thoughtful

Nick Kristof likes Robert Wright and Karen Armstrong, allegedly "less combative and more thoughtful" than the New Atheists. (Stay tuned for future discussions of Wright and Armstrong.)

Kristof's little grenade is mostly intended for Richard Dawkins, who insists-- not entirely persuasively, but wittily and entertainingly-- that he's not strident at all, just gently satiric.

He's plenty thoughtful here, and funny. And he's right on target with his critique of the unconscionable indoctrination of young children into traditions they cannot begin to understand. It really does border (at best) on intellectual abuse.

And I can corroborate the claim that more attention, if not always more "raised consciousness," accrues to those who care less about being nice than being noticed and taken seriously. Humanists and most atheists have been "nice" and marginal forever. They've been sitting and chilling (as Marcus Brigstocke advises the religious extremists) and getting nobody's attention.

So yes, Mr. Kristof, an armistice in the religion wars-- a move away from intolerance by all-- is a great idea. Its time will finally arrive when the extremists stop persecuting and killing the people they deem immoral, and when "thoughtful" religious moderates in every Abrahamic tradition stop forgiving them for it... not when atheists and humanists shut up.

coming home

More first-rate presentations in class today. Wore my Cards cap, in an irrational attempt to sway the baseball fates as "my team" prepares to take on the Dodgers in round 1 of the MLB post-season.

Older daughter last night dismissed my interest in the Twins-Tigers tie-breaker:"It's not important, it's only baseball." (Some Yankees fan she is!) Then, totally subverting her own position, she flipped on "Dancing with the Stars." Watching Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols is at least as worthwhile as watching Tom DeLay and Donnie Osmond trying to "move it." (Admittedly, their partners may be a bit more worthy of scrutiny.)

I have slightly conflicted allegiances in this series (but only very slightly), since LA is managed by Joe Torre, one of my favorite Cardinals from yesteryear. '71 was his best season in the bigs, .363 average to capture the batting title. My Dad and I went to every Friday night home game that year, my freshman year of High School. (My freshman and I will have to make a different memory, looks like.)

So it was nice to lead off this morning with a report on "Baseball & Philosophy," all about the significance of home as a safe destination. The late George Carlin was really good on this theme, one of his cleaner presentations.

And then, another theme George had strong views about: religion. One of the more interesting questions to arise this afternoon: is religious indoctrination a form of child abuse? Richard Dawkins has written, insistently, that there is no such thing as a Muslim, Baptist, Catholic, or Atheist child... only children of Muslim, Baptist (etc.) parents. Others agree. Dale McGowan says it's in kids' best interests to be parented beyond belief.

There's no reason to think kids can't be raised to value ethics, spirituality, and diversity, is there?

And, my own special hobby-horse: why aren't we acquainting kids with comparative religion and philosophy in elementary, middle, and high school? I know why, but... why not?!

Update: The Dodgers took a "sluggish" 5-3 win in an uninspiring game that went on much too long. But it was worth waiting for LA pitcher Randy Wolf's post-game quote: "Ignorance is bliss, and we gotta lotta bliss." Follow it, Randy.

Philosophy, children, nature

Times notes. The fantasy play of young children is obviously fun for its own sake, but (as noted by Anthony Gottlieb in his review of Alison Gopnik's The Philosophical Baby) it's also instrumental in their growth. So maybe it is sometimes too late to have a happy childhood.

"Playful immersion in freely conjured hypothetical worlds is what teaches us how to make sense of the real one... small children’s grasp of “counterfactual” situations enables them to calculate the probabilities of alternative courses of action.. invisible friends... seem to help youngsters learn how to interpret the actions of others."

I'm pleased to note that Gopnik backs up a point I tried to press upon a Montessori instructor a few years ago who insisted that anything like a moral sense is developmentally absent not only in very young children but in teens as well, as a matter of biological necessity. It's "heartening news for optimists about the human race... that children are naturally empathetic from birth and tend to exhibit altruism (though fitfully) from the age of 1." I've seen it myself.

Gottlieb is less enthusiastic about Gopnik's overall confidence in the philosophical relevance of childhood, and her speculation that its traditional neglect has been due to the patriarchal history of the discipline. "The notion that children's minds have much to tell us about the meaning of life seems rather a fond exaggeration." Maybe, but I'm fond of it too. I'll read the book and report back.

Also in today's Times, Nicholas Kristof has sound advice for us all (and especially for the sedentary young) who suffer from nature deficit disorder. Take a hike, travel light, don't fret about bears. He offers "more backpacking advice on my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground."

Raising free-thinkers

Dale McGowan has good ideas about how to "parent beyond belief," humbly and respectfully but confidently, in our religion-saturated culture. A good complement to Chris Phillips' Philosophers' Clubs.

Drunk on the ground

William James pitied "poor Nietzsche's antipathy," as most of us who were early smitten with Zarathustra eventually do. See Gary Kamiya's "Falling Out With Superman," for instance. Or the alienated teen in "Little Miss Sunshine" who (unlike his hero) eventually reconciles with, and rejoins, the human race. (When Nietzsche Wept is another cinematic tribute that has its moments of insight.)

But somehow the books remain, in some pre-postmodern way detached from their author and standing magnificently apart... as on a tall peak just beyond reach. The Dawn, Human, All too Human, Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Antichrist, Twilight of the Idols, Gay Science, Thus Spake Zarathustra... Works of genius, and of despair that refuses to name and accept its condition. But, with enough of the truth to arrest a young person who knows this can't be all there is, who knows there has to be something better still to come. But (this sensibility attests) it must come here, in this life, and perhaps recurrently, eternally.

James and Nietzsche did have in common a mutual affinity for the heights, bracing and invigorating and (ultimately, forJames) terminal. Mountain hikes became James's "main hold on primeval sanity and health of soul." Maybe he was insane to hike so hard in his condition, at his age (60+ with a fluttery heart), but he might have been crazy not to. In 1899 he told his brother Henry, the novelist, that his "ridiculous cardiac weakness" was inconvenient, that his strenuous hikes had probably strained his heart, but that he nonetheless was "glad I had the experience, even at the price!"

Alain de Boton chronicles the price Nietzsche paid, tracing the bleak objective day-to-day mundanities of

his soaring Swiss Mountain philosophy. "Nietzsche spent seven years in Sils-Maria... He would rise at five," work all morning in his small rented room, then hit the peaks. (That's Piz Corvatsch.) In the evening, typically, it was back to the room, a solitary dinner, and an early bed. Sounds stark and easy, and to most of us drearily depressing. But it must have been hard. That's what he liked most about climbing mountains, and writing books: the difficulty and challenge and growth-opportunity ("What doesn't kill me" etc.) of scaling those imposing altitudes. Then, the great payoff at the summit, "a primal delight at being alive to see such beauty."

Again, Nietzsche (the rare tea-totaling German) admired Emerson... who could get drunk sober, simply treading the bare flat ground. (In Nature Emerson famously wrote: "Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.")

Me too. Crossing Hillwood High School's playing fields with my dogs, in dappled morning sunlight, thinking only of getting home and having a good breakfast... It happens all the time.

I love the mountains as much as the next philosopher, but I really think it's more about where you plant your head than your feet.

None of which is to deny that feet, particularly feet in motion, are indispensable too. We have walked far, up and down and all around. Walk on.

oldest recorded footprints

Brainwashing children

Stephen Law (The War for Children's Minds, Routledge 2006) cites Oxford physiology researcher Kathleen Taylor on brainwashing: "One striking fact about brainwashing is its consistency. Whether the context is a prisoner of war camp, a cult’s headquarters or a radical mosque, five core techniques keep cropping up: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition and emotional manipulation."

Law thinks religious teachers and those who try to instill "faith"-based values in children are distinctively guilty of brainwashing them, of attempting to "inject beliefs into the child's mind directly, without engaging the child's rational, critical faculties." But what about parents and other teachers generally?

Teachers, parents, and authorities of all stripes who deliberately bypass children's "rational, critical faculties" aren't teaching, they're indoctrinating. Emerson reprimanded such people: "You're trying to create another you. One is enough!"

“New Atheism”

Harvard’s “humanist chaplain” Greg Epstein disapproves of the atheist “fundamentalism” of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, according to the Associated Press:

Epstein and other humanists feel their movement is on the verge of explosive growth, but they are concerned that it will be dragged down by what they see as the militancy of New Atheism. "Humanism is not about erasing religion,” he said. It’s an embracing philosophy."
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703310370

Yes, but humanists should not uncritically embrace any belief anyone cares to entertain under the guise of religion, or automatically extend benign respect and deference. Steven Pinker is right: “It’s only the sense that religion deserves special respect – the exact taboo that Dawkins and Harris are arguing against – that makes people feel that those guys are being meanies when applying ordinary standards of evaluation to religion.”

On the other hand, Epstein is right to worry about tarnishing humanism as mean-spirited. (Remember Madalyn Murray O’Hare?) The times we live in will be far better served by friendly atheists like E.O. Wilson, reaching out to religionists for common ground in hopes of preserving the earth (The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth -- Norton '06; scroll to the bottom of this page to see YouTube video of Pinker, Dawkins, Harris, and Wilson)

But on the other other hand, I’m with Dawkins when he bemoans the abuse of children in the name of religious education. Children have a right to their native agnosticism, free of indoctrination. Philosophy can help with this, I am convinced. We need to be philosophizing with all our children from the beginning, arming them with the critical tools to think freely and creatively about their world and its future. More on this in future posts.