The Idiot's Dilemma - A Guest Post by Maurice J. Larkin

“All those gleams and flashes of the highest awareness and, hence, also of the 'highest mode of existence', were nothing but a disease, a departure from the normal condition, and, if so, it was not at all the highest mode of existence, but, on the contrary, must be considered to be the lowest”

Dostoyevsky, The Idiot.

The Idiot rates pretty low for me as Dostoyevsky's novels go, but the quote  above has stuck with me for years.  It is one of those rare sentences that hints at a fundamental term of human experience. What I mean by a 'term of human experience' is something that would appear in a user manual for living, were such a thing to exist. It would be found somewhere under “you will die”, “you will feel how others see you” and “the mere existence of Simon Cowell will annoy you beyond endurance”. Heidegger called such things 'existentialia', but I don't like using a word I can't pronounce, so I'll refer to such things as 'Terms' with a capital 't'. Were I to state tersely the Term that Dostoyevsky's sentence suggests, I would say - “the highest mode of existence is also the lowest”. That's a bit gnomic and obscure, so let me put it in plain English.

Prince Myshkin, Dostoyevsky's wryly named 'idiot', suffers from a neurological illness we would currently recognise as epilepsy, arguably, temporal lobe epilepsy. It is believed Dostoyevsky suffered from this condition, and several of his novels feature a sufferer thereof. In keeping with the symptoms of the illness, the Prince's seizures are often preceded by a kind of ecstasy characterised by a sensation of profound enlightenment and clarity. “His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments... All his agitation, all his doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of knowledge of the final cause... For the infinite happiness he had felt in it, it might well be worth the whole of his life”.

The Prince is no idiot, of course, and he is possessed of the inclination and ability to critically analyse his own experiences. He does not and cannot doubt that this experience is genuinely “beauty and prayer, that it really was the highest synthesis of life”, but “the reality of the sensation somewhat troubled him all the same. What indeed was he to make of this reality?” For as our chosen quote explains, the same experiences that reveal to him the meaning of his life are also just the abberant and accidental activity of his diseased brain. We might say that the experience the Idiot values most in his life is, in its objective reality, an aberrant brain event, a mere glitch, a case of neural wires getting crossed. It is a neurochemical accident without meaning or significance. It may seem real to him, more real than anything else. But why should a neurochemical machine undergoing electrical contortions be regarded as an organ of truth? When the provenance of an epiphany turns out to be something so mundane and contingent as brain cells firing wildly, the subject of that experience is surely wise to qualify the assertions by which he expresses it – or perhaps dismiss them altogether, as pathological. 

But there is no reason to limit the epileptic’s perspective to abnormal or pathological experiences. We are each of us a chemical machine, as the physicist Schrödinger put it. The leading thinkers in contemporary philosophy of mind will tell you that, however your mental states should be understood in the last analysis, they must be rooted somehow in the activity of the brain. Ultimately there is nowhere else for them to inhere, nothing else that can produce or ‘realise’ them – the precise phrasing will depend on the terms of the theory you opt for. Personally, I believe the difference between mental states and brain states is merely one of perspective. There is but one state, which through introspection has one appearance, while through a microscope or MRI assumes another – just as an object appears variously when apprehended through different senses. Whatever way we want to state it precisely, we must acknowledge the mind's basis in the brain, unless we cast reason and evidence aside and believe in some 'Casper the ghost' type of entity; a non-physical soul that, while it occupies no space, can none the less manipulate my body, connected incomprehensibly to its ontological opposite. No – every experience you have can only be a neurochemical stirring in your skull.

Hence, when you think of the greatest experiences of your life, that form or ground the meaning, purpose or logical centre of your life, you can think as the Idiot thinks. This highest mode of existence - this great or pivotal experience - is also the lowest thing, tiny cellular signals harried or lulled by chemicals in a simmian skull, of no more significance than some subterranean crawling revealed on an upturned rock. Indeed, every act of valuing is such a surging in neurochemical soup, every occasion of human valuing in history has been such a low thing. The Idiot's dilemma applies to all of us and to humanity as a whole. It a consequence of our being composed of cells. It is one of the Terms.

Now you might say that the fact that these neurochemical events in our skulls are the ground of meaning makes them important, imbues them with significance, with the highest significance. After all the brain is about the most complex entity we have encountered in the universe. Shouldn't we be impressed by its workings? Of course, we're into a knotty problem here, because what we're talking about is the business of applying the values that inhere in the brain to their own basis or substrate. The brain in question is party to the dispute. But it is instructive here to think about the provenance of this brain's nature. Where did it come from and how did it come to have the design it has? It's nature proceeds from evolution through natural selection, of course. And what kind of beginning is that? Can we attribute significance, meaning, worth to the process of evolution? Does evolution have an agenda we can respect? But of course, it doesn’t really have an agenda at all. Biology produces mutation, and if any particular example of that mutation is fit to survive long enough to propagate its type on this particular ball of bacteria, that type will have some perpetuity. Like the rest of our genetically determined nature, our basic cognitive and emotional repertoire is the product of mutation weeded by a world indifferent to the needs of its tenants. It is that control system that proved to be adaptive, where other mutations were less so. It is what was left after nature’s cull of the maladaptive. Eventually, after millions of years and a lot of failed experiments it produces incredibly complex systems exquisitely adapted to their environment, but these remain the products of chance regulated by death. Understanding the designer of the human brain does little to edify its status as the ground of all values.

I think it comes down to this question: can we look critically at the basis and origins of our nature, and of our experiences, and still take them seriously? I pose that not as a rhetorical question, but as one each must answer for his or herself. We are each of us left in just the same position as Dostoyevsky's Idiot, and there is no eluding his dilemma.

The Importance of Voting YES in the Same Sex Marriage Referendum

In May those of us who are Irish citizens will be called upon to vote in the same-sex marriage referendum.  This referendum will ask the people of Ireland to decide whether gay people in our society should be allowed to marry the person that they have fallen in love with and thereby enjoy the same civil, legal and social rights currently enjoyed by straight people.  In short May's referendum is one which asks the Irish people whether the oppression of gay people in this country when it comes to the issue of marriage should continue or whether we can find it in ourselves to be grown up enough to realize that this sort of oppression should and can no longer be tolerated.

It is important as we head into this referendum to reflect on how it is that in a so-called enlightened and scientific age religion still holds such sway in issues such as this.  Unfortunately the Irish Constitution is not a secular one, rather it is one heavily influenced by Catholic dogma, it is not surprising therefore that oppressive laws are still in existence in this country.  It is also not surprising given the predominantly Catholic history of Ireland that many still hold fast to the cultural 'norms' that this history has given rise to.

Most of the people that I have encountered who plan to vote 'No' in the referendum cite religion and specifically the Bible as the source of their wisdom on this matter.  In doing so, whether knowingly or unknowingly, they pin their wisdom to a book that advocates the stoning of gay people.  Thereby these religious individuals are unfortunately not only pro-oppression but it must also be assumed that they stand behind the torture, castration and murder of homosexuals in countries such as Saudi-Arabia today. When confronted with this reality I'm sure many of them would deny this and argue that they certainly don't condone such harsh punishment but they must at the very least acknowledge that in voting 'No' they are simply voting for a more subtle and insidious type of oppression; the type of oppression that allows the oppressor to sleep a little more soundly in bed at night as no blood is shed.  But it is a type of oppression that wages psychological warfare on a group of people simply for being who they are.  It is the type of oppression that was so heart-breakingly described by our own Panti Bliss from the stage of the Abbey theatre and the type of oppression that the anonymous writer to the Irish Independent last week has lived with so unhappily for 60 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXayhUzWnl0

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/at-60-and-gay-i-can-dream-letter-to-the-editor-31085474.html

In May we will be given the opportunity to put an end to the oppression of the gay members of our society at least in one small area, the institute of marriage.  This opportunity is a privilege that should not be taken for granted as it is the opportunity for those of us who have a voice and are being afforded the right to use that voice to stand up for equal rights, the end of oppression and the progress of liberty.  Use your voice, use your vote. Vote YES for all of those who have suffered as a result of oppression not just in our society but in any society around the world.

The Liberal Viewpoint

 It is perfectly acceptable and rationally sound as a Liberal NOT to accept and tolerate everything. As Karl Popper explains; 'Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them...We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant'. So to support pluralism and oppose the Berka for example or other religious/cultural customs that subjugate certain individuals is not in fact hypocritical as many believe, rather it is an appropriate liberal response to discriminatory practices.

Arguments against those who believe homosexuality is 'unnatural'

This appeal to nature that is often made by those opposed to homosexuality is extremely weak and simply does not stand up to scrutiny. It's logical progression is that everything that is naturally occurring is acceptable and everything that is not naturally occurring is unacceptable. If we take the example of the tom cat who often eats his young should we therefore find infanticide and cannibalism acceptable? Nakedness is also natural so should we be lobbying to outlaw clothing? Not to mention the fact that biologists have documented thousands of cases of homosexuality in the natural world among other species. So if you are going to make homophobic arguments please at least try to come up with something a little better than 'it's not natural'.

Can you be a moral atheist?

There are many people who believe that without religion there would be no moral code for people to live by. This belief is based on the notion that God is the author of morality; those things that he commands are moral and the things that he forbids are immoral. Such a view gives no credence to the fact that morality is in fact a basic function of social interaction and human society. Scientific experiments have shown that children display an innate sense of justice from a very young age; communities of apes have also been shown to behave in ways that demonstrate a set of social values that are upheld within each community. Furthermore history has shown that religion and morality very often do not go hand in hand; the Christian Crusades and Islamic Jihads are just two examples of religion leading to grossly immoral actions. The reality is that religion is not necessary for morality to exist. Moral values can be based on reason and our innate sense of justice as fairness.

Racism and it's objective failings

Notions of race are simply outdated and baseless. Scientists have proven that there is no significant genetic difference between the so-called races - white, black, asian, whatever. To believe that being black implies any difference beyond skin colour is simply false. Being of a particular skin colour is just that and nothing else. 
The reason why many people in Ireland fall into the habit of racism is because, whether knowingly or unknowingly, they are subscribing to collectively constructed thoughts that are dominated by a white male world view. We all have a choice of whether to follow collective thought like sheep or to evaluate the information around us and come to educated decisions about what we believe to be true. Personally, I subscribe to Enlightenment values; objectivity, reason and evidence and I base my beliefs on what these values bring to the fore. In the case of racism, as I have stated above, it simply does not stand up to scrutiny. It is an ill-informed and baseless standpoint and one which maginalises and silences vast swaths of individuals who have as much right to be seen and heard as any white male.

The Open Society and It's Enemies.

Many think that Liberalism implies tolerance for any view point, but Liberalism is the notion that everyone should have the right to pursue the life they wish to lead as long as doing so does not impinge on that same right for others. So, Liberalism does not for example insist that we should accept all religions and ideologies regardless of their customs and practices, rather it insists that all customs and practices should be held to account and if they prove to be denying the rights of others they should be checked. In short, we do not have to, nor should we, tolerate illiberal views such as those that would vote liberal democracy out of existence. Rather we should work to further Liberalism by standing up for the rights of all individuals to live their lives as they choose.