Religion Did This

"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness."

"I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there."

I'll comment. My opinion on putting a mosque near Ground Zero? Do it.

Remind the world that religion made this heinous thing possible. Remind everyone what happens when men cede their secular influence to those who claim to know the will of God. Remind people that they cannot seek knowledge of or comfort from a God via other men without also being knowledgeable and wary of the flaws of men. Remind us all about the dangers of dogma and unquestioning belief.

Remind us that there are people in this world who so despair of their condition and place in it that they will live and die based on promises of an afterlife. Remind us that there are men who will exploit that despair for secular gain.

Remind us that the structures of organization feed everything that is bad about religion.

Of course, putting only a mosque near Ground Zero for those reasons would feed the illusion that those dangers are only present in the religion of Islam. And who else looks at the Christian churches near Ground Zero and sees in them everything I've just said? Only the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero triggers such an outcry. And that tells me that we are not having the necessary discourse on this topic. Because only when we no longer see the terrorists of 9/11 as Muslims, but rather as men who were preyed upon by other men, will we have truly understood what happened that day and made real progress towards a world free of terrorism.

Let the proximity to Ground Zero be a reminder to everyone who walks through the doors of any nearby church, mosque, or temple that what you seek in there should not be 'found' without a great deal of questioning and doubt on your part. Let all religions build a sacred space near Ground Zero, and let their proximity to each other remind us all of our common humanity and our common fallibility in presuming exclusive knowledge of the unknown. And let the proximity to Ground Zero serve as a reminder that suffering is universal, and that what is good about any religion is that which seeks to alieviate that suffering with something other than unprovable words and empty promises.

The Jungle

"He had learned to hate poverty, and the limitations it put on his desire for learning, as well as its crushing effect on the dignity of men and women... Now here it was in its ugliest aspects, the worst of which was the ignorance of its victims themselves. With the exception of a very small minority, they had no idea that they had the right to a better way of life. It was moral, spiritual, and physical degradation, a 'jungle' in which humans lived barely above the level of animals."

So fundamental is the idea that a person must labor - that is, exchange something of themselves (be it time, intellect, or physical exertion) for the necessities of life - that few people question it, or the conditions under which, or the reasons why, a person can reasonably be expected to surrender something of themselves. While the idea that one person can own another outright is no longer acceptable in the civilized world, we are only slowly catching on to the potential for oppression of identity and spirit represented by currently acceptable forms of labor. We have coined the terms 'wage slavery' and 'intellectual slavery' to indicate that we recognize an extreme imbalance of power inherent in certain labor situations, and we routinely despair of and satirize the conditions under which many of us labor. So, while physical labor conditions have certainly improved in the last centuries, we seem to agree that there is still room for improvement in other aspects of what it means to 'work'. We would all like to feel as though we did not labor under conditions of "moral, spiritual, and physical degradation", yet few of us would consider our jobs to represent ideal conditions under which to spend our time. And so the question becomes - What is this "better way of life" to which we are told by Sinclair that we have the right to? Would he be content with the labor reforms set in place since The Jungle, or would he agree that we have fallen short of some ideal condition of labor?

I first came across The Jungle many years ago in the R&D library of a company that will remain unnamed. Having already battled a former boss about the laws regarding overtime pay, I was sympathetic to the labor plights that Sinclair had intended to be the focus of his book. Unfair treatment of workers remains something of a hot button with me. But now I'm also interested in broader questions with respect to labor...

Transhumanist thought on labor seems to deem it sufficiently ideal for machines to simply take over 'manual' labor. AI proponents would like to think that a sufficiently advanced intelligence could remove the needs for many forms of intellectual labor as well. Are we destined for (and do we desire) a future where all that remains for us to do is to create art, and to have as many experiences of ourselves as we desire and no more? Thinking about a future with no 'labor' as we now understand it can give us a great deal of insight into what labor currently represents... For example, does mitigating the need for any form of labor contribute to a more equal perception of individuals? How much are our ideas about 'personhood' and equality (historically and currently) based upon judgments what that person can potentially contribute in the form of labor?

I find, however, that I'm ultimately more interested in discussions aimed at improving current conditions. What practical corrective measures can be employed today to give us more-ideal conditions under which to labor until the need for us to labor is gone?

It's interesting to me that the Buddha, who supposedly had reached a state of detached enlightenment, felt compelled to state the importance of 'right work' when he laid out the Eightfold Path to the cessation of suffering. On the surface, this is simply an instruction to ensure that one's livelihood does not harm other living beings. Note that harm to oneself is not addressed in the standard interpretations of this instruction. Yet is the current state of 'working' in which most of us find ourselves more degrading to the psyche of the worker, or ennobling? And when one's options for employment are forcibly limited, how easy is it really to find meaningful, useful work that does not directly or indirectly produce harm to oneself or others?

I hope to devote more time and energy to the topic of labor in the year to come. The question I'm going to leave you today with is this... If the ideal conditions under which to labor are ones that permit self-actualization without harming others, then how do we create or embrace an economic system that rewards such an intangible outcome?

Good Samaritan Health Care

"Go and do likewise."

A recent blog post prompted me to resurrect an almost-post of my own from some months ago...

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about universal health care or its merits. This is a post about the perils of using the Bible as the primary justification of your argument. I try not to get involved in these kinds of things, but the guy who presented this argument was a lawyer. And the argument annoyed me.]

[DISCLAIMER: All religious puns are completely intentional.]

It annoys me when people use the Bible in an attempt to justify public policy. It really annoys me when they do it badly.

Unsuspecting Me recently attended a talk ('sermon' would be a more accurate term) called The Moral Dimensions of Public Policy. Unsuspecting Me was more than a little disappointed that said talk was nothing more than a singular argument for universal health care. While I have no problem with a discussion on universal health care - indeed, I think that it should be widely discussed - I do have a problem with the fact that the speaker's sole justification for universal health care was the story of the Good Samaritan. For ease of reference, I'll insert the relevant Biblical passage here...

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

The speaker removed certain elements of this story and twisted them to suit his argument for universal health care - namely, that the idea of 'neighbor' transcends tribe, ergo everyone is our neighbor, and our instruction to do 'likewise' means that we have an obligation to provide health care to everyone.

And here's why that argument simply won't do. Let's examine what the Samaritan actually did...

• He did stop for an injured man that he came upon while travelling.
• He treated the man with his own materials and knowledge.
• He transported the man at the cost of his time.
• He spent a further day caring for the man upon coming to the inn.
• He paid for the injured man's care at the hands of another when he (presumably) could no longer stay himself.

...as well as what he did not do...

• He did not compel anyone else to give money or care to the injured man at their expense.
• There is no indication that he bankrupted himself (or was willing to) to provide for the injured man.
• He did not specify for what care he would or would not pay.
• He did not assume any future health care burdens beyond the immediate recovery from injury.

Perhaps the most irksome point of this lawyer's presentation came right before yours truly was about to speak her piece. The lawyer mentioned that his own sister did not have health care insurance, and that he was worried about her. Seriously - the mic was in my hand when he said this. Of course what I was about to say would now fall on deaf ears. (sigh)

As you may have guessed, my response comes down to this...

• The Samaritan responded to an immediate need that was before him. Universal health care is a level of abstraction that shifts our attention away from what is going on in our immediate environment. Upon hearing stories about sick people without health care insurance who are going without care or treatment, how can our only response be to gripe/argue/whine about the need for universal health care? Take the person to a doctor! Help them buy their meds! Don't "pass by on the other side" and wait for someone else (i.e., universal health care) to show up on the scene and save the person; if they need a doctor now, help them get help now. Yes, it may cost you, but that is the point of this parable. Individual action and sacrifice makes the difference.


• The Samaritan did what he could with what he had. HE did it. He did not compel anyone else to help him at a loss to themselves. Universal health care legislation is about compelling others to bear financial burdens that are not their own. The Samaritan voluntarily gave what he could. The difference between what one does voluntarily and what one does because one is compelled to do so is huge. One could even argue that the most critical point of this story is that the Samaritan was not compelled to give aid, and yet he did. And while he did give aid, there is no indication that the Samaritan bankrupted himself (let alone anyone else or future generations) in the process of caring for the injured man. He did not make himself a victim by failing to live up to his own pre-existing obligations.

It's probably a good time to repeat that this is not a post about universal health care. It's a post about my annoyance with an argument that assumes that 1) the moral authority of the source would permit only the speaker's interpretation and conclusions, and that 2) because one is presenting an argument that is based on the Bible that one's argument is rendered unimpeachable.

But if this post also makes a few valid points about universal health care, I can live with that.