusive concepts. A strong community is made up of free individuals.

Both/And: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

A major theme of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is "Individualism." The free individual resists conformity, authority, and rule. The individual has his or her dignity, rebels against limits to his or her freedom, exerts his or her own will, and is at his or her best when free. It's a free, willful individual that brings down the controls.

A major theme of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is "Community." The Combine/Big Nurse maintain authority by turning the patients against each other, removing any loyalty or trust. Alone, each patient is vulnerable. But when McMurphy brings the patient together, turns them against the Big Nurse together, teaches them to work together, to laugh together, to play together, to resist together, to trust each other, the controls begin to come apart. It is when the patients combine into a unified community that the controls are resisted.

Both/And

"Some fashions (tongue piercings, perhaps?) flower once and then disappear, hopefully forever. Others swing in and out of style, as if fastened to the end of a pendulum. Two foibles of human life strongly promote this oscillatory mode. First, our need to create order in a complex world begets our worst mental habit: dichotomy, or our tendency to reduce an intricate set of subtle shadings to a choice between two diametrically opposed alternatives (each with moral weight and therefore ripe for bombast and pontification, if not outright warfare): religion versus science, liberal versus conservative, plain versus fancy, Roll Over Beethoven versus the Moonlight Sonata. Second, many deep questions about our livelihoods, and the fates of nations, truly have no answers -- so we cycle the presumed alternatives of our dichotomies, one after the other, always hoping that, this time, we will find the nonexistent key."

--Stephen Jay Gould, "Dolly's Fashion and Louis' Passion"

This FreeDarko post explores some ideas on "the collective" and "the individual." Reading it, I was forced to discover yet another dichotomy I fundamentally reject, another dichotomy I replace with "Both/And."

My values have been moving (slowing, and with purpose) toward the communal, and yet my attitude toward the community is largely viewed in individual terms. I still demand that as an individual I can freely choose my community; participation in a community of choice is in many ways an individual act, still firmly based on existential freedom. And I still demand to be allowed to be an individual within the community: a community should be a collective of individuals, and any community which requires individuals to subsume themselves into it is not a community I want to belong to in this world (the next? who knows).

So for me, a community should be freely chosen (as an individual), and should allow individual identities, values, and needs to participate openly within it. It is no less the collective, and power and meaning can come from the collective. And yet it is no less the individual, an existence created by and allowing for individual choice and being.

I reject the dichotomy, what Stephen Jay Gould calls "our tendency to reduce an intricate set of subtle shadings to a choice between two diametrically opposed alternatives." In this post-modern existence, I again choose Both/And, the reality of both individual and community.

Old Jack's an Odd Duck

Here's an odd book: Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. I expected to read about overbearing, conservative fathers with traditional social values harshly arguing with their liberal-minded, progressive sons yearning for freedom. There is conflict over old social values, but in fact the fathers are sensitive (even overly sentimental), in awe of their sons, even try hard to impress their sons. To go all reader-response on you, I also discovered in this book I'm at a middle point in life: I don't know whether I side more with Bazarov and Arkady, or with Pavel Petrovich and Nicholai Petrovich. There is also an interesting line that Bazarov uses when arguing with Pavel that, I think, illustrates what I wrote earlier in My Ideological Paradox. Bazarov says,

"You find fault with my point of view, but what makes you think it came into being by chance, that it's not a product of that very national spirit which you are championing?"

What happens when the values of the group teach people to value individualism?

As an addendum, we now have two contributors at Costanza Book Club. You'll have to pay close attention to who writes each post, since we have vastly different views on literature, film, and theory.

My Ideological Paradox (with many parentheticals

(this is narcissistic mostly, but to an end)

Recently I considered whether Peace were now the most important concept in my life, whether more than all else I would seek inner peace, inter-personal peace, and world-wide peace. I very quickly gave up this notion, recognizing the most important concept for me by a long shot, is, always has been, and always will be, Freedom. Freedom is not a monolithic concept, of course (e.g., the freedom to spend money and the freedom from having to work are usually, for most of us, mutually exclusive freedoms). For me the concept of Freedom is bound up with existentialism (freedom of choice, and also free will on a cosmic level, i.e., the freedom of Adam and Eve in "Paradise Lost"--btw, italics aren't working for me on this computer, so you'll get the grammatically infuriating quotation marks around titles of long works), in equality (the idea that every man and woman is my equal is an important part of my freedom), and my time (I'm peculiarly protective of how I am able to use my "free" time), and individualism (it is not like I'm out fighting for freedoms of groups, though I do believe in freedom for groups and do take up such causes; however, I live very much in the assumption of freedom of groups and focus largely on individual freedom.

So why is Freedom the most important philosophical ideal in my life? Many reasons.

1. I'm an American.
Growing up in America, I've imbibed the ideals of liberty and equality every day of my life (perhaps if "fraternite" were added to the ideals of "egalite" and "liberte" here, I would view the world differently). Liberty and equality have never exactly been regular practices in America (it's only recently that they were truly expanded as ideals to include those other than white males--and even that is not fully in practice), yet the ideals have been hanging around. I am foolish enough to believe in these ideals. My ideals would obviously be quite different if I were raised in a different country and/or culture.

2. I'm a Protestant.
I grew up in a Protestant tradition. Protestantism has a much greater emphasis on freedom, individualism, and equality than Catholicism (I base this on my experiences and studies with the ideology and practices of both Protestantism and Catholicism; I could go into greater detail giving examples, but I join Bartleby in asserting that "I'd prefer not to"). If I had grown up in a Catholic tradition, perhaps I wouldn't have such an emphasis on Freedom as a concept, or at the very least, my idea of Freedom would be different (after all, as a Protestant I was encouraged to read the Bible on my own, and was left largely to interpret it on my own. So much of my worldview is still based on my adolescent interpretations of Jesus as a guy who doesn't fight, cares about the poor, hangs out with social rejects, and forgives people). It would clearly be even more different if I had been raised in a non-christian religious tradition. Doesn't Islam mean "submission"? Don't many Eastern religions particularly de-emphasize the concept of self?

3. I'm a reader.
I read, and many of the things I've read have had a strong influence on my thinking (I realize it's hard to say whether I'm drawn to certain works based on my ideas, or whether certain works form my ideas--I call this "The Seinfeld Dilemma," since I don't know whether it formed me of drew me in because of what I am). And the readings that stick out to me emphasize freedom. Henry David Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" remains the essay that informs my ideas about work and self. Jean-Paul Sartre's writings on existentialism have pretty much become my frame for viewing existence. And John Fowles' novels exploring the meaning of individual freedom in society, particularly "The French Lieutanant's Woman" and "The Magus," have informed my more recent views on freedom of choice and behavior. My research on censorship has further convinced me of the need to allow the individual freedom against the norms of society.

So now I reach the paradox of my ideology. Quite clearly I believe strongly in individual independence from the limitations and expecations of groups. But here's the contradiction: THE REASON I BELIEVE THIS IS LARGELY INFLUENCED BY MY GROUPS. I emphasize Freedom largely because I am a member of two groups: Americans (loosely) and Protestants (even more loosely). It is the country, the culture, the worldview of the groups that have made me so emphasize separation for the individual from group expectations. Even reading, the most individual of activities, for me has been framed in the context of academia (the values and practices of the academic community have impacted what I read and how I read it, therefore, the values of another group influence my emphais on individual freedom).

I believe strongly in individualism because of the groups I was raised with/in; that is the nature of the paradox of my ideology.

And that is an illustration on the meaning of Ideology.