On the dangerous trail to dystopia

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Adam Smith

 Just tonight, the major television networks refused, refused, to interrupt their broadcast for fifteen minutes so that the President could give a speech about illegal immigrants. They did not refuse for moral reasons but financial ones as November is a ratings sweep. Nielsen points would not be traded so that the President could explain that his next actions were to keep families together while Congress continues it's self-imposed gridlock. Neither side of Congress wants to deal with this issue, because if illegal immigrants are granted a path to citizenship, then the businesses that own the politicians would be forced to pay not only a living wage to these humans, but taxes as well.

And the headlines coming out of Ferguson, MO are being ignored. Worse, when they are not there is bitter division. When did peaceful protest become such a horrible thing? Yes, there has been violence, but the majority of it has come from those meant to protect. Humans have become expendable.

I find it interesting the people have read the Hunger Games and seen the movies, yet are clearly unable to see that that dystopian horror is not a dream, yet a reality that the United States is slipping into. The division between rich and poor grows at an alarming rate, yet few are bothered by it. Worse many view the ones most affected by the divide with increasing disdain, just as they view the protesters in Ferguson.

The cyclical nature of history has taught us nothing. This is the Roman Empire again. This is Nazi Germany again. This is the Soviet Union again. Google wants to build it's own cities. And still the people do not rise up against it. They are still "sheeple". They do not realize that these businesses are fearful of them finding a voice. One book had the power to make McDonald's start to faulter. Imagine what a hundred million voices could accomplish? But will it happen?

There must come a point where even the most fastidious of sheeple realizes that the politician one votes for really does not give a damn about them. That to affect political change one must have an affect on the profits of the corporations that control the politicians. That is the only way change can happen. Only way.

Politics: duty, religion, and/or the masses?

A minister friend of mine was asked about the recent US election and the disappointment voiced by those who put their faith in their version of a god and saw their candidate lose. He was asked how people in this situation should react. It got me thinking about the political process and the philosophical implications behind it.

The two predominant philosophies are either a) do what is best for the most (Bentham, Mill) or b) do what is best for duty to the most (Hegel, Kant). Very similar and the subtle differences is where the argument begins. Neither assumes any religiosity but I will attempt to interject that position as well (to satisfy the above).

In the first case, the argument is that politics should reflect what is the best for the most people possible. Some would argue that this is a derivation of Socialism, and without minutiae it is. But this in no way suggests that the result of an election represent this in any way. Popular vote does not equal beneficial for the most. What would would be a person elected who has the primary task of determining what the largest group needs and then providing it. In no way does this reflect the idea that the will of the people does the most good.

What is lost here is the subtle implications of what "beneficial to most" really means. In Nazi Germany it meant what benefitted the Aryan people the most. Under the Holy Roman Empire, Catholics (the minority) were those who benefited the most. Both cases the true meaning of "most" is lost. In this case is where religion intercedes and determines not only who the "most" is, but how they would best be benefited. In short, it is a facade concealing a dictatorship.

The second case seems the most obvious, until one argues what a duty is. Kant wrote his magnum opus on just that question, as did Kant. And yet to this day the argument of what is "duty" is still unanswered. To use the Holy Roman Empire example, the duty of a person was to attend mass, tithe, and follow the edicts of the Church. This duty was one proscribed by "god". But while the Empire was in command of vast areas, those who were Catholic were in the actual minority. What then of the veracity of duty?

To borrow from Rorty's public/private language construct, if a group of serial killers and a group of suicidal people were to form their own country, then the duty would be clearly defined as the killers would kill those who wished to die. Of course this is a ludicrous example, but it does serve to illustrate the ambiguity of the concept of "duty".

How then to resolve? If one discounts duty as being illogical and best for all as impossible, then the only solution is to follow Nietzsche's solution to eternal recurrence: to do whatever one wishes that is outside what is expected. To be who one wishes to be without law or deference to others. It is the base concept behind his Zarathustra.

The argument goes that religion and duty only serve to shackle a person and since one is bound to live the same life for eternity, in order to not be a slave, one must cast the shackles off at every opportunity. Proto-anarchy. It is not pure anarchy, which is completely lawless. One still follows the laws that are beneficial to oneself, ones that would benefit all lifetimes for eternity. In this regard one incurs Existential angst, but the benefit outweighs the cost.

To not play the game of life

To paraphrase a friend, "the real us is never shown as we embrace the illusion, the game." I have to ask whether this is actual truth. Do we show each potential mate/partner/friend the make believe version of ourselves? Do we play mental and emotional chess with them? Is there a dividend that we earn that makes the deception worthy?

Historically people have fallen into cliques. Whether it is man v. woman to ivy league educated male v. coal mine supervisor male, there are cliques and they are always in opposition to other ones. To break this idea down further, are we our own clique? Do we selectively allow others to see the more "real" us, as opposed to making others "earn" their way into our own clique?

From the earliest we are taught to protect ourselves against all others, whether it is the subconscious lessons we have learned from our parents to the outright lessons of childhood. We learn to hide within ourselves. We must not be different. We must be what society expects us to be. And this is bullshit.

We look within and know we are not the personae that we pretend to be. We are the source of our own existential angst. Society expects "x" and we deliver. This is why homosexuality is taboo and still kept "in the closest" in many societies. It is why the religious cling to outdated idealism like marriage being between man and woman.

Nietzsche brought the idea of the Superman forth with Zarathustra. It complete defiance of social "norms" of being what one is expected to be. Nietzsche reminds us that if we wish to be something/someone that is known for all time, to be something other than a sheep, that we need to abandon the preconceived notion of who society thinks we need to be. We will be as we will be. Fuck society.

So how do I answer the friend about hiding the real us as part of the game?

When we lower ourselves to play the game, to be who we are not, to leave vague clues for others to puzzle out, we cheapen who we really are because we allow ourselves to become common, to become sheep. When we are able to hold ourselves above all others, without excuse, we attract those who are our equals, those who understand that we must rise above the mundane and be true to our own spirit/will. To be Zarathustra.

Integrity

"One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised." ~ Chinua Achebe

Let me preface this with stating that I am a former chef-restaurateur (though always a chef).

Had that thought mulling around my mind today. Being active on Yelp (http://www.yelp.com/) I've known all along that one day that someone would take offense to a negative review and contact me. And today was the day. The reason that I mention this is because the person that contacted me (marketing person doing damage control) offered to have me come back to the restaurant and eat for free.

So integrity was on my mind. I knew full well that this person was only interested in damage control. In fact I was a bit offended that a marketing person reached out and not the actual chef and/or owner. Purely an attempt to "fix" things. But my thoughts on accepting a free meal would not have been swayed had the latter occurred.

Integrity means to stand behind one's words and convictions no matter the consequences, as quoted above. I could have accepted this person's offer, had a free meal, and still stood by my review. But that would have lessened my integrity. How? Because I was willing to accept money/food for my opinion. Even if I wrote another damaging review of the restaurant I would no longer have the same integrity because I had accepted what was essentially an attempt at a bribe.

I politely informed the person that I appreciated the attempt at damage control, but because of my integrity I had to refuse this person's offer. For Sartre it is "values derive their meaning from an original projection of myself which stands as my choice of myself in the world." I chose to be genuine, to maintain my integrity.

What would human actions be if we knew if an afterlife existed?

I was in the cemetery the other day and a thought crossed my mind about the existence of an afterlife. It was not whether one existed or not, but what would humanity be like if we knew? How do we define our actions or even decide them? What is the affect of impulse?

There are 3 options to an afterlife, once we remove the need for a deity (with one there are 27 options): 1. it exists. 2. it does not exist. 3. it exists but is not a human normal conception of an afterlife.

Option 1: an afterlife exists. How do we proceed as a society?
As such it can be resonably assumed that if an afterlife existed and it was free of the constraints of morality/religion that it would consist of chaos. Rules would just be laughable. There would be no consequences, so why even worry about them? This is Nietzscheian Nirvana. Do whatever you wish and there are no repurcussions at all.

Option 2: actually this condition would support Nietzsche to a further extreme. Zero consequences. No question of them ever existing. One would be free to act as one wished at all times.

Option 3: Humans would most likely establish some sort limited morality system. It would be akin to hedging bets. Some things would be "taboo" for no other reason than chance would be against them for entering an afterlife.

In the end, Nietzsche was more brilliant than given credit for and knew that one's actions really were responsible only to the individual. Morality was a human construct and constructs in general were void. If rules exist, one should not consider them and just be.

Debugging morality v. ethics

It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. In solitude all this falls away. He who is evil is at his most evil in solitude: which is where he is at his best - and thus to the eye of him who sees everywhere only a spectacle also at his most beautiful.


from Nietzsche's Daybreak, s. 499, R.J. Hollingdale transl

All morality finds it basis in religion. It is religious "don't or do dos". The Bible has a codified list of things people should not do. Laws have been enacted based upon them. Many of those laws fall under what is known as the "Puritan Laws", but the majority are not.



And this is where ethics becomes distinctively separate. Sartre always argued that is there was no god, man would create himself. Man would judge each action. The existential movement echoes this belief. Religion removed from actions.

To get more into the minutea, morality has the rule of not killing. It is an amoral act. Punishable. All countries have laws that deal with this. Some execute people who violate this law. Some versions of religious texts allow for retribution.

Hegel argued against retribution. He found it to be something that no society should uphold, that taking the life of another was a violation of that person's rights. Ethics.

Here's how it is different from morality: In religion a person is told what they are allowed and not allowed to do. They are given the moral laws of their faith, complete with punishments. In ethics a person must judge for themselves if their action violates the actions of others while satisfying the actions of themselves.

"Now, being God might very well mean to know everything. But you must understand that even for God the knowing don't come easy. So when a question come up that stumped his big ol' God-brain, he set about finding an answer. And that's where we come in. He invented morality and planted it in our breasts. And only through our actions could he ever hope to learn about that particular thing. (84)"

The Sound of Building Coffins, Louis Maistros, New Milford,CT: 2009 The Toby Press LLC

While it seems fundamentally the same as a moral situation, an ethical one is not. The difference resides in the person. A moral person knows that killing is wrong and should not be done. An ethical person reasons whether killing another would deny that person rights and whether those violated rights were less important than them being killed. And an ethical person is not bound by the rights of the person. Nietzsche would argue that one who considered the rights of others was just a sheep. If a person deemed another should be killed, then that person should follow through on it.

Religion does not influence morality, it is the basis for it. Religion creates laws, laws that are shaped by its belief system. Morality does not stand up to the harsh light of ethical review.

The truth question

Nietzsche once wrote that "Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies."  And of course the begged question is what is truth then? How does one define it and validate it. Can that even happen? Do we kill truth be the simple process of definition?

From convictions truth becomes irrelevant. Convictions force truth to be what it wants it to be. In religion, conviction would make a deity truth. The quest then would be to cast off convictions to know truth. But how does one do that? How does one even have any idea what convictions are?

If we believe in something, then it is a conviction. Worse still, "all things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." In the Dark Ages, the Church determined what was truth through its immense power. It silenced Copernicus and Galileo. It burned those who questioned their autonomy. So the question of truth gets murkier as we try to de-wed ourselves of the influence of religion.

Left stark and bare, we can only assume that Nietzsche is saying truth is. Or I suppose more correctly, truth was. It is a thing that can't be defined but has one true definition. Its like the Mohist saying that no matter where you look at a stream, you are seeing the beginning, middle, and end all at once. It is the beginning the flows from where you look, the middle of the entire stream, and the end of where it came from. It is truth.

Truth can never flow from definition or conviction. Truth is what exists and it must be something that can never have a definition. Truth just is.

Nowism

A key component to religion is personal survival after bodily death; that our "soul goes somewhere". One could view religion as a risk/reward situation, in which, the risks of living a "good" life, avoiding the temptations of "badness", are rewarded with an eternal afterlife. The pious gain an eternity of goodness, and the evil an eternity of suffering in the common view. The neutral? Hard to say. As morality can be attributed, at least in part, to religious principles, what would be the point of being moral, of being good, if there was no afterlife? Is it even plausible to consider that religion could survive the extinction of an afterlife, that once we die, we die for all time?

With the prevalence of religions ascribing a continuation of life beyond the grave, one could assume that no religion could "survive" without allowing for a continuance of life. The very concept of an afterlife plays upon the apparent human vanity of needing to believe that something lies beyond our comprehension, beyond simple mortality. It is akin to gamblers spending their money on the "sure thing", hoping that eventually it will pay off.

It seems impossible that a religion could be viable if it did not offer something for its worshippers that did not entail supernaturality. The struggle would be to convince people that while this is the only life that they will ever know, that once their mortal life is over, nothing comes after. As such this religion must find a compelling argument that it is in this existence that a person can find a kind of salvation that has meaning. And this is where the religion without an afterlife must find a way to counter the warning of Shelley's Ozymandias.

This religion, call it Nowism, must be founded on the belief that it is in this mortal life a person must strive to become the purity of its god. Since there is no afterlife to segregate the pious from the non, reward and suffering must manifest itself in the now, and be a direct reflection of the individual. If a person lives his/her life poorly, evilly, then the person will find naught but evil returning and plaguing his/herself.

Nowism has many examples as tools to convince people of its possibility. One could argue that the vanity, the covetness, of people have brought great suffering to the world. Global warming, wars, genocide, and crime in general, are indicators of evil wrought by one's own hands. Nin attributes it to maleness and passivity of women. It is not the role of god to end these violations, but squarely in the hands of the followers. If they were to examine their lives, as Socrates urged, they would know that they have not lived in piety, but in irreverence, and as such, the forces of the universe have repaid them with the penalties of their actions.

Instead of offering salvation at some later time, Nowism could offer salvation every day with every action. At the same time it would offer damnation at every action as well. Nowism would border closely to the Sartreian maxim of man, in the absence of god, creating himself. But man creating himself would not be to establish morality from situation to situation, but through reflection of end results. If killing a bad person would save a community from evil, then is it the moral thing to do? Hegel has made the point that the punishment of the criminal must not be determined as though he were a "harmful animal" that must be made harmless.

Since that is so, punishment is regarded as containing the criminal's right and hence by being punished he is honoured as a rational being. He does not receive this due of honour unless the concept and measure of his punishment are derived from his own act. Still less does he receive it if he is treated either as a harmful animal who has to be made harmless, or with a view to deterring and reforming him. (Philosophy of Right, §100).

It puts the emphasis for actions squarely in the hands of the individual.

And an interesting possibility for Nowism is that a god of some sort would not be necessary. In this regard it would more closely approximate the Eastern religions which weigh a person's life by their actions. What would be missing from Nowism though would be reincarnation. It would be an escape from Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. A person would have but one shot at living a pious life, to generate as much good as possible. Since humanity seems to need something beyond the grave, Nowism could emphasize the reward of eternal recognition, much the way that Gandhi is venerated. There is no proof that Gandhi lives in some supernatural world, but memory of his actions and of him are quite alive still.

As interesting as Nowism would be, it would most likely fall by the wayside, would lose out to the religions that offer something more beyond this life. Nowism would face an uphill battle to win converts from the self-obsessed, from those that an afterlife must exist for. It is because of this that a religion without an afterlife is not viable. It offers mankind nothing more than is available now. And yet, Nowism appears to be a more plausible answer to the question of life.

Sartreian Freedom

As an atheist, Sartre denied that man is born with certain values, that man is born with universal ethics. As such, man must define freedom through his own actions. Freedom, in a classical definition, is to be without restraint. Sartre attempted to expand that definition by asserting that man was a prisoner of his own freedom, and that freedom was the only source of values. In short, man decides his values as he discovers his freedom.

As such, it matters not what side of a battle man sides with, so long as man acts with “good faith”, chooses the good of an action. Man, being his own source of freedom, establishes his own values. To deny introspection, to not choose to act for the good, leaves man in anxiety and acting in “bad faith”. Man must not act as others act, in a universal good, because that would remove introspection, would render the decision bad. Being born without a hierarchal system of values, man continually builds his own. As such, man is able to destroy the hierarchy with each choice and establish a new one. Man, realizing that he is the source of values, the fount of freedom, will only choose to adhere to his freedom. Man then, with a god removed, is his own judge.

Sartre was emphasizing that freedom is subjective, in that, man and man alone is capable of understanding his own freedom. Sartre believed that most men hide from their freedom, in denial of it, and adopt the deterministic values of society and/or theology. Attribution to external sources is utter denial of inherent freedom. Things influence things, but man, as an actor, is not a thing. Man is responsible for himself. To act differently makes man inauthentic, and man renounces his humanity.

To further extend freedom, no man has rights, as rights are external things. Rights are determinism. A ruler has the right to rule because the citizens deny their freedom in a Nietzscheian slave-morality as they accept passively the values set before them. Rights
have no ability to guide one’s action, to determine conduct. Man, being aware of his freedom, creates his own values, his own hierarchies. As such, even a revolutionary, one who battles for the freedom of all, denies his own freedom, as a revolution carries its own values and rules of conduct, ethics.

Sartre has established that man being free determines his own values, and as such, those values are mercurial, changing with each situation. A man who must choose between family and country can not rely on established values, but must determine his own action. Man must act for the good. How each man determines the good is man’s freedom. Freedom then is an active form, is not in stasis. Man who resists freedom is in a continual form of anxiety, as he must determine
to act for the good, to create his own values with each situation.

Cosmological Fallacy

The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
---Friedrich Nietzsche

At the latter end of the 1200's, John Duns Scotus put forth his idea of the first efficient
cause (Opera Omnia. Civitas Vaticana: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950-). It was an attempt to logically prove the existence of god. His argument, composed of seven steps, is as follows:

(1) No effect can produce itself.
(2) No effect can be produced by just nothing at all.
(3) A circle of causes is impossible.
(4) Therefore, an effect must be produced by something else. (from 1, 2, and 3)
(5) There is no infinite regress in an essentially ordered series of causes.
(6) It is not possible for there to be an accidentally ordered series of causes unless there is an
essentially ordered series.
(7) Therefore, there is a first agent. (from 4, 5, and 6)

These seven steps, in effect, refuted while achieving nearly the same end, instead of improved upon, the argument of Anselm in his Monologia. Scotus's final step, that there is a god, is dependant upon each of the prior steps proving to be a logical possibility. Interestingly, steps 1, 2, and 6 are basic tenets of quantum physics (History and Root of the Principles of the Conservation of Energy. E. Mach. Open Court Pub. Co., IL., 1872). Steps 3-5 are the most difficult to support, and are most likely illogical and untrue.

Step two requires that no effect is can be caused by nothing. In effect, something must be the cause. Since something must be caused by something, cause and effect is circular. This is widely supported by physics, particularly quantum physics. Many philosophers have attempted to side-step this (notably Davidson, Haack, and Gasking) by creating a pseudo cause and effect that is dependent upon human manipulation. For this pseudo situation to be true, it would follow that a god is a manipulation of man and exists solely because of man. Nietzsche and Sartre both made that claim. This is antithetical to the theist view of a god.

Step three involves there being a terminal point for causes. Since each effect follows a cause, Scotus is requiring time to be linear. There is no other possibility. While this is a viable possibility, there are problems with it. There are fields of physics dedicated to proving that linear time either does not exist or runs concurrent with non-linear time at various intersections.

Even Anselm recognized that linear time was a problem to any theory of a god:
By contrast, if something is in no way constrained by confinement in a place or time, no law of places or times forces it into a multiplicity of parts or prevents it from being present as a whole all at once in several places or times (Monologia,22).

That a circle of causes is impossible (step three), according to Scotus, violates the second and fourth step. If an effect can not be produced by nothing at all , then it goes to logic that every produced effect is dependent upon a prior effect, and that each that follows is also dependent on the prior, without terminus. This is itself a circle. From Buddhism this point is made clear. The Buddhists believe that when one looks at a stream, one sees both the end and the beginning of the stream; it is the end of the source of the stream and the beginning of a new source.

Given the possibility of the fourth step being true, that an effect must be caused by a prior one, as it does follow from two, the fifth step potentially violates 1, 2, and 4. For the fifth step, that an infinite regress is not possible, to be logical and true, it would require that time be absolutely linear, with a definite beginning and end. This would be an establishment of a primary cause, and as such makes the first two steps either illogical or false. An effect that can not cause itself (α), and one that must be caused (β), can not be dependent upon linear time (~γ), a primary. But if time is linear (γ), then α and/or β is not possible.

If α is not true, then an effect can be the cause of itself. But, if this is so, then it follows that any effect can be the cause of itself, and is not limited to a god. In this, if a god is the cause of itself, and with α being false, self-causation of effect is granted. Because this law would need to be an universal one, in order not to violate multiple rules of physics, it would also follow that a tomato could be the cause of itself. A human could be the cause of a human. Darwinian evolution would be an anomaly.

Also, if β is not true, then an effect can be caused by nothing. This would allow for a god to be created without causation. That in itself violates many laws of physics and would require a nothing to not only have a definite property, but be uncaused. And if a nothing has property, then it can not logically be “nothing”; it is something. What follows then is that nothing is something and is the cause of an effect. If this nothing is something, then it is the primary point of causation (β therefore α) and time must be linear (if β and α therefore γ). But as has been shown, α and/or β must not be true for γ to be true ( ~α and/or ~β therefore γ).

There is much debate as to whether time is linear. It has been conjectured that time exists in a manner that we do not readily understand, and that our theory of time is limited to being linear by necessity. Einstein was certainly not the first nor the last to hypothesize the possibility of time travel. For this to be conceivable, time can not be linear. To travel back in time, say ten years, requires that time runs parallel, because if it did not, and we were able to travel backwards, we would most likely de-age ten years. To do otherwise would violate all knowledge we have of physics. Because we would be traveling between two points along a line, and since we can not exist in tangent with another of ourselves at that same point, we must regress. But if time is parallel or circular, we could achieve travel and exist with ourselves simultaneously at the same point in time. Non-linear time proves Scotus's fifth step to be illogical and false.

With the possibility of non-linear time, and with the above by Anselm, it is theoretically possible that the multiverse theory is plausible. The multiverse theory proposes that our universe is not unique and that there are at least one other universe coexisting with ours. This calls into question most of our current understanding of physics. Also the existence of a god becomes more feasible.

This possibility can then uphold many of Scotus's steps and could ratify Anselm as well. The problem of linear time would be solved as both linear and non-linear could exist together, and that in our universe it would be entirely possible to have a first cause that arose from nothing, which would be a crossing between multiverses. More clearly, since Scotus has put forth that an infinite regression is not possible, and that an effect can not cause itself or be produced by nothing at all, if a god existed in another universe and crossed into our own, that god would arise from nothing and yet not cause itself. This would give support Anselm's idea entirely. But to support Scotus fully, his first efficient cause would need to be amended as such:

1. No effect can produce itself.
2. No effect can be produced by just nothing at all.
3. There is no infinite regress in an essentially ordered series of causes.
a. Only if time is linear
b. If time is non-linear than an infinite regress of causes is possible.
c. The infinite regress requires that there be at least 1 other universe, a multiverse.
d. Because of the multiverse, regression can cross between time and place.
e. This amends #2 as the multiverse is a form of nothing in that it exists outside of our time and
place.
4. Therefore, an effect must be produced by something else. (from 1, 2, and 3)
5. It is not possible for there to be an accidentally ordered series of causes unless there is an essentially
ordered series.
6. Therefore, there is a first agent. (from 3, 4, and 5)

But even with these modifications the final step is logical, but does not necessarily equal that the first agent is a god. The first agent could simply be another being that has crossed the boundaries of the multiverse.

While Scotus went to great pains to formulate a logical representation for the existence of a god, to the satisfaction of theists, he went wide of the mark. Granted it is not feasible to assume that he would have the knowledge, or even the insight to it, of what we now possess. He worked with what was available to him in his time and while his first cause is flawed, it can be repaired and can still be possible. At our current level of understanding of the universe we can not unequivacably dismiss his theory. In fact, as our base of knowledge grows, it does make his first cause more probable.

Destruction

So I am thinking recently, I am my own destruction. And then the logical side has to ask: if you aren't who is? Of course we all are our own destruction. This does not go against what I have written before: "I know me. I do not believe in me, nor do I have faith in me. Either one cheapens me."

It is what Nietzsche laughed at when he wrote "He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one can command himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience!".

We all do the things that we know are stupid, things that bring our downfall. And we do it knowingly, and yet we still do. Why? Natural selection has given us survival skills that go beyond most animals, and yet we willingly do things that go against saving ourselves.

Is it a flaw in basic human character? Is it some macabre dance with death? Are we programmed to seek riches and such, yet aspire to nothingness? Do we seek Heidegger, even though we don't understand him?

Maybe the Existentialist crowd was right, and life is a struggle to be genuine. But even so, what is really genuine? Being tools of destroying ourselves? Was Davidson right in questioning the reason a person turns on the TV? Does that person do it to watch TV or is that person looking for meaning in life? Does that person know that he is destroying himself no matter the answer?

We are our own destruction. We embrace it; we become it. But can we avoid it, can we command it? I know me. I know I am my own destruction. I don't know if I can avoid it.