Genocide can be a good thing

There are new problems in society, such as reactive attachment disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder, that all stem from abusive childhoods and such childhoods are producing adults who perpetuate the damage that was applied to them. The thesis here is what do we do with said individuals after we have identified them? Do we allow them to breed? To continue to exist?

In theory we are all born as blank slates and our mores and actions are learned from our caregivers. This is not to deny inherited traits whatsoever. Part of who we are is genetic. Much of who we become though is learned. And in the latter is where the issues arise. To borrow from Draper, what we become is directly related to the humans we deal with, not non-human entities. There is no interference from some "Creator" being.

A child born of parents who have one or both as alcoholics will most likely become one themself. That is the simple genetics of the situation. Only a genetic miscue would prevent it. The point of this is that there are matters where pure genetics influence the outcome. And this will dissuade an argument for a "Creator" being.

Back to my thesis, children are not born evil. That is a moral imposition. A parent, or both, then directly influence the progression their child has along the moral "norm" scale. While many try to ingrain positive moral basis in their child, a rare few do not, and in fact do the opposite.

A person that abuses a child, either physically or mentally, destroys the delicate threshold one has over learning what is right and wrong, well before one must make those decisions. That person did learn from another to be the way they are. That is the nurture argument in a bullet-proof shell. But at the same time they also know that they were created to be the way they are. And then they choose to create others as such.

What I propose is the removal of such individuals from society. Yes, a form of genocide if one will. Because these individuals actively perpetuate cruel acts and train others to do the same, they are not worthy of remaining in society (insert Rorty argument here). A society without those that have learned to abuse should be free of it. And one can only imagine what such a society was able to accomplish, now free of the threat of physical/emotional pain...

Shelley's Frankenstein as an allegory for Socialism

There are many ways to critique a novel. Sadly the current vogue is to read it and offer what the reader thinks is prescient commentary. For those that majored in creative writing, English, they know that there are much better tools at hand.

Some would look at novels and analyze them from a religious or a feminist perspective. But the one that always appealed to me is the Marxist one. It is conjoined with my love of the Frankfurt School of Philosophy. In that vein, here is my take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (http://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein-Mary-Shelley/dp/0553212478) .

Initially one would assume that the novel is about how Victor Frankenstein plays "god" and creates another life and then is revolted by it. And that is one interpretation of it. Sure it works. One could argue that Victor was feeling Existential angst over the creation of, for lack of a better word, Adam.

But take into account Mary Shelley and the historical period she lived in. She was the daughter of William Godwin (political philosophy) and Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist philosophy). She had first-hand knowledge of the French and American Revolutions. She even at one point lived with William Baxter (a dissenter).

And yet, none of what she wrote in Frankenstein reflects her personal beliefs and life experiences.

Victor Frankenstein is clearly representative of the monarchy. He is all powerful and creates life from death, as any monarch could do with a simple writ. Move the serfs to a certain area and they either live or die. And with the English revolution of 1640 being represented, Victor's decision to kill the "monster" is what should have happened during the revolution, that the king should have destroyed all opposition and maintained absolute power.

And that is where the "monster" comes in. Because he was pieced together from many parts of many different people, he represents the idea that all the parts should contribute to the whole, a classless society or true Socialism. The "monster" represents not only the forces that won the English revolution but also the French one as well.

The "monster" appeals to Victor to create a mate for it and it promises to go away. And as Victor does so, he kills it. He does so in an attempt to save the monarchy and prevent the spread of Socialism throughout the world, because that would be the effect of the "monster" and the female procreating.

That Victor tries to kill his "monster" and is unsuccessful is a nod towards the belief that a classless society will always overcome a caste system with an absolute ruler at the top. Yes, the "monster" dies alone with Victor on the ice (after the monarchy he represents tries to conquer the world aka the British Empire), but it is not a hopeless death but one of a loving mentor, one knowing that the monarchy is dying but that Socialism will never really die.

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.

Kind v. Love

So a friend of mine posed a question that was a variant of "love thy neighbor" which was "be kind to thy neighbor". The reasoning behind this being it is easier to be kind to those who are different from ourselves as opposed to actually loving others. Naturally I began to question the differences between being kind and loving.

Love is not ambiguous. Either one loves someone/a thing or nothing. There is no real grey line. Sure there are degrees of love, such as familial or romantic, but it is still love. In general I would doubt that there would be a large division of the definition of love across ethnic lines.

As far as kind goes though, it is hyper-variant. One can be kind to a neighbor by tossing their newspaper onto the porch, but what type of kindness is this? Would it not require a definition of the exact feelings one has about the neighbor? Is this neighbor an elderly person who has trouble walking or is it one who will engage any person in conversation to express their displeasure with the delivery of said paper?

Examine the cliche of "killing them with kindness". There is no equivalent in regards to love. One can fake kindness rather easily while faking love requires quite a bit of engagement as the latter evolves over time. One can be "kind" to a stranger and move on. It requires in the moment engagement and that is all.

Returning to the friend's argument, yes it is much easier to "be kind to thy neighbor" as it does not involve any real emotional engagement. But, the question then lingers: would the world be a better place?

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.