A Note Against Unreflective Commitment

One prevalent cliché in contemporary social criticism is the line of argument against the younger generation which runs as follows in Japan. The older generation, after the war, has worked and worked tirelessly in order to better their lives and to pass on a better world to their children. They were energetic and committed. However, the younger generation takes material comfort for granted. This prevents the youth from feeling hungry for progress. They are always calculating how to get the most out of the least amount of work. By not experiencing the hardships of poverty, the youth has become lazy. This is the reason why they will not commit to something "real" and that they will not act in the ways that the older generation sees to be good. I might add here that Tatsuru Uchida's The Regressive Attitude (a tentative translation of the original title, 『下流志向』) popularized this train of thought quite effectively.

One of the key premises of the above criticism seems to be this: commitment is good, detachment is bad. Or, to put it another way: career and family is good, personal activities and non-family relationships are bad. In short, it is "regressive" to opt for the latter.

This premise is very symptomatic, and it overlooks one crucial point which turns the entire argument around. The decisions to not fit into a "normal" career, and to not pursue a "normal" family, are seen by the exponents of this critical view as signs of a pure lack of interest. This is true, but only from a certain perspective, which assumes the above stated premise. What if, however, career, family, and commitment perpetuate inevitably the real problems which the modern progressive life-style has given birth to?

Now I take it that each and every social organization - whether it be family, solo, office, etc. - limits the number of possible situations in which each individual may find him or her self to be. These situations further limit the kind of choices and decisions which these people can make. For example, by choosing to work at an office, as a marketer, for a major electronics company, one is obliged, for example, to dress up in a certain way, produce certain products, and sell them, regardless of other factors external to the business system. The main aims of his actions are already given to him by this company or this system. He has no freedom to say no unless he can show that his own alternatives better serve the objectives defined in such a way. The same constraints hold for other modern institutions such as the family or the school.

In a state of poverty, the first objective is naturally to improve one's material conditions. There is no point in asking further the reason for trying to relieve this material poverty. Rather, such a relief appears as an end in itself, a goal to be pursued for its own sake. It was doubtless not an easy goal to achieve, and the younger generation ought to feel deeply thankful that they do not have to repeat this process for themselves. If we decide to neglect completely what the older generation has given to us, then of course we are open to all sorts of moral criticisms.

The younger generation is thus largely freed from a state of dire poverty. This means that for the younger generation, material security is not an end in itself. It must be questioned. The urge to further ask "to what purpose is this material security for?" already implies that a new goal has been set.

What is this "new goal?" The new goal is peace.

Peace is a very tricky concept. One thought implied in the concept of peace is that every human being ought to be educated to be self-responsible and autonomous, and that unnecessary conflict and harm be minimized. Here it is further implied that peace demands a very complex and sophisticated culture, within which each individual is able to think and understand the state of the world at a very high intellectual level. On the other hand, peace does not require that we stubbornly attach ourselves to existing institutions and norms. Rather, if peace is not actualized, then one of the essential demands of peace is that such institutions and norms be reflected upon and questioned. They must be understood primarily as habits, suspect to change, open to improvement.

The younger generation has a much better grasp of this concept of peace than the older generation. This is the reason why the former refrains from so blindly flinging itself into the system laid out by existing institutions. The former knows that something is not working, and so is more cautious. Seen in this light, it is clear that this attitude is not regressive at all. Rather, it is regressive to demand the youth to force themselves into the framework which, although those who contributed to it most actively may not see any fundamental problems with it, appears to the newcomers as highly problematic, filled with anomalies and dilemmas which it does its best to disavow.

On a related note, one idea might be to write a treatise on the principles of freedom, which must ultimately culminate in the concept of peace.

In any case, I definitely stand by those who are reluctant to accept commonly prevalent ways of designing one's way of life. It is not the time to disavow, but to think more seriously.

Personal Note (2)

This is a purely personal note.

After listening to a Brahms Symphony, I understood what was missing from my current way of living - good music. It has been almost a year since I last listened properly to a performance of classical music. Listening to Giulini conducting a Brahms was like swimming in a cool spring on a nice bright summer afternoon.

This phenomenon suggested to me that music is not just an accessory to life. It constitute the movements which my mind makes at a level deeper than explicit self-consciousness.

I have been exposed to much junk "music" and noise. And for a quite considerable length of time. I will now buy a new set of stereo speakers and start listening seriously again to classical music.

Reflections on the Prospect of War - U.S. and Syria

This article from the Military Times shows that 75% of United States military troops, including many higher officials and commanders, oppose the air strike of Syria.

This shows that the majority of the citizens of the United States, the members of the U.S. military, and the leaders of the world all oppose a potential warfare between the U.S. and Syria.

Would Obama make the decision to strike despite so much opposition? If he does, the political message of such a decision would be that the U.S. will not listen to either its citizens, its military members, or other key country leaders. Therefore, at least from a formal political perspective, there really isn't any justification for the U.S. to strike Syria.

How about more rational reasons with regards to the decision itself, keeping in mind, of course, that in politics form matters just as much as the pure content of a decision? In this case, the Military Times article provides an interesting comparison between those reasons given for and against the airstrikes.

As for cons, military members point out the fact that the United States is economically not in a position to invest in another war that would take years. It also tries to appeal to psychological reasons, such as the fact that those who are actually fighting the war are getting weary of engaging in endless battles. Finally, troops point out the fact that to engage in another war under the present formal political conditions would worsen U.S. isolationism, which is not a very attractive course of action when there is another option, that of the U.S. letting the "rest of the world figure out what to do" and thus playing a supportive or a more dynamic role in world politics rather than always being Big Daddy. In addition, troops point out strategic problems related to supporting the Syrian rebels, which might be an irrational thing to do given how those Syrians can potentially turn into another group of insurgents.

On the pros side, the main reason is a "humanitarian" or moral one. The argument runs that to strike or not to strike will directly reflect on the United State's moral standpoint against the kind of violence that took place in Syria.

If we now weigh the two sides, it starts to seem that there cannot really be a rational justification for the strikes from a political point of view. In politics, while how a country appears to other countries and to its own citizens is an important political element, other more concrete issues such as economics and military strategy ought to be given priority. A country does not follow any pre-established moral rule, but rather is in a position to define for its citizens what counts as moral. Thus, there is no moral a priori justification that can ground a political decision, regardless of how complex the decision might be.

Incidentally, it is apparently quite rare that the United States military members oppose a war even before it is being fought. This historical novelty also ought to signal a warning for U.S. leaders.

However, despite these considerations, I do think that there is a strong chance that the U.S. leaders will decide to force through their decision to strike Syria. Why?

There is no reason that they can appeal to in this decision, but there is a cause (the distinction is crucial here.) The cause would mostly be psychological, pertaining to the frame of mind of the leaders in charge.

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine shows how and why many country leaders, including U.S. presidents, lose their rational control over political situations and momentarily turn into irrational decision-makers. The sense of "urgency," coupled with a sophistical (= convincing yet baseless on a more critical analysis) rhetoric that makes them think that the war is "needed," together with high levels of stress (from which the only way to escape is to "make a decision" - as far as this is not made, they will have to withstand continual pressure; this seems to show that it really requires more strength, character, and leadership to not do something rather than to do it) equals recipe for irrationality. Moreover, the case of Syria is reminiscent of the Iraq War on several levels. The symptoms are all there, and one suspects that the particular interests of the weapons industry, as well as the need to maintain "social cohesion" in times where Occupy Wall Street and other dissension continue to express criticism against the government, are involved in these recent happenings.

Therefore, while it might be true that the Syrian government actually used chemical weapons against its citizens, this is not a good enough reason for Uncle Sam to lift his buttocks and fight. Nonetheless, he might be induced to doing just that. I wonder whether president Obama and his advisory board members are aware of Klein's work, and how past leaders have made wrong decisions in situations like this.

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Postscript: After reading several more articles which provide different perspectives, I'm also convinced that another possibility exists with regards to how to interpret Obama's decisions thus far made. The antiwar.com articles such as this and this suggest that Obama's very aggressive gestures might actually have positive effects with regards to the peace politics between the United States and the Middle Eastern countries. If this really is the case, then we'll continue to see Obama walking on a thin line that divides war and peace, but never crossing it completely until the peace process comes to maturity. At least it feels good to think that the prospect of striking Syria is not merely there as a trap into which leaders may fall but also as an effective diplomacy card.

The Schelling Memo (7)

Concerning The Ages of the World (third manuscript, translated by professor Jason M. Wirth), this entry will consist solely in fragments of interpretations. Here goes.

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A. The Past

What is the Past? Schelling: Past as Age (as is implicit in the title) which implies oldness. "Glance into the abysses of the past which are still in one [i.e. the person; not necessarily mind] just as much as the present" (4). It is a present past, or the oldness of age that exists in the present. The past is not something that disappears when the present comes to be.

Aim: describe the present past.
Place: look in a) the present, and b) in the person.

"abysses" - plural, suggests that it is more accurate to say the present pasts.

The goal is to grasp the "whole."

The desire to grasp the "whole" in a fixed, stable proposition (no matte how long or detailed it is) gives rise to the bad infinite. "A = x" alone is incapable of truth. "Movement is what is essential to knowledge. When this element of life is withdrawn, propositions die like fruit removed from the tree of life" (4) - ironic allusion to Hegel, obviously. "From this it seems evident that in true science, each proposition has only a definite and, so to speak, local meaning" (4).

- Later on, Schelling will suggest something like a scale of forms. For example: "Everything that has being of a humbler rank relates itself, when contrasted with being of a higher rank, as that which does not have being" (14).

God = Age?

What can be called the existential principle of method: "insofar as method is a kind of progression, it is clear that here method is inseperable from the being [Wesen] and, outside of this or without this, the matter is also lost" (5).

"Necessity lies at the foundation of freedom and is in God itself what is first and oldest" (5). Important point: necessity is the "oldest," it precedes freedom necessarily.

How is God also free, then, if he has necessity as his basis? "necessity refers only to God's existence as God's own existence. ... [I]n creation, God overcomes the necessity of its nature through freedom and it is freedom that comes above necessity not necessity that comes above freedom" (5). Creation is the key. But then this is not creation ex nihilo: This latter concept is an error based on a "simple grammatical misunderstanding" (14) and can be overcome by distinctions found even in ancient Greek philosophy.

Key passage: "What is necessary in God we call the nature of God. Its relationship to freedom is similar (but not identical) to the relationship that the Scriptures teach is between the natural and the spiritual life of the person" (5). There is an analogy between God and the person. And since the aim was to find the "whole" in the person as the present past(s), by analogy (in the same sense that Plato took the polis to be the analogy of the soul?) the place to look becomes God Himself. An even more interesting claim (although not yet substantiated or justified): "What is understood here by "natural" is not simply the by and large "physical," that is, the coporeal. The soul and the spirit, as well as the body, if not born again, that is, elevated to a different and higher life, belong to the "natural" (5). Nature and mind are not distinguished in the same way as physics is distinguished from psychology.

Being = dislocation (6). It is "ipseity [Seinheit], particularity" (6).

The privation of being (or the mere potential to be) calls for, or necessitates, the Ego (which is not being, but rather "that which has being but does not have being").

God has both forces - the "outpouring" of Being, as well as the "retreat" that is the not-having-being, or the Ego. This is an "eternal antithesis" (6).

What the hell does Schelling mean by "not having being"? - "A = B" is a judgment. But A is A without being B. Therefore, A and B are distinct, and so they are not necessarily bound. They are mediated by a third, an "x." So the expression ought to be "A =x" and B = x" therefore "A = B." The "x" is Being [Seyn]. "A" and "B" take turns "having being" [seyend seyn]. The "x" emerges out of the conflict between A and B, as that which makes the conflict possible, as unity. Not having being means that a Being is not "that which has being."

Did Schelling just treat "being" as a property?

There is a further tension between the "A = B" antithesis and the "x" which is the unity of the two. In so far as "A =x = B" is considered as a unity, as "x," it is again different from that state of tension in which A and B are fighting in order to "have Being." Therefore, there is an antithesis between the tension and unity, between "A = B" and "x."

An Age is defined by its relation to the above mentioned primordial antithesis.

Infinity does not equal to perfection (7).

Principle of Intensification: "it is conceded that of that which has been opposed [A = B], if they indeed become one, only one of them would be active and the other would be passive. But, enabled by the equivalence of both, it follows that if one is passive, then the other must so also, and, likewise, if one is active, then, absolutely, the other must also be active. But this is impossible in one and the same unity. Here each can only be either active or passive. Hence, it only follows from that necessity that the one unity decomposes into two unities, the simple antithesis (that we may designate as A and B) intensifies itself into that which has been doubled" (9). Clearly needs to be unpacked and elaborated in detail.

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The abstractness of Schelling's idiom suggests that he is trying to purify what he calls the "whole" of its temporally acquired particularities. No example can contribute to the discussion, save perhaps some quotations from the Scriptures or the general inklings towards abstract ideas expressed in various esoteric texts.

Why this abstractness? One way to interpret this is that Schelling's ontology is the same as Hegel's and Collingwood's, that there are three things which are fused into one unity. The first is "abstract entities." The second is "nature." The third is "mind." These are not exact definitions or names, but what each term suggests ought to give a general idea of their respective differences. It is interesting that God, as the "whole," is posited as neither nature alone nor mind alone. God is that which permeates nature and mind, and has to, by necessity, "create" these two realities out of itself. In this sense, while God, or abstract entities, enjoy being the basis of all reality, it is at the same time the most impoverished form of reality which desires to be supplemented by nature and mind.

It is quite challenging to sketch and then elaborate on a system of such "abstract entities" while also keeping a check on one's own methods and procedures in order to prevent from falling into a pre-critical, aesthetic mind-set.

Especially because this work is only a manuscript, Schelling does a bad job articulating himself. It is remarkable that, upon a close and careful reading, he is nonetheless consistent throughout the text.

The distinction between "Being" and "having being" is crucial. It opens up an interesting possibility of treating concepts and categories not only as mental or subjective properties but rather as the very architecture of the world. Also, the idea that an Age just is a certain relationship to the "antithesis" (the A = x = B) seems promising.

Personal Note

It has been felt as if my thoughts have hit a cul-de-sac only until today when I read the two essays and one correspondence appended to Collingwood's An Essay on Philosophical Method. New insights awaken the mind.

First, on why classical writers of philosophy refrain from citing. I have never heard an intelligent explanation given by university professors, but Collingwood gave one. His principle is this: he will mention the author's name only if he is praising the author's thoughts. Moreover, since thoughts are often criticized out of context, it is very difficult to claim that what one paraphrased within the context of one's work really is the exclusive property of the author to which one ascribes such thoughts. The author would most likely not want to be associated with a mere fragment and distortion of what he takes to be an organic part of his entire system. In short, according to Collingwood, it is only "good manners" to keep references implicit when criticizing a thought, and to let the readers figure the sources out if they are really keen on finding out more.

In university, citation was supposed to be a way of showing courtesy to the readers. Perhaps universities ought to also teach liberal arts majors how to be courteous to the writers whom they criticize. I think the best way to do this is to have students write essays on previous essays written by their peers.

Next, on politics. The elections for the Lower House held back in July had an astoundingly low turn-out rate of 52.61%. This means that only one in approximately two citizens had a say. I can understand the mentality. When politics has been impotent for so long, especially in its inability to lead the recovery process after Fukushima and the Great Tohoku Earthquake, it might seem understandable for citizens to feel that it is a waste of time to study politics, to read the manifestos and books published by key party members, and to actually make the effort to rationally decide on which party and politician to cast their vote. "It doesn't matter, it doesn't make a difference," they would say, "it is a waste of time, so I will do something else."

But to not vote is to accept whatever course the country will take. So to not vote means to argue that it doesn't matter which way the country goes. This the non-voters certainly wouldn't accept. Yet their emotional detachment from their rights entails this very logical and political consequence. And the latest elections only exemplified this logic. The Liberal Democratic Party gets the so-called "organization votes" - votes from employees of companies such as Toyota, Yomiuri, and Yamaha. If poor or marginalized citizens - a not insignificant sector of contemporary Japanese society - did not vote, these "organization votes" count, and the LDP wins. Which was exactly what happened in July. If only the turn-out rate rose to 65%, the results would have been different, given how past elections have turned out. This means that it is no time to be disillusioned. Disillusionment is the greatest illusion. Politics is becoming a key activity in Japanese history at present. Grass-root volunteer work is admirable and not totally non-consequent, but it is very limited as a means to achieve real goals such as containing the contaminated water or dissembling the existing nuclear power plants.

Third, religion. An atheist is someone who has proven to himself that it is possible to be religious without believing in God, the immortal soul, or the afterlife. I do think that there is a strong possibility that Jesus Christ was in fact an atheist, and that his disciples, who were still very much confused by what has taken place, were reluctant to portray the Son of God as such a figure, so the Bible does present a contradictory and interesting Jesus. But then, just as it is difficult to reconstruct the life of Socrates from what emerges out of the writings of his followers and enemies, so it is hard to determine how exactly Jesus lived and what in fact he preached or meant to preach. In any case, I do see clearly that the idea that everything is created by God, that everything is a gift, etc. paves the way to the liberation of thought. Thought is God becoming self-conscious as a thinking mind. The Holy Spirit is the community of those who follow the example of Jesus, and the example of Jesus is that God is not "given" by the "grace" of some force external to our "souls" or minds, but rather that God just is our own minds. Of course, this is a very tricky notion to grasp, since this does not mean at all that God can be "reduced" to what a non-religious atheist calls a mind, a mere container of psychological phenomena. To fully understand Jesus requires philosophy.

Fourth, everybody uses the word "philosophy." We have webpages of cafes and restaurants that have a "philosophy" tab where they explain their "philosophies." No one would have presented their business's way of operating as its "science." The reason is that somehow people respect and take a distance from science, yet they feel that philosophy is something which anyone is able to grasp and understand intuitively and without specialized training. It is true that science requires special skills, and that the "science of coffee-making" will have to involve technical labor that will produce just the right proportion of elements for the ideal cup of coffee. But then the "philosophy of coffee-making" seems to allow a free play of beautiful words and sales pitches. If there is a specialist involved in this, it would be a market analyst or a psychologist, but certainly not a philosopher.

Here, a "philosophy" is confused with a "policy." A policy is something which deals with a rigidly defined content and a limited range of interests. It defines a style and doesn't question itself any further. Philosophy, on the other hand, begins by questioning, that is to say, by criticizing. A truly philosophical mind would not have been satisfied by the mere beauty and psychological effectiveness of a word. It would not have allowed a concept to serve the rather narrowly conceived goal of "meeting the customers' needs." A philosopher desires to grasp the truth of things, and the truth of things only becomes clear when the whole range of different disciplines are consulted under the guidance of one unifying idea or method, which is sometimes called dialectics. If the "philosophy of coffee-making" were to be possible at all, at least it would have to take into account all the steps involved in the production of coffee, including its history and its dark side. There is nothing purely beautiful about enjoying a cup of coffee. There are many, many problems associated with it. And to philosophize about coffee is to be honest about the existence of these problems. It is also an attempt to make an effort to withhold judgement, to not take leaps, and to try and patiently describe the situation as it is. It is a form of reflection which does not panic when there seems to be no ready-made improvements at hand.

Working on a work of philosophy in Japan may seem like an act of total social detachment, but I do firmly believe that this is one of the few routes left for any hope for improving the way things are in this country.