Labor Day

Yours truly is still learning about humanism.

It seems to me that humanists would/should have something to say about labor and the conditions under which people labor. Googling various expressions of 'humanism' and 'labor' brought up nothing so frequently as it did Marxist-Humanism. Having been brought up in the era of Marxism=Communism=BAD, and having little direct knowledge of the man's work, I didn't know quite how to react to this association. But it's made for some interesting reading...

"He must constantly look upon his labour-power as his own property, his own commodity, and this he can only do by placing it at the disposal of the buyer temporarily, for a definite period of time. By this means alone can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it." (q) (I seize upon the word 'temporarily', as I can imagine nothing so frightful as a voluntary captivity of 20+ years with a single employer.)

"The workers’ antagonism to the machine has traveled a long way from the time when they simply wished to smash it. Now what they want to have done with is their very work. They want to do something entirely different – express all their natural and acquired powers in an activity worthy of them as human beings." (q) (Self-actualization, anyone?)

"Marx's aim was true man - living under emancipated conditions of labor and not disintegrated by the division of labor. His vision of humanity's future was founded on the assumption that such a man was not only possible, but the necessary result of social development and essential to the existence of a truly human society." (q)

"More specifically, real liberty does not exist unless workers effectively control their workplace, the products they produce, and the way they relate to each other. Workers are not fully emancipated until they work not in the way domesticated animals or robots work, but voluntarily and under their own direction." (q) (My emphasis.)

"The opposite of war is not peace, but social revolution." (q) (Just because it's an interesting thought...)

And speak to me like you know me - the theory of the alienated worker...

"The most basic form of workers’ alienation is their estrangement from the process of their work. An artist, unlike an industrial worker, typically works under his or her own direction; artists are in total control of their work. (That is why artists usually do not mind working long hours and even under adverse conditions, because their creative work is inherently meaningful, and an expression of their most personal desires and intuitions.)... In modern industry, however, workers typically do not work under their own direction. They are assembled in large factories or offices, and they work under the close supervision of a hierarchy of managers who do most of the important thinking for them. Planners and managers also divide complex work processes into simple, repetitive tasks which workers can perform in machine-like fashion... " (q) (Yours truly never considered herself an artist, until she started blogging.)

"In what, then, consists the alienation of labor? First, in the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., that it does not belong to his nature, that therefore he does not realize himself in his work, that he denies himself in it, that he does not feel at ease in it, but rather unhappy, that he does not develop any free physical or mental energy, but rather mortifies his flesh and ruins his spirit. The worker, therefore, is only himself when he does not work, and in his work he feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor, therefore, is not voluntary, but forced--forced labor. It is not the gratification of a need, but only a means to gratify needs outside itself. Its alien nature shows itself clearly by the fact that work is shunned like the plague as soon as no physical or other kind of coercion exists." - Marx (via) (Shunned like the plague, people.)

"A person with very few possessions, but with an intensive life, comes much closer to Marx' idea of a happy human being than a well-paid worker who can afford to buy many consumer goods, but who is neither informed enough to understand the society in which he lives, nor has the motivation to shape, in cooperation with fellow-workers, his working conditions or the political system in which he lives. A worker who is overweight, who spends most of his time watching commercial television, whose main conversations with colleagues deal with the sports page, and who is too tired or apathetic to participate in the political process--such a worker is not well off in Marx' eyes, but a victim of a system that is ripe with alienation in every sense. Marx was not so much interested in what people might have, but in what they could be. He was interested in people being alive, informed, and in control of their destiny." (q) (Yours truly was just commenting yesterday that the two most-miserable years of her life were the years when she earned the most money.)


Some things to think about this Labor Day...

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.

We Lose Them At Our Peril

You may recall my passion for libraries... I certainly wouldn't be where (or who) I am today without them. Here is the text of a recent opinion piece from the L.A. Times on libraries...

U.S. Public Libraries: We Lose Them At Our Peril

by Marilyn Johnson (author of This Book is Overdue!)

"The U.S. is beginning an interesting experiment in democracy: We're cutting public library funds, shrinking our public and school libraries, and in some places, shutting them altogether.

These actions have nothing to do with whether the libraries are any good or whether the staff provides useful service to the community. This country's largest circulating library, in Queens, N.Y., was named the best system in the U.S. last year by Library Journal. Its budget is due to shrink by a third. Los Angeles libraries are being slashed, and beginning this week, the doors will be locked two days a week and at least 100 jobs cut. And until it got a six-month reprieve June 23, Siskiyou County almost became California's only county without a public library. Such cuts and close calls are happening across the country. We won't miss a third of our librarians and branch libraries the way we'd miss a third of our firefighters and firehouses, the rationale goes … but I wonder.

I've spent four years following librarians as they deal with the tremendous increase in information and the many ways we receive it. They've been adapting as capably as any profession, managing our public computers and serving growing numbers of patrons, but it seems that their work has been all but invisible to those in power. I've talked to librarians whose jobs have expanded with the demand for computers and training, and because so many other government services are being cut. The people left in the lurch have looked to the library, where kind, knowledgeable professionals help them navigate the government bureaucracy, apply for benefits, access social services. Public officials will tell you they love libraries and are committed to them; they just don't believe they constitute a "core" service.

But if you visit public libraries, you will see an essential service in action, as librarians help people who don't have other ways to get online, can't get the answers they urgently need, or simply need a safe place to bring their children. I've stood in the parking lot of the Topeka and Shawnee County Library in Kansas on a Sunday morning and watched families pour through doors and head in all directions to do homework or genealogical research, attend computer classes, read the newspapers. I've stood outside New York city libraries with other self-employed people, waiting for the doors to open and give us access to the computers and a warm and affordable place to work. I've met librarians who serve as interpreters and guides to communities of cancer survivors, Polish-speaking citizens, teenage filmmakers, veterans.

The people who welcome us to the library are idealists, who believe that accurate information leads to good decisions and that exposure to the intellectual riches of civilization leads to a better world. The next Abraham Lincoln could be sitting in their library, teaching himself all he needs to know to save the country. While they help us get online, employed and informed, librarians don't try to sell us anything. Nor do they turn around and broadcast our problems, send us spam or keep a record of our interests and needs, because no matter how savvy this profession is at navigating the online world, it clings to that old-fashioned value, privacy. (A profession dedicated to privacy in charge of our public computers? That's brilliant.) They represent the best civic value out there, an army of resourceful workers that can help us compete in the world.

But instead of putting such conscientious, economical and service-oriented professionals to work helping us, we're handing them pink slips. The school libraries and public libraries in which we've invested decades and even centuries of resources will disappear unless we fight for them. The communities that treasure and support their libraries will have an undeniable competitive advantage. Those that don't will watch in envy as the Darien Library in Connecticut hosts networking breakfasts for its out-of-work patrons, and the tiny Gilpin County Public Library in Colorado beckons patrons with a sign that promises "Free coffee, Internet, notary, phone, smiles, restrooms and ideas."

Those lucky enough to live in those towns, or those who own computers, or have high-speed Internet service and on-call technical assistance, will not notice the effects of a diminished public library system — not at first. Whizzes who can whittle down 15 million hits on a Google search to find the useful and accurate bits of info, and those able to buy any book or article or film they want, will escape the immediate consequences of these cuts.

Those in cities that haven't preserved their libraries, those less fortunate and baffled by technology, and our children will be the first to suffer. But sooner or later, we'll all feel the loss as one of the most effective levelers of privilege and avenues of reinvention — one of the great engines of democracy — begins to disappear."

(my emphasis)

If you've ever used a library, think about how you can support the libraries where you live now so that we can all continue to enjoy those privileges.

The Art of Loving (Pt III)

"Having a relationship with [her] is like waking up to discover there is a unicorn in your garden... It's a completely unique circumstance and something of a shock. You've never encountered anything quite like it. Suddenly, standing there in the middle of your life, is something that proves the presence of magic in the universe. You've always believed that the magic was real, but now you can actually see it - and almost touch it. Almost, but not quite. Because first you have to get closer, and yet how do you approach such a skittish, exotic creature? Do you even dare? And are you worthy? There is no frame of reference for such an encounter, no one can tell you how to go about it.

Then there is the issue of that very sharp horn. As lovely and gentle as the unicorn appears to be, you have a strong sense that it could also inflict serious injury, even mortal wounds, intentionally or not. Magic cuts both ways. So while it is beautiful and enchanting, and you know that you have been somehow blessed by its presence in your garden, it's more than a little dangerous - and also highly disconcerting for the average mortal..." - The Book of Love, by Kathleen McGowan

(Couldn't resist that one. ;)

"The practice of the art of loving requires the practice of faith.

What is faith?... Is faith by necessity in contrast to, or divorced from, reason and rational thinking?... [R]ational faith is a conviction which is rooted in one's own experience of thought and feeling. Rational faith is not primarily belief in something, but the quality of certainty and firmness which our convictions have. Faith is a character trait pervading the whole personality, rather than a specific belief...

In the sphere of human relations, faith is an indispensable quality of any significant friendship or love. 'Having faith' in another person means to be certain of the reliability and unchangeability of his fundamental attributes, of the core of his personality, of his love. By this I do not mean that a person may not change his opinions, but that his basic motivations remain the same; that, for instance, his respect for life and human dignity is part of himself, not subject to change.

In the same sense we have faith in ourselves. We are aware of the existence of a self, of a core in our personality which is unchangeable and which persists throughout our life in spite of varying circumstances, and regardless of certain changes in opinions and feelings... Unless we have faith in the persistence of our self, our feeling of identity is threatened and we become dependent on other people whose approval then becomes the basis for our feeling of identity. Only a person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others, because only he can be sure that he will be the same at a future time as he is today and, therefore, that he will feel and act as he now expects to... What matters in relation to love is the faith in one's own love; in its ability to produce love in others, and in its reliability...

To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern - and to take the jump and stake everything on these values...

To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love. Can one say more about the practice of faith? Someone else might; if I were a poet or a preacher, I might try. But since I am not either of these, I cannot even try to say more about the practice of faith, but am sure that anyone who is really concerned can learn to have faith as a child learns to walk." - The Art of Loving, by Erich Fromm

Einstein's Exasperation

"Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message."

"Be ye lamps unto yourselves."

(This one's for DFB. Because he asked.)

It annoys me when people talk about Einstein's vision of God. It annoyed me when Dawkins did it. It annoyed me when Epstein did it. And it was really annoying me that there was a book out there called Einstein's God. (As it turns out, there are two books out there with that title, but I'm referring to the recently-published book by Krista Tippett.)

As if Einstein had some special insight into God and spiritual truths. As if we should place more importance on his vision of God than any other. Let me restate my position on God, just to be clear...

• I'm an apatheist. For me, the question of God is not important. I think that debating Its existence is distracting us from other, very real problems. (Religion, however, as an institution and a societal force, is worth discussing critically.)
• I believe that no man should place himself between another man and God. I also believe that no man should place another man between men and God. That's why this idea that Einstein's vision of God should be worth understanding or emulating bothers me.

Aside from the Einstein issue, I'm enjoying Tippett's book, which is subtitled Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit. It's essentially a collection of interviews that she has conducted over the years, interspersed with her commentary. (A collection of interviews, by a journalist, with a title that annoys me... This sounds familiar... ;) I like hearing what people think about the overlap between science and spirituality. I like the fact that I don't know who some of these people are. But I am intensely annoyed whenever the conversation is directed towards what Einstein (or Darwin) believed.

Perhaps it's because the issue of authority is so problematic within our current religious structures. Perhaps it's because people appeal to the authority of Einstein or Hawking to justify their own views on issues of god and science. (I'm thinking of a recent episode of Nightline. Once Einstein was invoked/quoted by Deepak Chopra, Harris (or Shermer, I forget who) fired back by invoking Hawking.) Almost everyone falls to the temptation of fighting appeals to authority by using appeals to authority.

I suggest that the 'enlightened' atheist would support and foster independent, critical thinking on the part of the individual regarding any idea, religious or otherwise. The unenlightened atheist is simply interested in transferring the allegiance of the individual to structure in which he holds power. This unenlightened atheist is the one who projects the idea that his beliefs are right. He is in line with (or seeks to emulate) the Great Ones within his power structure. He knows the truth, and is happy to tell it to you. Forgive me for believing that Einstein was 'enlightened' enough to reject the idea that his views should become the new dogma.

The next time you hear someone quote Einstein on religion, think of this...

A quote out-of-context is blind. A reference to authority is lame.