Epicurus and Secularism

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This is the last of the Modern Philosophy series for the time being. I’ve really enjoyed writing about an Epicurean take on modern ideas, but I wanted to end the series for now to make my posts more varied. This is also a follow-up to the last Modern Philosophy post on Christianity, where I discussed Christian theology but not the role Christianity plays in contemporary political life. I must also add that I didn’t mean for post on Christianity to be so acerbic. Most Christians are fundamentally good people, I just take issue with many of their beliefs. 

It should go without saying that freedom of religion is essential to the functioning of any liberal democracy. In order to protect religious freedom, the state must be secular; if the state affiliates with any religious organisation, it will almost certainly enact legislation that discriminates in favour of that religious organisation. But just because the state should be secular, doesn’t mean that politicians have to be non-religious. Famously it was a Christian, William Wilberforce, who led the fight to abolish slavery in Britain(though slavery’s proponents were equally Christian.) Leaders of a wide variety of faiths have made immense contributions to political and social reform, and not just in Britain- Martin Luther King was a pastor.

However, the distinction between the private religious beliefs of an individual and their political outlook is not a straightforward one to make. Religions are amongst other things, systems of morality. They give people an ethical code that influences their views on a variety of policy issues, particularly the ‘hot-button’ issues like abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia. But everything from pacifism to the welfare state has been justified on a religious basis. The Christian socialists that constituted a majority of my teachers at secondary school believed their faith compelled them to oppose war and support the state’s efforts to look after the poor.

So it’s completely reasonable to take into account a candidate’s religious affiliation and beliefs when judging if they are suitable to hold office. During the 2008 Republican primaries, Christopher Hitchens described Mitt Romney’s Mormonism as ‘fair game’, because the Church of Latter-Day Saints did not admit black people during part of Romney’s adult lifetime. More recently, the former leader of the British Liberal Democrat party, Tim Farron, resigned because he believed being the leader of a liberal party was becoming incompatible with being a faithful Evangelical. He said that he remained a liberal as far as policy was concerned, but felt people were judging him for his personal views. Farron is obviously wrong if he is suggesting religious people are unwelcome in politics. Charles Kennedy was a successful Liberal Democrat leader and just as much a Christian as Farron. What people objected to was Farron’s views on the social issues- views that were a direct result of his religious beliefs. Those views may have an impact on how he thinks about those issues politically, despite him professing otherwise. Moreover, holding socially conservative opinions raises wider questions about Farron’s judgement and character.

Much has been made of the hardline Presbyterianism of the Northern Irish DUP, who have just formed a confidence and supply agreement with the Conservatives so the latter can govern. I doubt very much that the DUP will be able to impact social policy in Great Britain, because that would be seen as a foreign imposition. Rather, the DUP may actually push the Conservatives to the Left. On Brexit, the DUP want to continue an open border with the Irish Republic, and a comprehensive deal with the EU that includes a customs arrangement and tariff-free access to the Single Market. This increases the chances of a prolonged transition period to soften the immediate impact of leaving. It also means that May’s mantra, ‘No deal is better than a bad deal,’ will no longer guide the negotiations. Not having a deal is no longer an option. Besides Brexit, the DUP have won a £1 billion block grant to Northern Ireland. This has already shifted economic politics to the left, as Scottish and Welsh leaders are demanding extra funding be also given to them. It raises the question that if there’s no money left and we must tighten our belts, as the Tories repeatedly claim, then why is there enough money to keep them in power? There is a lot to worry about the deal with the DUP, but their religious views remain a secondary concern for the time being.

In defence of Christians, they are not the only people whose religious views should be up for scrutiny. It would be perfectly legitimate to ask questions to the Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, what his personal views are on the social issues. Now as Mayor of London, Khan is in no position to impact the sensitive issues of conscience. But imagine if he publicly stated that he believes homosexuality is a sin against Allah, even if he supports gay marriage as government policy. Would his left-wing following view him differently? Quite possibly. Christians are right that their religion is subject to public examination more frequently than any other. This is partly because Christianity is by far the most popular religion in the developed world, but the Christians’ critique remains truthful.

Having said that, Christians can hardly claim to be victims of a secular inquisition, at least anywhere in the developed world. In the United States, the right-wing media constantly portrays an image of Christians being attacked by militant Democrats who want to violate Christians’ religious freedom. This is a ludicrous assertion. Christians make up roughly 75% of America’s population. The non-affiliated make up only 20%. How 20% can be persecuting 75% is beyond silly. The reality is that American government and politics is overwhelmingly dominated by Christians, with the non-religious being hopelessly underrepresented. This doesn’t mean that the non-religious are suffering from formalised discrimination. But the reality is that Americans are more likely to vote for a Christian than a non-religious person, because they associate Christianity with decency and morality, and many view religion as a necessary pre-requisite to living a moral life. This is partly a hangover of the Cold War fear of ‘Godless communism.’ But if the Democrats really want representatives to be socially representative of their constituents, they should start pushing for more non-religious Congressmen and women, just as they already believe women and ethnic minorities should be better represented.

Overall, as I’ve said before, I don’t have a problem with people of any religious background who wants to make a difference in government. But that doesn’t mean your social views, which may be a result of your religious beliefs, should be free from proper scrutiny. In Western Europe, where the non-religious and non-practising make up the vast majority of the population, society needs to be kind and sensitive to the religious, and not make them feel as if they are being singled out for disproportionate criticism. Equally, in America, where most people at least say religion is important to them, more needs to be done to ensure the voices of the non-religious are heard in the public realm. The stigma against electing a non-religious representative must end. And the right-wing media must stop lying that Democrats’ support for social liberalism constitutes a violation of Christians’ religious freedom.

 

Best of the Week #4

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03YjwYb7_J8. The first video in the Best of the Week series, a 5 minute opinion piece by Ezra Klein on why Trump’s policies are a greater scandal than his Russia ties. Trump promised to be a different sort of Republican, protecting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, even if it came at the expense of wealthy people like him. Instead, he is completely at ease with a Senate Republican bill that cuts Medicaid considerably. His broken promises to both Republican primary voters and the general electorate ought to shame him.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/15/13593670/donald-trump-jonathan-haidt-social-media-polarization-europe-multiculturalism. An important piece on the detrimental effects of social media on politics, particularly in a multiethnic democracy that is increasingly tribalistic. Social media can insulate its users from having to engage with viewpoints they disagree with, creating an online echo chamber. When politics becomes based on ethnicity, this means people fail to see the political perspectives of other ethnic groups. The consequences are potentially dire. I agree with Haidt’s scepticism of social media, it’s a topic I shall elaborate upon in a future post.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/defending-white-interests-can-never-be-right-83hlb2xpm. Staying on the subject of identity politics, Aaronovitch argues that so-called ‘white interests’ can never be justified in a society where whites are the supermajority of the population, and thus do not face any challenge to their collective wellbeing. Any demands for ‘rights for whites’ will inevitably come at the expense of civil rights for minority groups. Intended for a British audience, but well worth a read if you aren’t British as well.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/06/does-working-class-need-ask-its-labour-party-back. Labour is increasingly becoming like the US Democratic Party. It does well amongst young people, ethnic minorities, graduates and urban residents. Similarly, the 2017 UK election made the Conservatives more like the Republicans: the party of the working class white rural voter who probably doesn’t have a degree. Like Republicans, Conservatives are more likely to be wealthy, but they live in areas with fewer opportunities and thus have a more acute sense of pessimism. A long read, but well worth it.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/view-from-switzerland_britain-is-the–laughing-stock-of-europe-/43270490. An idea of how Britain is increasingly perceived abroad, even from a conservative country outside the EU. If you’re British, this makes for grim but important reading.

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/brexiteers-versus-economists-one-year-on.html. A short blog on how contrary to popular perception, the economic forecasts of the Brexiteers have failed to materialise, and the much-maligned ‘experts’ may have been right after all. I still think it’s too early to tell how exactly Brexit will impact the UK economy, but this article confirms my already-pessimistic prognosis.

On another note, last week I posted about choir music. It turns out a lot of the titles I suggested were genetic titles that apply to lots of different pieces. I apologise for the error, it shows just how scant my musical knowledge is. I can’t remember the exact pieces of choir music I loved so much. But to compensate, here is the link to the Trinity College Choir archive. http://trinitycollegechoir.com/webcasts/listen-again/browse/ You can find some absolute gems in there. I’m aware that all of the articles I’ve recommended this week may leave you feeling despondent, so hopefully some good music will cheer you up!

Chocolate milk and brown cows

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Seven percent of all American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a nationally representative online survey commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy.
If you do the mathematics, that works out to 16.4 million misinformed, milk-drinking people. The equivalent of the population of Pennsylvania (and then some!) does not know that chocolate milk is milk, cocoa and sugar.

But the most surprising thing about this figure may actually be that it isn’t higher.  For decades, observers in agriculture, nutrition and education have complained that many Americans are agriculturally illiterate. They don’t know where food is grown, how it gets to stores — or even, in the case of chocolate milk, what’s in it.  As one expert in the field commented, “We are conditioned to think that if you need food, you go to the store. Nothing in our educational framework teaches kids where food comes from before that point.”

One Department of Agriculture study, commissioned in the early ’90s, found that nearly 1 in 5 adults didn’t know that hamburgers were made from beef. Many more lacked familiarity with basic farming facts, like how big U.S. farms typically are and what food animals eat.

People who live in agricultural communities tend to know a bit more about where their food comes from, as do people with higher education levels and household incomes, but otherwise nothing much has changed.   Today, many Americans only experience food as an industrial product that doesn’t look much like the original animal or plant.  The USDA says orange juice is the most popular “fruit” in America, and processed potatoes — in the form of french fries and chips — rank among the top vegetables.

” Nobody knows nothin'” when it comes to food and its origins.  But the past 20 years have seen the birth of a movement to reverse this situation, with agriculture and nutrition groups working to get agricultural education back into classrooms to teach kids how to eat healthfully, an important aid to tackling heart disease and obesity.  (An edited and summarised version of an article by Caitlin Dewey,  food policy writer for Wonkblog, tinyletter.com/cdewey.)

My comment: And the article doesn’t even mention sugar, an agricultural product that causes widespread bad health and which, in the US is even added to ready- made soup (sold in shops owned by Whole Foods, which claims to be a health food purveyor). It’s hard to avoid either sugar or salt or the sort of gunk put in Big Macs, which has been scientifically devised to trick your brain into thinking you are getting tasty nutrition.

Higher education no longer considered good value

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The Student Academic Experience Survey, from the Higher Education Policy Unit and the Higher Education Academy, tracks the views of students about their time in higher education, based on a sample of about 14,000 current students. Levels of satisfaction with university “value for money” have now fallen for the fifth year in a row. Five years ago, 53% of students across the UK thought university was “good” or “very good” value – but this has now slumped to its lowest level of 35%.

Students from England, who have the highest tuition fees in the UK – rising to £9,250 in the autumn – had the lowest opinions of value for money. Perceptions of value for money have continued to fall, the number of students saying their university was “poor” or “very poor” value almost doubling since 2012. In England, only 32% of students thought their university represented good value. The report suggests that improving teaching quality is an important factor in whether students believe they are getting value for money.

The annual study also examines wellbeing and happiness – and this has fallen to only 14% of students saying they were satisfied with their lives.There are also negative outcomes for students’ sense of happiness and anxiety – with students having lower levels of wellbeing than young people not university. Young women and gay university students are particularly likely to feel unhappy.

The study also shows a wide variation in the number of teaching hours – with subjects such as history having an average of eight hours per week, while medicine had 19 hours plus many more working hours outside of the classroom. (BBC News)

When I first read this I thought, “too many people chasing too few dedicated and competent teachers/ lecturers/ professors owing to the huge expansion of higher education”. On second thoughts, there is another point of view: life is what you make it. If you really want to learn and you are dedicated to getting a good degree, then you will spend time reading round the subject and insisting on face time with the teachers. Proactivity, in other words. If, on the other hand, you are there on a jolly, for the sport and the booze, no doubt you will end up thinking it was all a giant waste of time. Is there an element of being spoiled, of having no work ethic, hidden away in this Student Academic Experience Survey? I would like a critique from a genuine student.

I was so concerned about failing at university that I worked like a dog, drank little, and avoided the playboys.  Forty years later, at an event in the French Embassy in Washington DC my favourite tutor (European History), who was there promoting a book, looked at me and instantly remembered my name. Could it have been due to his belief that my time at university had been worthwhile?.  Oh, and something else: it’s obvious that medicine, which is  scientific and complicated needs more hands- on experience and instruction than history, which involves more reading and personal interpretation. The surveyor ignores the processes of learning.

America – land of the giant monopolies

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In an article entitled “The problem with profits” The Economist of March 23rd virtually agrees with American protestors who say that the whole American political and economic system, once so vibrant and competitive, is broken (amazing, but refreshing, coming from the rather right- wing Economist).

The article does, however, add something which gets little comment (except on this blog, which has frequently protested the monopoly power of corporations and the spinelessness of the anti-trust department of the US Government).

The Economist article says that in former times a very profitable company would eventually have its profits competed away. Now there are monopolies everywhere you look. Ten trillion dollars worth of mergers since 2008 have increased concentration. The attendant promises of savings seldom, if ever, materialise.  As a result the excess cash being generated domestically by corporations is running at $800 billion a year, over and above investment budgets. This represents 4% of GDP, and it is not being re-invested but is either hidden away in other countries, something the tax system encourages, or it is paid to the bosses. Monopoly means artificially high prices, which, were they at normal levels, would reduce consumers’ bills by 2% or more.

And then you have regulation. The Economist hates regulation, but regulation of companies and banks prevents fraud and cheating and theft from consumers. Unfortunately, regulations are a big cost to companies and are complex. This means that only the big companies have the resources to handle them, and this blocks the entry of smaller competitors. Neat, isn’t it? They complain, but actually the rules  help the big corporations to stay monopolies.

TTP or TTIP had little to do with trade and everything to do with extending patents and copyrights overseas, plus other dubious benefits and boondoggles, in order to further entrench the big rent-extracting monopolies. The lobbyists have seen to that.

The system is a self-perpetuating fraud. We need more small companies and more competition.

Why does this blog repeatedly focus on these economic and political boondoggles? Well, there may have been other issues that reduced the opportunities for ataraxia and a pleasant life in ancient Greece, such as famine and disease that simply had to be put up with. In modern life we don’t have famines (in the West,snyway). And we have prolonged and protected lives with modern medicine. Our modern problems are mostly man-made and with determination could be corrected. It is hard to have peace of mind under our corrupted system. All we can do is highlight the unjustnesses of the system so that we can dwell peacably in the Epicurean Garden of the mind, assured of social fairness and pleasant lives for both the rich and the poor.