The other day I was voicing strong criticism of the muslim hijab. This lead to a discussion of "but forcing them not to wear it is as bad as them being forced to wear it," this lead to a ridiculous situation where both sides were using the same argument: prejudice is wrong, regardless of the message. Therefore we can't criticise people from other cultures because that's prejudice and prejudice is wrong.
This is actually a very important issue. One that Sam Harris has already brought up. People who are prejudice against prejudice like to think that they are occupying a strong moral high ground because it can not easily be attacked.
Wrong.
Fristly, prejudice is part of human nature. Everyone has prejudices. If you don't think you're prejudiced then consider that without them your sense of self must be by definition be so tenuous that you simply don't matter because you have no opinions, dreams, goals or will of your own.
Secondly, not all prejudices are bad: I hate lies. I hate liars. I hate laziness. I hate disease. I hate death. I hate religion. I hate manipulators. I hate insecurities. I hate ignorance. I hate cowardice. I hate poverty. I hate greed. I hate inequalities. I hate bullies. I hate injustice. I hate impatience. I hate intolerance. I hate defeatism. I hate disrespect. I hate stupidity.
Thirdly, prejudices could conceviably be positive (Prejudice, n, Any preconceived opinion or feeling, whether positive or negative): I like life. I like people. I like Australia. I like honesty. I like self-control. I like courage. I like determination. I like kindness. I like understanding. I like independance. I like action. I like creativity.
Fourthly, prejudice is the foundation of morality. One person's prejudice is another's moral code. We can have conflicting moral feelings and that's very common. We can argue about the reasons why we have our different likes and hates. But you cannot attack me simply for having those feelings.
for example:
Person A: I hate foreigners who don't conform to our ways and culture.
Person B: You're a racist bigot.
Person C: Really? It doesn't upset me that much. Why does it upset you when foreigners don't conform to our ways and culture?
Who is more moral, person B or C?
Answer: none, they are all moral entities - one is either moral or not moral, there is no spectrum here.
Who is the more wise, person B or C?
I would argue that person C is the most wise because they have responded respectfully and honestly, while I would argue that person B is applying a very simplistic category-based system of morality because they have attacked another person for simply expressing an opinion.
I think one should consider the type of morality one has:
Is it category based? (Good guys and bad guys)
Is it value based? (Honesty, consistency, kindness etc...)
Is it reason based? (Because X = Y and then Y = Z this person should be treated like that even though usually when Y = Z we treat them like this)
If you are threatened by other people's opinions (as opposed by their actions) then remember that what a person thinks and what a person does are completely different things. If someone has opinions that upset you remember that logically you must have opinions that upset them. I suggest that we don't worry about getting upset about what other people's opinions, we just focus on getting upset with their actions.
Some food for thought:
If you don't like racism simply because it is wrong... can you still be a racist?
If you like your culture more than others are you being racist?
Can you like one thing and not hate its opposite?
Showing posts with label morality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label morality. Show all posts
17 May, 2010
15 January, 2010
The Myth of Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is a term used by almost everyone these days. I often find myself talking to people about this concept but very quickly realise that neither the person that I'm talking to nor myself have any idea what precisely we mean by this. So do we mean that a person thinks highly about themselves because they do? Or do we mean that everyone has a scale somewhere in their mind where they measure their self worth at any given time based on what other people think about them? Or something else entirely?
Over the years I've started to build up a mental list of the properties that self-esteem has:
1. It distorts reality
2. It varies from day to day, place to place
3. Too little is very painful
4. Too little makes people act in desperate and self-destructive ways
5. Too much makes a person very difficult to deal with
6. Despite being called 'self'-esteem most people don't give it to themselves.
7. The qualities that a person has that boost their self-esteem are quite subjective.
First I want to talk about where people get self-esteem.
Some people just seem to be content and happy with themselves and their lot. Others are disappointed and with their bodies, lives and lot in life. There are lots of theories as to why self-esteem varies so much across the population. Most of them relate to how our parents raised us, did they encourage and praise us as children or were they jealous and over critical? Others suggest that it is a genetically determined trait and that naturally some people think they are awesome and others think that they are trash.
I'm not completely satisfied with either of these viewpoints because self-esteem can vary a from day to day and sometimes minute to minute. Therefore there is definitely some plasticisty in self-esteem. When I'm poor I don't feel very attractive, but give me a wad of cash and I instantly feel sexier. Also, when my friends hug me and tell me how much they appreciate me I feel much happier about myself. Also, when people don't smile at me or respond when I say 'good morning' to them I often feel low for the rest of the day.
For an interesting article about how happiness spreads click here.
So it would appear we get a good portion of our self-esteem from other people. This is a very important point... having friends and family who reinforce a positive self-image is something one can control to a degree. As always with these things one would want friends to reciprocate any pro-esteem building activities in as close to equal measures as possible. But at the end of that day this is the reason why 'no man is an island' <-- a great deal of our happiness depends on positive communications and experience with other people.
Then there's the fact that ones perception of the world is altered dramatically depending on how much self-esteem they have. People with low self-esteem under estimate their value, over estimate the importance of other people, deny themselves things other people would freely take and often develop a cynical and bleak view on relationships. Whereas people with high self-esteem will over estimate their importance, dismiss other people as being less valuable and feel entitled to give themselves more breaks and perks thn other people. They will also think life is pretty damn good to them except for all of the other useless people getting in their way, perhaps.
I find changes in my self-esteem level disconcerting because I can see how they alter my spending patterns and decisions in relationships. Again, I'm a bit of a control freak and desire consistently in what I do so changes in self-esteem make me feel doubtful about my intellectual and creative abilities. Although really, unless the change is dramatic it doesn't appear noticeable to most people and I really do enjoy the odd spending spree!
When one has very low self-esteem one is left virtually defenceless and continuously embattled in relationships... it seems like a cruel trick because just having higher self-esteem can rescue struggling relationships but low self-esteem seems to destroy them totally even if the initial problems weren't that serious.
So surely it is best to have high self-esteem rather than low self-esteem? Well... I think the dangers of suicide and emotional trauma are lower for people with high self-esteem but at the same time everyone has worked for a boss whose high self-esteem does nothing back create frustration and inefficiently in the work place. Some form of moderation for self-esteem is needed. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest we just ditch this whole concept of self-esteem because it just isn't helpful: it is unclear what it means and actually serves to create more confusion about where real problems lie.
The more I think about it the problems of self-esteem are all just problems of relating to people. Fix your relationships with people and the esteem problems will disappear. The key to having good relationships is having them rooted in honesty, empathy and mutual reciprocation of needs. These elements all help to curb delusion and get things into perspective.
To illustrate what I mean by the lack of perspective and the delusions of self-esteem let's look at the things that boost people's self-esteem.
Being physically attractive
Being appreciated for kindness
Being listened to / respected
Being accepted as a valuable part of a community
Being talented in a rare or unique way
Physically attractive people feel good about themselves because everyone around them treats them with special attention and admiration. Not because they deserve it but because they might have won a genetic lottery. I'm unconvinced by this genetically superior argument as a great number of important people in history were physically ugly, infertile or homosexual and not beautiful heterosexual models of physical perfection. Rabbits demonstrate to us that want breeds quickly and efficiently isn't necessarily useful or desireable to civilisation. If you want to know more about how physically attractive people are really a burden on society read this article carefully.
So really, what all of these things point too is that by treating everyone with kindness, respect and dignity we can eliminate all self-esteem problems. By treating some people with special reverence simply because they are higher up the heirarchy or they look like great sex warmed up then you're unwittingly creating/perpetuating the very social order that grinds down on everyone. While investing time into developing a useful skill or talent is a sure way to boost your happiness.
I'm an atheist and I've just argued through reason that kindness, respect, understanding and self-discipline are universally good ideals to strive for. I did this without appealing to a supernatural entity. What's more, my explanation why it is so can be tested by experiment and observation. Also that maybe we should seriously consider deleting the concept of 'self-esteem' from our lexicons because it moves the focus away from what we can do to what we are. We can't change what we are, but we can change what we do.
Over the years I've started to build up a mental list of the properties that self-esteem has:
1. It distorts reality
2. It varies from day to day, place to place
3. Too little is very painful
4. Too little makes people act in desperate and self-destructive ways
5. Too much makes a person very difficult to deal with
6. Despite being called 'self'-esteem most people don't give it to themselves.
7. The qualities that a person has that boost their self-esteem are quite subjective.
First I want to talk about where people get self-esteem.
Some people just seem to be content and happy with themselves and their lot. Others are disappointed and with their bodies, lives and lot in life. There are lots of theories as to why self-esteem varies so much across the population. Most of them relate to how our parents raised us, did they encourage and praise us as children or were they jealous and over critical? Others suggest that it is a genetically determined trait and that naturally some people think they are awesome and others think that they are trash.
I'm not completely satisfied with either of these viewpoints because self-esteem can vary a from day to day and sometimes minute to minute. Therefore there is definitely some plasticisty in self-esteem. When I'm poor I don't feel very attractive, but give me a wad of cash and I instantly feel sexier. Also, when my friends hug me and tell me how much they appreciate me I feel much happier about myself. Also, when people don't smile at me or respond when I say 'good morning' to them I often feel low for the rest of the day.
For an interesting article about how happiness spreads click here.
So it would appear we get a good portion of our self-esteem from other people. This is a very important point... having friends and family who reinforce a positive self-image is something one can control to a degree. As always with these things one would want friends to reciprocate any pro-esteem building activities in as close to equal measures as possible. But at the end of that day this is the reason why 'no man is an island' <-- a great deal of our happiness depends on positive communications and experience with other people.
Then there's the fact that ones perception of the world is altered dramatically depending on how much self-esteem they have. People with low self-esteem under estimate their value, over estimate the importance of other people, deny themselves things other people would freely take and often develop a cynical and bleak view on relationships. Whereas people with high self-esteem will over estimate their importance, dismiss other people as being less valuable and feel entitled to give themselves more breaks and perks thn other people. They will also think life is pretty damn good to them except for all of the other useless people getting in their way, perhaps.
I find changes in my self-esteem level disconcerting because I can see how they alter my spending patterns and decisions in relationships. Again, I'm a bit of a control freak and desire consistently in what I do so changes in self-esteem make me feel doubtful about my intellectual and creative abilities. Although really, unless the change is dramatic it doesn't appear noticeable to most people and I really do enjoy the odd spending spree!
When one has very low self-esteem one is left virtually defenceless and continuously embattled in relationships... it seems like a cruel trick because just having higher self-esteem can rescue struggling relationships but low self-esteem seems to destroy them totally even if the initial problems weren't that serious.
So surely it is best to have high self-esteem rather than low self-esteem? Well... I think the dangers of suicide and emotional trauma are lower for people with high self-esteem but at the same time everyone has worked for a boss whose high self-esteem does nothing back create frustration and inefficiently in the work place. Some form of moderation for self-esteem is needed. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest we just ditch this whole concept of self-esteem because it just isn't helpful: it is unclear what it means and actually serves to create more confusion about where real problems lie.
The more I think about it the problems of self-esteem are all just problems of relating to people. Fix your relationships with people and the esteem problems will disappear. The key to having good relationships is having them rooted in honesty, empathy and mutual reciprocation of needs. These elements all help to curb delusion and get things into perspective.
To illustrate what I mean by the lack of perspective and the delusions of self-esteem let's look at the things that boost people's self-esteem.
Being physically attractive
Being appreciated for kindness
Being listened to / respected
Being accepted as a valuable part of a community
Being talented in a rare or unique way
Physically attractive people feel good about themselves because everyone around them treats them with special attention and admiration. Not because they deserve it but because they might have won a genetic lottery. I'm unconvinced by this genetically superior argument as a great number of important people in history were physically ugly, infertile or homosexual and not beautiful heterosexual models of physical perfection. Rabbits demonstrate to us that want breeds quickly and efficiently isn't necessarily useful or desireable to civilisation. If you want to know more about how physically attractive people are really a burden on society read this article carefully.
So really, what all of these things point too is that by treating everyone with kindness, respect and dignity we can eliminate all self-esteem problems. By treating some people with special reverence simply because they are higher up the heirarchy or they look like great sex warmed up then you're unwittingly creating/perpetuating the very social order that grinds down on everyone. While investing time into developing a useful skill or talent is a sure way to boost your happiness.
I'm an atheist and I've just argued through reason that kindness, respect, understanding and self-discipline are universally good ideals to strive for. I did this without appealing to a supernatural entity. What's more, my explanation why it is so can be tested by experiment and observation. Also that maybe we should seriously consider deleting the concept of 'self-esteem' from our lexicons because it moves the focus away from what we can do to what we are. We can't change what we are, but we can change what we do.
14 December, 2009
Secular Morality Begins with Death
While I am certain there are atheists who believe in an afterlife. I am, however, not one of them. For me it is a certain fact that when any living creature dies the components of its body completely break down and are redistributed throughout the world from where they originally came. The mind, or spirit, of an individual is merely the product of the arrangement of structures inside the brain of the individual and are lost forever after death.
For me, this is where secular morality has its foundation. Consider that an individual fork, although useful, is not important simply because it is easily replaced. However, a human being is not like a fork and cannot be replaced. This is where I draw the sanctity of life from. When I think about my friends, family, loved ones and even those people whom I do not like... then I imagine the gravity of death means I find myself struggling to express the full horror that is death. Simply because there is not afterlife, there is no resurrection. Once dead a person is always dead and their spirit lost forever and irreplacable. Their beauty, physically and spiritually, lost to us forever. Their love, care, help, kindness and company never to be felt again. The places they made come alive will also died without them... their prized possessions will become knick-knacks and junk... their deeper meaning also lost to the living.
For this reason there is no crime worse than murder, and the reason for this conclusion is simply because there is no afterlife. If there was an afterlike, then yes, so what if you kill someone? They'll be alive somewhere else or they'll simply reincarnate. As an atheist I often feel uncomfortable with people who believe in an afterlife because I am scared that they don't value human life as preciously as I do.
I sometimes sit next to war memorials and weep as I read the names of the people who gave their lives for their country and communities - wittingly and unwittingly. As an atheist I find their heroism truly inspiring because I don't have nearly that much courage. Sometimes I think to myself, "Did they only offer their lives like that because they sincerely believed in heaven? Or did they on some level know that they were going to die and that would be the end of it and therefore their love and sacrifice was so noble it rightly makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end in awe?"
Honestly, I suspect most people know on some level that death really is final. It doesn't make sense why we would be against murder and war if the great mass of people didn't realise there wasn't an atherlife. The idea that people are against murder on the grounds that a benevolent God would cast them into a lake of eternal fire a punishment doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense in the logically internally consistent way a good argument should but also when someone close to oneself dies one is deeply affected by the loss unless one actually believes in an afterlife. If this person does believe in an afterlife then once again, I feel scared that they do not value life as strongly as I do because feeling deeply affected by a loved ones passing is a natural, rational emotion and for me as an atheist, it is the foundation of a strong moral sensibility.
Once I realised with full consciousness how fleeting, short and fragile life is that is when I feel that I ceased to be a moral entity based primarily on obeying a code of rules but became a person from whom justice truly lives in the heart. To hate murder, to hate war, to hate people who damage the enjoyment of other people's lives pointlessly.
And yes, I do hate, I hate those who take life or spend other peoples life as though they were currency. These people are verily the enemy of life itself.
For me, this is where secular morality has its foundation. Consider that an individual fork, although useful, is not important simply because it is easily replaced. However, a human being is not like a fork and cannot be replaced. This is where I draw the sanctity of life from. When I think about my friends, family, loved ones and even those people whom I do not like... then I imagine the gravity of death means I find myself struggling to express the full horror that is death. Simply because there is not afterlife, there is no resurrection. Once dead a person is always dead and their spirit lost forever and irreplacable. Their beauty, physically and spiritually, lost to us forever. Their love, care, help, kindness and company never to be felt again. The places they made come alive will also died without them... their prized possessions will become knick-knacks and junk... their deeper meaning also lost to the living.
For this reason there is no crime worse than murder, and the reason for this conclusion is simply because there is no afterlife. If there was an afterlike, then yes, so what if you kill someone? They'll be alive somewhere else or they'll simply reincarnate. As an atheist I often feel uncomfortable with people who believe in an afterlife because I am scared that they don't value human life as preciously as I do.
I sometimes sit next to war memorials and weep as I read the names of the people who gave their lives for their country and communities - wittingly and unwittingly. As an atheist I find their heroism truly inspiring because I don't have nearly that much courage. Sometimes I think to myself, "Did they only offer their lives like that because they sincerely believed in heaven? Or did they on some level know that they were going to die and that would be the end of it and therefore their love and sacrifice was so noble it rightly makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end in awe?"
Honestly, I suspect most people know on some level that death really is final. It doesn't make sense why we would be against murder and war if the great mass of people didn't realise there wasn't an atherlife. The idea that people are against murder on the grounds that a benevolent God would cast them into a lake of eternal fire a punishment doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense in the logically internally consistent way a good argument should but also when someone close to oneself dies one is deeply affected by the loss unless one actually believes in an afterlife. If this person does believe in an afterlife then once again, I feel scared that they do not value life as strongly as I do because feeling deeply affected by a loved ones passing is a natural, rational emotion and for me as an atheist, it is the foundation of a strong moral sensibility.
Once I realised with full consciousness how fleeting, short and fragile life is that is when I feel that I ceased to be a moral entity based primarily on obeying a code of rules but became a person from whom justice truly lives in the heart. To hate murder, to hate war, to hate people who damage the enjoyment of other people's lives pointlessly.
And yes, I do hate, I hate those who take life or spend other peoples life as though they were currency. These people are verily the enemy of life itself.
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