Hegel's Cake

Despite being capable of living a materialist, amoral existence, we do, I argue, all the same feel the weight of morality and of spirituality. Why?

Is it because it has become ingrained in all human peoples and cultures? Don't we all grow up with this sense of right and wrong, which we experience as a conscience? It doesn't mean we must accept that a spiritual world or afterlife exists in reality, but its influence on us is, all the same, real.

This is what stops us from getting away with our cake and eating it too.

Is dialectical philosophy practical? Is it philosophy's role to be practical? If not, then what is the purpose of philosophy?

The dialectic method is less analytical than many would want, but more holistic than analysis can claim to be. I argue that holistic is good and deserves a chance to be important in philosophy's quest for truth.

Looking at the big picture often gets bad publicity. It can be seen as being unscientific and illogical. But if we look at what the big picture contains, then things might appear to be different. A big picture is made up of little pictures. These little pictures are a commentary, in the form of symptoms, of a bigger picture harmony or disharmony. Analytic philosophers worry that the grand narrative of dialectic philosophy is nothing but the story of constant reevaluation, as theory after theory is discredited on the grounds that it must be disproved in order to be faithful to pure truth. I say, fear not. We are not robots. We are emotional beings, and as such, will always look to make opinions that justify our emotive actions. So bring on the dialectics and let us channel human passion to find truth and not just to pretend to find truth whilst merely justifying our own particular desires.

Hegel's thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic can be seen as being a constant procrastination that never finds anything stable that can lead to truth. This might happen only if we were a race of computer-brains. For example, we might well promote our own ideas in spite of an opposing view. But by promoting our own ideas because they are more real/truthful at the culmination of a dialectical discussion with the opposing view, is more likely to convince our rational mind that we are arriving at something nearer universal truth, rather than an isolated particular will.

The attractive quality for me, of the dialectic approach, is that it forces philosophers to listen to every idea. Nothing can be discounted and therefore it keeps the focus on truth foremost and it prevents arrogance of mind. It does mean a more long-winded method compared with an analytical method. But if philosophy is primarily concerned with truth, then the time it takes to get there is surely of secondary importance? The dialectic is a way of making sure you don't become exactly that which you accuse your opponent of being: Namely a tyrant, a totalitarian, a bully, someone unwilling to compromise the methods that neatly justify their own predetermined ends.

Then the question is: Does one encourage the tyrant by always forgiving him? But is it not also arrogant, and tyrannical, to assume that it is the other and not you (the ego) that is the tyrant. Is to feel persecuted also to encourage tyranny? Relationships can be seen as a nuclear example of this Yin and Yang struggle. In marriage, two people form a union. This union is generally understood to represent the universal harmony of the two particular individuals. As human beings, it is very difficult to compromise our convictions. Hegel believed that the ultimate tragedy of the French Revolution was that by voicing a dogmatic opinion, the particular person who instigates the revolution is never speaking for the universal and therefore cannot be promoting the universal cause of the people.
 

I argue that in the dialectical approach, and through the dialectical approach, philosophy is not in crisis. It has a role in human affairs in that it deals with finding meaning in existence and giving confidence when we feel doubt. It encourages us to keep going and to keep believing in humanity.

Two things seem to be given truths here that suggest dialectics is not a tyrannical approach to finding truth. One is that humans are inquisitive beings who think for themselves and order their thinking. (Descartes' Cogito ergo sum) Two, through this we can derive the fact that humans form opinions. They categorize a difference between things; between right and wrong, as a matter of instinct. Therefore, if we are designed to make opinions, a dialectical method, which analytic philosophy might dismiss as vague and procrastinatory, is a good way of keeping us in check. It is a regulatory system, like the ones we must put on nasty city bankers, that stops us arrogantly assuming that just because we instinctively form opinions and can argue a good case for them, does not mean we can dismiss the rights of others to have equally valid opinions too.

The Negative Innovation Dialectic

I say we are traditionalists, because by nature we seem to be afraid of improvement. How so?

Innovation, by definition, supersedes what has gone before it. This makes us acutely aware of our own fading relevance in the world. Look for instance at the way we construct tradition and how we classify culture. For example, music that is called 'classical', has a clearly defined and reverently respected repertory. When someone or something comes along to expose these 'masters' as something other than the very pinnacle of their field, we are forced either to dismiss them as arrogant pretenders, or accept them, along with the notion we are all but mere mortals, never be sure of leaving anything that lasts when we in time we shed this mortal coil.

I began thinking about this when listening to the amazing child jazz piano sensation Eldar Djangirov. I then selected a conservatively selected jazz great who has become an acceptable face of the jazz Standard. Kenny Barron is highly respected by the Wynton Marsalis/Stanley Crouch neo-classicist institution, that controls so much of what is allowed to be Jazz.

It seems that one of the trade-offs in the deal we make with society, it to develop an instinct to cling to an acceptable level on innovation and greatness in order to come to terms with our own underachieving. The consequence being that we seem to promote tradition above innovation. We treat it with the highest respect because it is already there, predictable and controllable. We can use it for our own means, to justify our own path and convictions. If we take it away we take away, we question the basis of our own fragile existence.

A History of Class and a Future of Equality

If all history is the history of class, as Karl Marx famously recognised, then how can we genuinely aspire to promote equality? And if our material state necessarily influences our ideas, then how can we be sure that our convictions have a global truth and not just a local resonance?

Why is it so hard to deny the existence of 'class' in society?

In a capitalist world, people buy a habitable environment. This environment is not provided for individuals freely. If you can't earn enough money to buy this life-space, then you might well be subsidised by your family. This is what Marx calls 'the destruction of the family's sentimental veil'. It is the humiliation you experience at not being able to live independent of those who love you instinctively and would do anything for you. In economic crisis this humiliation doubles. Because despite having education and drive, and perhaps even a full time job, you cannot afford to house yourself or feed yourself adequately.

This family bail-out further reinforces this class system in two ways. One, the children of families with material wealth acquire a sense of entitlement to money that is given to them for free. Secondly, it disenfranchises and demoralises all those without an inheritance pot, who feel respected by the pseudo-democratic capitalist society which not only allows material inequality, but actively encourages it.

So we get buffeted around physically and psychologically. To such an extent that capitalism hopes to kill off all fighting spirit and convert us all into mindless consumers. Which is why we must be resilient, be versatile, and above all be compassionate to others and to ourselves. A 'how can I possibly survive?' mentality must become an 'If you try to drain my energies then I WILL survive' mentality.

Of course we all need food and shelter from which to launch our ideas of universal freedom and equality. Marx admits this when he says that 'men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.' But I don't think it is hypocritical or contradictory to say that 'all history is the history of class' whilst at the same time as advocating freedom and advocating a future without class and with equality.

I Want To Think Big: Emotional Denial Has Undermined The Role of Philosophy

We need to let emotion back into philosophy if we want to escape social inertia, and allow this purest of reasoning disciplines the chance to regain its ambition: of making life and the world a better place. 

Until recently, if a Martian were suddenly to land on earth and attend a University philosophy lecture, it could easily have believed that it had arrived on the most perfect and harmonious culture in the universe. Why else would we be concerning ourselves only with the minuscule details, unless we had the big issues already covered? This is what Simon Glendinning suggests when talking last week to Nigel Warburton on Philosophy Bites. In the 40s and 50s, he says, thinking big rather went out of fashion in philosophy academia. But a renewed interest in what he calls the 'two cultures of philosophy', is giving belated credibility to the often criticised Continental philosophy, as it aims to stand shoulder to shoulder with the confident, muscular logic of the Analytic school. So let's hear it for prose and thoughts and convictions; this is where the quest for truth begins. Why? Because in order to become analytic you need an ideal from which to build it.

Two things prove to me the importance of upholding a culture of philosophy that is rooted in human emotion. First of all, philosophy is fundamentally concerned with what it means to be true, and how the individual can reconcile his personal desires with others in the world. It starts from the premise that humans are emotional animals, and everything else follows from this given. Secondly, the fact that humans are reflectively aware of their efforts and achievements, proves how we justify moral behaviour based on practical experience of our emotions. These are cognitive qualities that have mobilised us as a race, and allowed us to flourish in a world of savages. No other animal can reason to such a sophisticated degree. These are characteristics entirely specific to humans.

Our emotions indicate levels of morality. If something seems abhorrent, such as rape or battery, we know we are witnessing a grossly immoral act. [Cross refer John Mikhail on Battery and Morality] If something seems delightful or wonderful, then we know we are witnessing an act of great moral fortitude. Morality is our way of codifying the specifically human condition of emotion. No other animal has morality because no other animal has an emotional life. This is why philosophy is unique to humankind. Our morals therefore necessarily reflect this inclination. So to deny this strain of philosophical insight in favour always of logical argument, contradicts our very nature, and what it means to be human. If philosophy is about searching for absolute truths, then we cannot place analytic philosophy above its more openly emotive continental cousin.

The Arrogance of Proof: Science, Materialism and Green Morality

Confidence is temporary, and conviction is permanent. It's a cute soundbite if nothing else. But underneath the nice symmetry of this throw-away remark, is, I argue, a certain admirable desire for integrity in the face of an all-powerful consumer materialism.

Listening to Green Philosopher Dale Jamieson interviewed on Philosophy Bites with Nigel Warburton, got me thinking about the world's hyper-confident material capitalism, and its inability to tolerate other moral convictions that might frighten and stifle mass consumption. [Link to Dale Jamieson on Green Virtues]

So what is the relationship that a human being has to his/her environment? And what is the psycho-spiritual impact that material possessions have on human beings? From a moralistic point of view, I do have concerns for materialism's desire to negate the existence of spirituality in society; and for the backing that some scientists so willingly give to it. To be aware that the resources of the earth are finite and therefore precious, is, as Dale Jamieson states, a modern virtue that is an essential moral of our time. It is a spiritual understanding, because it requires that we deny ourselves material possessions in the faith that we can protect the world for those who we do not personally know, and for those who will come after us in the future.

On a most basic level, looking after our possessions indicates this human moral responsibility. It shows that we understand that the world is not for mindless pillaging. It shows that we appreciate the 'use value' of tools and crucially, therefore also the 'emotive value'. It is this emotive value that we often want to deny, or turn into an OCD. Yet, I argue that when we treat possessions carelessly, and as ever-replaceable and as instantly disposable, we are defiantly disrespectful of not just the resources themselves, but also the energy and effort 'footprint' that weaves intricately back to a sacred source. Sacred, because it is surely a marvellous, as well as enormous, privilege to be able to conjure up material possessions at the click of a button.

My concern with materialism and science, is that it can focus too much on finding 'the next innovation', and it often ploughs through vast quantities of the earth's finite resources in its relentless quest to get better tools. I compare science with art in this respect, because art, by contrast, asks us to delight in the infinite possibility and potential of materials. It asks us to be creative with raw materials, to recycle, rethink, observe, re-observe and reuse. Whereas science and materialism can be frustrated by the slowness and limitations of material resources, art rejoices in the restrictions imposed by our environment, because it focuses a wild imagination.

If we imagine a world and our individual lives as being devoid of anything other than that which we can sense bodily, then how can we give value and meaning to nurturing a collective sense of harmonious human society? The short answer is that we cannot. But having faith in humanity does not require us to abandon the laws of physics. The two are not mutually exclusive. Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion (Bantam, 2006) shows how some scientists can so wholly misunderstand spirituality when they set out to debase the truth behind organised religion.

Separating his profession from his life, the material scientist risks becoming arrogant and even a menace to society, because he fails to understand the responsibility that society has for the welfare of its citizens. Faith is the shield that each and every one of us possesses, with which to protect our human dignity in the face of oppression. How else would we reconcile the constant hardships we experience in our mortal existence?

Faith is not about living in a fairytale world where god looks down on us. Faith is about being allowed to believe in people. If science wants to take away our right to believe in humanity, then its lack of moral intelligence is in danger of preventing anyone from taking it seriously as a discipline. Thankfully this is not the intentions of science. It is the misinterpretation of certain people who deny the significance of their own spirituality in a misguided loyalty to scientific truth. Worryingly however, in a capitalist world that is becoming ever more dismissive of and hostile to any activity that is not driven by material productivity, I wonder how much longer can spirituality defend itself against the global Consumer State?

To deny us a spiritual space is to deny us an alternative to rampant consumer capitalism. We must already acknowledge that capitalism is the supremely dominant social force of our times. Must we be so humiliated as to accept that it is also the best?

Art: A moment of relief from the fear of death

IF ART FAILS TO MOVE US, WE ARE SIMPLY PASSING TIME CONTEMPLATING OUR OWN MORTALITY. 

I want to highlight the significance of movement in art. If we start from the premise that movement is what strikes us about art, then we can explore what it is that creates movement and we begin to understand how, on a technical level, a work of art both fails and succeeds. 

An experience is necessarily a physical encounter. It needs a time frame and a space frame in order for us to perceive it as a tangible thing. If we are not convinced by the composition of an aesthetic, then we experience nothing. Aesthetic theory, in the sublime sense that Theodor Adorno so brilliantly argues, is the dialectic between the technical, tangible, physical domain of the structure of a work, and the enigmatic quality that true art gains through transcending the definable arena where art hopes to spring. 

The 'rhythm' of a work of art is what carries us from the beginning to the end of the experience. It is what distracts us from seeing it as a clever aesthetic composition. It is what keeps us honest and what reveals our humanity. As soon as we sense that we are aware of ourselves as art critics or observers, the experience has failed in artistic terms and we are back looking at brushstrokes and colours. 

Humanity: Too Big to Bust

Any capitalist will tell you that a business can only exist if it is profitable. This seems fair considering that the nature of business is 'survival of the fittest'. To deny it this quality undermines its essence and economic purpose.

A problem arises however, when we try to implement these rules and impose these instincts onto social welfare. To justify human existence in these terms is immoral because humanity, unlike business IS NECESSARILY too big to fail.

When a business fails, it is forgotten and its failures are measured up and explained through detailed analysis of its activities. When society fails, we cannot send in the administrators, 'write off' the collateral. Why? Because the collateral damage is human beings. It is obscene to consider that a 'survival of the fittest' model be an appropriate system with which to organise peoples' quality of life. Business ventures live and die by profitability. Do we really want to promote a society where real people must survive according to the same standard? When we do, we force people to fend for themselves, which is what the state calls crime.

When we abandon people according to the terms and conditions of business, we forget that a government's commitment to its people is constant and unconditional. Business has no moral obligation to protect vulnerable projects. In fact, as we see with the recent bank bailouts, if it does, it undermines its own code of conduct and calls into question the worthiness of capitalism as a socioeconomic model. So I do not make these statements out of sentiment. I merely point out the importance of differentiating between what is 1) the state's eternal duty to protect its people, and 2) the state's decision to let its economy work according to capitalism.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987:

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

When Margaret Thatcher talked about 'no such thing as society' she fundamentally misunderstood this difference, and made us all realise that she saw her citizens as business rivals rather than her cherished responsibility. There is no room for humanity in this model. I am not talking purely about compassion. There is no room for human difference, human brilliance and human intelligence. There is no room for the exceptional or the emotional, and no room for belief. Furthermore, does she really want to promote 'the family' as the bedrock of social welfare? Do we want to be run by feuding mafias? This only encourages us to be corrupt and fascist. Society is what needs to exist in order that families respect each other.

This is why it matters from a societal point of view. It matters because by denying vulnerable individuals social security, we criminalise them. When we feel that "there is no such thing as society," we feel no sense of loyalty or obligation. We have, quite understandably, lost respect for the government that has disowned us. We become anarchic and lawlessness prevails, (E.g. The miners' strikes and recently the London riots) all because the state has walked away from its people and forgotten its humanity. Most shockingly of all, the state does this, not in the name of a greater good, but in the name of frenzied capitalist greed.

This may sound very Marxist. And it is. It is the fundamental downfall of capitalism that Marx acutely realised. As a social system capitalism will never succeed because it depends upon its people being obedient to a set of rules that are intolerably humiliating. Fortunately human beings are not so willing to surrender their basic humanity to such a machine. For we see both intuitively and reasonably, that when a government condemns its people to poverty, depravity and humiliation, it destroys any potential for these people to be creative, to be happy, to be secure and therefore peaceful. So from a purely practical point of view, it is a foolish leader who attempts to keep order with such antagonistic methods.

"The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation."  (Karl Marx. The Communist Manifesto.)

John Coltrane: The importance of being earnest

Listening to the jazz standard "My One and Only Love" lead me to compare two recordings of this tune: One by tenor saxophonist John Coltrane and another by tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker.

John Coltrane playing 'My One and Only Love'

Michael Brecker playing 'My One and Only Love'


Brecker always cited Coltrane as one of his heaviest musical influences. Both men achieved fearsome technical virtuosity on the instrument, setting them apart from their contemporaries. Both performances are in many ways impressive. I am however, left with this nagging sense of disappointment when I listen to Brecker's performance. So I decided to investigate.

On reflection, it seems that my reservations for Brecker's take, are symptomatic of my more general concerns for the state of jazz post John Coltrane. From the late 60s, jazz, for the first time in its history, merged with mainstream pursuits. Before this time, the music had always been for the rebellious, the revolutionary and the underdog. Now, by fusing itself with academia and the status quo establishments, its identify seems to become confused. It no longer possessed its characteristic burgeoning raison d'être. It no longer feels like a clarion call for freedom to live. I hear this confusion in Brecker's take on Guy Wood's tune. I hear the new 'Jazz Studies' college programs that saturate further and higher education institutions. I hear technical idolatry. I hear less attention to content; less attention to narrative. I hear less soul.

It is perhaps unfair to compare the two recordings merely because two largely unrelated saxophonists chose to improvise over the chord progressions of the same old pop song. However, Brecker is solemn in his homage to Coltrane as a musical tutor and inspiration. So his work must expect a certain degree of critical comparison to it. What is more, Coltrane's version is so stripped back and honest, that it seems to serve as an example, to any aspiring jazz musician, of how technique should be subservient to narrative, and how one should never merely turn up to a job only to brandish the vastness of one's toolbox, pack up smugly and leave greatly satisfied.

Jazz is about saying something that needs to be said; said through improvisation, through rhythm, melody and harmony. It requires technique in order to be identifiable as jazz. But this technique should only be discernible retrospectively. It must not be felt to impose upon the performance, lest the experience turn from one of essential democratic wonder, to one of self-indulgent preening.

Money and Morality: Keeping the masses at bay

The morality of money has always been a political concern to ethicists. The core nature of money demands this philosophical attention.
If £5,000 is as powerful in the hands of a thieving murderer as it is in the hands of a virtuous humanitarian, then what does this say about a society's desire to promote ethical behaviour? I argue that this amoral character of money has hugely unethical, inhuman and destructive consequences on society.

Money is credit. This is what makes it anything more than just grubby pieces of paper. But what kind of credit is it?

It is credit for food, credit for shelter, and therefore, crucially, credit for dignity.

In capitalist society, he who has no food or shelter is forced to sacrifice his dignity by begging for survival. This is where the evil of money lies. It makes those who hold it, both physically and morally superior to those who do not. It encourages those who hold it to treat those who don't with contempt. 

As I mentioned above, money is an amoral entity. However, the social consequences are immoral. How so? When humanity is carved up and categorised by this fickle imposter, its amorality encourages a social evil that happily makes material wealth synonymous with moral virtue. We begin to organise people into class, where the have-nots are first of all materially impoverished, then they are given inferior human rights.

It is money that decides who gets to be well fed and who gets to starve. Isn't it astonishingly alarming that we should think it in any way appropriate to hand over government of social welfare to a system that is so unintuitive, so non empathetic, so unintelligent to the human condition, that it chooses to ignore the difference (and crucially therefore also encourages its citizens to ignore the difference) between living 1) a socially responsible ethical life that promotes harmonious existence, and 2) an existence of greed, aggression and suspicion where your fellow man is someone to dominate and oppress in case he gains enough power to destroy you?
You come to expect that of all other animals who don't have the intelligence to build cognitive tools and systems. But for modern civilization to regress willingly to bestial structureless amorality shows the worst traits of human intelligence. We become so clever and cunning that our leaders impose base animalistic social conditions upon the masses, spending their time planning how to keep them at bay.

Carry on consuming

Capitalism and Schizophrenia is the title of Deleuze and Guattari's epic social deconstruction theory published in 1972. It is a monster of a book, written in bombastic style, critiquing capitalism's moral climate. It is not a sensible book in many ways. But its recklessness heightens one's awareness of how sensible, and therefore immune to argument, contemporary capitalism has become. The problem with this, is that it leads to a perversion of ethics in a system that is fundamentally inhumane. It promotes a society that only celebrates and rewards the materially greedy. As Deleuze and Guattari show, with capitalism, not only does existence become a fight against human atrocity, it becomes a fight against a State that does not even acknowledge the existence of its oppressed people. We realise that we are in the grips of a newer form of fascist totalitarianism. By being in favour of productivity and graft, somehow society evades the argument that it must provide a level of care for its citizens in a way that the dollopping out of capital cannot supply.

Charlie Parker - Hipster breaks the mould

Jerry Coker defines hipster as someone who rejects wealth and personal success in order to expose the farcical nature of existence.
In many ways Parker epitomises this ethos: He is self-destructive, socially (outrageously) inclusive, satirically witty, suspicious of establishment and he actively seeks out vices to an extent that goes way beyond decadence.
Yet where he both transcends the Hipster identity, (yet also immortalises it) is manifest in his monumental achievement, impossible to discredit, as a true innovator of art. He becomes utterly brilliant in spite of these tremendous efforts to thwart himself.
Is Parker therefore the ultimate ironical Hipster, intent upon non-achievement, or does his immortal significance make him someone who ultimately exposes the fraudulent aspect of a passé cult philosophy?
Whatever his initial intentions, what he does so poignantly, is show that for someone destined for greatness, even the most boisterous attempts to screw things up cannot prevent the paradigm shift occuring. If he starts out as a Hipster, highlighting life's essential tragedy, he finishes up showing us that life's anguish and ridiculousness, is also what gives it meaning and richness.
Charlie Parker is a reluctant hero.