Ideals worth fighting for

The other day (two weeks ago) I had once again lengthy discussion with my little brother, this time without any of us being intoxicated. Above mentioned colloquy focused on ideas of ideals*. Bellow you can find brief summary of my views and arguments.

Each of us has some ideals and goals. Even the laziest ones (e.g. my brother) have ultimate goal of not doing anything and spending their time staring at the ceiling in their rooms. The ultimate question is whether these objectives are good or bad and whether we can judge them as such. Who has the moral authority to decide whether my goal is better than yours?

My argument goes that any ideal you commit yourself to is good. Being "good" means it forces you into; taking a stance, action or changing your life in some way and thus evocate progress and evolution. By "committing yourself" I mean you are willing to fight for it (not literally - see more detailed discussion further below) - undergo strains and pains in order to achieve it. If you are unwilling to do so it means that ideal you proclaim to fashion is not the one you really strive to achieve. For example dedication of lazy person to laziness can be measured by what he is willing to sacrifice (strains) in order to be able not to do anything. He is willing to forgo higher salary earned in time demanding jobs and / or positions requiring long-term training and education. Economically speaking, time spent in bed brings higher utility than consumption of goods to be bought by money earned.

Under "anything goes" policy we are also admitting ideals and ideas of that twisted mind of bearded caveman in hiding for past seven years. These ideals as such are "good" even though 99 per cent of world population do not agree with them. We have no moral right to limit his thoughts, forbade his thinking and enforce our views upon him. What we are capable of is judging his actions which he undertakes in the process of achieving his goals. Killing of people will always be wrong, no matter what is the reason and ultimate goal.

By judging only action we do not prevent thinking but we prevent any potential excuses that might be used by criminals and other characters. There is no excuse for atrocities performed by German soldiers during WWII or Congolese rebels in the most recent uprising. There is no apology for crimes committed because you were just following orders (Germans) or excuse that you were only protecting Hutu minority and displaced, raped and robed 1 million people in the process (DR Congo). In thinking this way we are using deontological ethics and its theories rather than consequentialism.

In order to decide righteousness of act we should use simplistic principle of "do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you". This is in fact very simplified version of I. Kant's three maxims. Basically, we are saying that if you want to cause harm to someone by means of detonation, first do it to yourself (and you save us lot of money and time).

Note: * here meaning "an ultimate object or aim of endeavor" (Merriam-Webster).

Moral obligation to give?

In his recent weekly columns Peter King, a Sports Illustrated senior writer focused on NFL, mentioned philanthropy acts of NFL players and owners. First, Dan Snyder (Redskins owner) and Marc Bulger (Rams quarterback) will host certain soldier who is coming back home for a leave during his second tour in Iraq and whose correspondence with Mr. King is regularly mentioned in the columns (for more please see MMQB 9/21/08 - please scroll to the Good Guy of the Week section).

In the latest column (MMQB 9/29/08) he mentions Kurt Warner (Cardinals quarterback) and his family who pick up tabs for anonymous families dinning in the same restaurant. According to the column this is to learn his children joys of giving.

Are these acts selfless acts of goodwill or are they clever publicity stunts to gain some good points and increase your popularity and jersey sales? In Mr. Warner case, picking up tabs was something going on for past several years (according to the story), making it hard to argue that this is pure publicity stunt. In case of Mr. Snyder and Mr. Bulger it is a bit harder nut to crack. At the begining of this season Mr. King announced that his column will include new features (also the Good Guy of the Week section) and as he was regularly writing about the adventures of the above mentioned soldier, one should expect that anything interesting happening to him will be published on the website (consider that Mr. King is nationally recognized and well established sports writer). Anyway, let us assume that no publicity gain was initially aimed for.

Is it a duty of the rich to share their wealth with those less lucky after they provide for themselves and for their dearest? Is the philantrophy something that we should feel obliged to do? Even in today's strictly money focused economy philanthropy thrives as those who earned their share are trying to leave some imprint not only in the material world (see Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffet's donations to charities and medical research organisations). This tendency can be seen in the past two or three hundred years as the society got richer and gap between poor and rich grew wider. During this time society come to expect from those on the top to give something to those on the bottom and something like "moral obligation" was introduced. Those who do not give are considered greedy and plain stupid (see Paris Hilton :) ).

But what is the level of "richness" when you should start giving back? Nobody can answer this question as there is no level or standard. There cannot be a simple answer as all of us have different needs to be satisfied and thus different amount of money we need. Mr. Warner tries to give back even though income of his family per capita is much lower than the income of Mr. Gates (Mr. Warner has allegedly 5 children with his wife). And even though it is not much, it still makes some other family happy. On the other hand other philanthropists attempt to find cure for cancer and/or other diseases which will make eventually whole lot of people happy. What is more?

But not only rich people are doing moral amends. Those who do not have enough money and still feel need to give something back are doing it via service to society. Through providing services which they posses (e.g. coaching little league teams as Mr. King does, trying to improve the neighbourhood by cleaning up the streets and taking care of gardens etc.) for no compensation. Do yu know somebody like this?

Next blog will be published on Sunday as I am going for a 5 day hike to Wugong shan. Enjoy!

First - Group and individual culture

To show that search for dignity and culture is taken seriously, the first post is presenting views on definition and existence of culture. Culture as a word has c. 6 meanings (see Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary for more) one of which defines culture as "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group ; the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time" and so on about common goals etc etc.

But is it possible to characterize certain group of people as having a culture? Or being cultural? How do you define characteristic features or customary beliefs? If you are too narrow or strict you will end up with group of very limited "membership base". If you are too broad and vague you will encompass people who feel as belonging to other cultures and not the one defined by you. Argument goes that we cannot attribute certain group of people with specific culture because as much as we want them to be the same, people are diverse. In any group there will always be someone who does not belong. Who stands out. Someone with different preferences and different views. For example there is always some Arab drinking alcohol (either secretly or openly) and there is always some Russian preferring beer to vodka. As absolutely homogeneous group of people (meaning that its members have same characteristics) does not exist, there does not exist group of people with specific culture.

Culture can be developed only on the individual level through "the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education" and experience. Individual culture can be than defined as "enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training". This blog is dedicated to search and description of individual culture in views of the author.

Note: All quotes and citations used are from the Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary - entry "culture".