Category Archives: politics

Sep 01 2012
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medical ethics, philosophy, politics

Buddy the Blastocyst Gets a Soul (or does he?)

Nobody likes abortion – not the people who go through the procedure, not the people who perform the procedure, not the people who make the rules – and for good reason. For the patient, it is emotionally and physically traumatic. For the physician, it is one of those sad duties on the ethical borders of the profession. For the society,  it is desensitizing and it ‘whites out’ a gray ethical situation. From proponents, abortion rights call for a sober advocacy, the kind of favor given a less bad thing. Only one thing makes the whole mess worthy of a fight, and that is the contention of abortion opponents that abortion is murder. To qualify as murder, Buddy the Blastocyst’s destruction must be the destruction of a human. To qualify as a human, Buddy the Blastocyst must have a soul. What makes the accusation of murder objectionable is the murder which justifies the accusation. That murder is the murder of the soul, or at least one concept of it.

Most religious people are dualists; they believe in a soul which is a substance separate from the body. In this model of the soul, the nature of the substance is a sort of nascent self- consciousness or quality of humanness – a realized version of what it’s like to be human. The soul then forms a nidus for the mind, as well as a motive force, and through its one-way, motivating influence on the mind, causes the body to act. Though the body’s actions may  indirectly represent the soul’s intent, the soul is only affected by its own decisions independent of the body and the parts of the mind that gather and manipulate information from the physical world. In this model, we are soul puppets. Though it is subtle and convoluted, this arrangement is necessary to have the soul be one substance with the deity. The deity then encounters no philosophical problems in being the direct creator and ultimate owner of the soul.

Obviously, skeptics and other monists do not subscribe to the soul puppet model. However, most still believe that there is something it is like to be human, and so believe in a version of the soul. But this version is a dependent soul. It derives from the gradual realization of the potential to be what a human is like, over an individual’s lifetime. The soul is thus an accretion on the body and mind, with the potential quality of humanness as its nidus. This is the idea of soul which the soul puppet people are bound to destroy. To properly understand this imperative, it helps to examine the implications of being a soul puppet for Buddy the Blastocyst.

Let’s say Buddy forms under the dualist model. He has a soul, created by the deity, which is a substance separate from his body and rational mind. His soul may indirectly affect his body and mind, and to remain a separate substance, may not be directly affected by the body and mind. As soon as Buddy comes to be, there is about a forty percent chance that he will  quickly cease to be. The uterus may not be ready for him or he may have a fatal genetic abnormality. For a variety of reasons, a large proportion of early pregnancies fail. On superficial examination, this fact seems to pose some problems for Buddy the soul puppet. Perhaps the deity is a cruel practical joker, who bestows Buddy with a soul only strip it away. Perhaps the deity knows Buddy will fail and so does not give Buddy a soul in the first place.

Buddy needn’t worry though. Just as the motives of his soul are not directly accessible to his mind and body, neither are the motives of the deity. In an ironic twist, the benevolence of divine caprice saves Buddy from predestination and arbitrary judgement. Just as the soul must affect itself and merely be represented in mind and body, so the greater material world must symbolize the deity’s motive, but in context of the deity’s real condition alone, which is separate and self-contained, completely encompassing and determining the material world. Otherwise, movements in the material world begin to operate on the same rules as in the divine, and so begin to have a direct meaning for the deity, bringing the deity under their influence (even if he/she must only choose to ignore them). Then he/she is no longer a separate substance, just a separate category.

So, Buddy is saved by never being able to know god’s mind through interpretation of material events. However, by the same ironic twist which allows Buddy the soul puppet to dodge potential problems with predestination and arbitrary judgement, the real consequence he suffers is condemnation to thorough-going Nihilism. He can’t know the motives of his soul in terms of material objects subject to his reason. He can rationalize the material representation of the deity’s will, though he can never know its significance. Forever pushing around symbols he can’t read in a game with rules not relevant to anything outside themselves, on all but the very deepest level, he is a zombie. But if he comes to see himself as a soul puppet, accepting the viewpoint of those who would call his destruction murder, his future can be a happy  condition of necessary ignorance.

The material world will no longer be a big problem once Buddy comes to that conclusion. It will be very convenient for him if he can rationalize its relationships, but consistency is not vital. Likewise, the moral sense that he may feel could be indigestion, but it may just as well be a one-way communique from his soul. He will be justified in believing his intuitions, though he can never really validate them. He then has a choice of two paths to follow. He can decide to do as the Shakers and others have and simply avoid confusing situations where an underlying psychological motive might masquerade as inspiration. Conversely, he can follow the majority of his fellow soul puppets, hold all his intuitions to be inspiration from the higher realm, and simply have faith that he is not deceived.

Still, it takes a tremendous amount of faith to walk about in pitch black dark. Like so many of us, Buddy may not cope well with uncertainty. He may seek solace in the scriptures which record  inspirational intuitions concordant with his own. History is cold comfort, though. He may wish to know something in his own time and space which validates his intuitions. Then, the only means available is comparison of his intuitions with those of others, and he may feel, since he is justified in believing his own intuitions true, that others’ intuitions must coincide with his own. He may demand a substantial soul for every blastocyst, and seek to silence any talk, or even implication, of an accreted soul.

The demand for consistency may seem inconsistent, but if it is driven by an intuition related to religious sentiment, the soul puppet may be justified in believing it is just as close to the truth as an action based on reason. Actually, if an intuitive conclusion cannot be related to a cause based in the material world, he may be more justified in believing such a conclusion is true. Distinguishing  discomfort from inspiration requires insight in the soul puppet’s world, and in that world insight is not more reliable than intuition. He might as well flip a coin.

This is the problem: in a material world where we are all weak from time to time, the soul puppet perspective ultimately requires universal participation. It is too uncomfortable otherwise, and in a system where the difference between discomfort and inspiration is not reliably discernible, relief becomes an imperative. So, the soul puppets are justified in crying ‘murder’, and more. They are justified in demanding that everyone else cry ‘murder’, and more. It isn’t abortion that’s a fighting matter, it’s the imperative behind the cries of  murder. Everyone may not agree on the nature of the soul, but no one wants to be a pawn in another person’s scheme to insulate himself from the implications of his own beliefs. Even a blastocyst deserves protection from that.

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Aug 05 2012
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climbing, philosophy, politics

Dirtbag Libertarianism

Wool, fiberfill and Scotch-guard – vintage dirtbag

In recent years, there’s been a loud discussion in the black community on the merits of the N-word. Specifically, people have disputed the value of  ‘claiming’ the word. Many have offered eloquent arguments on either side of the issue, but few have looked for lessons in history. Those lessons exist; here is a familiar and recent one.

The word ‘dirtbag’ is an honorific in the climbing world. It refers to devotees whose total commitment to the sport has led to a de facto vow of poverty. Nowadays, the word calls to mind the romanticized, early days of climbing in Yosemite, where the pioneering resident climbers, in the course of surviving in the Park, earned the label as an epithet.

The Park Service and the concessionaires saw the climbers as parasites – dirtbags who camped illegally and stole food scraps while contributing nothing to the park or society in general. The authorities were correct, too. Most of the climbers were parasites, due to lack of means and a single-minded desire to climb. They didn’t pursue parasitism, they fell into it by default, abetted by the availability of a corpulent, plethoric, degenerate host. Besides, their parasitism produced results.

Climbing  thousands of feet of seemingly impassable rock may not be worth anything to society at large, but it might buy you a word. To the original users, ‘dirtbag’  meant someone who was nothing but a worthless nuisance. A ‘dirtbag’ who could climb El Cap. might still be considered a worthless nuisance, but it was hard to say that was all they were. Plus, not all those who lived to climb were rootless kids looking for an outlet for their dissatisfactions. Always, some dirtbags chose an austere life to pursue their visions.

The latter group planned to work only enough to buy gear, subsist on cat food, and climb as much as possible. Their’s was a long-term plan, and it became a template. Over time, they emerged from the rest of the ‘dirtbags’ but never disavowed the name. Through them, ‘dirtbag’ came to mean ‘the opposite of dilettante’. So much so that modern climbers see ‘dirtbagging’ as a rite of passage and a special opportunity.

By this definition, all sorts of people, from artists to Buddhist monks, are dirtbags, and many of them have taken to using that shorthand description for their lifestyles of devotion. Of course, the original sense of the word will persist. No derogatory term can escape its origins, and the American conservative libertarian will continue to call everybody who chooses to live low and climb high, a dirtbag in the original sense of the word.

He didn’t build that wood stove, and the Yeoman farmer didn’t mine the iron for his plow. There is no free-range human.

That’s one of the good things about dirtbagging, though. There may be some true libertarian dirtbags – people who believe in the myth of the Yeoman farmer. There are precious few American conservative libertarian dirtbags – people whose credo is: “Everyone must be free; free to be just like me”. Just as being a dirtbag can teach one the difference between voluntary frugality and true poverty, wearing the word can be a reminder of the source of its negative content, and serve as a warning against perpetuating that negativity.

Nevertheless, claiming the word is a perilous trick. The term is a poisonous thing at heart, and it’s hard to play with it without getting any on you. However, some people are going to call climbers camped at a crag with nothing but a rope and a rusty Subaru to their names, ‘dirtbag’ anyway. Tucking tail and slinking away or trying to teach stupid people a lesson don’t seem like better strategies, and overall, owning the dirtbag label has worked out pretty well for the climbing community. For what it’s worth.

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Jun 29 2012
3 Comments
medicine, politics

Whatever

The healthcare reform law is still alive and the squabbling surrounding it, too stupid to live yet too overwrought to die, is reanimated. Here I go, unable to resist the smell of brains, shambling back into the scrum with the rest. In my own defense, I work in the non-systematic system this law purports to reform. I also have something more constructive to mumble than “Brains, brains!”.

Just look at the objective of the law. Its primary aim is to finalize the conversion of the health insurance industry to a healthcare financing industry. In other words, to convert it from Lloyd’s of London to GMAC. This objective is very modest, as the industry is already two-thirds of the way there. Kaiser, with its souped-up HMO model, is almost all the way there. By finalizing this transformation for the whole insurance industry, the authors of the law hope to provide universal access to healthcare and control costs. These goals are not so lofty as they first appear. In fact, the second one may not be possible by legislative means at all.

We already have universal access, just not rational universal access. Call 911, and someone will come to help you without checking your credit rating or insurance status. Go to the clinic because you have symptoms of diabetes, and you will not get the same courtesy. You must wait for the ensuing heart attack or coma.

Objections to universal access must start with what we already have, and I think these objections, since they have life and death implications, require some earnest gesture before they get serious consideration. I’d propose an opt out. If you think our polity should not concern itself with the physical well-being of its constituent individuals, please tattoo a Gadsden flag across your forehead. Then we can demand payment up front if we find you bleeding by the roadside or keeled over on the sidewalk, or we can simply choose to pass you by. Until you bear that mark, you won’t be taken seriously.

The legitimate objection regarding universal access relates to efficacy. Giving people financing, and thus access, doesn’t mean they will automatically access healthcare rationally. They will probably do a little better than they do now, but the cost control envisioned in the law depends on people doing a lot better at seeking care rationally. People probably won’t live up to that expectation.

Market forces are the problem. Efficient choices in healthcare are difficult. Even clear-cut problems often require some technical knowledge to allow for good decisions. For ill-defined problems, not even the experts can tell the consumer what he or she is buying. So, the consumer must make purchases based on emotional facts rather than physical facts.

From the perspective of emotional facts, healthcare choices break down into two broad categories: care we care about and care we don’t care about. Care we care about is reassuring care and impressive care. Reassuring care is any care that addresses illness we fear, like cancer. Impressive care is care with visible, immediate, dramatic results, like open heart surgery. Care we don’t care about is public health and chronic care, especially if it is merely preventative.

Among these two sets of choices are tests and treatments that are expensive and effective, cheap and ineffective, expensive and ineffective, and cheap and effective. The market favors care we care about, without regard to those sub-categories. Allowing people to participate in the market alone won’t help control cost, for this reason.

Agency is necessary to sort care rationally, in the light of physical facts. Physicians have been the de facto agents up to this point, but they really haven’t wanted the job and therefore serve the role poorly. A financing company might be able to act as an agent, but would be limited to guiding choices among preexisting options.

The Affordable Care Act contains some elements that gesture in the right direction, like ‘death panels’, ( guidance on end of life care). People don’t like those elements because they seek to rationalize, and thus ration care, which entails a loss of autonomy. People are loath to cede autonomy to any agent, especially a visible yet impersonal one like a panel, real or imagined. Until doctors choose to willingly alter their practice and fully embrace the role of agent, everyone will continue to get expensive and ineffective care we care about, and do without cheap and effective care we don’t care about.

To that end, the recent fights over USPSTF recommendations for cancer screening are the sort of fights we need to be having. We’ll see if the political process will allow those fights to go on and spread. As for the ACA, whatever, it’s a start. At least it doesn’t propose to expand market distortions until care is rationed by price alone or beg for a forehead tat.

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Apr 07 2012
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climbing, politics

Uh-Oh

Republican politicians be talkin’ bout risk:

“Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. It’s time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.”                                – Mitt Romney

I’d like to extend an open invitation to Mitt, to go climb the East Ridge of Edith Cavell with me.

Now, I am rich in climbing skills compared to Mitt. Still, I expect him to be true to his convictions and simul-solo it with me. No matter how he begs, I promise not to poison him with dependency on the rope. Naahhh…

I’m not in it to demonstrate my superiority; there’s always somebody better. I’m not in it to tag summits or tick off numbers, those are empty pursuits and they denigrate the game. I’m in it to climb the hell out of everything I possibly can, and sometimes, that takes a rope, especially if you are going to take risks. It also takes a partner that’s got your back, even if you screw up.

So, I’ll throw the rope down when it gets to be too much. I’ll even bail if you can’t take the exposure, Mitt. I won’t sneer or otherwise be nasty about it either. I’ll do all those things because I value the society that the rope entails and because I am not a Republican politician. You don’t have to be either; I believe it’s not too late.

Oh, and if you feel like you aren’t up to it physically, Paul Ryan has made that same sort of statement, why don’t you send him in your stead. That little bitch is supposed to be in shape, isn’t he? I believe it may be too late for him, though – too much Ayn Rand.  That shit is poison.

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