"The Search for Common Ground"

Link to a clarifying essay by Stanley Fish on "philosophical" common ground and "pragmatic" common ground in politics. Includes comments from readers (and you, too, are free to comment—if you subscribe to The New York Times TimesSelect).

Excerpt:

There have been many candidates [for philosophical common ground]. Christianity offers a fellowship in Christ and the injunction to love your neighbor as yourself because he or she, like you, is a child of God. Thomas Hobbes thought that what binds human beings together is a fear of death at one another’s hands, and as an antidote to that fear, he urged an absolute monarch who could restrain me from assaulting you and vice versa. Immanuel Kant and his Enlightenment successors plumped for a rationalist version of the golden rule tied to what they took to be the prime virtue of individual autonomy: don’t impose restrictions on others that you would reject if they were imposed on you. Classical liberals tried to sidestep substantive disputes by instituting procedural rules to which everyone, no matter what his or her ideological vision, was required to hew. (In this system, fairness replaces truth as a linchpin.) Global capitalists invite us all to worship and follow the market. Multiculturalists ask that we honor difference and establish a politics of respect for others. Libertarians ask that we just leave each other alone.

If any of my readers don't subscribe to TimesSelect, but would like to read Mr. Fish's reflections in their entirety, they may leave a comment on this post and I'll send them a copy of the text via email.

100,000/7,000,000

Just learned by email from MoveOn.org that

When we began Call for Change, we knew that the campaign would succeed or fail on the commitment of folks like you. To reach our goal of 5 million calls to voters, tens of thousands of volunteers would have to step up to the challenge.

By Election Day, it was clear that you were more than up to the challenge—you blew away every goal we had. In the end, more than 100,000 people made over 7 million calls.

Since that's an average of only 70 "calls" per volunteer, I think that means not just "dials" but actual contacts. I myself spoke with well over 100 likely Democratic voters.

For their efforts, volunteers have been invited to choose either a mug or a T-shirt for the part each played! I chose the

A Thanksgiving Prayer

As you may have detected (if you've read the pertinent posts on this blog), I'm currently rethinking my position (or positions) on religious belief. So far, I seem to have survived the days of my ambivalence toward, for example, what happened on the third day following Jesus Christ's crucifixion. I'm not sure whether I have yet survived my tendency to believe in angels, and I'm definitely not ready to sign up for atheism. I prefer, for now at least, the "maximum uncertainty" (50/50) of agnosticism: I truly do not know and do not think or feel that I know (whether or not God exists).

The author of Wired Magazine's November cover story (Gary Wolf: "The New Atheism") proposes an atheist prayer:

That our reason will subjugate our superstition, that our intelligence will check our illusions, that we will be able to hold at bay the evil temptation of faith.

It seems to me that (except for the word "evil"), this formulation could also serve as a starting point for an agnostic prayer, and I'm trying to think how to work it into a special prayer for Thanksgiving, day after tomorrow. Actually, I'm thinking it shouldn't be too hard for me, since I'm everyday grateful for what I have and for my prospects, whether I am grateful to something called "God" or not. That is, the non-existence of God (should God not exist) doesn't make gratitude irrelevant. In fact, I have long recognized that being grateful is effectively a condition (and not the only condition) of living a fully satisfying life. Or so I would argue.

There's gratitude (and its expression) toward other people, of course. On Thanksgiving, let's not forget to be grateful for and say "thanks" to those responsible for "what we are about to receive" (so to speak).

But over and above that, there's the possibility of feeling grateful (and being aware you're grateful) for existing...rather than not existing. Such gratitude, even if we can't identify to whom to address "thanks," is not only possible, but, for me at least, necessary. Maybe it's equivalent to a spirit of not taking things for granted, of being mindful that we have them and enjoy them...and we might not have them. Indeed, we won't always have them.

Such mindfulness, I think, is necessary in order to fully realize one's present moment.

149.0

Looks as though I need not only to bake some persimmon cookies (see yesterday's post), but eat a quantity of them as well: I weighed only 149.0 pounds this morning....

Here's a photo of my wife's 2005 Thanksgiving centerpiece (using Fuyus):

Persimmon Harvest

This weekend at my home was the persimmon harvest:


The larger, shaplier persimmons are Hachiyas, the smaller, more pumpkin-colored persimmon is a Fuyu.


The Fuyu tree yielded over 300 fruit last year, but after a severe pruning, it yielded only a single fruit this year. Ironically, I pruned the Hachiya tree even more severely, because it grows taller and I spent hours last year harvesting its 150 or so fruit.


My wife and I agree that the Fuyu is a better tasting fruit than the prettier Hachiya. But still again this year, I will bake my traditional persimmon cakes and cookies for the other ten households on our cul-de-sac.

For recipes for persimmon puddings, cookies, cakes, pies, bread, jams, salads, fudge, butter, chutney, salsa, flans, filling, topping, yogurt, ice cream, gelatin, cheesecake,..., you could do worse than visit this web page from down under.

Here's the Hachiya tree right after leaf fall (a couple of weeks ago):

Thomas Paine on revelation

Wow! Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason is good stuff! I can see how it must have thrilled me to read it as a teenager. In a footnote to a post on October 29, I even used the same word to characterize works of religious revelation that Paine used in 1794:

...Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication¹, if He pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

In the October 29 footnote, I had written:

...I don't count the existence of holy books as evidence that God is. They're just hearsay evidence that someone else may have had such a feeling [as I described in my post²]....

I remember that I felt pretty good about labeling the Bible, the Koran, and other works purporting to be the Inspired Word of God as "hearsay." I even thought I was probably being original!

Paine goes on:

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication—after this it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him. When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernational intervention.³

...A thing which everybody is required to believe requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act [the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ] was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part [Jesus's immaculate conception], the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world to say they saw it, and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection, and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.

____________________

1. One won't, that is, if he believes along with Paine that "the Almighty" does exist and has such a power.
2. "That feeling, that surpassing feeling...."
3. Thomas Paine's footnote: "It is, however, necessary to except the declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children; it is contrary to every principle of moral justice. —Author."

Thomas Paine on religion

We tend to remember Thomas Paine for his writings on Common Sense, but he also wrote what might be considered a precursor to Sam Harris's The End of Faith. I refer to Paine's The Age of Reason, which I've begun to re-read (roughly fifty years after I read it as a teenager). Here's the opening of Paine's book:

To My Fellow-Citizens of the United States of America

I put the following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to answer this right, makes a slave of himself in his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. [emphasis mine] The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. Your affectionate friend and fellow-citizen,

Thomas Paine

In preparation for Serena Joy's memoriam (and Southern Writer's)

Serena wants to be ready when she croaks, doggone it!
She asked me for an obit and I'm here to say I'm on it.
    "A limerick," she said, "should do,"
    And maybe, in fact, 'twould do.
But, damn! I'm sure you know: Serena deserves a sonnet.

That said, for Southern Writer I could say the same,¹
Whose dedication to the art that bears her name
    Often compelled her to write
    Far into or through the night,
Working smart and hard to win her and her muse's fame.²
_____________________

1. Original version:
   
   That said, I could say the same for Southern Writer,
   Who, if I couldn't think of anything brighter,
       Suggested I could simply
       Get off rather limply
   With something like "she often wrote into the nighter."
    
2. Earlier version of this last line:
   
   Playing smart and hard to win her sacred muse's game.

"My Introductory Statement"

This morning I created a blog at democrats.org, with an introductory statement of my political background and interests. At the moment, I do not plan to post regularly to that blog, but continue here, and my first post there attempts to direct visitors to come here, to what I consider Moristotle's home.

I'm telling you about this only in case you might wish to read my short statement of introduction at democrats.org. (It'll be a quick link opened in a new window.) Again, the link is http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/moristotle/CLLP.

Secular rituals?

From the September 2006 interview of Sam Harris in The Sun Magazine:

...What we need are secular rituals.

This is an idea that has been bouncing around among scientists: that we need a kind of scientific liturgy. It's not as if, looking into this universe billions of light-years across, you can't find anything amazing to say about reality. It's actually far more amazing than the God of the Bible stalking the deserts of the Middle East, demanding burnt offerings. So we need a language that expresses a reaonable awe at the nature of the cosmos and our existence in it. And we need to make this language emotionally moving for people. I think it would be thrilling if we had a temple of reason that presented through ritual our growing scientific understanding of ourselves in the cosmos. Surely we could think of profound, uplifting, scientific things to say at the occasion of somebody's death. It's not as if, once you divest yourself of your religious myths, you're left with an excruciatingly boring, trimmed-down sense of confinement. In fact, it's the religions that are excruciatingly boring and confining. The scientific truth, so far as we understand it, is magical and open-ended and thrilling. It just takes a little more work to undersand it.

You can find a longer excerpt (as well as information about how to subscribe to the print edition) on the Magazine's web site. (Note, though, that the excerpt doesn't include the quotation above.)

Murderball

Perhaps you have never heard of murderball. I hadn't. That's what quadriplegic rugby was called when originated by the Canadians in 1977. As the U.S. Quad Rugby Paralympic Team spokesman Mark Zupan says, "That name doesn't work very well when you're trying to get corporate sponsors."

I know this from the 2005 Academy Award-nominated documentary film "Murderball."^* When an old college friend surfaced recently after 40 years (into my ken, that is), he mentioned the film and, ahem, the fact that his son was one of the directors. My wife and I watched it last night, and we were powerfully affected. The film is many things: fascinating, entertaining, instructive, inspiring...and funny. I highly recommend it.
__________________________
* Directed by Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro. Abbreviated plot outline from IMDb.com: "A film about quadriplegics who play full-contact rugby in Mad Max-style wheelchairs - overcoming unimaginable obstacles to compete in the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece." MPAA rating: "R for language and sexual content; Rated PG-13 for sexual references and language (edited version)."

An agnostic objection to atheism

Michael Lurski, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has a letter to the Editor of Newsweek this week in which he adduces a problem with atheism:

Atheist author Sam Harris makes a strong case when he criticizes established religions for the harm they have caused and for the dangers they now present ("Beliefwatch: The Atheist," PERISCOPE, Oct. 30). And he is correct that belief in God is irrational and cannot be proved by reason or current evidence. However, it is just as irrational for Harris to advocate atheism, a certainty that no God exists. An atheist can no more prove there is no God than a believer can prove God's existence. The only alternative based on reason is agnosticism, the belief that it is impossible to know whether there is a God without sufficient evidence. It does not deny the possibility; it is uncertain.

Harris, however, addresses this objection in The End of Faith, but I no longer have a copy of the book to consult. I seem to recall that it went sort of like this: There are any number of things that might exist, whose non-existence we cannot prove: purple people-eaters, and the like. Shall we say that we're agnostic as to their existence as well?

That isn't exactly an ironclad argument in favor of atheism.

Test of section separator characters

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Second Section * Second Section * Second Section * Second Section * Second Section * Second Section * Second Section *

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Karl Rove's Revenge

An "Obituary" of A.F. Flogger

There was a Bush hater named Flogger,
A feisty and outspoken blogger,
    Who, it turns out,
    Was, without doubt,
A double agent, a sorry hot dogger.

I received a telephone call yesterday from the widow of A.F. Flogger that her husband took his own life the day following the election, and, in his suicide note, he had asked her to tell me that he was sorry for what he had done. (I'd simply quote Flogger's suicide note, but Mrs. Flogger didn't share its very words with me because, she said, there is some question whether her husband actually died by his own hand. And she seemed to be saying that there was some possibility that the homicide detective who's investigating the case might want to talk with me....)

My newer readers will require some background on who A.F. Flogger was (or purported to be) and what it was that he was sorry for. It wasn't any one thing that he did. It wasn't that simple.

On July 19, I reported that "an embarrassed A.F. Flogger wished to make a statement":

Whoa! Hold on a minute. Flogger.com is not my website. I do not promote whipping or any other unspeakable sexual practices. The whole thing is a mistake. I mistyped the name of my registered domain when I first approached Moristotle about leaving blogger.com and coming with me. He simply passed along what I typed. I didn't notice it. You know how people tend to see what they think is there anyway.

Besides, I had told Moristotle that my website hadn't been launched yet. That's undoubtedly why he didn't check flogger.com out. My website name will be pflogger.com. "P" is for "political," of course. Or, I suppose it could stand for "‘president’" or "pissant," since the main object of my brand of political flogging is George W. Bush.

The "flogger.com" episode was embarrassing to me, at best. The reader in the world who has followed this blog longer than any other, Steve P, had just pointed out to me that flogger.com seemed to be actively engaged in promoting the joys (and anguishes) of sadomasochistic sexual practices. (One of the many things that I admire and depend on in Steve P is his commitment to checking the facts. I hadn't visited flogger.com before mentioning it on my blog, but he did. I'll always be grateful that he did so.)

Anyway, Flogger had first come to me purporting to be trying to recruit me to "go with him" and do my political blogging on his blog. I liked his suggestion that the term flogging was most apt for a political blogger of my stripe (and, he implied, of his stripe as well).

He made his very first appearance on Moristotle on July 9:

I found a comment here this morning from a man (he said) who identified himself only as "a fellow flogger" and the creator of a website (not yet launched) whose domain address he has registered as flogger.com. Frankly, he admitted, he wanted me to quit blogger.com and come with him. He'd give me a "flogspot," he said.

To show his goodwill, he gave me his most recent political joke and said I was free to use it (anyway, he could use the publicity), so long as I would consider his proposal.

Okay, I'll consider it.

"What's the difference between a Texas pissant and 'President' George W. Bush?...A pissant doesn't need quotation marks."

On July 12, A.F. Flogger warned me that if I came with him, he'd "want [me] to slant [my] poetry along political lines." And he gave me an example:

There is a throw-up word—it rhymes with ‘whoosh’—
That I want never ever hear...so shush!
    The throw-up word—first letter ‘B’
    Followed by a different three—
That I want never ever hear is ‘----’.

Of course, readers familiar with my anti-Bush stance will understand that I had to find A.F. Flogger appealing. Then, on July 17, I reported that Flogger was predicting "that Arizona's voter lottery will provoke a Republican backlash." This seemed such a reasonable prediction (Arizona voters did reject the proposal) that it strengthened my opinion of A.F. Flogger even more.

Then came the aforementioned revelation of July 19, unearthed by Steve P. I should have been more suspicious of Flogger's really flimsy excuse that he had mistyped the address of his registered domain. For, you see, what Flogger was sorry for—Mrs. Flogger told me yesterday—was that he had approached me with the sole object of trying to discredit me in the eyes of the blog-reading public.

I asked Mrs. Flogger if she knew why her husband had done that. At first she seemed reluctant to go there, and she finally spoke only very guardedly, as though someone might be looking over her shoulder.

Karl Rove had commissioned him to do it, she said.

"That was in the suicide note?" I asked.

"Oh, God no!" she said. "And he didn't actually say it was Karl Rove...but I heard him talking in his sleep on several occasions before he killed himself...or...."

She went on to describe some of her husband's mumblings and how the mention of Karl Rove had actually explained a lot of things to her personally about her husband's recent political activities.

"Karl Rove really does have his tentacles in a lot of things that are going on," she said.

I nodded, hoping she'd say more.

"I've been reading your blog," she said. "You know that 'pissant' joke?"

"Of course," I said, my breath having stopped, I was so expectant what she might say next.

"That's what Karl Rove called Bush. His nickname for Bush."

I couldn't believe what I'd heard. "Would you repeat that," I said.

"Karl Rove's secret nickname for Bush was 'Pissant.' You see—and this is one thing my husband did tell me when he was awake—Karl Rove absolutely hated it that Bush called him 'Turd Blossom.' Hated it. He called Bush 'The Texas Pissant' behind his back."

I still wasn't breathing.

"Karl Rove wrote that joke."

Critical Analysis of "The Limerick Maneuver"

by Chuck Finn
Friend and Fan of Moristotle since 1974

Moristotle's limerick of last night—

A growing-old writer of limerick,
Being choked by a joke about Heimlich,
    Went into his mind,
    Reached round from behind,
And conjured this meter-and-rhyme trick.

—announces its theme and its dominant rhyme word only at the end of the second line. This immediately throws the reader into some consternation, since the last word of the first line, "limerick," doesn't rhyme with "Heimlich."

Or does it? The final line refers, self-referentially, to the limerick's "meter-and-rhyme trick" and offers the clue to add a hyphen to "limerick" so as to subtract a metrical beat and render the first line ending "lime-rick."

I've looked at the referenced blog and learned that the joke, rather like a limerick, rests on a pun on the Heimlich maneuver, which is a method of helping a choking victim to expel whatever is lodged in his or her throat by grasping the person around the chest from behind, locking hands at the solar plexus, and pulling back hard to force air up the victim's esophagus. In the joke, the victim expels the lodged bite of her sandwich when she is shocked by a redneck's yanking down her drawers and administering a quick "hind lick."

And another of the blog's readers, one Steve G, comments that a "hind kick" would also suffice. Therein seems to lie the inception of Moristotle's limerick, for in a comment after Mr. G's, Moristotle announces that he "feels a limerick coming on." And in his first version of the limerick, his third through final lines refer explicitly to that situation:

There was an old writer of limerick
Who, inspired by a joke about Heimlich,
    Here told his intent
    Then came back content
To display his meter-and-rhyme trick.

But he obviously wasn't content, for (as Serena herself acknowledges), his revision is "even better."

How is it better? It's better by adding a whole second layer of self-referentiality: the "lime-rick" itself as a Heimlich maneuver (heralded, in fact, by the limerick's title). The "growing-old writer" is now metaphorically choking on the joke (not just "inspired" by it).

And now he turns out to be the author of the limerick: he "conjured this meter-and-rhyme trick." But this limerick was written by Moristotle, who is, we see, the "growing old writer," the one who found himself "choking" on the joke in Serena's blog and wrote the limerick by way of performing a metaphorical Heimlich maneuver upon himself (by "going into his mind and reaching around from behind").

Serena gets the last words: "Yay, Mori"!