Category Archives: Philosophy/Ideas

Moral Humility is not Utopian thinking

Moral Humility, Pessimism, Philosophy/Ideas, politics, reason

Moral humility is the opposite of utopian thinking. It recognizes limits. It recognizes ourlimits, The concept of moral humility is associated with the concept of modesty/pessimism of John Gray one of my favorite modern philosophers.

His concept is a logical consequence of a sceptical attitude.  If one is uncertain then one should be careful about claiming moral superiority over another person. One should hesitate to judge others. That does not mean we can never judge others. It does mean we should not be too quick to judge others. I think I have been too quick in the past.  I yearn to ease up. As Gray said, “ Utopias are dreams of collective deliverance that in waking life are found to be nightmares.”

Utopian projects are by their nature unachievable. As Hume put it: ‘All plans of government which suppose great reformation in the manners of mankind are plainly imaginary.’” That is why we must be modest. We must be constrained in our optimism. Too often it leads to dire troubles. That is why Sir Thomas More, author of Utopia—a term he coined—meant both ‘a good place’ and ‘nowhere.’ That was why he set his imagined community in a far-off land.

We are very unlikely to find Utopia and are much more likely to find dystopia when we try.  Just like heaven is an illusion, unless it is here and now, so too with Utopia. That is a fundamental flaw with utopian thinking. It looks for a non-existent heaven and then frequently imposes great misery on us in a hopeless effort to achieve what cannot be achieved. That was why Gray’s advice was to be wary of those who argued for Utopia. Instead, Gray urged, “it is dystopian thinking we most need.”

Moral humility requires that we abandon the search for perfection and accept the limitations of the human.  As has often been said, but no often enough, perfection is the enemy of the good.

Obama often told his advisors that “better is good.” We can seldom (never?) do the perfect, but we can usually do something that is better or worse. We should always choose the better and we should often be satisfied that this is all we can do.

We can always make things worse. And as Obama also said to himself, “Don’t do stupid stuff.” Going to war in Syria would have been stupid. One look at American misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan make it clear that is very easy to do stupid stuff by going to war in the Middle East.  And the costs of stupid stuff can be horrendous.

It is always important to think things through before jumping into a fray. It is often very stupid to jump in, no matter how tempting it seems. This takes time. This may make a leader look weak. It actually makes a leader look smart.

Utopian thinking is the opposite of critical thinking. It accepts impossiblegoals so it justifies the most brutal means. Nothing is too extreme when the object is perfection. Or as Bob Dylan said, “For you don’t count the dead with God on your side.” The religious pursuit of perfection should be rejected for exactly the same reasons. Murder is always justified if the goal is a higher form of human. Lets abandon that goal.

On Being Judgmental

Moral Humility, Philosophy/Ideas, politics, Truth Seeking

I know moral humility is something I have to learn. I wish I had more of it. often it is too easy to be judgemental. From my blogging post it is too easy to pontificate. High horses are difficult to get off with grace.

This is what a friend recently posted on my Facebook page in response to one of my epistles, “Some years ago, while working through some structured Spiritual Exercises, I came to the awareness that there is so much depravity in me… that anyone else’s shortcomings were just not properly on my agenda.” (I have changed his words slightly. I think this was a mild rebuke of me. And I appreciate it. I will tell you why.

I hate to use the defence that Trump’s new lawyer  Rudy Giuliani recently used when he basically admitted his client was guilty of all charges. Not the best defence for a lawyer to use.  Yet that is exactly my defence.  I agree with this subtle charge. Not only is this right it is profound.  I should look at my own shortcomings before looking at those of others. After alI have plenty to go around. It is too easy to be judgmental. Remember Omer Simpson’s prayer, “Please God let me go to church regularly so I can learn to be more judgmental.”

Moral humility requires that we abandon the search for perfection and accept the limitations of the human.  As has often been said, but not often enough, perfection is the enemy of the good.

I think one of the most profound passages in the Bible is Micah 6:8 which says, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”Right now I want to emphasize “humbly”, though the other two are important too.I really need more humility and I need it badly.

I have been pontificating too much. That does not mean I won’t criticize others when I see something is wrong in my opinion. I think that would be abdication. After all I think we should point out important errors others are making, particularly if they are powerful people. We all benefit from criticism. But I must always remember that it is just my opinion. I have not found absolute truth. I must remember my own flaws first before pointing a finger at others. If you know absolute truth how can you be humble? If you don’t you mustbe humble.

But I wil continue to speak. I just hope more wisely.

Why waste time talking about Trump?

Philosophy/Ideas, Social democracy, , ,

 

Some have raised many important issues in messages to me as a result of my blogs. I could bore you with a long diatribe. I tend to that to people. So I will bore you with a shorter diatribe. Some will say not short enough. So be it.

To begin with, as has been suggested by others, I don’t think it is useful to waste a lot of time haranguing Donald Trump. Frankly, he is not worth it. Yet he is the American President and as we know, every time the US coughs Canada gets a cold. As well, it scares me just to think he has his finger on the nuclear button. And it is a big one you know. And it works.

More importantly, about 50 million people voted for him and many of those still like him.  This really scares me. Many people just want to see Trump go away. I do. But that will not end much. Who will those 50 million support the next time? Someone even worse? Trump is just a symptom of a disease.

I think Trump is a demagogue with authoritarian tendencies. Similar potential leaders have had significant support all over Europe. This is an international phenomenon.

If you have time, I urge you to read a marvelous (and short!) book by Timothy Snyder called On Tyranny. Snyder is an expert historian who is familiar with how tyrannies have arisen in the last century. Remember that Hitler was elected before he became a dictator. He did that by preying on the fears of people and finding scapegoats.

Part of the reason so many people voted for him, I believe, is that people, particularly in the US, have for more than a hundred years been accustomed to making important decisions without the benefit of reason. They have made decisions on the basis of faith, rather than reason. They are used to doing that.

Kurt Anderson has written a book on the subject called Fantasyland. So far I have just read a brief summary in Atlantic magazine. I am waiting for the paperback. Sometimes it hurts to be a cheap Menno. His thesis is that Americans have spent 500 years making important decisions on the basis of fantasies rather than reason. They believe on the basis of what they want to be true, rather than on the basis of what the evidence supports. Trump is just part of that process. Many people, particularly people who are unemployed or underemployed, believe Trump can help them, even though the evidence does not support that conviction. Yet they believe it. They have abdicated their reason.

A lot of people are in despair. Around the world. That is understandable given how the lot of most people has seriously deteriorated in the last 40 years, while the lot of the elites has risen sharply. Inequality has risen by astonishing amounts. Rich people have done amazingly well while ordinary people have seen their incomes decline.

The people who have not done well and daily see how well others have done, because the modern media makes sure that everyone knows, are filled with resentment. Resentment is an explosively dangerous force. It is blind to reason. Near home a few years ago a dairy farmer was mad at his wife who wanted a divorce and got so angry that he burned his barn down with all of the cows inside. And he did that  after cancelling his fire insurance. If he could not have it all no one else would have any of it. It was totally irrational. People consumed with resentment can do that.

About a year ago, a man in Alberta who was facing a divorce from his wife, murdered her and their children. If he could not have his family no one could. So he killed them all and then killed himself. Again it made no difference how irrational this was. People blinded by resentment can do that.

People in the modern world are not only resentful of their loss of money, and status, they are deeply insecure. Capitalists, as we all know, have been forced in recent recessions to lay off workers. That is hard and it is profoundly unnerving to those laid off. This has happened over and over again. As a result many people, particularly after the most recent recession feel a deep sense of insecurity. Even though capitalism has produced amazing wonders, it is deeply flawed if it needs to create such misery. Such a system is broken.

This has happened all over the world, but particularly in places like Appalachia, in the US. Many there are resentful and desperate. They justifiably gave up on both Obama and Hillary Clinton. Who can blame them? But they turned to an unlikely source for help. Donald Trump. A billionaire that had no empathy for them. As I have said before, “Trump has the empathy of a turnip.” But at least he heard them. Clinton was deaf. No wonder people turned to Trump over Clinton.

I have little doubt that his supporters will be disappointed in Trump. He is no savior. Voting for him was also deeply irrational. Many people in the United States wanted a personal wrecking ball who would destroy the system. I have met such people on my current trip to the United States. There are surprisingly many of such people. It did not matter who would be hurt by Trump’s actions. It did not matter that he would not help them. As we know he has done nothing for them. He has drastically reduced taxes on the wealthy and unsurprisingly very few people still believe that the way to help poor people is to give money to rich people. That is what Trump and many Republicans believe.

I am not trying to create class divisions as one person suggested to me. As Warren Buffet, hardly a leftwing radical, said, ‘for the past few decades we have been in a class war and my class has won. The rich people.’ The class war, if there is one, or was one, is over. Donald Trump is just the culmination of that process.

I fear that rich people in the US in particular have seized the government to their own advantage and are blind to the damage they have done. They have got temporary benefits as a result, but do not see how the resentment is building up and how dangerous that can be. How will the resentful people explode next time? Who will be the next wrecking ball? This is one of the reasons I say that capitalists are the greatest danger for capitalism.

I really think, the rich people have done a massive disservice to everyone–not the least to themselves! And not least to the system that brought them such prosperity. I am not a revolutionary. They are.

Donald Trump has the Empathy of a Turnip

Fat Opinions, Fellow Feeing, Philosophy/Ideas, politics, Trump

 

I also heard an excerpt from an interview of Donald Trump in a July 2008 on the Howard Stern show. This shows the real Trump, if there is such a thing. It relates to an incident at Mar-a-Lago, Trumps estate for rich cronies and wanna be cronies. An 80-year old man fell from a stage to the hard marble floor and the blood started to flow.Here is how Trump described the incident entirely in his own words:

“I was at Mar-a-Lago and we had this incredible ball, the Red Cross Ball, in Palm Beach, Florida.

And we had the Marines. And the Marines were there, and it was terrible because all these rich people, they’re there to support the Marines, but they’re really there to get their picture in the Palm Beach Post.

So, you have all these really rich people, and a man, about 80 years old – very wealthy man, a lot of people didn’t like him – he fell off the stage. 

So what happens is, this guy falls off right on his face, hits his head, and I thought he died.

And you know what I did? I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away.

I couldn’t, you know, he was right in front of me and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He’s bleeding all over the place, I felt terrible.

You know, beautiful marble floor, didn’t look like it. It changed colour. Became very red.

And you have this poor guy, 80 years old, laying on the floor unconscious, and all the rich people are turning away

What happens is, these 10 Marines from the back of the room.

They come running forward, they grab him, they put the blood all over the place—it’s all over their uniforms—they’re taking it, they’re swiping [it], they ran him out, they created a stretcher.

They call it a human stretcher, where they put their arms out with, like, five guys on each side.

I was saying, ‘Get that blood cleaned up! It’s disgusting!’ The next day, I forgot to call [the man] to say he’s OK.

It’s just not my thing.”

 This is a picture of Donald Trump by the man himself. Other people’s blood and pain is just not his thing. What is his thing? The stained marble floor. The rich people who are upset. He gives no thought–absolutely none–to an 80-year old man lying on the floor in blood. Donald Trump has the empathy of a turnip!

This is the same man who said about how disgraceful it was in Parkland Florida that the armed security guard stayed outside the school during the entire shooting incident in which 17 students were slaughtered by a former student with an AR-15 automatic rifle, and that he really believes he would have run into the school to confront the young man with a machine gun even if he had no weapon. This statement comes from the man who got 5 medical deferments from serving in the Vietnam War because the family doctor said he had a sore foot, an injury that Trump later discounted. Stephen Colbert said that he did not believe Trump because he did not believe that Trump could run. The story is about as believable as any other Trump ever told–not at all in other words.

In Search of a Better World by Payam Akhavan.

Books, Philosophy/Ideas, politics,

If you read this book it may be the best book you read this year. It is written by a Canadian lawyer, but don’t let that stop you from reading it. Or go to the CBC Radio archive and listen to the CBC’s 2017 Massey Lectures. The book contains those lectures. It is a delightful combination of personal reminiscences of himself and his family and his life as a UN human rights prosecutor and reflections on his experiences.

The book starts out with a wonderful and humorous description of how his family fled Iran as religious exiles fleeing persecution after their revolution. He was a young lad and did not realize why they were leaving the country he loved, but he was excited to go to Canada. His first impression was from 30,000 ft. in a jet.

Sadly, he found that Canada was not the country of unabashed welcoming of refugees. Instead in the schoolyard he was bullied as a “Paki.” Ignorant Canadian school children did not know better. He was different; so he was mocked. He spoke funny, that meant he must be ready to be made fun of. He thought the Hockey Night in Canada song was our national anthem. Maybe he was right.

Later the bigotry of Canadians morphed. He described it this way, “As my school days came to a close, the all-purpose pejorative “Paki” label was given way to a more sophisticated taxonomy of bigotry. Thanks to the simplistic sound bites and sensational images that passed as evening news, Arabs and Iranians were merging in the popular imagination as a barbaric race of crazed terrorists. Instead of getting better the ordeal by association was getting worse. It didn’t matter that we were actually the biggest victims of those same bearded fanatics appearing on their television screens, or that Western leaders had sabotaged secular democracy in our countries. Our story was irrelevant. We were merely a blank screen on which others projected their psychological needs, of either scorn or of pity.

Whether in the schoolyard or in global politics the clash of civilizations is a convenient escape from the visceral fear of embracing others. The bully and the bigot, the tyrant and the terrorist need to inflict pain on others to escape their own pain. Connecting with others renders us vulnerable; accepting differences challenges our way of life. The cowardly way out is to make enemies rather than doing the hard work of learning and growing. Why struggle to discover a deeper identity when hatred is within easy reach?”

In the book Akhavan meanders through many examples of a failure to empathize. Arabs and Israelis. Serbs and Croats. Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda. Western European settlers and North American indigenous peoples. And many more. Invariably he adds value to the discussion of these conflicts. But he always comes back to the central concept of empathy. He quotes Persian philosopher Rumi: “the wound is the place where light enters.”

Here is what he says about the West and Islam,

“For much of history, Islamic civilization has been the enduring “other” of the Western world, and Western civilization the enduring “other” of the Islamic world. But the reality today is that the irresistible forces of globalization, the inexorable expansion of our collective unconscious, is infusing diverse peoples with an ever-broader sense of belonging. That is exactly why the extremists are panicking. In these times of accelerating change, they need each other more than ever. The white crusaders and the wicked jihadists are inseparable dancing partners, entangled in an awkward tango of mutual disgust. Whether they like it or not, identities are not fossils in a museum. They are inherently dynamic constantly shaping and being shaped by others in a never-ending exchange of perspectives. Amidst intensifying interdependence, parochial identities will invariably give way to a wider loyalty. Then better to negotiate the inevitable by dialogue rather than violence. The xenophobic hissy fit of identity warriors is futile avoidance of a shared future.”

Akhavan finds empathy as the basis of human rights. As an immigrant to Canada, during a time when brown people were rare and exotic, he understands from deep personal experience, that “multiculturalism is a messy affair.” It is often difficult and challenging. But is there any reason to believe that we are not up for the challenge? Akhavan points out,

“We each have a unique path, but when our journeys occasionally converge, we may discover that we also have a shared humanity; that we all suffer; whatever our identity may be. The universality of human rights means that despite our differences, we all deserve to be treated with the same dignity. We should not project demeaning stereotypes on others, portraying them as savages to justify our bigotry. But in celebrating diversity, we should also not become apologists for those that abuse others in the name of tradition.”

It is a fundamental theme of the book that we must recognize that other people suffer, just like we do. He knows, as Shakespeare’s Shylock did, that each of us bleeds in the same way. When we recognize that, we empathize. As the original meaning of the word “sympathy” indicates, “we suffer with.”

That is precisely why we have to be skeptical of claims from our leaders that “we” are different from “them”. No matter how much they want it otherwise, this is not a matter of “us” against “them.” This is a matter of “we.” We are in this together. We really are one human race, no matter where we come from, no matter what the color of our skin, and no matter how we worship (or not) our gods. We are fellows.

Akhavan says that our encounters with human rights atrocities have a lot to say about who we actually are, as opposed to who we pretend to be. That is why Akhavan explores how the pursuit of a virtuous self-image affects our perceptions of suffering at the periphery of our society. This is a version of the thought, now often accepted, that a civilization is judged by how it treats the most vulnerable–i.e. those who suffer at the periphery.

Akhavan points out that many of us are no longer able to define the sublime by reference to the divine. Therefore, to many, they are unable to find moral certainty. As Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov said, “If God is dead then all is permitted.” To such thinking Akhavan responds as follows:

“Disabused of the catastrophic illusions of the past, in our post-modern search for transcendence we have embraced human rights as the secular sacred. Having shunned absolute truths, we navigate the stormy seas of moral relativism, weary of foundering on the forbidden rocks of individual autonomy and cultural diversity. In this disenchanted universe, belief in the inherent dignity of humankind is the magical island where we can still find refuge amidst moral uncertainty.”

This book is certainly worth the trip.

Today I went dancing with an old woman

Family, Philosophy/Ideas

 

Yesterday (not really today)  I went dancing with an old woman. How could that happen? It seems impossible, but it is true. Chris–my lovely wife–turned 67. I am married to an old woman and she is married to an even older man. How that happens seems mysterious. I once heard it said, that no person ever wanted to be any younger than he or she was. I actually thought I believed that. Now I know that is a ridiculous statement.

Chris turned 67 and instead of me taking her out to a fancy restaurant, which I gallantly offered, she said she wanted to go dancing with friends at the local Golf Course terrace. Believe it or not, we have been doing that about once a week since we got here. I never thought I would do that either. But there it is.

What does it all mean? I don’t know. Perhaps we are just trying to fend off the grim reaper. Perhaps we are just trying to have fun. Perhaps Cyndi Lauper was right. Girls just wanna have fun. And old men too.

Freedom of Thought and Expression: Civic Friendship

Extremism, Moral Humility, Philosophy/Ideas, politics, reason, religion, Truth Seeking

This is the third and final part of the discussion between Cornell West and Robert George at Arizona State University. They have what they refer to as a civic friendship. That is another important concept. Even though they are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, making them what someone called “an ideological odd couple,” they are truly friends. That was obvious by watching them talk. Even more importantly that was obvious by watching them listen–to each other. They really did listen. Clearly they respected each other.

To be civic friends you must have something in common. For example, if one of the two is not interested in seeking truth they will not be able to be friends. The friends must find that something in common to become friends. It can be many things. Truth seeking is just one, but it is a good one. It is hard to find for many of us because our differences today run so deep. After all this is the age of extremes as Eric Hobsbawm called it. Since then the chasm between the extremes has only deepened. The challenge is to find that common ground. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the common ground. Other times it is just below the surface.

It is not enough for two sides to share something. That was proved conclusively in the United States before the differences led to Civil War. They shared a lot, but for awhile forgot what they had in common or rather, perhaps, until they were overwhelmed by their differences. In fact it certainly looks like Americans are being tested right now. Can they find their common ground or will they let their differences overwhelm them again?

George said that to be civic friends, or a nation, we must believe in some substantive fundamental civil rights and liberties that cannot be compromised. That does not mean we must agree on everything. We can have substantive differences. We can even have important disagreements on very important matters. But we must recognize that we each of us have some common fundamental rights that all of must respect–like freedom of thought and discussion for example. If we have a shared belief in the freedom to think and discuss then we have a basis for a democratic discussion. Then we will respect each other even if we disagree. To do that, “we must have a fundamental belief in the dialectical process of truth seeking.”

George and West both agreed on one more important thing. That is that there is such thing as truth. Both reject relativism. That does not mean we will agree on what is true. We may have strong disagreements about what is true. We must remember that even if we think we have discovered truth, we could be wrong. Like John Stuart Mill said, you must listen to the other no matter how unlikely it is that you will agree with anything the other has to say. All of our ‘truths’ must be open to revision. We always have to remember that we are not infallible. We might be wrong. This is not relativism. It is just a recognition of our fallibility.

West always brings it back to music. “Artists are the vanguard of the people, and musicians are the vanguard of music,” West said. He said that we have a choice of indescribable pleasures or deep joy. He chooses deep joy. “It is the job of the artist to radically unsettle us.” It is the same of education. As West said, “if you have never felt your fundamental ideas rested on pudding, you never had any real education.” He also said, “There is no rebirth without dying first.”

To that George added, “If at any University experience is constant reaffirmation of what you believe, you are not being challenged and you have not had a real educational experience.” Only if you think your beliefs through and reach the same conclusion as before is that acceptable.

George added, “We need open-mindedness because we seek truth and want to be challenged. George’s position is, I believe, like that of John Stuart Mill who said, we should thank everyone who tries to dislodge us from our settled opinions. They are doing us a big favor. If they persuade us to change our minds that is great. We are better off because we discarded an opinion that was not defensible. If they do not persuade us to change our minds, at least they have made us think about our opinions and how they could be defended. We come to understand our opinions better. We are actually in a better position to defend them in such a case. So again we should thank them. We should never try to shout them down or stop them from arguing with us. For our own sake we should let them speak.

According to George, after a history of having our opinions challenged “we become our own best interrogators. We become our own best critics.” That should be the goal. It should become our goal if we love the truth.

West took this opportunity to argue in defense of scepticism. Scepticism is not relativism. Scepticism is critical thinking. That is what we need. We do not need absolute scepticism that believes in nothing. The scepticism he advocated was exemplified by Malcolm X. In other words a scepticism that is suspicious of received opinions from power. Malcolm X was sceptical–for good reason–about American democracy, which all around him claimed to be an absolute good when it was filled with flaws. He pointed out some of its flaws to others, and that made him very unpopular with much of America. So be it. Some people don’t like to hear the truth.

John Dewey argued in against wholesale scepticism, but in favor of retail scepticism. Retail scepticism can lead to truth. That is what we are seeking. Wholesale scepticism hides from the truth. As West said, “We have to be sceptical about scepticism.”

George added to these remarks. He said, what is vital is questioning. We must be ready and willing to question all opinions. “Scepticism can become a dogma,” George said. Scepticism should never become so pervasive that it leads to indifference and despair. Then we lose all ability to act.

Henry David Thoreau went to jail because he refused to pay taxes to support the war with Mexico. He called it a land grab. It was colonialism and exploitation at its worst, in his opinion, so he refused to pay and was put in jail for that refusal. Of course, what about the far larger original land grab when Europeans who settled in North America and South America grabbled the hemisphere from the Indigenous people that lived here and in the process caused the death of 95% of the population of the Western Hemisphere? It was the greatest holocaust in history!

West also said we had to leery of micro-suffering. People who take offense at the mere mention of abuse must be challenged. Especially in a University, but not just there, we must be willing to engage in a discussion of all issues, even those that are painful to some people. We must do that with respect and consideration, but we have the right to discuss those issues. No one has the right not to hear offensive things. West said, “As a teacher it is not my responsibility to provide a safe place for learning. In fact, the place of learning should be a place that is unsettling. ” If it is not unsettling it is not doing its job.

As George said, “The point of education is not to show off our learning, or gain prestige, it is to seek the truth. That process should be unsettling even to our most cherished beliefs, even our fundamental beliefs. We must be willing to expose even our religious views to scrutiny. For some of us that will be hard.” West also reminded us, “Education is not indoctrination”.

This puts a heavy responsibility on teachers. They should put forth both sides of a dispute to their students. In fact, teachers should not tilt the scales in favor of their favored views. This means putting forth best arguments for both sides of an argument. This is what Plato did in his dialogues. Try to figure out ‘why do well informed, intelligent people disagree with me?’ We must each do that. We must each be our best interrogators.

George said that he frequently reads Nietzsche because he does not agree with him. He knows that Nietzsche is a brilliant thinker and writer so he wants to contend with the best arguments on all issues. He frequently tests himself to see if he can still contend with Nietzsche. And you have to be honest with yourself if you do this. Otherwise you are just fooling yourself.

George said that each of us needs self-reflection to challenge our most sacred views. We must learn to be our best critics. We should also seek out a good friend to debate issues. This means a friend who is willing to tell us when we are wrong. A deep friendship allows a friend to criticize us. Criticism is always for our own good.

We must expose ourselves to the best counter arguments. This does not show a lack of passion. This allows us to grasp an issue more deeply. And West concluded with this remark, “In the end we talk about living.” Socrates was right: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We want to seek the truth to make our life better. Even if we don’t find the truth, the search for truth improves our life.

A Jazzman in the World of Ideas

Extremism, Music, Philosophy/Ideas, politics, reason, religion, Social democracy, Truth Seeking,

 

This is part II of the discussion between Cornell West and Robert George that we heard a Arizona State University. Their topic was truth seeking, democracy, and freedom of thought and expression.

Cornel West said that we should revel in our common humanity even when you think the other is wrong. In my opinion that is the beginning and most important part of respectful (and hence useful) dialogue. Name calling and finger wagging are seldom useful.

To be a fundamental searcher for truth, one must begin with piety. By piety he means we should depend on those who came before us. We should learn from their mistakes, and try to gain wisdom from them. “We should try to be truth seekers together.” We should learn from our spiritual, moral and political teachers of excellence who came before us.

West said he came from a long tradition of a great people who had been subjugated for a long time even though his tradition taught love.   Their anthem, West said, was “Lift every voice.” Every jazzman finds his voice. He did not use this expression today, but I have heard West say that he is “A Jazzman in the world of ideas.” This reminds me a bit of my own views: be a meanderer in the world of ideas. There is no straight line to truth. The search for truth moves by twists and turns, steps forward and backward. There is no laid out map. There is no recipe for truth. It would be convenient if there was.

West says that in his classes he tells his students he wants “to teach them to learn to die.” Plato in his dialogues said much the same thing. He said his philosophy was meditation on how to die. Seneca said “he who learns to die learns to give up slavery.” West wants us to “learn how to die, in order to learn how to live.” In the end it is about living.

West wants us to achieve “Deep education, not cheap schooling.” His mentor, Socrates, urged us to respect the other in dialogue. After that empathy is what comes out of his mouth.”

Cornell West also said, “If the kingdom of God is within you, everywhere you go, you will leave a little of heaven behind.” West was blunt about current conditions in America and the west: “We live in a period of spiritual blackout.”

West also commented on the current President of the United States. “Donald Trump has no monopoly on spiritual blackout. Trump also did not cause the spiritual blackout; he is a symptom of it. Donald Trump is as American as cherry pie.” I found this particularly important at this time in America. About 50 million Americans voted for Trump in the last election and he was clearly a racist and a liar, but they voted for him anyway. Donald Trump did not hide anything about himself. He put it out there and millions of people voted for him. Millions liked what they heard. To many of us that is incomprehensible, but not to millions of Americans. Nearly half the American voters voted for Trump. So what Trump is, America is too.

West, like George, and like John Stuart Mill reminded us all said we had to be wary of our own convictions. Convictions can be the enemy of truth. We had to be willing to expose them to criticism and attack. Like Nietzsche said, we must have the courage to attack our convictions. Each of us is only as strong as our critics.

According to West, with spiritual blackout you end up distrusting people. You adopt the morality of much of 19th century capitalism. Do what ever you want; just don’t get caught. This attitude is widespread across the board in all institutions, he said. Not just capitalism. No democracy can survive when this attitude is rampant. In the west, particularly America, this attitude is rampant. That puts democracy in jeopardy.

Both West and George urged us to consider and adopt civic virtues. These result from recognition that all groups of people are precious and human at the deepest level. It is based on the finding of a common humanity in diverse groups. I would say that we discover this by accessing our innate fellow feeling at a deep level. I think West has a deep appreciation of the commons. This is how West and George connect with each other. They embrace their differences and their common humanity. I wish more of us could do that. This is particularly exemplary in this age of extremes, in which it appears most of us can no longer speak softly with others who disagree with us. West and George exemplified what they preached. You could see one listening intently while the other spoke. They did not interrupt each other. They learned from one another.

West is inspired by jazz music in particular and his favorite is John Coltrane. West treats an intellectual discussion as Coltrane and his friends would “a jam session.” He wants to make music by dialogue. That would be a jam session of ideas. West said that Coltrane and his friends would learn not only from each other, but from the dead, when they jammed. They would listen to the playing of the others in the jam session and then show what they had learned from Louis Armstrong and other jazz greats. The musical ideas would bounce off each other. That is what West wants in intellectual dialogue too. Voices bouncing off each other including voices of the dead like Martin Luther King or William Shakespeare or Friedrich Nietzsche or Jesus Christ. Then we can access something bigger than the parts in the search for truth, whether you are in a jam session or a philosophical discussion.

Even that was not enough, West said. Democracy is exactly this too. Democracy is ideas bouncing off each other when each voice is heard and no voice is shut down. When people respect each other’s voices great things can result. Of course this requires others to want to make music (getting back to the music analogy again). If they are just trying to shut you down you can’t make music. This gets back to freedom of speech.

That does not mean you have the right to say anything at all at any time. You have no right to shout “fire” in a crowded dark theatre. That might cause a stampede and people could get hurt. That does not mean you have the right to defame other people. That causes harm to them. False statements that harm others are not permitted, even though we all want a robust form of freedom of expression. You have no right to walk into a University classroom and call people names, like “the N word,” or other derogatory names. That is not done to engage in free discussion. Such statements are made to end discussion. Therefore they are not permitted. The same goes for hate speech. Hate speech is not made to engage in discussion. If a statement is made for that purpose, I would argue, it is not hate speech. If speech is made to generate hate against others that is not to engage in free thought and discussion either. We do not have the right to make such statements.

West in a very brief comment made a very important point. He said, if you want to make an important argument you have to visit the “chocolate side of town.” You can’t just stay physically and mentally in the comfortable suburbs. You have to visit the ghettos. You have to visit places where poor people hang out; where vulnerable people go. Otherwise your ideas are bound to be inadequate. There is a lot to be learned on the chocolate side of town. For example there is a lot to be learned from jazz, from Black Baptist religion, and from a long tradition of suffering and the enduring of suffering. These were my examples, but I think West would endorse them. We should all learn from that side of town.