andrewducker | Advice Please

Advice Please

A long time ago, I used to believe in things like 'objective morality', 'absolute rights' and 'objective aesthetics'. Obviously, as I grew up and started paying attention, I realised that what these actually meant was 'The way I'd like people to behave', 'The way I'd like people to be treated' and 'The way I like things to look'.

Since realising this, I've become a lot more understanding of other people, realising that if they like people behaving differently, like people to behave differently and like things to look differently, then of course they have different morality, rights and aesthetics and that's just fine. My opinions aren't privileged over theirs and while there's no objective reason why I shouldn't go around forcing my opinions on them it makes for a quieter life if I avoid doing so unless their opinions/actions make me feel grossly uncomfortable (i.e. engaging in torture or wearing a particularly vile hawiian shirt).

However, from time to time I have to deal with people that think that these things mean more than that (although none of them have ever been able to give any reason why they do). I find it almost impossible to negotiate with them because while I'm phrasing things in terms of what I like/dislike, or what I'm comfortable with, they're telling me that I'm categoricall wrong. As I don't view it as possible to be wrong about these things, I'm at a loss as to know what to do.

Any suggestions?

[Poll #306886]

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so, do you think that they are wrong to think there's a right and wrong about these things?

I have no problems with them viewing these things as right and wrong as long as they don't insist that I have the same viewpoint. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case.

Absolutely.

When talking about right/wrong in a logical way you have to do so within a framework - for instance saying "2+2 = 5" is wrong within the framework of mathematics, "Torturing people for no reason" would be wrong within the framework of utilitarianism, etc.

If you have an agreed framework to work within then you have a method of telling wrong from right, but unless you reach that agreement then you don't have anything to work with.

Ask yourself, what does "X is wrong" mean, then ask why it means that and trace your steps back until you find a prime cause. You won't find one, but if you do, let me know :->

i think the closest you might get to a prime cause here would be a framework which encompasses every living human being, though you may well want to extend this to include every living being as well, making you world-centric rather than human-centric, which are both far broader than ego-centric. each of those centres implies a framework, a different frame of reference, within which wrongs and rights have meaning.

isn't 'every living being' prime enough for such a cause? you don't have to reach an agreement, anyway; just trying to do so would instantly hamstring any chance of ever getting anything done, ever. and things *do* need doing; one of those is preventing people killing other people for their own ego- or race- centred purposes. if you were a malevolent dictator, and i had enough power to stop you killing your people, i would think it right to do so (even if the only way to do so was to kill you), and it should be clear to anyone within a wide enough reference frame that i had done the right thing by this. Of course, if i then went nuts and claiming that what i had done was god's will, and that now everyone else should get the fuck out of the way while i carried on my own ego-centric agenda, it would be the same kind of right, by the same kind of token, for someone else to come and kill me or otherwise remove me from power.

logically speaking, there are no absolute rights or wrongs, but thankfully logic can't have the final say on its own. i think you can kill someone compassionately.

i wish i had more time right now for this, but i have to go play trumpet for naked cyclists and tree lovers. hope to see you there?

That sounds rather nifty. May I ask what it's about?

of course :-)
the Edinburgh Tree Festival, in Inverleith Park opposite the Botanic Gardens. My band, the Ruffness, will be playing there at four this afternoon. also, it's the planned end of route for the edinburgh world naked cycle ride, who are gathering this very minute around middle meadow walk (they're due to, anyway). if you're willing and able, come down and say hi..

I think it would be fun to come down and say hi but I live in Seattle. Even if I got on a plane now, I'd probably not make it there in time...

I did see the article about the Naked Cycle Ride in the Scotsman. We have a Naked Cycle Ride here in Seattle for the Solstice Parade but ours is illegal...

guess you won't be down this afternoon then :-D

i don't know if this one's legal or not, but it seems to be happening anyway.

well, with any luck we'll keep going and get bigger and so on and be able to tour the world a bit and keep playing our music to more and more people. so maybe we'll come to you. i'd like that.

I missed it! :p I had no idea it was on so soon. I went last year and rather enjoyed myself. I won a raffle prize too!

isn't 'every living being' prime enough for such a cause?

Well, if you can find something that _every living being_ can agree on, then I'll agree that we have something that's universally true inside the framework of 'what people believe'.

So long as we check occasionaly that nobody has changed their mind, of course.

i know _every living being_ isn't a group we can get to agree, not least because it includes plants, animals, babies, children, the insane, and the bush family. i still think it's a useful framework, though; the (can't remember what it's called) universal human rights thing where as i understand it *everyone* is held to have certain rights, even if they don't agree (or don't understand) that it's better for them to have those rights than not to. I'm well aware of the easy response to this kind of argument, the 'you can't claim superior opinions over anyone else because it's oppressive, fascist, whatever', but i don't think that response is either useful or true (except within a much smaller context).

I'm not doing a terribly good job of elucidating this, but luckily Ken Wilber has already done an excellent job of that in his books on integral studies. There he outlines (and substantiates) a kind of meta-theory which does attempt to 'get everything in', but it's not as clumsy or fragile as you might think. It's done in terms of mapping the development of consciousness from birth to the state of conscious unity with all, the zen 'not-two', union of atman and brahmin state. he's particularly good on the 'pre-trans fallacy' which refers to making the mistake that anything non-rational is somehow sub-rational, and (for me, anyway) makes a hell of a lot of sense of a hell of a lot of things.

the stages of development are (arbitrarily) assigned colours, and this post of yours about non-primacy of one opinion over another strikes me as a very 'green' response. this is in no way pejorative; there is a ranking but (in his words) it's 'an elitism to which everyone is invited' and there is nothing in any of the books which makes me think there's anything sinister or hidden about it. if you've never read any, and if you're interested, google him and read some of the stuff from his website and also the Integral Institute stuff, which he heads, i think. 'A Theory of Everything' is a good introduction, though you might find it unsatisfyingly brief. also, 'boomeritis', which was in Waterstones last time I looked, is good - written as fiction but there entirely for the purpose of describing the theories.

any thoughts?

I've got Boomeritis. His dissection of everything up to Green is great - all sensible, although the book is horribly patronising and transparent to almost scientology levels. But when he goes onto second/third tier he adopts the Green defence/attack method of simply stating things as Truth and stating that anyone who doesn't just agree with him without proof as "idiotic...dumb-down, ding-bat egos...nitwit...timid"

He uses the phrase "post-rational" to escape having to actually give explanations that mean anything - especially as there's no way given to differentiate between pre- and post-rational states. And especially as he says earlier that many people claim to be rebelling for Green reasons when actually they're experiencing a Red lashing-out, this is particularly unhelpful.

The book basically reads like recruitment literature for a cult, feeding you enough solid information on things that are obviously bad, a few insights into things that some people may not have realised are problems, some sex to keep you interested and a few likeable characters that berate the main character whenever it looks like he stops paying attention (and by proxy, the reader if they stop paying attention). It's got several good ideas (including the classification into the various colours), but doesn't really hold together. Shame, I was rather enjoying most of the earlier bits.

there's plenty in his non-fiction books to differentiate between pre- and post- rational and also attempts to give meaningful explanations. I'd reckon the green defence/attack method is employed because the book is aimed squarely at Green values, and it's supposed to be speaking that language. not sure about that though.

i don't think it's a cult. there's no secrecy, the theoretical books spend plenty of time discussing the theories and referring to evidence which supports them; the most in-depth treatment i believe is 'sex, ecology, spirituality' which is one of the earlier books and also (afaik) the longest. The main thing, though, is that he *doesn't* just tell you to accept the things he says as Truth. In every one of the nonfiction Wibler books you're encouraged to practise meditation, as in 'to start a meditative practice', on the grounds that if you continue such a practice for long enough, eventually you will understand those 'truths' for yourself and not because someone else told you to believe them.

so not 'accept that i'm right', but 'if you do x, you will perceive y'.

I suppose the key question is, what if it *is* true? what do you stand to lose by accepting the possibility that the second and third tier states are just as real as any of the rest? you don't have to give up your rational respectability; you just try an experiment with defined parameters, and see what the results are. you don't have to go in blind at any point, you're not asked to make a leap of faith; you're instead told that if you fancy taking a look at what's claimed to be at the other side of the leap, you can build your own bridge to get there. you don't have to give him, or anyone else, your money (the books are normal book-price and otherwise freely available); you don't have to swear yourself to secrecy or join any kind of cult; you just *do* meditation and eventually second and third tier awareness becomes available to you as a matter of choice, and as real as your awareness is now.

supposedly, it's a characteristic of being at any given level to believe that it's the best and only level to be at; to see the levels before as misguided (or 'evil' or 'childish') and the levels after as unreal, nonsense, or delusions held by those at lower levels. so again, what if he's right about that? say you're centred at green; the next level is yellow, the first of the second-tier, post- or trans- rational levels. that would make you prone to finding everything up until green all very reasonable, and everything after green total nonsense. and that's what you're saying, isn't it?

apart from all that, he's reasonably well respected as an academic, he's openly building on the work of many, many others (as is the academic way), the non-fiction writing is open, clear, and well-referenced. are you *sure* you're not letting your habitual assumptions hide a genuine, new idea from you?

(that would be 'Wilber', of course, not 'Wibler' :-)

I don't think there's anything wrong with believing that there is a wrong and a right - itjust goes back to the concept of Absolute Truth, which has been around a while. However, it is presumptious to believe that your truth is THE truth and thats when conversations get sticky.

Generally speaking I find that these people have latched onto thei version of the truth for a reason and it may not be safe to go undermining it!

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