The Will-Ought Distinction

David Hume, the originator of the is-ought distinction

Posted by Thomas Scarborough

The is-ought distinction is a philosophical classic which lies at the core of moral philosophy. It states that one cannot derive ‘ought’ sentences from ‘is’ sentences -- in other words, one cannot derive ethics from fact. This rests in turn on the things-relations distinction. While ‘is’ describes how things are related to one another, it is unable to describe how they ought to be related.

Instead, here, I seek to introduce another distinction which, as far as I can see, is non-existent in the world of philosophy  -- yet may be more important than the is-ought distinction.  The goal here is to present a will-ought distinction. It is offered in broad outline, while acknowledging the fact that there are many nuances at play (that is, what follows is necessarily simplistic).

Now ‘is’ and ‘will’ play a large part in science.  The scientist begins with ‘is’, which is the facts -- or the pieces of what is out there -- and these facts, for a scientist, may not make much sense in the beginning.  As scientists seek to understand the facts, then, they play with them -- they rearrange them, reword them, have a few drinks together as they argue over them -- even bet on hypotheses, and so on.  In other words, the ‘is’ of the matter may be a fairly detached activity.

This is the first of the (if one so prefers) four parts of the scientific method: characterisations, hypotheses, predictions, and experiments -- and the first of these four, namely characterisations, is about observations, definitions, and measurements of the subject of inquiry.  In other words, it is about establishing the facts.

Yet facts alone offer little or no explanation of phenomena.  There comes a point where these facts must be combined in such a way as to present a theory.  At this point, ‘is’ (the facts) becomes ‘will’ (the theory).  Theory is, after all, that which will happen.  Theories predict things.  If they do not predict things, they are not theories.  We now find, besides ‘is’ and ‘ought’, a third category.  In the context of science:

• ‘is’ refers to fact,
• ‘will’ refers to theory,
• while ‘ought’ refers to value

Let us now notice that ‘will’ and ‘ought’ both have to do with expectation.  Both may be defined -- at least in a great many cases -- as ‘reasoned expectation’ -- and reasoned expectation is a fairly standard definition for theory.  One cannot call theory reasoned certainty of course, as every scientist will freely point out.  Neither is this true of ‘ought’.

Further, both ‘will’ and ‘ought’ may refer both to personal and impersonal things.  This fits well with the things-relations distinction above.  They both have to do with how we expect things to be related to one another.  Things ‘will’ be so and so ordered, or they ‘ought’ to be, whether this refers to a person's behaviour (‘She will ...’ ‘He ought ...’) or to the arrangement of objects, events, or concepts (‘It ought ...’ ‘That will ...’).

How, then, should we distinguish ‘will’ from ‘ought’?

Unlike ‘will’, ‘ought’ may often be non-normative -- which means that one may not seriously, in every case, expect it to happen.  As an extreme example, someone might say, ‘There ought to be two moons orbiting the earth’ (which is impossible).  But then, too, someone might consider, ‘Crystal Palace ought to win the Premier League’ (possible, though not likely), ‘The rocket ought to land safely’ (likely), or 'This experiment ought to produce an alkali’ (all but sure).  There is a continuum of additional information, therefore.

Now I need to make a further distinction.  In that case of proposing two moons, we might really have meant, ‘There ought to have been (perfect tense) two moons.’  A great many ‘ought’ sentences may be interpreted in this way.  Subtract such examples from all examples, and this increases the number of oughts which are more seriously about the future.  ‘Ought’ now comes a lot closer to ‘will’.

Perhaps one might argue, too, that ‘ought’ may be distinguished from ‘will’ by seeing the term as applying only to ethics -- and not to such neutral subjects as those of science.  Yet how should one make such a distinction?  It is artificial -- not to speak of old-fashioned.  I have said that ‘ought’ represents the way that things ought to be related to one another, and this does not in principle separate ethics from science, or from any other activity for that matter.  This brings two important questions:

•  Is science in reality a language of ‘ought’? (Which is, all about value?)
•  Can one really separate ‘ought’ from ‘will’? (That is, to separate moral acts from any acts at all).

And one last question too:

•  Is every move we make a moral one?

Advantages of Ecological Socialism

Image courtesy of Clariant. 
Today, companies like the speciality chemicals company
Clariant say that they are working to reposition
themselves as sustainable solutions providers

Posted by Andrew Porter*

Today, there is much greater awareness of the threat of Climate Change. Yet species loss, disruption of planetary systems, and widespread environmental degradation are allowed to continue. Over millennia, we have been very good at developing ways to respond to the environment; now the imperative is to develop the sharpness and capacity to respond to ourselves.

Surely it is apparent now that modern industrial overreach needs to be scaled back significantly. A number of systems might be devised for remedy, but the only ones that have any real chance of success revolve around human ecology and sustainability. Can large swathes of society rally around a call to protect ecologies and promote sustainability? Because underlining such a solution is the question ‘What's in it for us?’ I think that this question itself must be transformed by a new ecological attitude, what we might call an 'inner ecology.'

One ‘system’ that might guide a large set of cultural and societal factors toward a much better relationship between humankind and the Earth is what I call ‘ecological socialism’. It would require a re-orientation of society towards an integration of human needs and what is necessary to afford the natural world its sustainability. The ‘socialism’ of the idea means equal possession of the opportunities and limitations inherent in living within the governance of natural principles. It is both ethical and ecological to distribute limitations and opportunities equally: who could argue otherwise?

An integration of the planet’s health (preservation of biodiversity and habitat, clean water and air, soil conservation, and respect for the earth's climate mechanisms) and people’s lives maximises care of one for the other. Nature has its goals and man has his; unless they are integrated, sustainability will remain out of reach. Two primary principles that we might work into to guide and animate environmental preservation are:

1) Streams, trees, bays, animals, mountains, oceans, and so on, should have standing as holders of legal rights because they have moral rights in our mind. We are in this together, nature and man, and if we are a lame and destructive partner, this joint venture remains unviable.

2) Natural systems maintain health and balance as a core feature, and should become a core feature of our lives. This involves development and implementation of human ecology models. The process as well as the result is – rather than a frittering away of human capacity – a kind of wholeness.

Surely the present is the crucial time to address this. George Monbiot makes the point well in a March 15, 2019 article in The Guardian newspaper entitled ‘Capitalism is Destroying the Earth. We Need a New Human Right for Future Generations’.

‘At the heart of capitalism is a vast and scarcely examined assumption: you are entitled to as great a share of the world’s resources as your money can buy. You can purchase as much land, as much atmospheric space, as many minerals, as much meat and fish as you can afford, regardless of who might be deprived. If you can pay for them, you can own entire mountain ranges and fertile plains. You can burn as much fuel as you like. Every pound or dollar secures a certain right over the world’s natural wealth.’

Ecological socialism—moving away from current assumptions and forms of exploitation—seeks the sustainability of the natural world and also aims to sustain man, in some form, within this. A principal standard of ecological socialism is that human burdens on the planet are kept well below the Earth's carrying capacity for them.

Ecological socialism attempts to genuinely represent all life forms and natural systems as equals in its sphere of obligation, caring, and set of rights. Ecological socialism models human governance and society on the appreciation of ecological balance and advantages. It seeks to make organic goodness human as well as natural. Ecological socialism recognises that humans must be integral with natural ways for both humans and the Earth to thrive.

Some specific choices are clear. Industrial society must be phased out. Strategies must be found to bring human numbers down and encourage small-scale simplicity. I believe that ecology-centred education, with good assistance from the humanities, helps pave the way. The belief that the individual and society are supported best by harmony with and not antagonism with nature is the vital one.

The exploitive way of life, denying costs, is over. Ecological socialism integrates man and ecologies, making the human path forward one of integrity itself. This is a value worth crafting human life around. Currently, culture and societies seem not to mind demise. But ecological socialism aims to help people understand that a citizen is not a citizen unless responsible to oneself and to the Earth.

Citizenship is best defined as this dual responsibility—to help oneself and one’s circle thrive, and also to bolster the optimal flourishing of the ecosystems and planetary systems of Earth through non-interference. Ecological socialism is the best way to ensure this.

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Andrew Porter is a philosopher and educator who lives near Boston in the United States

Picture Post #46 A Machine to Peek Into the Universe’s Core

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Keith Tidman 

The Large Hadron Collider, siad to be the most complex machine ever built by humanity.
Image courtesy of CERN

A tale of scale.  The CERN Large Hadron Collider, a Brobdingnagian* machine searching through the Lilliputian world of subatomic particles. This, we are told, to better understand the universe at the smallest scale. The human mind is challenged to take in the machine’s ‘cathedral’ dimensions. I think that the aim of this cathedral, however, is more than just inspiring awe, or reverence, or faith.

Rather, for me this towering monument — testament to human tool-making — has a very different purpose: to pull back the shroud so that humanity can peek into the remarkable inner world of our cosmos, and what it tells us about aspects of reality. Case in point: the confirmation of the Higgs boson a few years ago, whose field gives other particles their mass — ‘convenient’ for a universe like ours, including us.

There’s the hard-core science to all this, to be sure, with international collaboration at its best. But just like more-conventional, faith-based cathedrals, doesn’t this image also inspire humanity to speculate about the cosmology and meaning of this universe that we occupy, our own purpose, and the values we ought to revere? Doesn’t it serve and reward humanity’s instinctual sense of curiosity, imagination, and inspiration — the fertile seedbed of human discovery?

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* After the fictional land in Jonathan Swift's 1726 satirical novel Gulliver's Travels occupied by giants

On Black Holes and Amazing Discoveries

In 2019, astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope system announced that they had captured what they described as the first ever image of Black Hole

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Black Hole discovered in far-off galaxy?

“A Black Hole has been photographed at the centre of the galaxy M87, 55 million light-years from us. It's now been named Powehi, a Hawaiian phrase referring to an "embellished dark source of unending creation.”

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Steve Crothers* begs to disagree...

It is not a discovery at all.

Rather, this is how astronomers and cosmologists do science: fraud by means of mass-media induced mass-hysteria. It beggars belief. Think about it: according to the astronomers and cosmologists the finite mass of their black hole is concentrated in a 'physical singularity' of zero volume, infinite density, and infinite gravity. But no finite mass has zero volume, infinite density, and infinite gravity, anywhere!

Similarly, the astronomers and cosmologists assign to their black hole two different escape speeds: one of zero metres per second and one corresponding to the speed of light of 300,000,000 metres per second, and this in the same equation! At the same time there is no capacity for an escape speed (since nothing can even leave), simultaneously, at the same place (at the 'event horizon' meaning the boundary of a black hole beyond which nothing can escape from within it.). But nothing can have two different escape speeds and no capacity for an escape speed, simultaneously, at the same place! Furthermore, the astronomers and cosmologists assert that the escape speed at the event horizon is the speed of light, yet light cannot either leave or escape; indeed, nothing, they say, can even leave the event horizon. But since light travels at the speed of light, which is the escape speed at the event horizon, light must both leave it and escape! And, moreover, anything else can leave.

On the mathematical level, the black hole is conjured by violations of geometry. Geometrically speaking, the theory of black holes moves a sphere originally centred at the origin of a coordinate system to some other place in that same coordinate system but leaves its centre behind. By this means the two 'singularities' of the black hole are produced, the centre of the moved sphere, now thought to be an event horizon, and the left behind centre at the origin of coordinates, thought to be the 'physical singularity'. According to Black Hole theory, In the centre of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point which contains a huge mass in an infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.

Analytically speaking, the violation of geometry manifests in black hole theory as the requirement that the absolute value of a real number must take on negative values – which is impossible as I’ve argued in detail elsewhere. (For example, in a paper for Hadronic Journal called ‘On Corda’s “Clarification” of Schwarzschild’s Solution’).

The laws of thermodynamics require that temperature must always be an intensive thermodynamic property. (The first law, also known as Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of any isolated system always increases. ) To argue otherwise is a violation of both the 0th and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. The Hawking temperature of a black hole is however non-intensive, in violation of the laws of thermodynamics. (Stephen Hawking argued that quantum effects allow black holes to emit exact black-body radiation and that the electromagnetic radiation would be produced as if emitted by a black body with a temperature inversely proportional to the mass of the black hole.) So black hole thermodynamics is entirely nonsense as this video on the subject of Gravitational Thermodynamics demonstrates.

The conclusion must be that the black hole does not exist; proven with common sense and high-school science. Yet the astronomers and physicists have managed to image that which does not exist. To which we might say, of course they did - they have to justify their lucrative jobs and their vast grants of unaccountable public money.

Read more:

Stephen Crothers is a mathematician who has written and lectured on many of the problems with the standard model of cosmology. During his PHd thesis, at the School of Physics in the University of South Wales he studied General Relativity and Black Holes and found the concept to be inconsistent with General Relativity.

Crothers, S.J., A Critical Analysis of LIGO's Recent Detection of Gravitational Waves Caused by Merging Black Holes, Hadronic Journal, n.3, Vol. 39, 2016, pp.271-302,

http://vixra.org/pdf/1603.0127v5.pdf

Crothers, S.J., LIGO -- Its Claims for Black Holes and Gravitational Waves | EU2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev10ywLFq6E&t=496s

Crothers, S.J., Gravitational Waves: Propagation Speed is Co-ordinate Dependent, Poster Presentation, 2018 April APS Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, presented on 14th April 2018. http://vixra.org/pdf/1804.0399v1.pdf

On Connotation

Connotation or denotaton? by Zach Weiner, of SMBC Comics.

By Lina Scarborough

A while ago, a friend waltzed up to me and asked: ‘What is a connotation?’ . Knowing he likes to pull my leg once in a while, I decided to humour him. ‘It is the description attached to a word’, I answered as we started walking.

After a pause for thought, he replied: ‘Ah, but when I have an object... ’ he stooped down to pick up some pebbles, ‘the words that come to mind describe the colour, the shape...’ he turned the stones between his fingers, ‘the weight’, he dropped them suddenly, ‘but not all of those are connotations’.

I paused and added, ‘Then, it’s a description that does not pertain to some thing’s physical properties’.

He looked amused and told me he had come across several definitions that were besides the point - or entirely flawed. Whether or not my definition satisfied him, he did not say.

Of course, not only objects with physical properties can have connotations. In fact, it is mostly adjectives that contain nuances. For example, the word stingy holds a negative undertone, whereas thrifty implies something akin to a virtue – someone who likes to be smart with their money. But what is this desire to find an exact label for something? What is, and why is there joy in finding the precise term for an object, a situation, an abstract feeling?

Let us define a label, or better - a term, as a chiefly one-word noun. Then a definition is a phrase which explains exactly what that label encompasses. The definition: waking up from a pleasant dream feeling contented. There is a term for that feeling – euneirophrenia.

We can define a great number of things in different manners. The only limit is our personal experience or imagination. The latter of course, poses the question whether one can imagine a feeling into existence (but that’s a whole other topic - and possibly borders on schizophrenia).

A private world

Connotations create private microcosms in romantic couples. Your partner might replace the word ‘walk ‘with ‘locomotion’ to avoid unnecessarily exciting the dog that recognizes the term ‘walkies!’ or ‘walk!’. Or, you might lightheartedly call a USB a hockey-stick, and no-one but your significant other and close family would understand what on earth you meant. The shared private language creates a sense of insiders versus outsiders and, consequently, facilitates intimacy and brings a lightheartedness to the relationship. Carol Bruess, director of family studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, says: ‘When couples have their own language rituals…they feel like they know one another in a way that others don’t, and that they have a strong connection or bond to each other.’

Connotations can also be cultural. Don’t offend a Chinese by gifting him a watch – the Chinese symbol for watch (送钟, sòng zhōng) has the same pronunciation as [attending] a funeral! Giving somebody a watch implies that you are patiently waiting for their death - not a message you want to convey...

Some cultural connotations are oddly specific. Let us again consult the Chinese for inspiration: Do not give somebody in China a green hat - it is a metaphor for man’s wife having been unfaithful (帶綠帽, dài lǜ mào, with green hat). But why specifically green? A turtle is green, and turtles hide their heads in their shells, so calling someone a ‘turtle’ is deemed offensive since it's also equivalent to calling someone a coward!

Using a certain connotation can also help one identify with a community, fulfilling the need to belong. In African-American communities one doesn’t call a friend ‘mate’ like the British or Australians do, one calls a friend ‘brother’, or simply bro. Such cultural connotations are one reason it is so hard to learn a foreign language. Or rather, why it is so hard not to make embarrassing faux pas when speaking as a beginner.

Even in your own native language and communities, people fight to have certain words de-stigmatized or entirely made redundant. This is particularly applicable to the historically more vulnerable members of society. No one would dream of calling a disabled person a retard nowadays unless they were deliberately seeking to insult.

In parts of the world women have started pointing out double-standards that occur when labelling the same behaviour. Perhaps a boy is praised for taking initiative and being a leader, whereas a girl might be scolded for the same and labeled as ‘bossy’. Where does one draw the line between being steadfast, tenacious, or stubborn? How does one distinguish between meticulous or picky? Is it not usually somewhat subjective as opposed to universal?

The neuroscientist Terence Deacon has said: ‘The way that language represents objects, events, and relationships provides a uniquely powerful economy of reference…It entirely shapes our thinking and the ways we know the physical world.’ Building on this, I could say that the reason it is satisfying to find the exact word to convey what I mean, as opposed to using a phrase or long-winded definition (this in itself needs a term!), is because it creates a sense of power. What I can define, I can examine, influence, control. Hence associations around words are the building blocks around spiritual or emotional depth and intellectual growth.

If I understand that what I feel is called leucocholy - a state of feeling that accompanies preoccupation with trivial and insipid diversions – I know how to find a more productive pursuit to ease my feelings of anxiousness instead of faffing around (as the British say). The origin of leucocholy dates back to the 18th century, and literally means ‘white bile’ and is opposed to melancholy, which is ‘black bile’.  In this way, connotation therefore reveals something about our psyche. Freud may have realized this when he started using so-called ‘free association’ as a method for diagnosing and alleviating what was going on in his patient’s unconscious processes.

My friend later informed me that he had found a definition of connotation that he liked: ‘Connotation is the illusion of denotation’, he said.

And yet - this same illusion is the reason that poetry can exist, and is what gives depth and flavour to our language and our lives.

Soap Operas in Africa

Posted by Thomas Scarborough

Posters for Kenyan and South African Soap Operas

Who are the influencers in Africa? The politicians? Preachers? Educators? Revolutionaries?

There are some we may seldom think of: the producers of Africa’s soap operas. According to Discovery Networks, the average TV viewer in South Africa watches a massive 4.5 hours a day – a large part of which is taken up with soap operas. Statistics show that South Africa’s top five soap operas have about five billion views a year.  It is, according to journalist Tiema Muindi, ‘habitual viewing’.

Now before any person or group can influence another, there need to be certain conditions in place. It is generally agreed that people are motivated – not only motivated, but induced to act – when they hold up a picture of the world to the world itself, and there find a difference or disjoint. Psychologist Richard Gregory describes it as finding the ‘unexpected’, and the philosopher Willard Quine adds: the expected which fails to happen.

I look from my kitchen window, to see my little girl with her face down in the grass. This is not what I expected to see – and I spring into action. Or I did not expect to see a woman assaulted on the street, or a child malnourished. Again, I spring into action. To put it simply, psychologists say that our behaviour is controlled by mental models – and this, said the philosopher Plato, spells danger. Show people things which change their expectations, and you distract and destabilise all of society. Or so he thought.

It would be important to know, therefore, whether Africa’s soap operas give Africa a picture of the world which is different to the world itself. We are all aware of the shock-factor of soap operas in general: conflicts, intrigue, and the breaking of cultural taboos. Yet in Africa, there is something that would seem to loom larger than any of this. We see it in virtually all of the soap opera posters – which are the 'door', so to speak, to the soap operas themselves. It is affluence. Designer dresses, tailored suits, expensive smartphones, sumptuous settings, and more.

We may open this door and enter in. Here we find, again, affluence. Meals in fine restaurants, fitted kitchens, fast cars, expensive whisky, and so on – not to speak of the expensive pursuits of the characters themselves.

Yet in the real world which is Africa, a vast number of people live in poverty.  By some statistics, 33% in Nigeria, 42% in Kenya, and 55% in South Africa. In reality, one sees shacks made with wood and iron and empty agricultural sacks – overcrowded trains, dusty streets, and children playing with wire toys. Given this context, how might the soap operas influence Africa? There are various possibilities:

• They do not significantly shape a continent’s views and expectations – they are merely soap operas, after all. This seems unlikely.

• They may lead people to believe that Africa really looks the way that it is presented in the soap operas. May we then blame the wealthier classes, for failing to recognise or understand the desperate struggles of the poor?

• The soap operas may dull the senses and desires of the masses – leading them to feel that they are absorbed by the fantasy world they see, to become one with it, as it were.

• They may lead viewers to expect the life that they see on TV. And what happens then? Do viewers make these values their own highest good – old colonial values, one might add? Or do they grieve within, to see that they fall so far short of the dream? Or are they motivated to strive for more?

One may ask, too: what would it do to people’s expectations, if they were to view more realistic soap operas? Would these conscientise societies more effectively as to their real plight? Would they lead people to be more realistic in their plans and strategies – with their feet now firmly planted on the ground? Or would they lower their expectations, or degrade them?

Few seem to have given it much thought. Both academic research and popular articles are very thin on the ground. A rare paper on How Do Soap Operas Affect the Poor? Experiences of Turkish Women, by Turkish academics Aras Ozgun et al, concludes that ‘we need to understand the issue from the perspectives of the vulnerable’. There are troubling signs. In particular, in most cases in their study, soap operas led to ‘self-imposed alienation’ amongst the poor, including feelings of shame, anger, dissatisfaction, and powerlessness.

The Myths That Shape Us

The Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy

Posted by Tessa Den Uyl

The shadow of Benvenuto Cellini’s sculpture of Perseus holding Medusa’s head is cast triumphantly on the wall. And was it not also for the shield that the goddess Athena gave to Perseus, that he could sever Medusa’s head? Is such reflection a kind of indirect contact, that tells us something about our own eyes?

The myth tells that everything which came into direct contact with Medusa’s sight petrified, even after her beheading. As miraculously, from her bleeding neck she gave birth to two other creatures, Pegasus and Chrysaor. For the idea of myth is to continue, indeed the force of Greek tragedy reflects on those who have grown up in its shadow, until this present day.   

Such stories have shaped generations, and we ourselves are shaped by stories we may not even have read or heard of. Romanticism, for instance, didn’t take place in Africa, which partly explains how love is perceived within a completely different coding in the West. Similarly, Indian philosophy stimulates a distinct view on life and the Taoist another.

Humankind has searched for meaning, and meaning stems from what happened before us, whether completely invented or not. Through our eyes, we see a past which we are very often unable to recognise, and without recognition, how can we deal with it? Often we see as in a mirror, although we do not see the origin of the image.

When Athena later depicts the decapitated head of Medusa on her chest (the same image is portrayed on the shields of heroic warriors), this image served to frighten the enemy, and surely eyes have become symbolically charged with expressions for us. ‘She looked at me as if I should drop dead.’

You might mistrust someone for the look of one’s eyes more than their words or actions. And friendly eyes make you feel comfortable? Such impressions are generally not much our own creation. They were passed on from generation to generation. Terror is similarly conveyed, and the Ancient Greeks have been masters in paving the path.

We have woven our lives in oblivion. When we seek to find meaning, the effort is to understand what is there. And what is there is filled with symbols that seemingly hand us meaning. We become immensely stimulated by a specific agglomeration of symbols that we make meaningful while their randomness is overlooked.

We give deep attention to a particular combination of images and thoughts whose impressions are immediately accessible to us. Certain gestures, phrases, ideas, and emotions are highlighted which we do remember indeed. Everything we do remember detaches from all other experiences, yet all together they weave the tapestry of our lives. This is the complexity of memory.

Everybody builds up memory in different combinations. What we keep consciously present in our mind tells us how to react, how to pick up a concept, how we feel. We react on what our mind and body have memorised, though not all that is memorised is recalled.

Then, to see our memory as a minor part of a vaster landscape which is not remembered does not sound that illogical. Nor does the notion that oblivion includes everything from which we do not draw conclusions, although the tragedy might just be that this is not that true.

Turning back to the picture above, Benvenuto Cellini’s sculpture exposes a rather violent historic representation. Likewise the other exhibited sculptures by various artists. Today their elevated greatness in the history of art confuses famous names with underlying stories which are represented within the sculptures. The symbolism which reaches out to offer us insight into our current being, ‘a touch into oblivion’, is generally overlooked.

Today, a fair amount of literature and film marches on the key element of tragedy to entertain us. Creating tragedy seems to come naturally to us. Yet indirectly we give meaning to something that was created long before we were there.

The shadow in the picture reminds us how reflection indirectly connects us to oblivion, how oblivion can make us act, and is triumphantly present, silently exhibiting its influence. As this statue by Cellini moves far beyond its time, backward as forward, it is properly charged with oblivion. And this is the art of seeing, the force of myth, that we all carry along.

Picture Post #45: Undesired and Eliminated

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl

Paris - France 2018

The more imagination you put into the display of products for a shop window, the more people will remember it. Here the dead rats are eye catching indeed, aside from the large golden letters announcing: Disinfestation of Harmful Animals.

We remove the unwanted, to justify our own characteristics? 

No animal knows about our bounds, nor do we know about theirs. Living along together, this very often human being simply cannot. Though all those unwanted creatures need an earth to live on. 

Perhaps when these undesired beings are there, we might have something they need? And we need them, whether we like to see them or not. It’s a fair contract, made by nature.

The problem does not originate in nature, but it is a problem how nature will survive with us, and this is one of the most outstanding contradictions in the nature of humankind.

The Scales of Justice

Lady Justice, by Mimi

Posted by Jeremy Dyer

The beauty of the rose
Is balanced by the thorn
That's the way the story goes,
Right from the day you're born.

No fields of joy without an end
No Christmas cracking time
No party day around the bend
To look back on your prime.

On the other schizo hand
My childhood wasn't bad
Or so the therapist said
When he held my hand.

Eons ago the lords of glory
Ruled the righteous earth.
Now a twisted murder story
Tells us what we're worth.

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They say a cynic's never wrong
He can't be disappointed.
But is his view a correct sum
Of what life has anointed?

Shatter me in your eyes
Consume me with your lips
Find me love that never dies
That's not from movie clips.

Am I happy? What a question!
Please don't query life's direction.
Is it fate or circumstance,
Or am I my own providence?

Am I trapped or am I free?
Am I the me I want to be?
The urgent answer that we seek
Won't be on tv this week.

The Idea of Freedom in the Modern World

By Simon Thomas

Soul Freedom Chained, by Khalil Gibran

Freedom is a magnificent idea, yet it is much misunderstood. Some claim freedom in the idea that you should be able to express yourself as you wish, without restraint (which is positive freedom).  It is the idea of mind over matter, reality over unreality, which has its roots in René Descartes.

Descartes takes it further, noting that there is a materialistic type of freedom where you have the means to meet all your material needs (which is negative freedom). Maslow’s hierarchy gives us an idea of the needs concerned. If a person feels that their need for security, food, shelter, and some creature comforts are met, then they can live a satisfactory and contented life. It is true, therefore, that the fulfillment of such needs is a type of freedom.

However, that is only half the story. Jean Jacques Rousseau put it aptly when he said, ‘Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.’ Rousseau‘s starting point is that man is inherently good, and therefore freedom is possible – provided he is not unduly restrained by unjust laws to protect the wealthy. Yet common sense, and experience of the modern world, seem to indicate the opposite of Rousseau's Utopian idea. It seems a fallacy that people are inherently good. If they were inherently good, they would not enforce their will on others, and thereby enslave them – in Rousseau’s terms, put them in chains.

Now there is another type of freedom, which is more a matter of the mind. Philosopher Richard Rorty said that what you put in your mind – which is, the way you interpret the world – that’s what there is. Therefore if you have a subservient mind-set, you cannot be free – regardless of the kind of liberty your accumulated wealth brings you. He continues by saying that the only true freedom we can enjoy is metaphysical in nature, because humanity cannot find lasting meaning purely in material needs being met.

This is exactly the mind-set we are contending with in society today – and does not to resound with previous generations. I have recently been talking to people who were children during World War 2. The mind-set out of that era was by and large, work hard, fight for liberty and justice, and accumulate wealth, no matter the personal cost to home and family. We have seen the effects of this unfold since the 1960s till the present time: rebellion against authority by younger generations, and ever increasing hostility against law and order.

Breaking free from law and order in society has never been a workable idea. Anarchy has never produced freedom. Instead, it has produced tyrants and addicts. Neil Postman, in his novel 'Entertaining ourselves to death', makes the point that our society has produced people with a mind-set which needs to be entertained all the time. Yet this produces addiction to visual media, harmful cravings for the next high, or more recently, cyber addiction.  Again, there is no freedom in that.

Related to this, the notion has become epidemic that having what you cannot normally afford will bring lasting satisfaction. Thus people get themselves into inordinate amounts of debt – and often, instead of freedom, it brings financial ruin. Having said this, however, it is not just a problem of the individual, but of nations. There is a huge debt bubble – which, while it caused the demise of some leading banks in 2008, was just cosmetically treated.

On point with these examples is that freedom in the Western world is a fallacy, because it is built on an idea that we are entitled to have whatever we want, regardless of how we get it – and regardless of those who are injured along the way.

Freedom, as Rorty said, is metaphysical in nature. A person can be in dire circumstances, yet still be free. The martyr Polycarp, of distant memory, said this to his persecutors when they demanded his freedom of religion: ‘You can take my life if you wish, my property if you want, but you cannot make me deny the faith that saved me.’

That is freedom. It is the grand idea that freedom is only attainable when you let go of the idea of materialistic happiness, and learn to be content in whatever circumstance you find yourself. As the sages of old often said, ‘Bloom where you are planted.’ In this is freedom: to be at peace with yourself.