[MD] Transhumanism

[Krimel]

Matt:
This, I take it, is the largest point in the area--the one that 
rains down on the other smaller, particular things--and it is 
one we agree on.  (The caucus metaphor is great.)  And I 
think agreeing on it pretty much washes away anything else 
in this particular area (like the question of "continuous or 
discontinuous?" which I take to be a debate not worth 
having once we agree on the larger point: it just becomes 
one of emphasis, because in another context I could have 
just as easily taken the "continuous" stance).

[Krimel]
Sure, after all what else could the pictures in the gallery metaphor mean
anyway?

Matt:
I keep trying to use "divergent interests" as an explanation 
for a lot of conflict in the MD, particularly when it's 
generated by me, but people don't generally like that 
answer for some reason (so that I've sensed).

[Krimel]
I have no problem with that at all. Isn't part of the reason for talking at
all; to see where divergent interests converge? It is the insistence that
divergence is evil, wrong or stupid that winds up really pisses me off.

Krimel said:
I recently tried to engage some of my high school 
classmates in a political discussion. After a bit of heat at 
the onset I tried to step back and direct the conversation 
to the differences between not what but how liberals think. 
You know compare worldviews....

Matt:
Geez-ez, where'd you grow up?  Actually, come to think 
of it, I've been in a bubble most of my adult life.  I can't 
imagine what people from my high school think now...  Did 
you find it easier to talk about worldview than details?  

[Krimel]
That is the really question here and I apologize for not getting to it
sooner. This is my last full day in Boston and I wasted way too much of it
on Dave's ludicrous "reductionist" nonsense. That will be laid to rest
permanently as soon as I get some extra time back home.

[Matt]
I don't talk about politics enough with outsiders to have 
developed enough experiential evidence, but there's a big 
difference between the two, and I haven't a sense of 
which is more important to talk about.  Because I think 
you have to make a distinction in practice: in the 
short-term, details--the what--are more important, but in 
the long-term, worldview--the how.  Which is more 
important to talk about in the fleeting conversations we 
have in life, and which is easiest?

[Krimel]
Right again. I don't think there can be all that much "what" if there is
agreement on "how". That has always been a big part of my urge towards
becoming a generalist. I spent years reading and studying Christian history
and theology in an effort to understand my neighbors and family members. As
far as actually being able to communicate with them, it was largely wasted
effort. In the end I came to see within the Christian tradition ideas that
were every bit as subtle and profound as those found in either philosophy or
theology but they are hard to see and ignored in most circles. In fact the
denominations that have provided glimpses of them have tended to lose
members the fastest. Many years ago Time magazine describe this well by
saying that the mainline denominations had ended up providing their members
with theological justifications for agnosticism. But that is another long
story...

[Matt]
You mentioned all the nutty stuff your classmates thought, 
and it reminded me of every time I drive home with my 
girlfriend from San Diego (a long drive in a nameless 
direction, though I'll give you a hint: not west).  We always 
leave San Diego talking about religion, because she's what 
we call a "militant atheist," recovering from an oppressive 
religious upbringing which she made up in her head (don't 
ask me why), and her best friend in San Diego has recently 
come out of the closest as an evangelical Christian (nicest 
girl).  So far I've found myself in the weird position of being 
the moderator, nudging my girlfriend when she starts to 
say things that she half the time doesn't even realize are 
rude to believers.

[Krimel]
After a kind of rude start on my part I tried to back-up and talk about the
way that our beliefs are a combination of our passions and emotions guided
or reinforced by logic. I laid out a series of descriptions of possible
differences in the way liberals and conservatives think. It went something
like this:

"Maybe it is because liberals rely more on reason than emotion but many
conservatives would get all pissed off and say I have it backwards. 

Or maybe neither side can distinguish their reasons from their emotions. 

Or maybe liberals tend to rely more on the specific emotion of compassion
and conservatives tend to rely anger or fear. 

Or maybe it's because liberals see truth as relative and conservatives see
truth as absolute. 

Or maybe it has to do with change. Liberals often advocate for social change
and dream of some future Utopia while conservatives want things to stay the
same or return to the good old days."

Things quickly degenerated into the whats I outlined earlier. Of course I am
biased but two things stood out. This particular group could not distinguish
between literal and metaphorical ways of speaking. For example, when someone
says taxation is theft or abortion is murder, I take these to be rhetorical
indications of depth of passion or strength of conviction that these things
are wrong. But taxation is not literally theft and abortion is not literally
murder. These folks were not making this distinction. The fact that this was
"how" they thought, more or less determined "what" they thought.

The statement was made repeatedly that "facts are facts" when I tried to
point out that facts are rarely disputed but the meaning of those facts are
rarely agreed upon; that just never gained traction. There was a long
discussion about the constitution which when a lot like your typical
Platt/Arlo debate. They argued that the Supreme Court was "creating illegal
laws" I tried to explain that this was an oxymoron. The Court is charge with
defining what _is_ legal, their decisions cannot be called "illegal". As you
can imagine in the end there was lots of heat and almost no light.

I concluded with this:

"I will be coming home soon, to the place where I was raised among the
people I grew up with. Where I am misunderstood and have learned to keep my
mouth shut. It is a skill I acquired just after graduating from high school.
I worked in the City Motor Pool, steam cleaning garbage trucks. One day some
conservative mechanics were talking about attending a Klan Rally where an
M-1 carbine would be given away as a door prize. I thought it was a joke.
They had to be kidding but the response was "That shit ain't funny, college
boy." 40 years later apparently the topic has changed but the thought
process hasn't and you know what? This shit still ain't funny."

Well, that went over like a turd in the punch bowl and I have resumed
keeping my mouth shut. 

[Matt]
Such a reflective beginning usually ends (after 7 hours) 
with her saying moderately insane things, like "Why don't 
we just bust in on the Mormon compounds and take these 
child abusers down?"  "What, and just throw the Bill of 
Rights out the window?"  "Well, just this one time...we 
know they're doin' it..."  So for the last hour I do my best 
to justify liberalism, a human rights culture, and the rule of 
law--which she damn well already believes in--before 
finally going, "Egh--you're just being contrary aren't you?  
You're just sounding crazy to see what I'll say."  "Yeah, 
probably."

[Krimel]
See, a slightly more genteel version of my rant with similar if less hostile
outcomes. Funny we get parallel outcomes here as well... 

[Matt]
You go through life talking to everybody you meet 
differently.  I don't believe in God, think a lot of 
Christianity hocus-pocus death-denial, but why on earth 
would I want to get into a theological discussion with a 
sweet, kind person who just wants to help the starving 
children in Africa and whose 29-year-old brother was 
recently crushed to death underneath a semi-trailor?  And 
being there and cognizant and _able_, why shouldn't I run 
screen for beliefs I don't believe in when the objective is 
the minimization of cruelty--my girlfriend's to her best 
friend?

[Krimel]
Yeah, I do the toned down version of this with my Mom, who knits sweaters
for starving kids in Cleveland. We have been going at it for about 35 years
since she got "born again" while I was away in college. We actually kind of
have fun at it. She is one of the most accomplished "folk artists" I have
ever seen. She can make incredible things from egg cartons and the plastic
rings that used to hold six packs of beer together. But she talks about
praying for and receiving good parking spaces at the Mall during the
Christmas rush. Her take on our conflicts is that her children have more
respect for "the works of her hands than the words of her mouth." I think
that is her way of articulating the fact that we disagree about both the
whats and the hows.

[Matt]
I think the American trend that Richard Hofstadter called 
"anti-intellectualism" is the revolt of the inarticulate against 
the articulate.  And there not exactly wrong on the 
personal level.  In the short-run, the articulate need to do 
better at talking to the inarticulate.  The onus is on us, 
and we are horrible at it much of the time.  It is only in the 
long-run where we are unarguably right: we need to make 
everyone articulate.

[Krimel]
Hofstadter's book is great and greatly reviled on the right. But your point
about discourse is well taken. I am actually pretty good at discourse with
Christians partly as a result of fairly extensive study and partly because I
have mostly been arguing with my Mom. It is relatively easy to dismiss many
of the more absurd claims of fundamentalists in a serious conversation but
oddly for me at least, it have proven more difficult to point out the
seriously profound aspects of Christian theology to my fellow agnostics.