Electronics Theory. or: Why Things Break Down.

I'm sitting at a friends place, who has been terribly unlucky with computers and electronic equipment throughout his life. My theory though, is: it's his fault.

I've seen a short news editorial about this 11-year old (or however old) little boy, who could sit in front of any computer and within five minutes (he would just type stuff in a word document or whatever) the computer would shut down. This is the basic tenet in my theory.

Ulf Danielsson, professor in theoretical physics, sums up where natural science is today:

The history of natural science is full of discoveries where we get more and more aware of how we ourselves is a part of the picture. Time and space are depending on the movement of the observer for instance. So the scientific process is about discovering and specifying in what ways the reality out there - if there is indeed really something there - is dependent or independent on us. There is nothing self-evident about this, but it's all a part of the scientific process and discovery.*

To put it clearly; we do not (yet) know to what extent the mere fact that we as objects (or scientists in some cases) "tamper" with reality by way of our mere existence. And this is where it gets interesting with electronics and machines. Seeing as this is a current quest in science -still surrounded by much uncertainty and yet unanswered - we don't know what effect humans has on the machines they built, but (since we don't know what the effect is, and this is still under investigation) they are built as if humans have no impact on the machines.

Machines do work well for us, but sometimes they mysteriously break down. Although the process was seemingly uninterrupted; nothing was disconnected, no circuitry is physically broken, and so forth. This leads me to conclude, referring to an old sci-fi term: WE are the ghost in the machine.

* Danielsson in "filosofiska rummet: Universum och verkligheten" (my translation swedish-english)" P1, aired 20100228 i P1.

What is Agonism?

Agonism, a word only two letters from antagonism, but worlds apart in the world of political theory. Agonism is, in fact, one of my favorite political theories. Thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe and William Connolly are usually counted as "belonging" to this perspectives, although it should be said that they vary from each other in quite distinct ways.

"The world is a place of conflict." That could be a good starting point. Agonistic political theory is in many ways a respons to liberal theory, that is driven towards consensus. But there are many problems with consensus, nobel as the thought may be - in fact, more problems than with conflict, paradoxically enough.

Chantal Mouffe's take on agonism comes from the place of seeing conflicting perspectives as something natural. Conflict in other words is not necessarily negative. What is negative, Mouffe argues, is when conflict takes on a form that threatens the function of the political. Put differently: We need not always agree, in fact, we are bound not to agree with one another at some point. The question then is; how do we meet each other in a way where our different perspectives can be acknowledged as legitimate claims and interests, and discuss them publicly - even if the debate may become ever so heated at times?

Mouffe argues that the political should be about one thing: turning antagonistic (illegitimate) enemies into agonistic (legitimate) adversaries. The problem built into most liberal thought is that politics should strive for an ever increasing amount of consensus. The agonists however argue that the only way of achieving such a goal is to remove claims that are too disharmonious from the debate all together. And once this process is started it takes an ever narrowing turn - the longing for consensus is effectively removing the opportunity of opposition, bit by bit, until there all opposing thoughts and claims have been made labelled "illegit" and therefor can be ignored.

If the political model adapted is (as it is today) to refuse to give legitimacy to a number of claims - instead of seing them as legitimate (in a political sense) no matter how objectionable they are - this is effectively removing the political from politics, as it removes the demos (the people's built-in patchwork of desires, claims and aspirations) from democracy (from the processes of legislation and public debate).

William Connolly has given some thought to how this may be achieved. What Connolly proposes rests on the same notion, in terms of acknowledging that other people have the right to be heard and not be ignored or forced out of the political. Connolly's aspiration is to recognize the possibility of associating yourself with different "minorities" in different questions; a model that goes against the old "one party fits all"-model. In stead, it is possible to see someone with a similar view on - let's say - drug policy and form an alliance with them on that issue, whilst allying yourself with a completely different group of people in the debate over animal rights, or public healthcare.

The main point with this, is that this identification with multiple groups acknowledges one person's different identities. No person is forced to identify solely as a christian, muslim, carpenter, stuntman, lesbian, convervative or any other identity-label. Further more it creates and interdependence between these groups that makes society more open for various forms of opposition, as this is required when all people are tangled into an oppositional/minority group on at least a few questions close to the heart.

This is of course a brief and slightly crude crash course in agnostic political theory, but it is one discourse that has massively influenced me - not just on a political level but also more generally, in seeing that conflict is not something necessary, and not a defeat. Instead conflict is something that we should try to channel into proper dialog and proper politics, because if we don't: that's when the real problems start.

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Further reading: I suggest the clear and short chapters by Mouffe and Connolly respectively, in Hent de Vries & Lawrence Sullivan (ed:s). (2006). Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press.

This is also a great anthology for anyone who wants to compare their perspective to others, such as the Pope's, or Jürgen Habermas for instance...

You wanna be a role?

This is off course a paraphrase of Tyra Banks' quote in the vinaette of America's Next Top Model. I think the concept of role models is a bit ascew these days (if it's ever been not-ascew remains a valid question). Maybe we ought to challenge this idea on the whole. Let's break it down. Sometimes when Britney Spears (yes, I'm aware of a person called that) have been out shaving her head, breaking up, getting drunk, this that and the other, she's put in question for setting a bad example for young girls; she's not a good role model.

The question I want to pose is: what happened with the concept of role within the concept of role model? A role can off course be elaborated in various ways. However, one common conception is the likeness to what a role means in a movie - it's portraiting someone with specific traits. In this sense, picking up a role, is trying to portrait (fictious) behavior modeled on someone. With this line of argument it follows that anyone following the example of such a role model, exhibits a behavior that isn't genuine to their own character.

However, if we widen our understanding of role within role model, we can discuss how indentity is constructed both through social structures and (both positive and negative) pressures, but also through external sources of inspiration that is not present in the individuals immediate environment. With the help of such a concept, we can choose parts of Britney Spears actions, deeds and accomplishments to implement into our own behavior. Let's say that the two feats that Britney displays that isn't present in my immediate surroundings is (1) being able to sing and (2) disorderly drunken behavior. Both of these will be possible to pick up from this external (outside the family and other structures) source of inspiration (Britney). The question is however with what ease we can add these to our roster of characteristics. Probably the (presumably it's a young) individual we're talking about, will try to "feel out" how much resistance the immediate group displays towards these both feats of Britney's, and if both seem appealing and both also seem unoffensive to the group, there's a pretty good chance that the individual will pick these up. However, if drunken behavior isn't accepted or a frequent part of the immediate surroundings, chances are that that part of Britney's actions will not be implemented.

This probably seems relatively straight forward, however, what we also do here is that we choose who Britney is. We choose one of her feats as something aspiring, and we combine this with a row of other feats that has nothing to do with her. In this sense, we isolate Britney-for-us as a singer, not an examplary mother, party girl, or academic exemple to aspire to. All the different people we meet through every day interaction, social media, television etc, essentially work in the same way. We choose what we want to pick up on. This gives us a quite unique set of feats that is combined to a person - you.

The last thought I wanna pursue here, is my attitude regarding these different roles (and the people we model ourselves after). The main problem is not "snatching" feats from here and there, but more so trying to make everything to fit in one person. For instance, I have various ideas, thoughts, feelings, an different people that have inspired me in different areas of life. But what I don't want to do, is try to put one of my feats as the most important characteristic of me. For example, if I postulate that my being a Christian is the most important characteristic, this puts me in danger of thinking that I can probably not get along with i.e. Muslims, Jews or Buddhists, who have this essentially different character. This is tied in with the second danger I see. If you see yourself as role-X-first (i.e. Christian) you run the risk of being extra sensitive to other people's attempts to fill that role with their impression of what it is to be a X (i.e. Christian). The danger then, is that you try to model your different feats and sources of inspirations, not in a way that you yourself is comfortable with, but that corresponds to someone elses version of your "top-role". My experience is that identity/identities are much more fluid than this, and that this is a really positive thing. If we let our identities be slightly disorganized - instead of hierarchial - we are better equipped to face today's world of pluralism, and enjoy it; rather than seeing it as a threat towards your "main" identity.

Taking Sides? (Dick pt III)

(a continuation of my Dawkins series)

Something I would like to point out, regarding the whole God vs science-debate, is that I'm not exactly taking sides in it. Rather; I think both sides are wrong. More precisely; I think both sides are taking their competence out of the context where it's useful. I have already made clear how Richard Dawkins falls short in my eyes. But equally so, it's a question that should be directed towards all "fundamentalists" (a word I use as commonly used, although I could go into detail about its origin and meanings).

For instance, if we study science in school; exactly where and when does it help us to change the curriculum so that we have a creationist version of science onboard? I posed the question to Richard Dawkins; why kill religion, when he is offering no substitute (see the post "Richard, Richard, Richard...")? Equally; how have creationists been able to help study and understand the human genome project, how have creationist perspectives had an impact on scientific cures for cancer, and so forth?

I think one key question here is competence. Are we changing x for y, even though y doesn't have the competence of x? Dawkins wants to make it look like religion is Windows XP and science is Windows 7, in other words: the replacement. Equally, creationists are sticking to their guns saying there's nothing wrong with "XP", and it needs no replacing. I think both these perspectives are mistaken. Also, when Dawkins wants to make it look like faith and science equals theism and atheism and must be at each others throat. Funnily enough, he doesn't care to let more moderates elaborate on how they see the connection. In his Darwin series, for instance, he cuts the archbishop of Canterbury short. Hardly a man you can ignore in an instance like this. He also completely ignores the fact that the Pope already in the 1960ies made the official statement to the world that there is no conflict between what the catholic church says and what Darwinism says. If I were to ask what christian person's opinion would be hard to ignore policies on belief and shaping or influencing faith all over the world. One good answer would definitely be the pope.

Dawkins' problem in this killing-religion-mission of his, is that he doesn't know very much about religion. Many important thinkers, especially political ones, have struggled over how politics and religion should coexist or what kind of religion is acceptable or compatible with politics etc. All too many times, however, the tendency has been to select a too narrow perspective on what religion is to be able to tacle the interesting and important question of religion and politics' position towards each other.

Equally, something that different parts of the church has done in all times, is to be too sceptical about the competence of sciences - both of nature, social sciences and humanities. There are innumerous examples, and it's just pointless to mention them as more people tend to know about them than about the holes in Dawkin's theories. And in that respect, they also help to fuel each other's fires: Early sociology for instance was dead certain that by the beginning of the 21st century, religion would lead marginal existence - a mere curiosity that most people didn't think much of. Not exactly what the global religious landscape looks like today. But surely, one of the reasons was probably that the church tried to rule out that any of the new sciences could actually have an impact or help better the world; a projection that can also easily be falsified.

Evidence? (Dick pt II)

(This is a continuation of my Richard Dawkins and atheism vs theism-thread.)

Evidence. A fav word for Richard Dawkins. But what does it mean? What can it mean? According to the correspondance theory truth is something that can be said to exist in nature that can be "objectively observed", and ones statement about this thing can be checked against the original. This is more or less the version of truth Dawkins adheres to.

What he does not address however, is the question of: how can I investigate this object objectively and not merely subjectively? Is it possible for one person to investigate something without any preconception about what it is he or she is about to observe or investigate? The critique against the correspondance theory is that it's impossible to rid yourself of your preconceptions, prejudice and choices made along the way if you are to observe this object and understand anything of it.

When communicating back what you've seen, this too has to be done in a fashion where you put the observation into a language, a contextual framework to make your observations of this object - investigated with the help of your previous experience and concepts of language, nature, science, history and whatnot - graspable to anyone but yourself.

The idea of objectivity is seriously under critique and constant scrutiny. One of the early postmodern contributions to philosophy of science was to demonstrate how this objective state of all things somehow always ended up benefitting the same group of people; white middleaged men, funnily enough.

It's a good thing to want to rid yourself of preconceptions - ethnocentricity included - and try to overcome the obstacles they pose. It's quite another one to pretend that the preconceptions don't exist. This is what Dawkins does, and is also one of the points where he should be justifiably criticized.

Yours philosophically

Jonatan

PS. One of the tags for this post is "theology". Which may strike you as odd, as my text says nothing about God. What I'm writing about here is philosophy of science. That said, Dawkins is not being explicit about his philosophy of science, and it is partly therefor his entire thesis falls short.