How to be a Human Animal, Chapter 28: Morality and What to Do Next?

This is Chapter 28 of my advice to a hypothetical baby. I'm using this website to act out my time-travel fantasy of going back give myself pointers on how to avoid some of Life’s potholes. If I only knew what I now know . . . All of these chapters (soon to be 100) can be found here.

Why do people do the things they do? How can we make sense of all of this talk about what is "moral," and what is "right" and "wrong." These are an extremely difficult topics. As we already discussed, however, we need to beware systematizers who scold you to based on their mono-rules of morality. That was the main take-away from the previous chapter.

In this chapter, I’ll briefly discuss three approaches to morality that don’t rely on such simplistic rules. The first of these thinkers is Aristotle, who still has so very much to offer to us almost 2,500 years after he lived. His view of what it means to be virtuous is a holistic set of skills that requires lifelong practice. What a change of pace from the mono-rules of other philosophers. I’ll quote from Nancy Sherman’s book, Fabric of Character pp. 2 - 6:

As a whole, the Aristotelian virtues comprise just and decent ways of living as a social being. Included will be the generosity of benefactor, the bravery of citizen, the goodwill and attentiveness of friends, the temperance of a non-lascivious life. But human perfection, on this view, ranges further, to excellences whose objects are less clearly the weal and woe of others, such as a healthy sense of humor and a wit that bites without malice or anger. In the common vernacular nowadays, the excellences of character cover a gamut that is more than merely moral. Good character--literally, what pertains to ethics—is thus more robust than a notion of goodwill or benevolence, common to many moral theories. The full constellation will also include the excellence of a divine-like contemplative activity, and the best sort of happiness will find a place for the pursuit of pure leisure, whose aim and purpose has little to do with social improvement or welfare. Human perfection thus pushes outwards at both limits to include both the more earthly and the more divine.

But even when we restrict ourselves to the so-called ‘moral’ virtues (e.g. temperance, generosity, and courage), their ultimate basis is considerably broader than that of many alternative conceptions of moral virtue. Emotions as well as reason ground the moral response, and these emotions include the wide sentiments of altruism as much as particular attachments to specific others. . .  Pursuing the ends of virtue does not begin with making choices, but with recognizing the circumstances relevant to specific ends. In this sense, character is expressed in what one sees as much as what one does. Knowing how to discern the particulars, Aristotle stresses, is a mark of virtue.

It is not possible to be fully good without having practical wisdom , nor practically wise without having excellence of character  . . . Virtuous agents conceive of their well-being as including the well-being of others. It is not simply that they benefit each other, though to do so is both morally appropriate and especially fine. It is that, in addition, they design together a common good. This expands outwards to the polis and to its civic friendships and contracts inwards to the more intimate friendships of one or two. In both cases, the ends of the life become shared, and similarly the resources for promoting it. Horizons are expanded by the point of view of others, arid in the case of intimate relationships, motives are probed, assessed, and redefined.

Aristotle is talking to those of us who live in the real world, recognizing the complexity of the real world and helping us to navigate as best we can. Again, what a change from the mono-rules!  This real-world applicability and appreciation of nuance is something Aristotle has in common with the Stoics, which we discussed in Chapter 21. 

Here’s another approach, this one from modern times. For a long time, I've been almost obsessed that what we think of as moral is, in a real sense, beautiful and what we think of as immoral is ugly. Based on our reactions to situations that are "moral" and "immoral," there is no possible way that these things are not connected. Such an approach also recognizes that morality is not dictated by any static set of commandments or imperatives. Rather, both morality and art are, at least to some extent, in the eye of the beholder.

Continue ReadingHow to be a Human Animal, Chapter 28: Morality and What to Do Next?

How to Be a Human Animal, Chapter 23: What Are You Supposed to Do with Your Life on Planet Earth?

Even though you are a hypothetical baby, you will need to start figuring out what you are going to do with your presumably long hypothetical life. That is today's topic.

Louis CK has a bit where he says that older people like me have it easy, because we have most of our life behind us—maybe I’ll only need to buy one more coat in my last 25 years or so. A youngster like you, however has a ton of decisions to make over a period of decades, so how will you make use of this life you have been given? I'm trying to teach you things that I did not know while I was growing up, but I’m out of my league here. This will totally be your life, not mine at all. I’m only here to offer some navigation tools, not a purpose, not a “meaning of life” for you. By the way, all of these lessons (soon to be 100) can be found here.

But, again, we need to focus on your personal challenge: what you should do with your life. Perhaps this will remain a nonstop question until you reach old age and look backwards. Yes. I'm sure of it. It would be too damned hard to answer this question when you are young, even when you are a young adult, because you will have no basis for making even a wild guess. You’ve barely started out and the rate of change of culture and technology has reached dizzying speeds lately. And it's really not fair to ask this question to someone who has never before lived a life. But people will ask you over and over and you'll probably say something. What will you say? Cat Stevens asked the question in a song that I love:

Oh very young

What will you leave us this time?

You're only dancing on this Earth for a short while

Oh very young,

What will you leave us this time?

The Cat's song made it sound like Life will be happy travels, but it might not be happy at all. You’ll find out, of course, but only by taking one step after another. And another and another, and then you’ll look back. And you’ll look in your mirror. And you’ll squint as you look forward. And you’ll look back again and again and it might or might not make any sense. You might love your life or you might hate it. You might even commit suicide. I wish you the best, of course, but this is not a rehearsal. You are now using live ammunition. As Shakespeare wrote in MacBeth, this is a tale told over and over. It's only fair that I tell you that life can be wonderful or dangerous (or some combination) and it has sad endings for many of us:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

If you are lucky enough to get old and if you then look back at your life, you still might not understand why you did the things you did. Writer Harlan Ellison arrived at no such insights:

[My] fourth marriage just sort of happened: It seemed like a good idea at the time. In fact—and this is the core of all my wisdom about love—whenever we try to explain why we have done any particular thing, whether it’s buying T-bills or why we would live in a house in the mountains or why we took the trip to Lake Ronkonkoma, or whatever it was, the only rationale that ever rings with honesty is: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” We’re really no smarter than cactus or wolverines or plankton; and the things we do, we always like to justify them, find logical reasons for them; and then you go to court later and the judge says, “Well, didn’t you know that it was doomed from the start?” I’m waiting for someone to say to the judge, “Because, schmuck, I’m no smarter than you."

From A Curmudgeon’s Garden of Love, Compiled and edited by Jon Winokur, p. 50 (1991).

[More . . . ]

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“Race,” “News Media” and Shootings

I often use the word "race" in scare quotes because I don't believe that "race" is a useful phrase. In fact, it has caused nothing but mischief, violence and death ever since people began using the term. My position is that there are definitely some racists out there, but there is no such thing as "race." I have put the term "news media" in quotes because I have lost so much respect for so many of those organizations that claim to be bringing us the news based on numerous recent examples of a course of conduct that is more egregious than the negligence standard one might associate with journalism malpractice.

Political Scientist Wilfred Reilly is not afraid to step into the fray to state unvarnished truth. He is a former corporate executive and freedom rider, as well as author of the 2020 book Taboo: 10 Facts [You Can't Talk About].  In his introduction to that book, he states:

Tackling taboos is difficult, but necessary. Very often— MOST often— they are used not to shield strong and valid ideas from pointless attacks, but rather to protect weak ones from worthwhile criticism.

Reilly's statistics-rich discussion is now featured on FAIR's website: His article is titled, "The Broken Mirror: Media Narrative vs. Reality." The "news media" that leans politically to the Left is forcefully pushing a media is making people on the political Left unnecessarily angry (against police officers), but it should be making all of us angry (about the divisive narrative being pushed). Here is an excerpt:

In the representative year of 2018, inter-racial violent crime involving blacks and whites made up approximately 3 percent of all serious crime: there were only about 600,000 victim-reported incidents involving a black perpetrator and a white victim, or vice-versa, out of more than 20,000,000 total crimes. Further, of the violent inter-racial crime that does occur, more than 80 percent of reported incidents involved a black perpetrator and a white victim. The data tables in the 2018 Bureau of Justice Statistics Report include more than 500,000 black-on-white violent incidents, but well under 100,000 violent crimes that were white-on-black. While this finding is not necessarily surprising—there are far more whites than blacks, and whites, on average, have more money to be stolen—it would likely come as a shock to most upper-middle class Americans. As would another piece of data: according to the Washington Post, the total number of unarmed black men killed by police during the most recent year on record (2020) was not 10,000, or 1,000, but 17. That bears spelling out: in the year where America was supposedly inundated with white supremacist violence, where America was in the grips of a “racial reckoning” that included, in no small part, the acknowledgement of the “state-sanctioned murder” of young black men, only SEVENTEEN unarmed black men died at the hands of police officers.

This data leads us to an obvious question: why do so many smart people believe inter-ethnic violence is so much worse than it is? . . .Basic data about inter-racial violence often seem not merely ignored by mainstream media sources, but actively misrepresented.

In Taboo, I point out that about 75 percent of individuals fatally shot by police in a typical year are Caucasian whites or Hispanics. However, national media outlets devote less than 20 percent of their police violence coverage to these cases. A Google search for “well-known police shooting,” conducted in 2020 in connection with the book, turned up articles which covered two police shootings of Latinos, four police shootings of whites, and 36 police shootings of blacks. This level of over-representation of black victims in coverage (2,400 percent) could hardly be the result of anything but very conscious choice—and respected social scientists like John Lott have argued empirically that media treatment of a range of issues, from political extremism to mass shootings, follows a similar troubling pattern.

I'm not going to pretend that I could add anything to Reilly's detailed analysis, but reading his article did cause me to wonder whether part of the media strategy was to stir up conflict and hate, thereby selling ads and rewarding loyal followers. As I read Reilly's statistics, I can't help but think of Matt Taibbi's book, Hate, Inc., in which he argues "that what most people think of as 'the news' is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business.

At the conclusion of his article, Reilly argues that it's time for the new outlets to step up and do real journalism:

In order for our country to truly address the vestiges of racism that still exist, it’s essential that the media provide a clear and honest picture of racial relations in contemporary America.

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How to be a Human Animal, Chapter 9: Learn How to Do Millions of Little Things

Chapter 9: Learn How to Do Millions of Little Things

OK! I’m back with more advice for a newborn baby. This is my ninth lesson on how to thrive in the complex world. Baby, as you have probably figured out, I’m giving you the advice that I wish I had learned earlier and easier. I’m spoon-feeding you, but not with baby food. I'm feeding you with lessons I learned at the school of hard knocks.

What should you be doing when you are very young? You would think that I would tell you to work hard to do some really big and important things, but I’m going to suggest the opposite: You should get busy learning lots and lots of little things. These countless little things will enable you to accomplish big things decades later.

In the context of natural selection, Richard Dawkins once used the metaphor the problem of scaling the extremely high sheer cliff of Mount Improbable. Here’s how this metaphor came to be. People are amazed at the human eye (as they should be—-see Chapter 7) but they erroneously conclude “It’s impossible that such an amazing thing could evolve! It would be like a human being jumping thousands of feet into the air in order to get to the top of a sheer cliff.” Dawkins then lays out the clear evidence that many extremely simple eyes were actually probable in early life forms. He then describes the steps by which very simple eyes could be improved incrementally, in thousands of ways over millions of generations. There is no need to leap thousands of feet to get to the top of the sheer front cliff of Mount Improbable. That’s because you can drive around to the back side of Mount Improbable where you will find a long inclined hiking path you can use to walk slowly up the hundreds of switchbacks to get to the same high point of the mountain. Thus, there are two different methods to get to the top, one of them impossible (leaping) and the other achievable with determination and time (hiking a longer path of switchbacks).

I’m 65 years old now and I’ve done some a few things that have impressed some other people. Every one of those difficult things took a large number of mundane-seeming and achievable skills and years or decades of time. I learned countless numbers of smallish achievable things that added up over the decades. Things like learning how to read in the first grade, or learning to play a C chord on a guitar, or learning how to use a computer mouse, or learning how a camera aperture works. My “secret weapon” is that I’m a scrapper—I don’t give up. I grind away on something until I figure it out or until I’m exhausted. I’ve learned many things by sheer grit and experimentation. After decades of doing this, I have accumulated a large took kit of skills that can be used for achieving complex things like being a lawyer or composing music or raising children or publishing a book of my digital art. My “secret” is that I have exploited “compounding” to my advantage.

Shane Parrish of Farnham Street notes that “Compounding” is a concept commonly used in the realm of finance. It refers to making interest on your interest, a phenomenon familiar to anyone trying to retire. Parrish notes that compounding is also a useful concept when applied to things outside of finance.  In “The Mundanity of Excellence,” Daniel F. Chambliss makes the case that numerous low-level skills can be leveraged into extraordinary achievements. In fact, he reminds us that great talent can happen only when we stand on the shoulders of numerous sub-talents. Excellence is the icing on the cake of mundacity:

Excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence. When a swimmer learns a proper flip turn in the freestyle races, she will swim the race a bit faster; then a streamlined push off from the wall, with the arms squeezed together over the head, and a little faster; then how to place the hands in the water so no air is cupped in them; then how to lift them over the water; then how to lift weights to properly build strength, and how to eat the right foods, and to wear the best suits for racing, and on and on. Each of those tasks seems small in itself, but each allows the athlete to swim a bit faster. And having learned and consistently practiced all of them together, and many more besides, the swimmer may compete in the Olympic Games. The winning of a gold medal is nothing more than the synthesis of a countless number of such little things—even if some of them are done unwittingly or by others, and thus called “luck.”

I completely agree with Shane Parrish and Daniel Chambliss. Anything impressive that I’ve done is the result of 1,000 tiny things I’ve worked on much earlier in my life.That has included numerous little failures as well as work-arounds. I did these things because I have always been curious, energetic and relentless. Frankly, I have never done anything impressive that didn't take more than a decade of work that was then aggregated.

But here is a warning: Compounding can run in the opposite direction too. Enormous failures start with little missteps. Here’s one that is based on a real life story with which I’m familiar: “Hey, my wife had surgery and she has some leftover opioid painkiller. What the hell, I’ll try one and see how I feel.” Fast-forward five years and that person has a long history of sliding into many bad habits. He lost his focus and his will to achieve. He also lost his self-made business, destroyed his relationship with his kids. His only driving passion became his quest to find new ways of getting high.

I’ll end on a high note: One of the biggest ways compounding benefits you is the many small things you do to improve your reputation. As the saying goes, a good reputation is hard to earn and easy to lose. After you’ve spent your entire life trying to be trustworthy, truthful and kind, you’ll find that your reputation opens new doors for you, over and over. It’s easy to forget, though that this “superpower” of a good reputation was something you assembled over decades through truth-telling, hard work and kindness. Similarly, good health is usually the result of hundreds of mundane-seeming habits and routines.

Again, my advice to you is to aim low. Do lots and lots of little things. The world is your playroom. Practice many low-level skills and master them. Decades later you will be able to aggregate these into what other people think of as a super power, even though you know better.

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