Levels of Reality

Yesterday, I saw a clump of purple crocuses with golden centers. That was the first time in my life I had seen real crocuses. I knew what they were because I had seen pictures of them, but they don't grow well where I come from. So what was different about seeing them in real life? Why isn't seeing a high-resolution photograph enough? Why wouldn't it be enough even if there was a realistic scent with the photograph? What if there was a cool breeze wafting through the room where the picture was displayed? What if it was not a photo, but a sculpture that you could touch, and the petals and leaves felt like real ones? Would that be enough? Certainly, it would be a great artistic achievement. But that's all it would be. It wouldn't be a living, metabolizing plant. It would be created for the pleasure of our senses. Now, art isn't inherently bad at all. In fact, it can be very beneficial, but I am afraid that these days, we're generally too distracted by merely gratifying our physical senses and using art to do so.

Okay, before we get into this, I want to make it clear that I have nothing against art in general. It all depends on its intent and effect.

So you've all heard about Plato's Cave and the different levels of reality, right? Plato thought that the physical world is the lowest level of reality. Beyond that is the intelligible world, which is made up of the forms: eternal truths. I wonder what he would have thought of our virtual realities and our entertainment that is made of images, fabricated stories about what is supposed to be like real life. Now, one might say that the Greeks had art, and Plato didn't seem to have a problem with art – as long as it didn't corrupt people in any way. There is a difference between classical Greek art and our art. One might say that Greek art didn't represent reality because it was purposely ideal. That all depends on what you consider reality. Greek art represented a perfect reality beyond this mortal, imperfect existence, something above the shadows of the cave. In a similar way, Greek theater went beyond the common conception of reality. It may have been seen as unrealistic because of the giant masks and the fact that they didn't show violence. They only talked about it. In comparison, our movies show EVERYTHING, and people think they're more realistic. But Greek theater had something that most of our entertainment doesn't. It wasn't just entertainment; it wasn't meant to just appeal to the senses. It was a form of education. It made people think about ideas beyond the physical world. They would discuss the plays for months -- and they would have something to discuss besides action sequences and the attractiveness of the actors.

Our technology and entertainment are really good at imitating the physical world, and it is getting better at it. People are lead to think that it is getting closer and closer to reality. It is in a sense, but only the physical sense. In another sense it is getter farther and farther from reality. Entertainers will often try to reconcile unreal things and false messages with reality by making the physical aspect seem real. Often, making unreal things seem real isn't inherently harmful, especially when the audience knows the unreal thing could never be. For instance, we all know that dragons are a thing of legend, so even when we see a very realistic portrayal of a dragon in a movie, we know it's not actually real. However, when the concept is not as obviously unreal as dragons, and has a semblance to reality, it has a more destructive potential. I always get annoyed with movies where the characters do stupid things, everything works out anyway. Real life doesn't work that way, and we shouldn't expect it to. But if spend enough time with entertainment, we start to expect those things. We expect something for nothing.

Media also imposes on us images of what other people think we should be like. These days, actors and singers are rated by their looks, not so much their talent. They are made to look perfect, and computers pick up the slack if they can't actually sing or if they're not quite a size 0. If they are all we see, we think we have to be like them, and we base our self-worth on our looks. If the physical world is a lower form of reality, then this, of course, is absurd.

A lot of sitcoms and movies show people drinking, partying, beating each other up, jumping into bed, etc. -- doing anything to gratify their physical senses and passions. They show the characters having fun and seeming happy. They don't show all the negative and lasting consequences that happen in reality and effect both the participants and their loved ones. What about the child born out of wedlock who grew up without a stable family life and who received only distorted messages about love? What about the lives lost to reckless violence, lives with potential and a chance for free agency? There are many stories that are left untold in our high definition, surround-sound entertainment. If a person's only source of knowledge was the television set, video games, or internet entertainment, they would quickly forget that real freedom can only exist when responsibility is exercised.

Alright, now that I've ragged on entertainment, I'll acknowledge that it is not all bad. Many artists are inspired and in turn inspire us. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume that all art and entertainment became inspiring and uplifting. Let's also assume that even though people tend to be attracted toward media that satisfies the senses, we all turned into people that found this kind of art appealing. Now, I have to ask myself this too. Assume that in the above circumstances, you spend as much time with media and entertainment, particularly electronic media, as you do currently. Then consider how much time you spend doing other things in comparison. Even if the media was all good and inspiring, would your life be an active, fulfilled life if you spent all this time with media? Do you go outside enough? Do you go to live concerts and plays once in awhile? Do you make things? Do you ever just sit and think, even if that includes writing out your thoughts? Do you take time to study things out and try to understand them? Do you spend enough time with your loved ones? Do you spend enough time doing things for other people? The things that aren't real and that we should beware of cause us to focus only on our own pleasure. We should be doing things that turn the focus outward and bring fulfillment and meaning to our lives and build real relationships with real people around us, as Elder David A. Bednar said in his address to young adults of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: “Things as they Really Are”.

I think that in addition to levels of reality, there are also different levels of doing. There is sitting on the couch and doing nothing. There is watching the TV and doing nothing. There is playing video games and accomplishing nothing. There is thinking and talking about doing something. Then there is actually doing it. There is doing something with a purpose. There is doing something for the right reasons. Taking action is doing something to something beyond yourself or doing something for someone else. Being entertained is just trying to satisfying yourself. The only way we can really find meaning and fulfillment as human beings is if we take action and look beyond ourselves. If we constantly seek pleasure, we will never be satisfied, even if we get the things we thought wanted. We'll always want more. On the other hand, if we reach out beyond ourselves and forget ourselves, we'll find the things will give us lasting happiness, and we'll find that we have become something we could have never imagined before.

So, let's find out where those crocuses came from. Let's do something. Let's climb out of the cave of the shadows of shadows and find reality and the source of truth. There are many conflicting and false messages being thrown around. People are using media and entertainment to try to get us to believe things that may not be necessarily true. It's hard to know who and what to trust. Let's not be gullible, but use our heads and find out what's really going on. I believe that the truth resides in the restored Gospel of Christ and that all the true answers we seek can be traced back to it.

Freedom and Responsibility

Here are some thoughts I've been having lately. It seems like a lot of people these days just want everything to come easy. That's not the way life works, but a lot of us have been fooled into thinking that. My grandparents and my parents knew how to work, and they knew that if they wanted something in life, they had to work for it. Now machines and computers do a lot of the work for us. We like that. I must admit, it's nice to have extra time for thinking, reading, socializing, etc. But the media and politicians play on our lazy nature. They offer to take care of more things for us and make more decisions for us. If we let them, we're giving up part of our agency, and we're no longer free. Giving up responsibility is giving up agency.

Another way people give up agency is by claiming that they were born with a certain nature or into a certain environment and that they can't change. “I am what I am,” they say. They make themselves a victim to there genes or circumstances. Some scientists claim that we are predetermined which leads to the conclusion that we are not free. I choose not to believe that. I think one of our most important attributes as human beings is our agency. Why is it so easy to give it up? We want the freedom, but not the responsibility. We have freedom and liberty drilled into our brains, but our media very rarely portrays the consequences that come from making choices of a certain nature. We forget about our responsibilities to ourselves, to others – especially our loved ones, and to God.

This is why, over all the socio-economic systems we currently have available to us, I think a republican government with free enterprise economy is the best option. We are free so long as we don't infringe on other people's freedoms. We have liberty and responsibility. The government is also responsible to us. A lot of people don't like the competition and hard work required to succeed in this kind of system, but they want all the benefits and freedoms that come with it. When politicians offer to take care of the people and provide them with happiness “from the cradle to the grave” it sounds pretty good. What people don't realize is that they're being fooled into giving up their freedom to choose what to make of their own lives. Isn't that the point of living as a human being? They are also being fooled into giving up pain and discomfort. Yes, those things are necessary too. How could we ever know pleasure if we didn't know pain? How could we ever know fulfillment if we didn't have any obstacles to climb over? How could we ever be victorious if we never had any conflict? We will never find what life is all about if we are like the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels who lead meaningless, but painless lives.

Besides that, no man-made system could possibly provide every pleasure or happiness. How can a bunch of mere mortals who don't know us at all know what will make us happy? Aren't we supposed to figure that out as individuals? I believe that there is one objective path to happiness, but we must, as individuals, be convinced that that is the right path. We as individuals must choose to follow that path or to not follow it. Then we must take the responsibility for that choice.

Have you ever seen Megamind? It has an interesting message that goes right along with this, I think. Here's a simplified rundown of the story. So, Megamind, a big-headed blue alien man, was raised by a bunch of jailbirds – a less-than satisfactory upbringing. He was taught that bad was good and that good was bad. So, he became a super villain and fought against Metrocity's hero, Metroman. As the plot progressed, he realized that bad didn't give him all the rewards he wanted. He started to care about something beyond himself. He tried to do something good, but it backfired. He thought that was only good at being bad. In the end, he pulled through and saved the day. He realized that even though he was brought up in less than ideal conditions, and that even though he had been an outcast in his younger years, he could still choose to be something good. He learned to act, instead of being acted upon.

Hooray for good movies!

Where Is Music Now?

For my humanities class, I am required to take something we discussed in class and do some research, then write up my thoughts about it. Here is an example that I thought would be interesting to share here.

I find it rather curious that a lot of people think that music is all about feeling. Although I acknowledge that emotion is an important part of music, especially for music on the romantic side of the spectrum, I don't think it is the only thing that gives music its value. I think that music can also have meaning in its various levels of structure. Before I was a Humanities major here, I was a music major at Snow College. I have studied a lot of musical structure, from individual chords to the way chords function with each other (or don't function) to overall form. Thus, it sounded a little strange to me last semester when students at the beginning of Music 101 could only think of the feeling of piece as a musical merit.

So what's my point? I think that as far as music, we are still generally romantic, and Dionysus still has the upper hand. It is true that our music is generally less grandiose than 19^th century Romantic music. (Movie music is a notable exception.) It is true that 19^th century Romanticism was still within the common practice period of music, whereas composers from the Impressionist movement on have succeeded in completely overthrowing the rules of harmony and rhythm in art music. However, I would argue that the general musical world is still essentially in a romantic stage. We have yet to see another major classical, Apollonian movement. It seems like what was almost a Dionysus/Apollo pattern in musical history has been broken.

The common practice period of music began with the Baroque period, an essentially romantic, Dionysian movement. Then, the neoclassical period came as a reaction to the perceived excess art and decoration. Reason, balance, refinement, and natural expression were valued in art, music, and thought. When the Snow College chamber orchestra played a piece by Mozart, our instructor told us how the expression was like love at a distance. It's never quite fully expressed like in romantic music. In spite of this seeming lack, Mozart, as we all know, was a genius. Neoclassical music was very well structured, as a rule, and one could make sense of it.

Then in the Romantic era, EVERYTHING was expressed over the top, and old forms were tinkered with or discarded. Then Debussy reacted against the huge sound of Wagner and the like. I still wouldn't say he reverted back to classicism. Though the musical emotion and volume wasn't excessive, he broke away from traditional chord functions and the major/minor system. He turned instead to the old church modes, pentatonic and whole-tone scales, and parallelism. Harmonically, his music was very un-structured. Feelings and impressions were an important aspect of impressionism.

Since the beginning of the 20^th century, we have seen several relatively small musical movements, many of them simultaneous. We saw neo-romanticism, expressionism, and another small neo-classical movement. The latter was a reaction to the former two, a return to reason and balance. Still, it was not a major movement, and it became a joke with some composers like Prokofiev. It may be argued that serialism has a classical slant because it is extremely structured. Still, as I mentioned, it is chaos to the ears. It is based on rules that were set up to render tonality and harmony impossible. It falls under the category of expressionism, which constitutes the expression of raw emotion and psychological turmoil not limited by the rules of harmony. (The Scream is a famous example of expressionism in visual art.) Primitivism was anything but Apollonian. It was characterized by driving rhythms, clashing harmonies, and harsh sounds (like today's popular music in a way). The theme was often focused on primitive, backward life before society was refined. Stravinski's Rite of Spring is a famous example.

I'll skip ahead to current pop music. It all sounds the same after awhile because little of it has a melody with a good contour (if any melody), and little of it has an interesting harmony beyond the old “Pachalbel Canon” chord progression (if any harmony). “But it has a good beat!” Yeah, the same one over and over again. The beat makes you feel a certain way. Is that all that matters? “The music video is awesome!” Does it have to have an image to mean anything? The singer looks good, but can't actually sing without a computer. I think that music reflects its culture. What does our music -- and media in general -- say about us? I think too many young people are too caught up in satisfying the senses quickly instead of really delving into the structure and meaning of things. I think it would do us a lot of good to sit down and listen to a symphony, watch an opera, or read a good book, and then talk about it, just like the Athenians used to discuss their plays and tried to learn something from them.

February Thaw

cool wind, not cold,
a voice from home in the south,
soothing breeze makes you quiet;
let it play with your hair, wrap it around your face.
sounds come smoother except crunchy slush;
cars glide past on bare roads
free from icy sinews.
sun goes to bed later, still light at six,
horizontal clouds cooling,
comfortable orange street lights,
cool blue shadows.
warm lights smile through windows
like baking bread,
like grandmother at rest in her favorite chair.
banks of layered snow receding
reveal mud and bits of green grass.

you want to run barefoot,
jump up and catch the moon,
dance an Irish jig.
you want to run away to the mountains,
hike up to waterfalls,
roast hot dogs,
tell ghost stories around the fire.
you want to lay in the grass,
expose yourself to the sun,
or stare at stars and talk about God and life.
you want to be in love for the sweetness of it
even though it might be another hopeless wish.
you want to breathe a garden's quiet fragrance.

you have forgotten
old snow,
dead leaves still clinging to skeleton branches,
the jacket still hanging on your shoulders,
sidewalks cracked from freezing.
you walk lighter for the music of peace inside,
a small glow of optimism,
not because you're trying to get across the ice patch
without slipping.

Individual vs. the State

So, I thought I'd post one of the essays I wrote for a political philosophy unit in my PHIL 110 class semester. There are four key questions/issues in political philosophy.

1. What is the justification of government authority? Why should a person subordinate my will to another person, institution, or especially government?
2. What is justice? How do we determine if a government is just or not? The aspect of justice we focused on in class was the just distribution of goods (wealth, power, etc.) and burdens (taxation, military service, etc.).
3. Individual vs. State: Where do we draw the line between individual freedom and government control? Which is more important, individual freedom or the needs of society? When they conflict, which should trump the other?
4. Are there circumstances in which it would be immoral to obey the government or in which it would be permissible to break the law? Are we always obligated to obey the law even when it is unjust or immoral?

I'll be focusing more on the third question. Here is the continuum of individual liberty and state collectivism:

INDIVIDUALISM-----------------------------COLLECTIVISM
-----------------------------Democrats &
----------------------------- Republicans-----------------Stalin--------1984
<------------------l------l----l-------------------------------l----l------------------l->
Anarchism---l--Classical Liberalism------Marxism---Totalitarianism
----------Libertarianism

(Don't you love all the "ism"s)
Note that Classical Liberalism and Liberalism are not the same thin. "Liberalism" is applied in different ways in eith case. Here is the difference between Conservatism and Liberalism:

Conservatism: Let society grow naturally. Hands off.
Liberalism: Legislate social progress. Hence the term Progressivism

Note that Democrats and Republicans are in about the same position along the continuum, and that neither are purely Classical Liberal. Both in general legislate aspects of life that Classical Liberalism wouldn't allow for, but they don't agree on which aspects to legislate.

Classical Liberalism: Freedom, liberty, individual freedom from inappropriate government control. Freedom to pursue legitimate individual interests. Human autonomy is considered one of the most basic rights and should only be controlled when it has the potential to cause direct harm to others. The state should not force an individual to act in a certain way, even for his own good, unless doing so would prevent harm to others besides himself. The governmet's domain is only within the public sphere. Each person is considered the proper guardian of his own physical, mental, and spiritual health.
Marxism: Capital (the means of production) is owned by the state.
Marx said that in capitalism, the worker is exploited. In his time, they were to a certain extent. They were paid ridiculously low wages, worked long hours, had no safety standards for protection, and child labor was prevalent. Marx thought that capitalism would inevitably undermine itself and lead to communism. Here's the process as he laid it out: Competition for profit -> Lower wages, machines introduced -> international companies -> failed company owners join the unemployed -> growing, unified embittered worker class -> ka-BOOM! They rise up -> capitalism is discarded ->
Transition:
1. Dictatorship of proletariats (workers) - They clear out the last remnants of capitalism.
2. 1st stage of Communism: Socialism - state ownership of production.
3. Ultimate Communism: People as a whole make economic decisions. (And they all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.)

My paper (after a very long introduction) is a response to Marxism. (Don't let the title scare you) Here goes:

Marxist Theory in Practice

Marx's theory beyond a certain point can only be just that, a theory. It describes how capitalism will evolve into communism, but it does not account for its implications after the proletariat becomes the ruler and common ownership of the means of production have been achieved. It does not account for how economic decisions would be made. If there is no class distinction and if all the people at once own the means of production, how is any kind of decision going to be made? The theory also does not account for what the workers may become when in power. Would they remain workers? Or would they transform into another upper class?

Imagine a society where all the people had equal power in making the economic decisions. For this to be possible, votes or polls would have to be taken for every decision. Someone would have ot administer the polls or votes, and somehow a decision would have to be made about which decisions should be voted on. It would not be possible for the workders to vote on every single decision, or no work would be done. So who would make the other choices if all the people were workers? Then once the polls or votes had been taken, who would gather, count, record, and implement the results? The people assigned to do this would not inherently have any particular power over the others. However, it is conceivable that they would use their position for their advantage. They may tweak the decision in the implementation of it. A Marxist mights say in response that ehy would have no reason to take advantage of their position, being content with no one having an advantage. However, this cannot be left up to chance. Throughout history, we have seen that people do not always behave within a system as expected, and they must be checked. Even if the people in this position did not mean to take advantage of it, they may inadvertently make changes to the voted decision when implementing it. To ensure that this did not happen, an impartial panel would probably have to be set up to make sure changes were made exactly as decreed by the vote. Already we see that not all the people can have absolutely equal power. Some sort of administration would have to evolve to carry out the decision making process. Now, suppose that the majority of the workers, not understanding economic principles, made some unwise economic decisions and put the economy into a precarious position. This situation could perhaps be avoided due to the free public education. Then who would determine the curriculum? Fro all the people to have equal power, educational decisions would have to be determined the same way as economic decisions. If this is the case, we come full circle and find ourselves stuck with the same dilemmas.

Suppose the above scenario was applied to a small society. Now imagine a society with millions of people all with absolutely equal power trying to make and carry out decisions. Even the first stage of the decision making process would be impossible. Imagine trying to herd millions of people to the polls for every economic or education decision. That alone would require someone to have some administrative powers. At best, the millions of people would have to select representatives to make most of the decisions for them, and they could all still vote less often on the more important decisions. This scenario would be not so different from a representative democracy. Now, not only decisions about justice would be made by the delegates, but also decisions about the economy, education, health care, etc.

Now, the Marxist may respond to all of this by saying that Marx did no necessarily intend for there to be no administration at all. He merely said, as quoted by Lawhead, that the "public power will lose its political character" (Lawhead 609). He defined political power as "organised power of one class for oppressing another" (Lawhead 609). The delegates in an administration in a communist society would not necessarily take advantage of their constituents, especially since they were likewise part of the proletariat class.

I contend, however, that those in power would eventually cease to see themselves as workers on the same plane as their constituents. They would be making decisions that affected many aspects of their lives, yet they may not fully understand the workings of all these areas, such as economics, education, health care, etc. They could also take advantage of their position and make decisions that favored themselves or they could exempt themselves from decisions that affected everyone else.

By publicising all these facets of our lives, Marx claims that we would all really be more free. However, this is very unlikely to be the case when his theories are applied because he did not consider some of the implications. Some kind of administration is necessary, so the people could not all have absolutely equal power. Economic decisions would be in the hands of even fewer than before. Those with power would probably cease to be on the same level as the rest of the population, but they would be making decisions that affected and were not necessarily good for them, and they would not be free.

P.S. I didn't write the following in my paper, but I think it's interesting to note who is trying to take over capital in our country (health insurance, GM). Are these guys workers? Or elite? They claim to be facilitating social progress, but they're just making themselves -- the elite -- more powerful.