Lost Connection

Every so often I read an article or a book that seems to capture the current moment and does so in a way that crystallises how I see the world.  I suppose this reflects my increasing confidence:  I am reading something that reassures me others see the world in the way I do.  It is always encouraging to read something that reaffirms what you felt was obvious but about which you weren’t quite certain.  However, such articles can also be seductive:  a good piece can be very persuasive, and shape how you think, drawing on anecdotes, perspectives and ways of seeing that make sense, leading to the conclusion that’s the way things are – and I knew it!

This is particularly the case when I read an article about how the world is different now.  It is especially tempting to be reminded about how things were when you were a child, moments and situations you recall as you look back fondly at events and people in your childhood, adolescence and even young adulthood.  On reflection, you conclude everything was simpler then, technology less intrusive, interactions more innocent.  Even though you recall there were some challenging moments in the past, overall you are prone to remember what was good, fun, interesting:  I suspect this is a form of defence mechanism, one that tends to push terrible events into the background, or take some of the sting out of them.  I don’t mean to imply that disasters are obliterated, but I believe we have the capacity to reduce their salience, at least some of the time.  Perhaps there were moments when your life was hard and discouraging, but on reflection the world seemed a nicer, happier place when you were young

I was reminded of this recently when I read a very compelling article by Rebecca Solnit.  She is an outstanding novelist, but she is also a stimulating essayist.  In late January she published an article in The Guardian, a deeply felt critique of capitalism today, and its focus on what she describes (based on a comment from a friend) as ‘the tyranny of the quantifiable’.  She described her views as an elegy to “deep immersion in the moment, of engaging with the world in an embodied and sensual way, whether it’s dancing or dog-walking, cake-decorating or dirt-biking.”  Her evident concern was that today “we are beset with the ideology of maximising having while minimising doing.”  She observes that this has long been capitalism’s narrative and is now it is also the tempting promise of technology.  “It is an ideology that steals from us relationships and connections and eventually our selves.”  As she saw it, the issue today is that we are encouraged to describe and value only that which our modern version of capitalism allows, and even encourages, while other aspects of our lives are overlooked or diminished.

As I read it, I had no doubt that what Solnit was offering a pointed and devastating critique.  In her essay she notes how Silicon Valley is concentrated on the quantifiable. “For decades, its oligarchs have preached that our criteria for what we do and how we do it should be convenience, efficiency, productivity, profitability. They have told us that to go out into the world, to interact with others, is perilous, unpleasant, inefficient, a waste of time, and that time is something we should hoard rather than spend.  This ends up meaning that we can minimise our presence in the world and maximise time spent working and online, which also means maximising alienation and isolation. This has involved a reordering of society right down to our retail landscapes … To embrace the tyranny of the quantifiable is to dismiss the subtle value of these daily acts out in the world and the ways they generate and maintain networks of relationships.  So we have withdrawn, while being constantly told this is good, and it has turned out to be bad in a thousand small ways, weakening public life and local institutions, isolating us.”

There’s worse.  Having convinced many people to avoid going out and have unmediated contact with other people, Solnit reports “Silicon Valley is now telling us we do not want to do our own thinking, creating or communicating with other humans.”  She quotes the sociologist and psychologist Sherry Turkle, who has followed the evolution of computer technologies since the 1970s.  Solnit reports that Turkle writes about her desire to raise an empathic child. “I knew that without the ability to spend quiet time alone, that would be impossible. But that was where screens began to get us into trouble. Our capacity for solitude is undermined as soon as we introduce a screen.”

Some of her examples seem almost unbelievably bizarre.   “You’ll never think alone again,” said one advertisement for an AI product called Cluely.  The ad seemed confused about what thinking is and oblivious to why we might want to do it ourselves. These companies often suggest that things we have always done are too hard to do.”   Her commentary on Cluely describes the way this startup marketed its AI assistant “with an advert featuring a young man wearing smart glasses, similar to those that first appeared as Google Glass in 2014 … Glasses of this type, which have internet access and tiny screens, operate on the premise that as you move through your day you need constant help, outsourcing basic decisions, checking facts, being reminded of appointments, in essence being babysat by your headgear.”

She continues “In the Cluely advert, the young man (who’s one of the product’s creators) gets a steady stream of prompts for talking to a young woman on their first date. So much of what tech offers is solutions to non-problems, or to problems that need to be solved through other means. Why is the young man incapable or afraid of talking without coaching? Is he really talking to his date or is he relaying instructions? How would she feel if she knew she were talking to an algorithm via her distracted date’s phone? With continued use, he may become even less capable of doing what we’ve all done for ever: converse, which is an act of collaborative improvisation.”

“We must presume that the point of a date is to establish a personal connection, but in this interaction it’s reframed as something like a business opportunity. The young man wants to impress the girl, but it’s hard not to conclude that if she is impressed, it won’t be with him, but with his dialogue coach!  Ned Resnikoff writes in his newsletter, chiming in with Turkle: “Cluely’s explicit promise is to abolish solitude – and, in effect, to abolish thought. All dialogue with one’s self is to be replaced by queries put to a large language model.”

Critiquing much of what we might choose to be the result of ingenious marketing can allow us to miss the deeper issues that Solnit addresses.  As she explains “The tyranny of the quantifiable tramples over the question of what it is we get from doing the work, why we might want to do it, how writing – which is mostly thinking – can be part of developing a self, a worldview, a set of ethics, a greater capacity to understand and use language.”

She also offers some scary examples.  She reports that someone had told her that she was “having a chatbot write her husband a poem for their anniversary, which made me wonder if the husband desired a polished product or an expression from the heart. In Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac, the big-nosed title character ghostwrites love letters for his friend to the Roxanne both of them love. She comes to realise it’s the author of the letters she really loves. What happens when you realise the true love who touched your heart isn’t even human? Accepting it as your AI lover seems to be one answer.”

“One argument for AI companions is that they are always there for you: when you want them on, off when you want them off, with no needs of their own.  Yet behind this lies a capitalist argument that we’re here to get as much as possible and give as little as possible, to meet our own needs and dodge those of others.  In the real world, you get something from giving – at the very least, you get a sense of being someone with something to give, which is one measure of your own wealth, generosity and power.  We were designed to give; the gifts were meant to circulate. Love is too often discussed as a sort of good you want to stockpile, harvest, collect, even extract, but to be loved without loving is a sad accomplishment, a miser’s hoarding of someone else’s wealth. The work of loving is also the work of forging a self and a life. … and of confronting the unpredictable, the vulnerable or risky, the intimate, the embodied”.

It is very tempting to keep on quoting Solnit.  She is describing what people of my age see the world becoming.  I can’t help it:  I must quote her once more: “The capitalist agenda of maximising getting and minimising giving has some application in commerce but impoverishes life.  We are social animals who need to be with other humans, whether it’s at a carnival or funeral or the ordinary times in between. There is a sense of belonging that goes deeper than words when we are with people who care about us, and even more so when we are in alignment, whether it’s two people falling into step on a walk or a dozen dancing together or a congregation praying or 10,000 marching together.”

However, it was around this point that I stopped.  As I see it, the capitalist agenda is concerned with investing in products and services that clever people can persuade others they want.  Sometimes those products or services meet legitimate needs and interests; sometimes they create needs or desires that are trivial, inauthentic, or positively misleading.  However, hasn’t that always been the case?  Businessmen, politicians, priests and writers, aren’t they are all trying to sell us their vision?  They were doing that centuries ago, and they will be seeking to do so centuries into the future.  Helping us to see things ‘the right way’.  That’s an old story, and the capitalist system has only managed to organise the process a little more effectively.

Perhaps that isn’t the core of the issue.  Solnit is particularly exercised about AI and AI assistants.  She suggests that in order to assist you, these artificial intelligence systems offer what she describes as ‘agreeable sycophancy’.  There are real horror stories, of course, as users fall for financially crazy schemes, develop paranoia, begin to distrust family and friends, and even plunge them into suicidal despair, “with the helpful chatbot offering advice on how to kill yourself.”  Agreed, but that is nothing new.  The elderly, the young, confused teenagers and thwarted adults, they have all been susceptible to smart strangers or ‘helpful’ family members.  As much as that is true today, so it has been true over the centuries, as both the fiction and non-fiction of the past make clear.  We are gullible, and AI is merely another way to tap into our gullibility.

Solnit points out the danger of flatterers; that we need kind people in our lives who will tell us the truth when we’ve veered off course. She suggests that chatbots cannot do this, apparently because the only information they have about us is what we have supplied.  Really, is that the case?  I suspect it is the opposite, as con men have learnt over the years:  listen to the mark and then play back what they have told you, adding in the twist, the offer, the redemption.  She suggests it is the very rich who already suffer from sycophancy, from living in echo chambers, but this is a problem for all of us.  There are no end of friends and colleagues who will happily concur with our points of view, and then helpfully agree with the actions we propose.

Solnit quotes from Carissa Véliz, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI, who told a Rolling Stone reporter “Part of what keeps us sane is other people’s perspectives, which are often in tension with ours …When you say something questionable, others will challenge you, ask questions, defy you. It can be annoying, but it keeps us tied to reality, and it is the basis of a healthy democratic citizenry.”

Solnit sees the solution to these woes in connection.  She encourages us to distinguish between “the things real friends can do and AI cannot: bake you a cake or drive you home, hold your hand or live through a crisis or a celebration with you. And because of that difference people need to have real friends.  More than that, people need real communities and social support systems.  The solution to technology is not more technology. The solution to loneliness is each other, a wealth that should be available to most of us most of the time. We need to rebuild or reinvent the ways and places in which we meet; we need to recognise them as the space of democracy, of joy, of connection, of love, of trust. Technology has stolen us from each other and in many ways from ourselves, and then tried to sell us substitutes. Stealing ourselves back, alas, is not as easy as walking out the door. We need somewhere to go and, more importantly, someone to go to who likewise desires to connect.”

The more I read, the more I was frustrated.   Solnit isn’t describing something that has suddenly arisen because of those chatbots and AI systems she described.  It has always been like this.  We are a confusing mixture of dependency and exploitation.  We depend on others, on our families, friends, workmates and even those we meet in shops, workplaces, playing fields and galleries.  At the same time, we cherish what we have as individuals, what we have acquired, what we have obtained from others for ourselves.  We sometimes are willing to pay the costs for borrowing or appropriation, but we also like to get what we can for as little cost as possible.

Much of human history, or that part of it which we can discover, is about people seeking to exploit others, balanced against those occasional, truly inspirational accounts where the dominating motive was giving rather than taking.  In the bookcase in our apartment, there is a wonderful collection of history books: Bloch on Feudal Society, Tuchman on The March of Folly, books on the rise and fall of the Medici, the decline and fall of Byzantium, and on the exploits of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan and Tamerlane, on the world of the Pharaohs and the wars of the 20th Century.  They depict the rise and fall of human aspirations, as great leaders tried to do something more than simply rule and exploit, but in every example it is also the case they illustrate how greed, selfishness and opportunity have thwarted noble aspirations.  As I see it, Solnit is describing more of the same:  like any others she seeks a world that never existed, where people lived in harmony, greed was banished, and cooperation and collaboration shaped experience.

We tend to resist the prophet in our time.  Solnit is a prophet, in her fiction and in this essay.  She concludes “We are told that machines will become like us, but in many ways they demand we become more like them.  To let that happen is to lose something immeasurably valuable.  That immeasurability is what makes this struggle difficult, but what cannot be measured can be described or at least evoked and valued. It cannot be boiled down to simple metrics such as efficiency and profitability.  Resisting the annexation of our hearts and minds by Silicon Valley requires us not just to set boundaries on our engagement with what they offer, but to cherish the alternatives.  Joy in ordinary things, in each other, in embodied life, and the language with which to value it, is essential to this resistance, which is resistance to dehumanisation.”

Is this essay call for action, or a voice in the wilderness?  We are inspired by writers who address major issues, and who dissect human nature and the political and economic systems we have devised.  We do need hope, to believe that things can be better, that we are more than animals with strangely larger brains than the rest.  As I read he essay I’m sure you know I wanted to believe that we will respond to her appeal, and humanity will shift its direction.  However, I suspect you also know that I doubted it.

History shows that our bad habits remain, despite emotional and inspirational pleas to change.  As any parent concerned about their aspirations for their child knows, no matter how they work hard to instill the values and behaviours that will make their child a better person and contribute to a better society, it’s not that simple.  Yes, that is what many parents want to achieve, but the outcomes can often seem rather discouraging:  practice falls short of hopeful aspirations, and that this is often the situation we like to believe is the result of the malign influence of others.  However, quite simply it may be because this is the way things are.

Are you resolved?

Here we are at the beginning of the year, the time when convention suggests we should begin again by wiping the slate clean and setting a new agenda.  This is justification for that strange annual activity: the proposal and implementation of New Year’s resolutions. The idea of using the start of the year as a time to make an explicit commitment to a series of future actions is an old one.  It can be dated back by at least 4,000 years to the time of the ancient Babylonians, who made promises to their gods during the Akitu festival (starting in March) to return borrowed items and pay debts for good favour.

Given the importance of making promises to the gods, we can see this approach was one which almost inevitably was going run into trouble, the kind of trouble that comes from making future promises given humanity’s persistent failing to keep them.  Despite the evidence being against them, this hopeful practice has continued as a aspiration and a target for many groups since then, evolving through a series of similar activities, including the Roman tradition of honouring Janus (the god of beginnings) right through to the time set aside for Wesleyan Christian covenant renewal services and finally continuing right up to today’s largely secular focus on establishing future targets for the coming year largely comprising self-improvement plans on a variety of topics including health, finance, and personal habits.

Well, that’s what we are advised is the case when we read the relevant article in Wikipedia which adds the somewhat salutary observation that people still continue to make New Year’s resolutions despite overwhelming evidence that success rates have and remain rather low.

Apparently, it has always been the case that these personal commitments seldom last longer than the end of January and very few resolutions are sustained to the end of the year.  I couldn’t find much about the success rate for promises made by Babylonians or Romans, but John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, recognised more success in sustaining future plans could be achieved by making these resolutions public.  He developed the institution of “Covenant Renewal Services” on New Year’s Eve/Day, involving Bible readings and hymns, influencing later watch night services. That was one way to increase commitment as there is a lot of evidence that embarrassment has a better chance of working than private commitment.   However, the level of achievement for covenant renewals hasn’t been revealed, so the success of that particular approach isn’t known.

Today the commitment to New Year resolutions has become victim to it having been made into yet another ‘business’. In the 21^st Century there are a plethora of schemes and systems to be discovered (and paid for) to ensure commitments made at the beginning of the year are recorded and monitored, even though in recent decades the focus is increasingly secular, having shifted from religious vows to individual targets concerned with personal self-improvement goals like tasks and recurrent practices related to health, career, and relationships.  It is claimed around 40-45% of people today make resolutions, but only about 8% succeed, in examinations on the success of focusing on goals like weight loss, finances, and exercises.  Those figures come from various studies reported in a variety of popular magazines including Psychology Today and Forbes.

Those figures seem rather hopeful, however.  If resolutions are personal, there is little to encourage adherence. Those Babylonians understood the importance of public commitment when they tied their future plans and commitments into the celebrations in honour of the new year, although it should be noted that for them the year began not in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted.  During a massive 12-day religious festival known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. This was the time when they also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. If the Babylonians kept to their word, they believed their (pagan) gods would bestow favour on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favour—a place no one wanted to be.

There is another perspective on this, one which is less about the importance of offering a goal to be achieved as evidence of commitment – and to impress a leader.  To some degree New Year’s resolutions can be seen as one part of our attempts to lead a good life.  However, a good life is concerned with a great deal more than annual promises. The idea of aspiring to live a good life has as long a history as committing to some resolutions for the coming year, but trying to live a good life is concerned with a process that is far more demanding than developing and failing to sustain annual resolutions.

I have written on the task of leading a good life over the course of many years in articles, books and talks. However, they have only been exegeses and elaborations on the thoughts of great philosophers, and especially the Ancient Greeks. Among these, Plato remains supreme.  Some 2,500 years ago he explained his view was that the good life involved achieving inner harmony by aligning your soul (your reason, spirit, and your desires or ‘appetite’) with the demands of virtuous living, using “reason to understand the importance of the virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice, and at the same time mastering your desires”  Plato explained that following this path would result in leading you toward true happiness (eudaimonia) rather than focussing on the short term, pursuing fleeting physical pleasures.

Plato was advocating an approach that required self-knowledge, moral reflection, and living virtuously, with reason guiding actions towards truth, not just external rewards or sensory gratification.  As he explained it, living a good life is one in which ‘Reason governs, while allowing your Spirit to support you, and your Appetites to be satisfied appropriately, creating a life of inner balance between these three practices’.

Plato went much further and argued that Virtue is based on Knowledge, and that understanding the ‘form’ of “the Good” comes through reason which leads to wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice, which are essential for well-being.  However, while Plato’s perspective rested on a carefully articulated philosophical framework, he noted that this approach wasn’t just about a complex set of ideas about ideas, but that it also requires Self-Mastery by overcoming and controlling impulses and desires to act in accordance with reason.

Plato was really demanding. True happiness he suggested comes from within, not pursuing extrinsic rewards like wealth, power or fame.  For me, one of his most telling concerns was with meaning and purpose, with the intention and the feeling you are making real progress, and you are working toward goals aligned with your values.  Nor is this just about nurturing relationships, but it also requires a commitment to personal growth through continuous learning, exploring new ideas, and developing resilience.

There is a problem in all this in the 21^st century which is that in our ‘modern’ world we are easily distracted and eminently distractable. Web sites, television programmes and other broadcasters work hard to grab our attention. The clamour of the news, the allure of the new and the babble of the world around us all conspire to pull us away from a commitment to upsurge a good life. Why not just enjoy what is happening around us?

2025 was a demanding year for many people.  Given that, it might be sensible to recognise the best thing they – and we – can do is to abandon ineffective striving, and settle for some modest goals, but not for anything more than that. If we follow that approach, then perhaps it is a good idea to have a few New Year Resolutions after all.  They are unlikely to prove onerous, especially as they will almost always be forgotten by the middle of the year:  lead a good life by some voluntary work;  make some donations to worthy causes. Sadly, that is the easy and inadequate approach we tend to adopt.

To do more than that is to take our lives and our responsibilities seriously. One determined and persistent guide is Peter Singer.  He makes it clear that doing good is essential and demanding work. In an interview with Graham Reilly in the Sydney Morning Herald back in 2015, he explained his views on living a good life which he explained is “trickier and yet simpler than you might think”. In his book The Most Good You Can Do, he suggests we haven’t really thought properly about how we can do the most good it is possible to do in this life.  He calls his approach “effective altruism”. How do you live your life in the most ethical way to make the world a better place and in a way that benefits the greatest possible number of people, most of whom you don’t know?

As an example of his approach, Singer aims to get more people to change their ideas about world poverty and what we as individuals can do to alleviate it through his proposal for pursuing effective altruism.  He describes his approach as a growing philosophy and social movement which applies evidence and reason, rather than emotion, to working out the most effective ways to improve the world. This is not about donations that give you a “warm glow”. This means living less selfishly, living more modestly and embracing a culture of giving to people less fortunate than you are.

“I think a lot of people do have a sense that they want to make the world a better place. And then you have to think about how I am going to do that. Not only how can I make it better but how can I do as much good as I can with the resources that I have.”. Singer says being a bystander is not an option. “It’s not an ethical option anyway. If we don’t do this, we are doing something wrong. We have an obligation to act.”

In his book, Singer writes of the ways people become effective altruists. He writes of those who deliberately choose to pursue careers that are highly paid, so that they can give more money away and help the most people they can over their lifetime.

In the chapter aptly titled ‘Giving part of yourself’, Singer discusses those effective altruists who donate one of their kidneys to save a stranger.

In his article, Graham Reilly wondered if this might be going a bit far? He responds to Singer by asking if an approach like this wasn’t putting your own life at risk? Singer ‘s response is telling.  He notes that it’s been calculated that there’s just a one in 4000 chance that a person will die as a result of giving away one kidney. But even at those odds he says he is not prepared to do it himself, although he admits it would be the right thing to do. I tell him I also prefer my kidneys to remain as a pair.

“I would do it if my daughter needed it and I think many people would,” Singer says. “But to give it to a stranger, nup. I don’t know if I can really defend that decision except to say I don’t like going into hospital and having operations. But that’s not a good reason.”

It is an important, yet challenging reservation.  Here, Singer makes a further distinction between what he advocates as a reasonable approach to helping people in need and what he is prepared to do himself.  “I see morality as not a black and white thing that either you do what’s right or you’re to be condemned for being a terrible person. I see it more like being on a grey scale and virtually everybody is on that scale.

He firmly believes everybody can and should be on this scale. The rich give more, the less rich, less. You can do a lot of good without earning a lot. You could use public transport instead of owning a car, stop buying stuff you don’t really need, stop measuring your success as a person by how big your house is. “The most solid base of self-esteem is to live an ethical life, that is a life in which one contributes to the greatest possible extent to making the world a better place.”

Crucially, he says, effective altruism needs to use the heart and the head and to be well-directed to be successful.  “Many people who give to help poor people in poor countries sponsor individual children, a practice that indicates the need to focus on a particular individual who they can get to know in some way. But it is not as likely to benefit as many people.”

Singer is a powerful advocate for the importance of living a good life and sets a standard most fail to achieve.  As he explores in his book, The Most Good You Can Do, (published by Text Publishing in 2015), there are many ways in which we can lead a good ethical life and pursue important and demanding resolutions.  It might be a good New Year’s resolution to read his book (and some of the others he has written) as a way to encourage a fuller examination of the life we lead and the value we create for others.

Obviously, not all of us have the determination to match Peter’s standard and adopt his specific approach.  At times, it is hard not to think he sets an impossible standard, but at least his comments are provocative and can help his readers rethink and reconsider, even if in only small ways.  That doesn’t mean we should abandon making a commitment to leading a good life.

At the beginning of this year, I have been thinking about doing good. As it happens, I have an excellent opportunity to explore this further. The theme for Canberra’s Philosopher’s Cafe in 2026 is identity. In the two groups that meet over the year, we take part in a series of interesting discussions but ones without real consequences, sometimes examining issues that could have real implications for the way we live, even suggesting possible resolutions.  However, our focus is on ideas, philosophical topics to consider as the year progresses.  They are rewarding, sometimes even provocative, but we could do more.

Given this, could the two groups in 2026 ask ‘How can we, individually or together, take our examination of the philosophy of identity further, to be more than academic, but instead to help each one of us develop insights and practices that will have a real impact on our lives?’  Should we do more than this?   Perhaps we could shape our discussions to include adopting Plato’s approach where “Reason governs, while allowing your Spirit to support you, and your Appetites to be satisfied appropriately, creating a life of inner balance between these three practices”.

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Cruising

In an age when words take on increasingly diverse meanings, it can be challenging to make the nature of your intended topic clear.  Take the word ‘cruising’ as an interesting example. It can refer to driving slowly or repeatedly along a popular road route for fun, to see and be seen, and to socialize, a practice popular in many towns and cities.  Another meaning is that it refers to walking or driving around looking for a sexual partner, often in specific locales, and in this use, it is a term that became historically associated with gay male culture in the second half of the 20^th Century.  In my use of the term, I am taking up another common use of the term, referring to ‘ocean cruising,’ which describes taking a vacation on a large ship, and calling in at different ports for sightseeing, entertainment, and relaxation.

The ocean cruise market has grown dramatically, and in 2025, an estimated 37 million passengers enjoyed a holiday travelling by ship for a number of days.  Industry projections suggest the global cruises market revenue is expected to grow from $44 billion today to reach r around $54 billion by 2029.  There are around some 323 cruise ships currently in operation globally, managed by 51 ocean cruise lines, and a further 27 river cruise lines.  It isn’t just a growing area of business, but the ships are growing, too!  Today, on average a cruise ship can host around 3,000 passengers.  One final statistic:  it is an activity somewhat focussed on older passengers, with an average age of around 47 years old.

In practice, cruise ships are really rather large passenger ships, and they are run in a way that suggests the best way to think of them is basically as floating hotels, with a large number of hospitality staff in addition to the usual ship’s crew. Given what are often significantly high passenger numbers, ships restaurants often organize two dinner sittings per day, and besides having one or two formal dining rooms, most cruise liners also have one or more casual buffet-style eateries.  Total meal outlets on a ship can number eight to fifteen of more.

Cruising began to be a serious vacation pastime in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, but the industry experienced fluctuations in popularity over the next hundred years, almost ceasing in the 1970s and 1980s.  However, this began to change in the late 1980s with the appearance of  “megaships” built specifically for the mass cruising market.  Cruise ships appeared with such innovations as having multi-story lobby, often  with a glass elevator and one or more decks with cabins each with a private balcony.  In more years, cruise ships have been designed to maximize the range of passenger amenities including several different kinds of cuisine in the various restaurants and other meal venues, meeting spaces, cinemas and cabaret venues.  They have been described as ‘balcony-laden floating condominiums’.  It is not uncommon for the more luxurious ships to have more crew and staff than passengers.

Since the 1980s, the pace of change has been amazing.  One clear indicator is that between 1988 and 2009, the largest class cruise ships have grown a third longer from 268 to 364.7 metres, (879 feet 3inches in 1988, up to 1,196 feet 8 inches), they have doubled their widths (going from 32.2 to 65.7 metres, (105.5 feet up to 215.6 feet 7), nearly tripled the total passenger count (2,744 to 7,600), and more than tripled in volume (going from 73,000 to 248,000 gross tons).  In addition they have changed from offering  a single deck with verandas to all decks having cabins with verandas.  However, to offer a sense of perspective it remains the case that hotels still dominate, with the total number of cabins on all of the world’s cruise ships amounting to less than 2% of the world’s hotel rooms.

Cruise ships are organized much like floating hotels, with the numbers of hospitality staff equal to exceeding those for the ship’s crew.  They’re needed, as most cruise ships offer a wide variety of facilities, including:

• Buffet restaurants
• Card room
• Casino – Only open when the ship is at sea to avoid conflict with local laws
• Childcare facilities
• Cinema, and/or theatre with Broadway-style shows
• Fitness centre
• Hot tubs
• Indoor and/or outdoor swimming pool with water slides
• Library
• Lounges, often including an ‘Observation lounge’
• Indoor activities including karaoke, ping pong and pool tables
• Shops – usually only open when the ship is at sea to avoid merchandising licensing and local taxes
• Spa
• Teen lounges

Some of the huge ships travelling on the oceans today can also include such features as bowling alleys, ice skating rinks, rock climbing walls, sky-diving simulators, miniature golf courses, video arcades, ziplines, surfing simulators, water slides, basketball courts, tennis courts, ropes obstacle courses, and even roller coasters.  They are floating cities!

Most cruise ships sail the Caribbean or the Mediterranean, but some travel to other areas including the Arctic and Antarctic oceans (pack-ice free areas, of course), the South Pacific, the Baltic Sea and New England, among others.  There are also ‘Expedition ‘cruise lines, which usually operate small ships, and visit certain more specialized destinations such as ports in the Arctic and Antarctica, or the Galapagos Islands.

The Caribbean region is one of the largest cruising areas in the world, responsible for over $2 billion in direct revenue to the Caribbean islands in 2012, employing over 45,000 locals.  An estimated 20 m cruise passengers visited the islands annually, with The Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Jamaica and other locales seeing at least 1 m visitors a year.  Alaskan cruises see more than  5 million passenger and crew visits, annually, but Europe is the world’s second-largest cruise market, only a little behind North America. Over 8 million European passengers cruised globally in 2024, with around 18 million passengers going  through EU ports in 2023.  Today, there may be 100 million people going ocean cruising annually.

All this data leaves to one side the nature of life aboard a cruise ship.  If these huge ships are often described as similar to a small – and exclusive – town, that description slips past many of the interesting interpersonal issues.  Perhaps that takes us to another meaning of the word ‘cruising’, in this case referring to spending time with a previously unknown group of people, where there are no continuing ties to be considered (even if people often create friendships).  This gives the people on a cruise ship a novel kind of freedom, both between themselves and other passengers, and between themselves and crew.

There are a number of aspects to this – including the much discussed ‘shipboard liaisons’ in popular literature.  However, a rather different perspective comes from looking at matters to do with class, status and social deference.

Social status issues on ocean liners historically involved stark class divisions (steerage vs. cabins), crew-passenger hierarchy, national/ethnic segregation among crew, and challenges for marginalized groups like female seafarers facing gender bias, all affecting access, amenities, and respect, and creating distinct social classes or segments which mirrored or even exacerbated real-world inequalities.  In many ways it might seem ocean liners offer a microcosms of society, reflecting and sometimes amplifying existing class structures, a function of ticket prices, crew demographics, and operational structures.  Together these can create distinct social worlds within the same vessel.  For many ocean liners, their business model is to identify top-of-the-line customers and, for a minimum of $10,000 a week, to pamper them with special amenities like a full-time butler, house them in an elegant suite with two-story views of sunsets over the waves, with access to a private swimming pool and the guaranteed company of  elite people like themselves.

Is that also true for cruise lines?  Some of the research suggests that there is some softening of these distinctions.  Modern cruise lines target a middle-class audience, creating contained “metaspaces” that can ameliorate existing social hierarchies, although there is always a clear distinction between the passenger experience of luxury and escapism, and the working conditions of the crew.  The workforce is often segmented by nationality and race, with workers from the “global South” (particularly the Philippines and the Caribbean) frequently occupying lower-waged, service-oriented roles like cabin cleaning.  In many ways, it is the divisions between crew from different backgrounds and in lower level positions that most clearly mirror global economic inequalities.

Another criticism of the cruise line industry is that it presents ‘Europeanised’ representations of destinations, which some have compared to ‘plantation tourism’. Some have built private destinations (like Royal Caribbean’s Labadee, Haiti, and CocoCay, Bahamas), and most vertically integrate their services, ensuring passenger spending generally stays within the company’s ecosystem rather than significantly benefiting local economies.  However, cruise operations can bring some revenue to local governments through port fees, which have been increasing in recent years, and through the commercialization of local culture to meet tourist expectations, creating a potential disconnect between the insulated onboard experience and the realities of the destinations visited.  However visits can be so well managed, using carefully chosen transport and tour guides, that the local experience is essentially curated.

All this is true, but part of the ‘luxury’ on being on a cruise is that, albeit briefly, passengers can forget about the realities of daily life.  The overall broad homogeneity of the people on the ship in terms of relative social status is reinforced, by some cruises lines, in making certain there are no obvious class-based activities or areas.  In that sense, the cruise is an ‘out of the everyday world’ experience, an escape.  Isn’t this the intention of a holiday, to get away from normal work, tensions and social issues, and indulge in a fantasy by living in a way that is unlike everyday life.  The guest on the cruise ship knows this, just as the same form of artificial living is evident by enjoying hotel and resort experiences, experiences that are costly and special and thereby quite different from and ‘outside’ normal activities.

Perhaps this is like going to the cinema or reading a book.  You are being ‘transported’ to another realm, albeit briefly, where you can enjoy a series of experiences that you know aren’t ‘real life’.  This alternative is far more expensive, of course, but people will save for that ‘once in a lifetime’ chance to escape and enjoy a life that is otherwise inaccessible.  As with reading, there is a distinction between being merely entertained and learning.

It is helpful to distinguish between two aspects of ocean cruising.  These are the experiences on the ship itself, and then the visits and tours of the places that are included on any cruise itinerary.  The ways these two aspects of the cruising experience are managed are very revealing.

Some cruises are almost exclusively focussed on the on-board experiences.  Ships offering this approach are often full of entertainment options, with cinemas, gambling, functions and even libraries to give the passengers alternative activities. Of these, there is one, the swimming pool, that is an attraction for many.  All these experiences are focussed on the same underlying purpose:  you eat, sleep and enjoy yourself on board, an approach that can easily turn into mindless relaxation.  This is the ‘indulgence’ side of ocean cruising.

The alternative focus in cruising is to call at many ports on the itinerary, and arriving at some ports there can be ten or more different onshore visits available for ship guests.  Some support that theme of indulgence, offering  a day at a spectacular beach, or dining at a special  restaurant.  Many provide opportunities to learn and explore, visiting sites in famous cities, museums, stately homes and other attractions.  Here, the explicit aim is educational, inviting those passengers going on land tours to learn, and broaden their understanding of past events and present communities.  This is the ‘learning’ side of ocean cruising.

Another perspective on cruising is to step aside from cruise lines and ships and focus instead on the varieties of passengers.  As noted at the beginning of this essay cruising can refer to “driving slowly or repeatedly along a popular road route for fun, to see and be seen, and socialize, a practice popular in many towns and cities.  Another meaning is that it refers to walking or driving around looking for a sexual partner  …  [but] another common use of the term, referring to ‘Ocean Cruising,’ which is taking a vacation on a  large ships, visiting different ports for sightseeing, entertainment, and relaxation.”  What are those cruise line passengers seeking when they go on a cruise?

The challenge sits in that word ‘cruising’.  It implies entertainment and relaxation.  Certainly, many of the passengers seem to be focussed on those two, perhaps with the addition benefit of eating and drinking without preparation or washing up!  For them, the cruise ship is one big service provider, and all they need to do is to sit back, relax and enjoy, although they may indulge in some sightseeing, taking videos or photographs to show to family and friends back home.  Key in for many people who go on cruises is to avoid housework, cooking, washing clothes and bed linen, and bedmaking.  It is like going on a beach holiday, but in this case the bedroom goes with you, along with facilities and staff to meet your needs.

For others, the cruise is an adventure, not a merely a way to relax.  They want to see new places, to go on trips to visit towns and buildings all the way from hamlets to palaces and cathedrals, and look at novel vegetation, landscapes and mountains.  Not just to see, but to learn, to tour with an expert who will point out the obvious and the hidden, and who will provide a historical overview to sights on each trip.  For them, the ship is more like an elegant caravan, principally a place where they can eat and sleep.  Their moving hotel is taking them to places they really want to explore.  While they enjoy having meals prepared for them, sleeping and resting in a cabin kept clean by staff, while being able to look out of their window and see the passing scenery, they want more than the ship and its facilities .  It is possible this might be a minority of cruise passengers today, these are the people for whom it is the places they visit, rather than merely what is on the ship that is at the core of their enjoyment.  They are in a hotel that takes them to fascinating new places every day!

Inevitability

There is a popular strategy in looking back at past events to wonder ‘if only …’.  It’s tricky.  Any speculation about what could have been done is academic, but past events do shape the future.  Were the resulting outcomes inevitable?  Looking at alternatives may be worthwhile, as we might confront similar situations today, and thereby benefit from what we have learnt.

One example that has been on my mind is the decision to split British India in 1947, thereby creating the current nations of India and Pakistan (and a little later Bangladesh as well).  The process was described as the ‘Partition’ of India, and inthe process of allocating people to  the provinces between the two new countries many people were displaced, and two provinces, Bengal and Punjab, were actually split. As a result of the partition somewhere between 12 and 20 million people had to move, doing so based on religious lines.  The result was a refugee crisis, the inevitable consequence of the mass migration and population transfers that took place between the newly constituted countries.  Equally inevitably, there was trouble.  The process led to large-scale violence, and estimates of loss of life range from at least several hundred thousand up to possibly as many as two million people killed.

The events in 1947 had been preceded by a long history of tensions between Muslims and Hindus.  However, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 enhanced existing tensions when Lord Linlithgow, Viceroy of India, declared war on India’s behalf, and doing so without consulting Indian leaders.  This dramatically increased some of the underlying tensions in the country.  On one side Congress provincial ministries to resigned in protest.   On the other, the Muslim League held “Deliverance Day” (deliverance from Congress dominance) and supported Britain in the war effort.   The League’s action was followed in March 1940, at its annual three-day session in Lahore, when the leader of the All-India Muslim League observed that Muslims and Hindus were ‘irreconcilably opposed monolithic religious communities’ and as such, no settlement could be imposed without outraging one side or the other.

Perhaps seeking to defuse the situation, in August 1940, Linlithgow proposed that India be granted self-governing (dominion) status after the war. To allay Muslim fears of Hindu domination, the ‘August Offer’ was accompanied by the promise that a future constitution would consider the views of minorities.  Unsurprisingly neither Congress nor the Muslim League were satisfied with the offer, and both rejected it.   However, in March 1942, after the fall of Singapore and with the Americans supporting independence for India, Prime Minister Winson Churchill offered dominion status to India at the end of the war in return for the Congress’s support for the war effort.   Not wishing to lose the support of the Muslim League the offer included a clause stating that no part of the British Indian Empire would be forced to join the post-war dominion.  Both the League and the Congress party rejected this offer too.

In August 1942, Congress launched the Quit India Resolution, asking for major constitutional changes.  The British saw this act as the most serious threat to their rule since in nearly 100 years.  Alarmed, they immediately jailed the Congress leaders where they to remain until August 1945.  This left the Muslim League free for the next three years to spread its message.  Their leader admitted, “The war which nobody welcomed proved to be a blessing in disguise.”  The British accepted the League was the key representative of Muslim India

After the Second World War, change was in the air.  Labour won the 1945 General Election, and decided to end British rule in India.  In early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948, and issued their Cabinet Mission Plan.  This proposed preserving a united India which the British and Congress desired, while concurrently securing the League’s demand for a Pakistan.  The scheme was a federal arrangement consisting of three groups of provinces. Two of these would consist of small predominantly Muslim provinces, while the third would be made up of the large remaining Hindu region. The provinces would be autonomous, but the centre would retain control over defence, foreign affairs, and communications. Though the proposals did not include a truly independent Pakistan, the Muslim League accepted the proposals, but Congress leaders believed it would leave the centre weak, and rejected the suggested provincial groupings .

After the Cabinet Mission broke down, in July 1946 the Muslim League stated it was “preparing to launch a struggle” and that they had a plan.  If the Muslims were not granted a separate Pakistan then they would launch ‘direct action’. When asked to be specific, their leader Jinnah explained: “Go to the Congress and ask them their plans. When they take you into their confidence I will take you into mine. Why do you expect me alone to sit with folded hands? I also am going to make trouble.”.  He announced that 16 August 1946 was to be Direct Action Day, and warned Congress, “We do not want war. If you want war we accept your offer unhesitatingly. We will either have a divided India or a destroyed India.”.

On that morning, armed Muslim gangs gathered in Calcutta to hear the League’s Chief Minister of Bengal, who, in the words of historian Yasmin Khan, “if he did not explicitly incite violence certainly gave the crowd the impression that they could act with impunity, that neither the police nor the military would be called out and that the ministry would turn a blind eye to any action they unleashed in the city.” The same evening in Calcutta, Hindus were attacked by returning Muslim celebrants, an event later called the ‘Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946.’  The next day, Hindus struck back, and the violence continued for three days during which some 4,000 people died.  The violence wasn’t confined to the public sphere, but homes were entered and destroyed, women and children were attacked.  Although the Government of India and the Congress were shaken by the events, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as the ‘united’ India’s prime minister.

The communal violence spread.  UK Prime Minister Attlee appointed Mountbatten as India’s last Viceroy, giving him the task to oversee British India’s independence by 30 June 1948, with instructions to avoid partition and to preserve a united India, but with an adaptable authority to ensure a British withdrawal with minimal setbacks.  Mountbatten hoped to revive the Cabinet Mission scheme for a federal arrangement for India, but the tense situation led him to conclude that partition had become necessary for a quick transfer of power.

When Lord Mountbatten formally proposed an Indian Independence Plan on 3 June 1947, Congress’s leader Patel gave his approval and lobbied Nehru and the other Congress leaders to accept the proposal.  Knowing Gandhi’s deep concerns over partition, Patel advised him on  the perceived practical unworkability of any Congress-League coalition,  which seemed likely to lead to a further rise in violence, and even the threat of civil war. At the All-India Congress Committee meeting called to vote on the proposal, Patel said:

“I fully appreciate the fears of our brothers from [the Muslim-majority areas]. Nobody likes the division of India, and my heart is heavy. But the choice is between one division and many divisions. We must face facts. We cannot give way to emotionalism and sentimentality. The Working Committee has not acted out of fear. But I am afraid of one thing, that all our toil and hard work of these many years might go waste or prove unfruitful. My nine months in office have completely disillusioned me regarding the supposed merits of the Cabinet Mission Plan. … Freedom is coming. We have 75 to 80 percent of India, which we can make strong with our genius. The League can develop the rest of the country.” 

Menon, V. P. Transfer of Power in India. p. 385.

In June 1947, the nationalist leaders agreed to a partition of the country, despite it being in stark opposition to Gandhi’s views. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan, including a division of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal into two parts.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the communal violence that followed the publication of the line of partition, the Radcliffe Line, was horrific.   At a press conference on 3 June 1947, Lord Mountbatten announced the date of independence – 14 August 1947 – and also outlined the details of the actual division of British India between the two new dominions in what became known as the ‘Mountbatten Plan’ or the ‘3 June Plan’.  This included the provision that Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal legislative assemblies would meet and vote for partition. If a simple majority of either group wanted partition, these provinces would be divided.  The separate independence of Bengal was ruled out.

Indian political leaders accepted the Plan on 2 June.  The outcome was politically adroit.  The Muslim League’s demands for a separate country were conceded.  Congress’s position on unity was also acknowledged, while making Pakistan as small as possible.  One leader, Abul Kalam Azad, expressed concern over the likelihood of violent riots, but Mountbatten replied:

At least on this question I shall give you complete assurance. I shall see to it that there is no bloodshed and riot. I am a soldier and not a civilian. Once the partition is accepted in principle, I shall issue orders to see that there are no communal disturbances anywhere in the country. If there should be the slightest agitation, I shall adopt the sternest measures to nip the trouble in the bud.

On 18 July 1947, the British Parliament passed the India Independence Act that finalised the arrangements for partition.  The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the new dominions.  In the event, dividing both Punjab and Bengal, the two provinces with slim Muslim majorities caused tremendous problems, as the demographic distribution of Hindus and Muslims was complex and ‘messy’.  The new borders ran through the middle of villages, towns, fields, and more.  Further, when Pakistan was created, East and West Pakistan were separated by about 1,000 miles (some 1,600 km).  The commission also effectively sliced the large Sikh population in Punjab in half.  As a result, nearly the entirety of the Sikh community ultimately fled to areas that would become part of India.

Mountbatten administered the independence oath to Jinnah on the 14th, before leaving for India where the oath was scheduled on the midnight of the 15th.   On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor-General in Karachi.  The following day, 15 August 1947, India, now the Dominion of India, became an independent country, with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru appointed Prime Minister. Mountbatten remained in New Delhi for 10 months, serving as the first governor-general of an independent India until June 1948.  Gandhi remained in Bengal to work with the new refugees from the partitioned subcontinent.

The borders of the new countries were not published until August 17, two days after the end of British rule. This set the stage for an immediate escalation of communal violence in areas around the new borders. Many ordinary people did not understand what partition meant until they were in the middle of it, sometimes literally. If a border village was roughly evenly divided between Hindus and Muslims, one community could argue that the village rightly belonged to India or Pakistan by driving out or killing members of the other community.

The result was mass migration between the two newly formed states in the months immediately following the partition. There was little realisation that population transfers would be necessary because of the partitioning. Religious minorities were expected to stay put in the states there they were still residing. An exception was made for Punjab, where transfer was organized because of the communal violence affecting the province,  but this did not apply to any other provinces.  The population of undivided India in 1947 was about 390 million. Following the partition, there were perhaps 330 million people in India, 30 million in West Pakistan, and 30 million people in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). Once the boundaries were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders into what they hoped was the relative safety of a religious majority. The 1951 Census of Pakistan identified the number of displaced persons in Pakistan at 7,226,600, presumably all Muslims who had entered Pakistan from India; the 1951 Census of India counted 7,295,870 displaced persons, apparently all Hindus and Sikhs who had moved to India from Pakistan after partition.

During partition, the idea of a full population exchange was a contentious issue that led to differing opinions among Indian leaders.  Some supported the idea of a complete population exchange between India and Pakistan. This meant that all the 42 million Muslims in India would move to Pakistan, while all the 19 million Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities West and East Pakistan would migrate to India. Its rationale was based on the idea of ensuring lasting communal peace by eliminating the possibility of future inter-religious conflicts and reducing the risk of large-scale violence.  It suggested that such a population exchange, though harsh, was a practical solution to the communal problems that had led to Partition:  it was believed that the lingering presence of hostile minorities could lead to future instability.

These concerns were rejected, both by Nehru and Ghandi, and a full population exchange did not occur.  When a partial migration took place, the 14.5 million people who crossed borders did so amidst horrific violence, while millions remained where they had lived.  This was to have profound and continuing repercussions.  India retained a Muslim population, which was to grow to become a significant minority, while Pakistan’s Hindu and Sikh populations dwindled drastically over the decades due to migration and persecution.  The absence of a full exchange almost certainly contributed to enduring communal tensions and periodic conflicts over the  years.  We will never know if a full exchange might have prevented these issues.

The scale of population movements was huge.  As soon as the new borders were announced, roughly 15m Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs left (fled?) from their homes on one side of the newly demarcated borders to what they thought would be “shelter” on the other. Some people were able to take trains or buses from one country to another, but most were forced to flee on foot, joining refugee columns that stretched for miles. These columns were the target of frequent ambushes,  as were the trains that carried refugees across the new borders. In the course of that exodus, perhaps as many as 2 million  people were slaughtered in communal massacres (though the lack of any meaningful documentation has left open a wide range of estimates). Sikhs, settled astride Punjab’s new division, suffered the highest proportion of casualties.  While the worst of the violence took place during the first six weeks of partition, the consequences of those weeks have played out over the decades.

Given this the obvious question is:  Was there a better way to create an indepedent India?

Six Great Ideas

I wonder if anyone reads Mortimer Adler today.  For a while he was an influential and also popular philosopher, often referred to as the Fat Man.  That name referred to The Fat Men’s Great Books Group, an informal discussion circle in Chicago in the 1940s, co-founded by Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, the President of the  University of Chicago. The name came from its participants, who were wealthy and influential Chicago businessmen and executives and who were led by Adler and Hutchins to experience the ‘Great Books’ method of discussing classic texts, believing it would bring intellectual rigour and insight to the business elite and potentially bridge societal divides.  The group was formed in 1943 after a prominent businessman, Wilbur Munnecke, had developed concern about the communication difficulties he observed among bright executives.  The approach was seen as a way to unite academic thinkers and businessmen using the wisdom of classic literature, in part to temper the excesses of capitalism and at the same time to guide societal decisions.

Who was Mortimer Jerome Adler?  Born in New York City in 1902, the child of Jewish immigrants from Germany, he dropped out of school at age 14 to become copy boy for the New York Sun.  He soon returned to school, and went on to study at Columbia University, eventually completing a  doctorate in psychology.  However, a key moment in his life was in 1930 when Robert Hutchins, the newly appointed president of the University of Chicago, ensured he was hired as a professor in the philosophy of law, despite resistance from staff from within the university’s Department of Philosophy. Learning about the Great Books seminar inspired Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke to establish The Aspen Institute, and it was there Adler began to teach philosophy to business executives .  With Hutchins he went on to set up the Great Books of the Western World program, in 54 volumes in 1952  A second edition was published in 1990, in 60 volumes.

The decision to include a book in the series required meeting three criteria:  the book had to be relevant to contemporary matters; it had to be rewarding to re-read repeatedly; and it had to contribute to ‘the great conversation about  great ideas’.  The books weren’t chosen on the basis of ethnic and cultural inclusiveness.  Historical influence was seen as sufficient to be added.  Nor was it a requirement that the editors agreed with the authors’ views.  The books were published under the auspices of the Great Books Foundation.  In 1952, Adler founded and served as director of the Institute for Philosophical Research.  He also served on the Board of Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and succeeded Hutchins as its chairman from 1974.

If what was done back then was seen as a key stage in the awareness of key literature from the past, enthusiasm for an  approach where ‘Great Books’ were identified and promoted has declined ever since the first edition appeared.  Today it is easy to make fun of the idea of ‘great books’:  many of those selected are now seen as the embodiment of various evils, from sexism to cultural hegemony, from conservatism to oppression.  However, rather than indulge in criticism of the great books endeavour, there is still value in going back to read books published in earlier decades or centuries.  How were the various titles chosen?  Rather than trying to assess the complete range of publications, a good introduction to Adler’s approach can be undertaken by looking at his 1981 book, Six Great Ideas, (published by Collier Books, a Macmillan imprint).

In Six Great Ideas, Adler examines what he proposes as six foundational concepts, ones he saw as having shaped the pursuit of truth and meaning: these topics are Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Liberty, Equality, and Justice.   Adler invites his readers to join him on ‘a reflective journey’, one where he intends to challenge their understanding of  the principles that govern lives and society.  He  argues  that these ideas form ‘the bedrock of human civilization, guiding our moral compass, our understanding of the world, our appreciation of art and culture, and our endeavours in creating fair and equitable societies’.  He claims these ideas are deeply embedded in everyday life, and he argues they have continuing and enduring relevance.  They are essential tools for navigating the complexities of contemporary life.

He explains his approach is to reveal, in straightforward language, the philosophical basis for these key terms, attempting to take these complex and important ideas and make them accessible to an intelligent (rather than an academic) reader.  The book begins by putting the six foundational concepts he wanted to examine into two groups.  Perhaps surprisingly, the first group comprises Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and the other three, Liberty, Equality, and Justice are left until later in his book.  Today all six might be regarded as controversial, but it might have been easier to begin with truth, liberty and equality.

Adler begins by exploring the concept of truth, explaining how he sees this as the concept that is the cornerstone in the quest for knowledge, shaping the ways in which humans engage with the world. He suggests the pursuit of truth is not merely an intellectual exercise but is a fundamental element of human existence, critical to enquiry, discovery, and the advancement of knowledge.  He also explains that the meaning of truth has changed over time, contrasting the views of the ancient Greeks who, he explains, viewed truth as an alignment with an eternal, unchanging reality, to modern thinkers who consider it in the context of scientific inquiry and empirical evidence.

For Adler, the relationship between truth and knowledge is central. Knowledge is seen as a pursuit of truth, seeking to understand and explain the nature of our world, and as the engine of progress.  Indeed, he explains that truth is a pivotal concept, one that serves as the foundation upon which all knowledge is built.  This is achieved through ‘correspondence’, which he defines as the alignment between thought and reality.  In other words when a statement or belief accurately reflects the state of affairs in the external world, it is deemed true. This  takes us back to knowledge, which is, by definition, justified true belief.  For Adler this is critical:  it is not enough for beliefs to be justified or logical; they must also be true. The pursuit of knowledge, therefore, invariably entails the pursuit of truth not as a philosophical exercise but as a practical necessity.  A society that values Truth is one where individuals can rely on shared understandings and accurate information.

Are there challenges in attaining the truth?  Adler observes that human perception, cognitive biases, and limited knowledge all serve as obstacles.  To overcome them, he argues there has to be a rigorous and continuous process of inquiry, critical thinking, and verification.  He asserts that the persistent search for truth is central to our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.  That view might have seemed clear and simple in 1981, but it rested on an assumption that we all see the world in the same way.  More than forty years later, it is clear that we don’t,  and what is true for one group is not necessarily true to another.  His view that  there are unarguable truths is an assumption hard to sustain in our fractured times.

The difficulties of claiming certainty in relation to truth become all the more evident when Adler turned to his second key idea, goodness.  For Adler goodness is a fundamental principle guiding ethical behaviour, the link to morality.   This leads him to address some  key questions: What constitutes a morally good action? What differentiates good from bad, or moral from immoral actions?   Without meaning to do so, he has started to make us confront some tricky – even controversial – issues.  Some of what he proposes is not particularly controversial:  moral actions are those that align with ethical principles and the concepts of right and wrong, often considering the well-being and rights of others. Immoral actions, conversely, are those that violate ethical standards and typically result in harm or injustice.

However, from there he goes on to argue that goodness extends beyond personal issues to being a criterion for evaluating institutions and communities.  If a society is to flourish, it must nurture and uphold goodness, and with this in mind he takes us into a much broader territory where goodness is linked to the need to promote justice, compassion, altruism, fairness and into creating systems that allow individuals to lead morally fulfilling lives.  Adler is no fool, and he emphasises the challenges in consistently pursuing goodness.  We are often faced with ethical dilemmas that require balancing competing interests and values.  He suggests the pursuit of goodness demands critical reflection, empathy, and a commitment to ethical principles, even when it is inconvenient or challenging.

Now we have reached a key point:  he observes that principles can’t be absolute, as each includes demands that can be contradictory.  As a result there is a need to find ways to balance or accommodate conflicting requirements.  If his intention had been to offer some ‘tools to navigate the complexities of modern life’, it seems he isn’t providing a map as much as outlining possible paths and likely alternatives.  Adler acknowledges this and offers some (conflicting) ideas for the reader to consider.   For example, he refers to Mill’s utilitarian approach which advocates pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number.  In contrast he points out that Kantian ethics require adherence to duty and universal moral laws.  It’s hard to follow a map when the guidance is inconsistent!

Perhaps a better way to read this book is to recognise that Adler’s intention was to make us think, and for us to recognise that there are ‘no easy answers’.  Rather than seeking clear guidance from philosophers, our expectation should be that philosophical enquiry reveals territory to be examined, pointing out pitfalls, possibilities and uncertainties.  What Adler does is to present us with ideas.  Our challenge is to grapple with those ideas, to see what we can identify and confirm, and to make clear what isn’t going to be answered by logic alone.

If Adler’s intention was to encourage us to become amateur philosophers, and to think about the ideas and issues we confront, it was a strange choice to offer ‘beauty’ as the third great idea.  Many would agree here the difficulties are evident:  there is a lot of good sense to suggest ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’,  a phrase with a long history in its various forms, certainly from John Lyly and Shakespeare in the 16^th Century through to David Hume commenting “Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them ((in 1742).  Incidentally, the wording about the eye of the beholder comes from Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in her novel Molly Bawn in 1878.  This long history is persuasive.

In fact, Adler quickly slips away from attempting to ‘explain’ the concept of beauty but rather identifies it as an attribute that pleases the senses while also elevating the human spirit.  Is he right?  Does aesthetic experience not only provide pleasure but also “enriches our lives, allowing us to transcend ordinary experiences, and transform mundane reality”. Adler argues that in moments of shared aesthetic experience, people can find common ground, regardless of their cultural background.  He suggests beauty plays a key role in elevating human thought, fostering connection, and driving creative expression.  Really?

What this book from more than 40 years ago does is offer a stark reminder on how much has changed.  In many ways, what Adler has to say is far from controversial.  This becomes very clear later in the book when he turns to the second group of principles.  In the Bookey summary we read Adler argues: “The principles of Liberty and Equality stand as cornerstones in the foundation of human rights.  Liberty, as Adler asserts, is an essential element of human existence, signifying the freedom of individuals to think,  speak, and act according to their own values and decisions without undue interference.  This principle is deeply rooted in the philosophical traditions of Western thought, resonating through the works of thinkers like John Locke, who emphasized natural rights, and John Stuart Mill, who championed individual freedom as crucial for personal development and societal progress.  Adler proposes that liberty fosters creativity, innovation, and personal growth, enabling individuals to pursue their paths and contribute uniquely to society.  However, he admits it can’t exist in a vacuum; it must be tempered given the encroachment on other freedoms.

For him, this is where the principle of Equality comes in.  Equality, he suggests, demands that all individuals be treated with the same respect, dignity, and moral consideration.”  Fair enough, but we are about to reach compromise territory.  Adler warns us that despite their intention to elevate human dignity and social fairness, Liberty and Equality can sometimes be at odds. For instance, he notes, the unfettered exercise of liberty by one individual or group may infringe upon the rights or freedoms of another, as seen in scenarios where economic liberties contribute to systemic inequalities. Likewise, efforts to enforce equality, such as through redistributive policies or affirmative action, can be perceived as limitations on individual freedom and meritocracy.  Well, yes., and so?

We learn that it is possible to navigate these conflicts by encouraging a balance whereby both principles can coexist harmoniously. He advocates for a societal framework that maximizes individual freedoms while simultaneously safeguarding and promoting equal opportunities for all its members.  He notes this balance is not easily achieved, “requiring continual dialogue, ethical consideration, and legal frameworks that adapt to evolving social needs and challenges.  In real-world applications, the balance between Liberty and Equality is manifest in democratic governance, where laws and policies aim to protect individual rights while promoting social welfare. The U.S. Constitution, with its amendments and provisions, exemplifies this delicate equilibrium, striving to uphold freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly, while guaranteeing equal protection under the law”.  Do you remember that simplistic, hopeful and long-lost view of the world?

When it comes to Justice, Adler highlights the contributions of John Rawls.  Rawls’ theory of “justice as fairness” proposes two key. principles: the principle of equal basic liberties for all individuals and the difference principle, which maintains that social and economic inequalities should be arranged to benefit the least advantaged members of society. Rawls’ ideas, like Adlers, now seem so unrealistic.  Were we more innocent back then?

Adler wanted his readers to recognise the profound impact that living in accordance with Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Liberty, Equality, and Justice can have — on ourselves, our relationships, and on the broader society.  Rather than accepting his framework for the future, in contemporary society we are more likely to see those six ideas as forming a complicated straitjacket.  Each constrains and is constrained by the others, and whatever direction we pursue, we soon bump up against major contradictions and confusions.  Despite this, Adler deserves the last word:  even if his six ideas can no longer be considered “essential tools for navigating the complexities of contemporary life” they remind us of ideas we mustn’t forget.

The Culture of Hope

As I see it, destiny was determined to make Frederick Turner of interest.  Born in England on 19 November 1943, one day less than a year before me, he soon proved himself to be a wanderer, living in Africa before he went to university (Oxford, not Cambridge!).  He then became a US citizen, and from 1985 was at the University of Texas (after positions at the University of Bath in the UK, and UC Santa Barbara in California).  He is presently Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas.  More to the point, he is a prolific writer, poet and critic.  Among many others, his books include Shakespeare and the Nature of Time; Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; Natural Classicism: Essays on Literature and Science;  Rebirth of Value: Meditations on Beauty, Ecology, Religion and Education;  Beauty: The Value of Values; The Culture of Hope: A New Birth of the Classical Spirit; Shakespeare’s Twenty-first Century Economics: The Morality of Love and Money; On the Field of Life, on the Battlefield of Truth, and  Natural Religion.

There’s much more.  He contributes essays, poetry, reviews, and translations to many periodicals, including Harper’s Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, The Wilson Quarterly, Poetry, Reason, Forbes ASAP, Society, The Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, The American Arts Quarterly, Pivot, New Literary History, Oral Tradition, First Things,  The Southern Review, The Yale Review, The Missouri Review, The Ontario Review, The National Review, The Partisan Review, Shenandoah, The Stanford Literary Review, American Enterprise, Lapham’s Quarterly, and , believe it or not, many more.   His work has been translated and published in Albanian, French, German, Japanese, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Rumanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese, and other languages.

He’s a polymath.  He was first known for his Shakespeare criticism and for his scholarship in the field of English Renaissance philosophy.  More recently he has written on Renaissance science and art, Shakespearean theatre and performance, Christopher Marlowe, and explored several Shakespeare plays.  He is a founder of the literary-critical school known as Natural Classicism.  Another emphasis has been on the relationship between science and technology on one hand, and the arts and humanities on the other.  As a result he has been involved in groundbreaking studies of the neurobiology of aesthetics, the ritual and performative roots of the arts, and the humanistic implications of evolution, ecology, recombinant DNA technology, space travel, artificial intelligence, brain science, and chaos theory.  He has been awarded numerous prizes.   Did I say he’s a polymath?

His book The Future of Hope: A New Birth of the Classical Spirit assessed the chances for a revival of our cultural energies at the turn of the millennium, based on what was seen as the remarkable new developments in scientific cosmology and technology. It is this book, published in 1995, that is the starting point of these comments.  He made his intentions in writing his book clear:  “When one seeks for radical equality, and a total pruning of the tree of authority, one gets an Oliver Cromwell, a Napoleon, a Hitler, a Lenin, or a Stalin  instead. In recent times, the egalitarian commune movement has given birth to such monstrosities as Charlie Manson and Jimmy Jones.  Any of us who were involved in radical consciousness-raising groups in the sixties, seventies, and eighties can remember the oppressive atmosphere of thought control and authority, the way in which some unacknowledged leader emerged supported by a little coterie of moral enforcers and yes-men, and bullying of the weak or independent.”  He’s not frightened to make his views clear.  He has often been controversial.  He’s the ideal person for my last blog in this current series.

Thirty years ago, Turner proposed a radical agenda in The Culture of Hope, with its telling subtitle – A New Birth of the Classical Spirit.  Why did I read it?  Because he commented “This book is for those who have been shaken out of themselves by art, who have felt a piece of Mozart’s Magic Flute reach out and grab them by the heart, who have seen the grave look on Flora’s face as she steps out of Botticelli’s Primavera the way gods always do, lit by a light too powerful to be quite shown: for those who have heard a line of Shakespeare so that it rang and rang again in their ears – ‘Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul/Of the wide world dreaming of things to come.”  I felt I had to read it!

To continue to quote, but now from the book release:

“Turner recycles some material from earlier university press books for this, his grand synthesis that promises to overcome the stalemate in the culture wars. Proponent of a “third way” or “centrist” position, Turner (Arts and Humanities/Univ. of Texas, Dallas) rehearses the standard complaints about our culture in crisis. Unlike traditional conservatives, though, he ventures a prescription that goes beyond nostalgia for faith and values. A sober critic of the so-called avant-garde, Turner posits a “radical centre”—“a return to classical forms, genres and techniques in the arts” that is grounded in the latest research in anthropology and science. Turner fancies his “reconstructive postmodernism” a new paradigm on the intellectual horizon, and it’s hard to imagine anyone familiar with all the disciplines he brings together in this fascinating, if exhausting, book. A cogent critic of anti-foundationalist thought (be it feminist, Marxist, or linguistic), Turner reaffirms the need for hierarchy in the arts, for logic over force, and for beauty over relativism. His multiculturalism is truly pan-cultural, discovering the transcendent in all cultures. Turner’s idea of a “natural classicism” is remarkably transparent—he locates classical forms in nature itself. Some of his other ideas are a bit obscure, and his tendency toward unrelieved abstraction will turn off sympathetic readers. Turner’s immediate cure for cultural malaise is nothing less than a four-page manifesto that is certain to provoke debate, and his discussion of biology is sure to be used against him, despite his distinctly un-“bell curvish” ideas. Turner’s fictional “fable for the future”—a brave new world that resembles the utopian cyberspace of the Tofflers—flirts with kookiness. A superb critic of trendy feminist and multicultural ideas, Turner deserves a hearing in the ongoing debate: He’s Apollo to Camille Paglia’s Dionysus.”

So what is this Third Way?  A number of contributors to Philosophy Now in October 2019 suggested answers, and a few were published.  The topic was  “How to negotiate a path between capitalist & socialist excesses?   There were many similarities between the views expressed, of which these are just a selection.

Steve Foulger, from London, observed “In political philosophy a ‘Third Way’ is usually taken to mean a position that rejects the extreme views to be found at either end of the left/right spectrum. It is commonly seen as occupying a middle ground, rejecting radicalism. Its proponents often say it offers the best of both worlds, whilst detractors see it, unsurprisingly, as the worst of both.”  …. I believe Third Way proposals should reject the (monist) idea that there is one all-embracing solution to the problems of society, and instead accept value pluralism as its guiding principle. Values are vitally important to people, but they can be contradictory and indeed incommensurable. … my Third Way would involve a radical extension of democratic control into a largely devolved society.”

Similarly, at least to some extent, Jonathan Tipton, from Preston, Lancashire, suggested “In the last twenty five years, the ‘Third Way’ has denoted a distinct political ideology that argues in favour of the free-market, entrepreneurship, and against the nationalisation of industries, whilst still endorsing radical policies of social justice. It is commonly seen as a compromise between right-wing neoliberalism and leftist social democracy.” …

Tipton goes on to observe, “Arguably John Rawls offers the closest thing to a theoretical basis for Third Way values. In his influential book A Theory of Justice (1971), he put forward a thought-experiment, the ‘Original Position’. Imagine, he said, that a society’s values were to be decided by rational individuals behind ‘a veil of ignorance’ which would prevent them knowing anything about what their own place in that society would be, even of their own social status, gender, ethnicity, etc. Rawls thought that concern for their future wellbeing would impel them to create a society that was free-market but with a strong sense of social justice. It would therefore outwardly resemble a society modelled upon the Third Way. Social inequalities such as great wealth would be permitted if and only if they also benefited the least well off, through high taxes, or more employment”.  Appealing to a Rawls fan!…

Another contributor, Ian Rizzo, Zabbar, from Malta, commented:  “If only we could ditch the left-right-centre-populist ideological splits and focus on a Third Way based on reasonable rethinking and strong ethical, humanistic beliefs. …  A Third Way would recognise that the right balance ought to be maintained between markets, the state and the community. Risk should be appropriately rewarded, since the economy needs to be sustained with creativity and self-sufficiency; but not to the detriment of rewarding hard work. … . A Third Way would insist that the key to our wealth and happiness lies in measures to truly improve quality of life for all…  Such an objective can be reached if the Third Way is based on a philosophy where every human being is treated with equal dignity and respect. Tolerance of a diversity of views should go hand in hand with J.S. Mill’s ‘Harm Principle’ (people’s freedom should only be limited to prevent them doing harm to others).”

For Frank S Robinson of Albany, New York, there is a path for a ‘Third Way’ between rapacious capitalism and coercive communism.  “The answer is Enlightenment humanism. This philosophy celebrates the flourishing of individuals, recognizing that the only thing that can ultimately matter is the feelings of beings capable of feeling.  An important part of human flourishing is finding meaning. Most of us want to do that as freely as possible. This doesn’t mean disconnecting from society. Indeed, being embedded in social structures is part of how we flourish and find meaning. So we want a balance between freedom to do our own thing and the societal ties enabling us to relate to others. … Experience and rationality point to a society ruled by laws protecting us from harms by others – including capitalists – while otherwise leaving us as free as possible: free to pursue economic advantage, which makes society richer; and free to pursue happiness in our individual ways.”

Finally, Mark Bennett, Newmarket, ON asks if there is still a basis to strive for a Third Way. “Democracy is now under the influence of consumerism. … We channel our citizenship toward consumerism, giving tacit assent to our government to undergo a process of zoning. As Alain Badiou … reminds us that “1% of the global population possess 46% of the available resources while 50% of the global population possess nothing.  There seems to be no solution other than democracy. So for a Third Way, democracy must undergo an evolution in which we address both environmental and human needs. It must replace the effects of hegemony with a globalized citizenship. Jürgen Habermas writes, “politics must globalize too, in order to rein in the economy. It means expanding politics beyond the nation state”.

Can we have hope?

The Third Way has been defined as: “different and distinct from liberal capitalism with its unswerving belief in the merits of the free market and democratic socialism with its demand management and obsession with the state. The Third Way is in favour of growth, enterprise, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation but it is also in favour of greater social justice and it sees the state playing a major role in bringing this about.”  So as  Anthony Giddens of the LSE has noted: the Third Way rejects the so-called neo liberalism philosophy.  Indeed, the Third Way has been advocated by its proponents as a ‘radical-centrist’ approach, an alternative to both capitalism and what it regards as the traditional forms of socialism.

The more I have read about it, the Third Way has become harder to summarise, partly due to its flexible nature, putting ends before means, and prioritising achieving social justice rather than focusing on the methods by which it could be achieved.  One way to summarise the Third Way is to say it’s about ‘rights with responsibilities’, pairing the right to education with the responsibility to put effort towards achieving good grades.  On economics, a great deal of the emphasis is placed on tax revenue, and the means by which it is generated. The Third Way argues that growth is the best way to raise tax revenue, and that growth can be achieved through a free market economy, fiscal discipline and a ‘healthy human capital stock’.

The Third Way has been advocated by proponents as competitive socialism.  Anthony Giddens has been a prominent proponent of the Third Way, and has suggested it is a modernisation of socialism, achieved through the social democracy movement.  However, he argues that traditional socialist ideology, resting on the direct involvement of the state in economic management and planning, is flawed.  He has argued that justification for the idea of the managed economy barely exists any longer.  In defining the Third Way Blair once wrote: “The Third Way stands for a modernised social democracy, passionate in its commitment to social justice”, and he added: “The Third Way stands for a modernised social democracy, passionate in its commitment to social justice and the goals of the centre-left. … But it is a third way because it moves decisively beyond an Old Left preoccupied by state control, high taxation and producer interests; and a New Right treating public investment, and often the very notions of ‘society’ and collective endeavour, as evils to be undone.”

While it sounds encouraging, The Third Way has been criticized as being a vague ideology with no specific commitments:  “The Third Way is no more than a crude attempt to create a bogus coalition between the haves and the haves not:  bogus because it entices the haves by assuring them that the economy will be sound and their interests will not be threatened, while promising the have-nots a world free from poverty and injustice. Based on opportunism, it has no ideological commitment at all.”

All this takes us back to Frederick Turner.  With an undeniable religious underpinning, he argues that a culture of hope has to draw on such matters as the preservation of the richness and variety of life, and suggests we have to replace ‘environmentally unsound technologies with the more efficient, elegant and benign ones that the new science is making possible”.  He is an unashamed ecologist, but above all he seeks “a new aesthetic philosophy, critique, and theology, as humanistic as it is naturalistic, embodied in an art in which all these studies can be guided.”  Is this the voice we heard up to the end of the previous century?  Have we lost the confidence he exhibits?  At the end of this series of blogs, I fear our world has become more hierarchical, more exploitative and less humanistic.  I hope I am wrong.

DD83 – The Soul: A History of the Human Mind

Paul Ham’s 2024 book, The Soul, is described as a deep dive into history to find its driving force.  It is a text we have been exploring in our Philosopher’s Cafe series, a U3A course in Canberra.  My initial plan was to write a blog about the book but Ham, a journalist, has done an excellent job in his Introduction, so I realised I could use his words!  The next two and half pages are his overview:

“This is a history of the soul, or what we now call the mind, the mysterious inner voice that wills us to think and act and is unique to each of us.

For centuries your soul was believed to be your disembodied spirit, destined for Heaven or Hell after the death of the body. Today our minds are understood as the product of our brains, the factory of our thoughts and beliefs and willpower.

And yet, the strange, subjective nature of our minds continues to bewilder neuroscientists and frustrate institutional religions. What differentiates our minds? Why is my truth, your lies? Why is my good, your evil? What is the source of those beliefs? And why do people seek to impose their beliefs on others, often lovingly, sometimes violently?

Sapiens’ cerebral history began with the creation of the gods by Stone Age men. It may end with the attempt to replicate human consciousnesses in our own age. In the intervening 300,000 years, our brains have made a series of extraordinary evolutionary leaps, from the dimmest tremors of self-consciousness in prehistoric hominins to the self-willed intelligence of modern humans, rendering us capable of the most vicious cruelty and the gentlest acts of compassion.

How our souls or psyches arrived at where they are today is an astonishing journey of self-discovery. En route we shall explore the first signs of self-awareness in prehistoric humans; the earliest Egyptian conceptions of consciousness and immortality; the Hindu and Buddhist ideas of karma and rebirth; the ancient Chinese and Greek theories of self; the origins of the Jewish belief in their ‘chosenness’; the rise of the Christian spirit that broke the Roman Empire; the unification of the Arabs under Muhammad, which drove the early Islamic conquests; the hope of salvation that animated the crusading Christians; the fractured beliefs of the Reformation; the missionary spirit that harvested souls for Western empires; the Biblical justification of enslavement; the ‘rational’ soul/mind of the Enlightenment and revolutionary eras; the return of ‘theocrats’ and ‘theocracy’ (which the media miscast as the ‘Far Right’); and the liberation of the souls and minds of women, so long enchained in the world of men. We will also enter the dark night of the soul under totalitarian rule, contemplate the harrowing of the modern mind, and glimpse the synthetic consciousness of artificial intelligence. Along the way, we’ll explore how the changing interpretations of our souls/minds have willed the greatest events in the history of humankind.

Nobody has attempted such a journey before. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind and The Phenomenology of Spirit chronicled the liberation of consciousness, but his works were not histories as we understand them.

The closest comparison is the French philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet’s Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, written in 1794 while he was hiding from the Terror. His ‘bible of progress’ is a masterpiece of wishful thinking that knowledge would lead us to the Promised Land of reason and social justice, rid of zealotry and superstition.

Alas, in relegating religion to science, Condorcet gravely underestimated the persistence of faith and belief as the drivers of human thought and action. Like Condorcet, self-described ‘realists’ in our time think of human beings as ‘rational actors’ who behave according to reason. Like Condorcet, ‘realists’ underestimate the power of faith, belief and ‘unreason’ over the human mind and the course of history.

Beliefs are the engines of human history. That is a core idea animating this book. And the source of those beliefs is the mind, or what for millennia we called the soul.

*

Almost everyone thinks they have one, but nobody knows what it is. Modern notions of ‘the soul’ are so prolific, so protean, no wonder people struggle to explain it. Jobs, relationships, people can be ‘soul-destroying’. Most people seem to think they will find a ‘soulmate’. Leaders long to be identified as the ‘soul of the nation’.

In this sea of confusion stands a rock: the great religions have always claimed to know precisely what your soul is, and where it is going after your body dies: to Heaven or Hell. For the sake of the ‘salvation’ of their souls, countless religious believers have waged war, conquered worlds and forcibly converted ‘heathens’ to their belief systems. For people of faith, the ‘soul’ was and forever will be the trembling spirit of the inner being, judged after we die to be saved or damned.

Every society has had a word for it – anima, atman, jiva, ba, ka, hun, po, nefesh, ruach, psyche, shade, logos, breath, ruh, nafs, thetan, roohu, holy ghost, spirit, quiddity, to name a few. In modern times we have spoken of the self, consciousness, ego and superego, mind, essence, animus, identity, core, conscience, vim, verve, centre, ‘I’, ‘me’. All terms strive to express the strange entity through which a person lives, feels, thinks and wills.

Is the soul/mind a substance? A passenger trapped in your body? Slave or master? The tug of conscience? The source of love and hatred? What distinguished the ancient Aztec, Inca and Aboriginal ideas of the soul/mind from those of their conquerors? What distinguishes the Hindu and Buddhist ideas of the soul/mind from the Christian, Muslim and Jewish ones? Who or what decided whether your soul would be ‘saved’ or sent to Hell? Why is the Faustian contract – the idea of selling your soul to the Devil – so resonant in the secular West, not least among atheists? Why has the ‘religious soul’ survived neuroscientific advances that should have extinguished it?

In seeking to answer those and many more questions, The Soul explores the emergence, recognition, salvation, institutionalisation, decay and destruction of this unfathomable vehicle of human consciousness, the spiritual clay that both Plato and Saint Augustine, pagan and Christian, understood as immortal, corruptible, faithful, deceitful, capable of free will, able to choose between right and wrong, the very substance of what it means to be human – the whisper of the eternal ‘I’ of the human mind.

*

The idea at the core of The Soul is that belief is the engine of human history, regardless of whether the thing you believe in – a god, a messiah, a promised land, a prophecy, a political utopia – exists or will ever exist.

The events that shape and drive history – e.g. the way societies form and are structured, the conflicts between competing societies (and within them), the art and the ideas they produce – have been propelled by beliefs of the mind, and that this is true across all human societies everywhere, and always. Countless people have lived their lives believing in and fighting for the fulfilment of an open-ended prophecy that promised a religious or political utopia.

For this reason, The Soul anchors the ‘self’ not in questions like ‘who am I’ and ‘why am I here’ (which are impossible to answer), but in belief: In what do I believe? Why do I believe it? From whom or what did I get those beliefs? If I’m sitting on the shoulders of giants, who are they? Who contains ‘me’? What am I prepared to do to defend or enforce my beliefs?

The Soul will show that our beliefs are the ‘first movers’ of historical events. Systems of belief have relentlessly shaped the human story. To understand how, we need to return to their origins, to the genesis of belief. We need to understand how those beliefs – religious, political and ideological – took hold of the human soul/mind and enchained, liberated, inspired and tyrannised our lives.

It matters little whether the gods or ideas or ideologies in which people believed, and still believe, were fact or fiction, truths or fantasies. What matters is that enough people believed in them. And the force of mass belief, exploited by charismatic leaders, fomented the greatest upheavals in human history: war, conquest, enslavement, revolution, liberation, conversion, sublimation, illumination. All were consequences of the power of belief.

Together we’ll see how the soul/mind has been interpreted through time – how it has been animated, reincarnated, immortalised, loved, chosen, harvested, conquered, saved, sublimed, inflamed, illuminated, unchained, exterminated, fragmented and hacked. We’ll visit the caverns of the unconscious and the airy heights of the superego. We’ll probe the ganglions of guilt and the fronds of co-dependent hatred.

For most of my life as a writer, I’ve written about conflict. I’ve studied the experiences of traumatised servicemen and women and their families. I’ve listened to civilian victims of atrocities and the survivors of holocausts. I’ve heard the whisper of the unknown soldier, the cry of the child in time, the scream of massacred innocents. And I’ve seen people at their most compassionate and self-sacrificial, ordinary men and women enacting the most beautiful expression of love ever written: ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ Those experiences have taught me something about human nature in extremis without which I could not have written this book.

Writing The Soul has changed my life; reading it may change yours.”

As we have been working through this book, I can say it is challenging, ambitious, and often quite entertaining.  Perhaps the key word is ambitious, as he attempts to provide a survey of the world’s intellectual and spiritual history.  It is unusual in that it addresses civilisations from the past, and also looks at major developments in thinking in the East as well as the West.  At the same time, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it isn’t a ‘neutral’ account.

As the latter part of the book reveals, Ham is basically a humanist, offering a materialistic vision of change and development. As he makes clear,  the critical questions he asks are concerned with seeking to understand why significant historical events took place, not just in terms of the immediate predisposing actions of the time, but rather how major historical shifts are the consequence of beliefs:  ‘Beliefs are the fuel of history. They lead to all the strange and perplexing happenings that keep historians in business.’  Ham also talks about beliefs as being more than mere fuel but as being  “the engine room” of history, making it clear that this is how he sees  ‘the soul’ or ‘the mind’.  Beliefs are the critical ideas about our nature that have emerged, developed and driven change over the centuries.

Inevitably, in trying to cover so much, Ham often leads us into contentious territory and sometimes you can’t help thinking he feels obliged to shape events to suit his view of the dynamics of change.  His perspective can also be frustrating.  His view that it is existing ideas being put into action that creates change is one that can often be supported, but I suspect there are just as many other cases where historical events has been the source of ideas rather than the other way around.  One reviewer offered a nice contrast between these perspectives:

“Consider that unpleasant Genoese, Christopher Columbus, whose ambitious and greedy character Ham gives a better press than some others. Columbus called the people on the far side of the Atlantic “Indians” because he thought he had arrived in Asia and no experience was going to change the idea that had set like stone in his head.  Conversely, however, the empirical experiences Charles Darwin had as a traveller caused him to think again, almost against his will, about the origin of species. It was, if anything, an inconvenience to him that his personal history brought him new ideas. Ham notes wryly that Darwin would have been mortified to see the way his ideas were exploited both by Marxists and Nazis. This did not make his ideas wrong”  (from ‘A deep dive into history to find its driving force’, Michael McGirr, Sydney Morning Herald, August 2, 2024)

McGirr’s response is intriguing.  I often read a book because I want to see how a specific perspective can illuminate an issue;  on the other hand I am very doubtful that we can ever achieve a full understanding of any phenomenon, (a concern that is even more relevant when we try to look backwards).  It is possibly more ‘realistic to see change and ideas as in a mutually intertwined relationship’.  However, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the writer who pushes one perspective harder than others and even asks for more.  Rather, McGirr suggests we should relish what we learn from seeing events from a less familiar perspective.

Sadly, we know accounts of history have many elements, and ideas are only one small part.  There are drivers that come from science and its application (and its mistaken application!).  There are those that come from politics, and the desire for power, balanced against the realities of economics, technology and more.  Part of the value of taking a philosophical perspective (which is what The Philosophers Cafe aspires to do) is that we can test the basis of a particular perspective, assess arguments and conclusions, attempt to seek for those key and critical factors that drive change but are hidden below the surface of everyday thinking.

In a discussion at U3A on The Soul, looking at the early pre-Christian chapters we considered the image of crossing a river using stepping stones, a process that has two obvious elements. The first of these is deciding which stone to stand on, especially as those near the bank can be just as unstable as those further into the water. However, there is another aspect to this, one to do with perspective: it is easy to fall into the water if you are looking ahead to the bank on the other side of the river while failing to concentrate on each immediate next step.

Reading The Soul is a bit like this.  It is easy to focus on issues in some important chapters without recognising the characteristics of the time in question. It is also tempting to formulate observations and concerns that are relevant to where the book ends (in the contemporary world) rather than at each stage in the timeline Ham follows. History does havemany drivers and included in the ideas that help us make sense of the past, some arise in response to questions raised by those living and breathing at the time.  If Ham wants us to accept The Soul “persuasively demonstrates that the beliefs of the soul/mind are the engines of human history”  he may be asking too much.  But he does make clear beliefs are clearly important.

DD60 – Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test

Sometimes I read something that comes to me from ‘out of left field’.  It’s an odd phrase, and, resorting to Wikipedia, I learnt the term was first used in the idiomatic sense of ‘from out of nowhere’ to refer to a song that unexpectedly performed well in the market.  Back in  1998, an American English professor reported that the phrase ‘out of left field’ was in use by 1953.  However, he added that it was clearly related to baseball, and according to the 2007 Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, the phrase refers to a play in which the ball is thrown from the area covered by a ‘left-fielder’ to either home plate or first base, surprising the runner.

Things come out of left field when we least expect them, and the challenge we face is that our expectations can widely differ from those of others.  I might consider a lightning or meteor strike as truly amazing, something so rare as to be almost impossible.  An astronomer or climatologists might have a very different appreciation of their likelihood, and some other people might regard such activities as only to be expected when we live in troubled times, especially if they are fond of finding evidence of extra-terrestrials intervening in our world.

Marlene Zuk came to me from out of left field.  She’s an American academic, a biologist and a behavioural ecologist. I wouldn’t have known about her if I hadn’t picked up a book in the Public Library, titled Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test.  Who wouldn’t be tempted by a book with a title like that!  Once I borrowed it, I discovered from the inside cover she has had a distinctive focus on the unusual.  Given her interest in insects from a young age, when she went to university, and after majoring in English, she decided to switch to Biology.  Now an academic, she is based at the University of Minnesota.

Her approach is refreshing.  She works in a lab focused on emerging questions in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology:

“We use invertebrate systems to study the evolution of mating behaviour and secondary sexual characters in natural populations.  I and others in my lab seek to understand how natural and sexual selection pressures shape the behaviour, life history, and morphology of animals.  Currently, we are studying the conflict between sexual and natural selection in Pacific field crickets, Teleogryllus oceanicus, which are subject to an acoustically-orienting parasitic fly.  The fly uses the male cricket’s calling song to find a host, which means that natural selection favours reducing the same signal that sexual selection is expected to enhance.

What can a cricket do?  In some of the populations of the crickets, 50-90% of the males now exhibit a wing mutation that renders them silent, protecting them from the fly but posing a problem in mate attraction.  The mutation spread in fewer than twenty generations, remarkably rapid evolution.  How do the crickets deal with the loss of their sexual signal, and how was the trait able to spread so quickly?  This work has also led to a more general interest in rates of evolution and the role of behaviour in the establishment of novel traits.”

Interesting?  She goes on to comment that “In addition, like others who study sexual behaviour in animals, I have noticed that people like to apply what we learn to their own behaviour.  I am often contacted by journalists and other people asking questions like, ‘Is monogamy natural?’ or ‘Does homosexuality exist in non-humans?’   Clearly, she enjoys both interacting with other scientists as well as with the public on a broad range of topics.  She has written several books for a general audience about animal behaviour and evolution.

That’s not all this busy academic does.  In addition, she spends time in promoting women in science, on which she has made some very pertinent comments. In 2018, Zuk published an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times titled, ‘There’s nothing inherent about the fact that men outnumber women in the sciences’.  The article countered recurring suggestions that women are underrepresented in scientific fields due to inherent preferences toward the humanities.  By highlighting the inextricable relationship between nature and nurture, she points out the impossibility of attributing female underrepresentation in science to any inborn cause. Citing studies based on essential scientific integrity, she argues that “until boys and girls are raised under identical circumstances one could not possibly prove any inherent female leanings towards or away from the sciences.”

Once I had read Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, I was hooked.  Helpfully, it has an overview which explains her interests in relation to five key ideas.  In these blogs I usually avoid quoting another writer at length, but I can’t put her arguments better than she does:

1. The nature-nurture controversy is a zombie idea.

“When people think about behaviour in either humans or animals, they often want to know if that behaviour is genetic or whether it’s learned. That’s especially true when headlines are full of declarations like “Our politics are in our DNA.”

“This is the old nature-nurture debate. Traits as complex as intelligence or aggression have to be affected by both genes and the environment. And yet, we keep resurrecting this notion of it being nature or nurture. The nature-nurture controversy has become a zombie idea that keeps springing back to life but deserves to die once and for all.  The problem is that if people genuinely believe that, for example, men will always grow up with dominating tendencies because it’s in their genes, then interventions to prevent aggression are worthless. In reality, it’s the interplay, the entanglement, between genes and environment that’s important.”  …

2. Having a small brain doesn’t mean you are dumb.

“Many people have tried connecting brain size and intelligence, with the assumption that a big brain is a prerequisite for complex or flexible behaviour. But few have drawn this comparison out to its logical conclusion: are there animals that are so tiny that they are almost too stupid to live or do complicated tasks?”

“To figure this out, a scientist named William Eberhard studied extremely small spiders (including one kind that weighs less than a milligram) or about as much as an inch of sewing thread. Yet the spiders still produce orb webs, the silky wheel that entraps their even tinier prey. Eberhard measured whether the difficult process of weaving and adjusting a web was more of a challenge to the minuscule spiders than to three other kinds of spiders that weighed anywhere from 10 – 10,000 times more. The small spiders are just as capable as larger ones.”

3. Dogs are not exceptional.

“Dr. Stephen Lea is a brave man. An emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Exeter in England, he published a paper with Britta Osthaus titled, “In what sense are dogs special?” The conclusion was that they aren’t.  The reception to their work was not appreciative. “Your Dog Is Probably Dumber Than You Think, a New Study Says,” smirked a typical headline from Time magazine. Lea tried to pacify the dog people in an interview by saying, “Dog cognition may not be exceptional, but dogs are certainly exceptional cognitive research subjects.” No one seemed placated.  “All nervous systems, and all brains, are success stories.”  The study didn’t show that dogs were stupid. It asked whether they were smarter than you would expect.”

“To answer this, Lea and Osthaus picked three groups for comparison. First, they looked at other species that are related to dogs evolutionarily—members of the group Carnivora, meaning meat-eaters, including African wild dogs and cats. Then, they considered dogs as social hunters, alongside dolphins and chimpanzees. Finally, they examined horses and domestic pigeons, both of which are domesticated like dogs and which share characteristics like being subject to training. The result was that dogs do well at discriminating complex visual patterns, like telling human faces apart, but so do chimps and pigeons. Dogs are good at smells, but they are bested by pigs, which can even distinguish between the odours of familiar and unfamiliar people. Dogs are not especially skilled at what Lea and Osthaus term “physical cognition”—recognizing the consequences of manipulating objects like strings attached to food. Despite the heartwarming nature of movies like Homeward Bound, dogs aren’t particularly good at navigating over long distances”. …

4. 4. Animals can treat their diseases.

“Early humans used medicine and treated injuries such as fractures, but where did their knowledge come from? Do animals help themselves feel better when they are sick?

Yes. Chimpanzees in Africa eat a variety of plants, but some individuals have been seen to select the young shoots of one particular plant, stripping the stems of their bark, and chewing the bitter pith and juice. These individuals often seemed sick with diarrhea, weight loss, and a lack of energy. Researchers found that the use of the plant was associated with a drop in intestinal parasites. Chimps will also swallow entire leaves from a different plant whole (without chewing) and here the leaves had tiny hairs that seem to scrape worms from the gut and allow them to be expelled.”

“This kind of behaviour doesn’t necessarily require a sophisticated level of cognition. Animals have many ways of changing their behaviour to deal with infection, and not all of the animals that do so are those we consider “smart,” as we do apes. For instance, goats supposedly eat anything, from tin cans to laundry off the line, but they are remarkably sensitive foragers. If infected with roundworms, they will eat more of a shrub containing a chemical that fights the worms.” …

5. Animals get mentally ill too.

“Darwin thought that insanity in animals demonstrated how all living things are related, so he thought they did get mentally ill. On the other hand, some scientists think that animals can serve as models for us to understand mental illness, but don’t get the disorders themselves. Yet others think animals are only mentally ill when they are mistreated by humans.”

“I agree with Darwin, and one of the best places to see the continuity of mental disorders in humans and animals is in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD. People have noticed for many years that some characteristics of OCD are also seen in animals, particularly dogs. The disorder means doing normal behaviours—hand-washing, turning in circles before lying down—too much. In dogs, we call it CCD, Canine Compulsive Disorder, because we can’t know what dogs are or aren’t obsessing over.”

“A scientist named Elinor Karlsson and her team have identified genes that affect a dog’s risk of showing the disorder. These genes govern the way nerve cells communicate. But knowing a dog’s genetic makeup won’t tell you definitively whether or not they will exhibit the disorder. Dogs, like humans, inherit one copy of any particular gene from their mother and one copy from their father, so both can be the same or they can have one normal and one abnormal gene. Of the dogs with two normal copies, 10% have CCD anyway; of the ones with one copy of each type, 25% have it; and of the dogs with two abnormal copies, 60% show CCD, but not all of them. Knowing the dog’s genetic profile doesn’t tell you for sure whether the dog has the disorder.  This shows us two things. First, entanglement of genes and the environment because the gene doesn’t cause the disorder unless the environment favours it. Second, mental disorders can illustrate the common evolutionary roots in our brains and bodies that give rise to amazingly different behaviours.”

OK!  Have I convinced you her books are worth reading?  Here are a couple of quotes that help me make a different point:  often her writing is funny as well as informative.  On her theme that most changes are not exclusively ‘nature versus nurture’, but usually some combination ,of both, she quotes Patrick Bateson ”whole organisms survive and reproduce differentially and the winners drag their phenotypes with them”.  Well, if that seems a bit esoteric, how about another observation:  “Has a gull ever snatched a French fry from you, or made a dive at your sandwich?  Would you have been more, or less, annoyed if you found out that the bird knew exactly when you would appear and was in effect lying in wait”. This was from an English study on Lesser Black-backed Gulls.  Oh, and the researcher noted those same gulls knew at what times there would be fresh dumped garbage at waste centres.”

She also has a mischievous side.  :”Sea slugs are the rather more glamorous cousins of the shell-less molluscs you find in your garden.  Often beautifully coloured, they move sinuously through the water in oceans around the world.  Two species, called sacoglkossan sea slugs, were recently found to have an extraordinary ability:  they can decapitate themselves , and then grow a completely new body, including the heart and digestive organs, from the head alone.  The detached body does not respond in kind, and instead moves around in presumed bewilderment for several days to months before it expires, a scene that should surely be incorporated into a horror film at the earliest opportunity”. Yup, good idea?!   Weird?  No weirder than Mel Pennant’s recent murder mystery, A Murder for Miss Hortense, about a “retired nurse, avid gardener, renowned cake maker and fearless sleuth’ who lives in a quiet Birmingham suburb, and whose black West Indian) dialect is challenging, so say the least.  Zuk is like Pennant:  the subject might be different but the writing is unusually compelling.

Is she coming out of left field?  Certainly Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test presents many observations that are quite different from what I might have expected.  I’m not a biologist or a behavioural ecologist.  However, even if her observations are not quite about what I might have predicted, they aren’t surprising.  The reason why Dancing Cockatoos is such a compelling book is because it is  reassuringly sensible.  By the time I reached the end, I found myself constantly saying “of course”.  If you want to be reassured how alike we are to many members of the animal world, even to gulls seen spying on apparently available French fries, Marlene Zuk is very convincing.

DD79 – The Honor Code

There are some words that give us pause for thought, because their meanings turn out to be tricky, rather than straightforward.  The Oxford English Dictionary makes this clear as it explores meanings of the word ‘honour’.  To begin with it considers honour as opposed to disgrace: “Great respect, esteem, or reverence received, gained, or enjoyed by a person or thing; glory, renown, fame; reputation, good name.”  To act with honour is to demonstrate “Great respect, esteem, or deferential admiration felt towards a person or thing”. Frequently, the dictionary advises us, this leads to being held in honour.

From this first definition, we find that honour is also used as describing a quality of character, one entitling a person to great respect; nobility of mind or spirit; honourableness, uprightness; a fine sense of, and strict adherence to, what is considered to be morally right or just.  To continue, it is a short step to emphasise it is a code, a statement, often expressed as a  promise made on one’s honour.  If the usage is archaic, there is the sense that when a person gave his or her word, they gave it ‘on their honour”.

In many ways this takes us to the idea of ‘precepts, rules to follow’, and these have a long and complicated history.  To cite one example there are The Ten Precepts of Taoism , to be found in the Dunhuang manuscripts, generally regarded as  the classical rules of medieval Taoism.  They are often as cited in two parts: one rule that is divided into Ten Precepts. That rule is ‘the way’ (Tao), and The Precepts are:

1. Do not kill but always be mindful of the host of living beings.
2. Do not be lascivious or think depraved thoughts.
3. Do not steal or receive unrighteous wealth.
4. Do not cheat or misrepresent good and evil.
5. Do not get intoxicated but always think of pure conduct.
6. I will maintain harmony with my ancestors and family and never disregard my kin.
7. When I see someone do a good deed, I will support him with joy and delight.
8. When I see someone unfortunate, I will support him with dignity to recover good fortune.
9. When someone comes to do me harm, I will not harbor thoughts of revenge.
10. As long as all beings have not attained the Dao, I will not expect to do so myself.

They can be compared the Seven Laws of Noah in Judaism,  the set of universal moral rules given by God as a covenant with Noah, and, by extension, to all of humanity.  Hence we have the  Seven Laws of Noah :

1. Not to worships idols
2. Not to curse God
3. Not to commit murder
4. Not to commit adultery or sexual immorality
5. Not to steal
6. Not to eat flesh torn from a living animal
7. To establish courts of justice

Are these similar to modern ethical codes, developed by organisation to assist members in understanding the difference between right and wrong?  In modern usage a code of ethics will start by setting out the values that underpin the code and will describe an organization’s obligation to its stakeholders. The code is publicly available and addressed to anyone with an interest in that organization’s activities and the way it operates. It will include details of how the organization plans to implement its values and vision, as well as guidance to staff on ethical standards and how to achieve them. However, a code of conduct is generally addressed to and intended for the organization’s leaders and staff, although it may make some reference to customers. It usually sets out restrictions on behaviour, and it is often far more focused on compliance or rules than on values or principles.

Similarly, in some cases an ‘honour code’ might be a code of practice is adopted by a profession (or by a governmental or non-governmental organization), which will discuss difficult issues and difficult decisions that will often need to be made.  Following this they will then provide a clear account of what behavior is considered ‘ethical’ or ‘correct’ or  even ‘right’ in the circumstances.  Ethical codes are often adopted by management and employers, not to promote a particular moral theory, but rather because they are seen as pragmatic necessities for running an organization in a complex society in which moral concepts play an important part.  They are distinct from moral codes that that may apply to the overall culture of society, to education, and to a religion.  Overall, a code of ethics can be seen as an attempt to codify “good and bad behavior”.

Within this thicket of ideas, a code of honor or honor code is often comprised as a set of rules or ideals or a mode or way of behaving regarding honour that is socially, institutionally, culturally, and/or individually or personally imposed, reinforced, followed, and/or respected by certain individuals and/or certain cultures or societies. Codes of honor frequently concern (often subjective) ethical or moral considerations or cultural or individual values commonly found in within the context of cultures, societies, or situations that place importance on honor.  In case it isn’t clear, an honour code is a very variable aspect of current society.

It is into this complex arena that understanding change is especially important.  How does moral progress happen? How are societies brought to repudiate immoral customs they have long accepted?  In The Honor Code, Kwame Anthony Appiah explores a long-neglected aspect of reform.  He suggests that moral revolutions happen because of many issues, but that there is one issue that is often overlooked.  In particular, he argues that examining moral revolutions in the past — and campaigns against abhorrent practices today — shows that appeals to reason, morality, or religion aren’t enough to bring about reform. Practices may only be eradicated only when they come into conflict with honor.

It might well be the case that Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah is particularly well qualified to write on this topic:  he is an English-American philosopher and writer who has written about political philosophy and ethics and the author of several books.  He is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University and has been a ‘Silver Professor’ there since 2025.  He was elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters January 2022.  He brings to bear an academic and a cultural lens to make sense of the place of honour in the way moral revolutions happen.

The Honor Code begins with Appiah’s portrayal of the often-deadly world of aristocratic Britain, where for centuries gentlemen challenged each other to duels.  Recounting one of the last significant duels in that world—between a British prime minister and an eccentric earl—Appiah shows a society at the precipice of abrupt change.  Turning in the next chapter to the other side of the world, Appiah investigates the end of foot binding in China. The practice had flourished for a thousand years, despite imperial attempts at prohibition, yet was extinguished in a generation.   Appiah turns his spotlight on this turbulent era and shows how change finally came not from imposing edicts from above, but from harnessing the ancient power of honor from within.

In even more intricate ways, in the next section Appiah demonstrates how ideas of honor helped drive one of history’s most significant moral revolutions—the fast-forming social consensus that led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British empire and recruited ordinary men and women to the cause.  Yet his interest isn’t just historical.  Appiah considers the horrifying persistence of ‘honor killing; in places like Pakistan, despite religious and moral condemnation, and the prospects for bringing it to an end by mobilizing a sense of collective honor—and of shame.

For an academic, he has something of a storyteller’s flair, combining this with philosophical rigour, and The Honor Code offers an accessible and rather different approach toward moral inquiry. Briefly ranging from a great mandarin’s abandonment of an ancient Chinese tradition to Frederick Douglass’s meetings with Abolitionist leaders in London, Appiah reveals some of the details as to how moral revolutions really succeed.

Honour or honor (in American English, which Appiah uses) is a quality of a person that is of both social and personal, relevance,  often described as a code of conduct, an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both outward considerations, especially social standing, yet with an internal, self-evaluation, aspect, whereby individuals (or institutions) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a moral code of the society or those that characterise specific institutions within a society.

It also refers to integrity, and he repeats Samuel Johnson who, in his 1755 Dictionary of the English Language, defined honour in relationship to ‘reputation’ and ‘fame’; to ‘privileges of rank or birth’, and even towards ‘respect’ of the kind which “places an individual socially and determines his right to precedence”. He also makes clear that this sort of honour is often not so much a function of moral or ethical excellence, as it is a consequence of power. Finally, with respect to sexuality, honour has traditionally been associated with (or identical to) chastity or virginity, or in the case of married men and women, even linked to ‘fidelity’.

Honour as a code of behaviour defines the duties of an individual within a social group. Margaret Visser observes that in an honour-based society “a person is what he or she is in the eyes of other people”.  A code of honour differs from a legal code, which is not only  socially defined but is concerned with justice and not set out in explicit rules.  Honour often remains somewhat opaque, implicit rather than explicit and objectified.

Various sociologists and anthropologists have contrasted cultures of honour with cultures of law. A culture of law has a body of laws which all members of society must obey, with punishments for transgressors. This requires a society with the structures required to enact and enforce laws. A culture of law requires members of society give up some aspects of their freedom to defend themselves and to retaliate for injuries, on the understanding that society will apprehend and punish transgressors.

However, in many societies an alternative to government enforcement of laws is community or individual enforcement of social norms.^. One way that honour functions is through reputation, and an honourable reputation is a very valuable way to promote trust among partners to some kind of transaction. To dishonour an agreement could be economically ruinous, because future potential transaction partners might stop trusting the party not to lie, steal their money or goods, not repay debts, mistreat the children they marry off, have children with other people, abandon their children, or fail to provide aid when needed. A dishonourable person might be shunned by the community as a way to punish bad behaviour and create an incentive for others to maintain their honour.

In the end, I begin to feel Appiah has done what we often do, which is to take a term and ‘stretch’ its meaning. Honor has been a very slippery notion, its use allowing an individual to include or exclude another on the grounds very specific attributes; honourable people often ending up ‘just like me’, not because they meet some externally validated standards. He makes me remember the challenge of claiming to do good.

In a sense, his examples do this.   As we reach the end of each of the sections, we have to face the complexity.  To end foot binding was the result of many factors. To see an end to duels was not particularly the result of honour as it was about self-interest and personal satisfaction.  To claim these as honourable actions is to ignore more pertinent issues:  in relation to foot binding the dominating concern was about the fear of being seen as backward as much as any other; in relation to duelling, it was often seen as action motivated by pride and an unwillingness to confront the nature of disagreement and avoid discussion.

Honor, Appiah makes clear, is often a mask to hide racist and sexist values, and the underlying principles are more to do with exploitation and shame. Appiah is most interesting when he moves to draw conclusions. He wants honour to be about respect, but honour codes are often used to perpetuate traditional distinctions, increasingly out of touch with our attempts to develop universal standards of equity and equality.  If an honourable person seeks respect, surely this is better addressed by seeking justice, an easier value to defend.  Appiah sees honour related to esteem and ethical behaviour, but it is more like a worrying synonym, uncomfortably associated with men seeking to mark or kill an opponent.

Despite these quibbles, in the end I gained a great deal from his analysis, and The Honor Code made me think without feeling obliged to accept his underlying thesis. Isn’t that what we want from an important thinker, to be kept alert and critical?  In doing that, he made me grateful and, I have to admit, left me with enough to think about that it’s a book I have returned to, and kept me asking is there more to a moral code than I have been able to understand?

I am clear that honour has played a role in the past, and perhaps still does today.  However, I suspect honour is one of those funny ‘portmanteau’ words that contains several aspects within the word itself.   As Appiah makes clear, it touches on ethics, morality, social differences, culture and convention.  His case studies are masterly exercises in teasing out the various factors at stake, factors that are sometimes only loosely linked to honour, but consideration of which illustrate that any effective and helpful exploration of honour inevitably forces us to examine a wide range of issues.

Antonio Damasio Tells Us Why Pain Is Necessary 

I’ve broken my usual rule, and copied this extract from an article with the same name from Nautilus, January 18, 2018.  It’s an interview by Kevin Berger edited to fit my usual blog length.  I find Anthony Damasio one of the most helpful thinkers to challenge the materialist view of human beings.

Source: https://nautil.us/antonio-damasio-tells-us-why-pain-is-necessary-236956/

Following Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio may be the neuroscientist whose popular books have done the most to inform readers about the biological machinery in our heads, how it generates thoughts and emotions, creates a self to cling to, and a sense of transcendence to escape by. But since he published Descartes’ Error in 1994, Damasio has been concerned that a central thesis in his books, that brains don’t define us, has been muted by research that states how much they do. To Damasio’s dismay, the view of the human brain as a computer, the command center of the body, has become lodged in popular culture.

In his new book, The Strange Order of Things, Damasio, a professor of neuroscience and the director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, mounts his boldest argument yet for the role of the brain. … “When I look back on Descartes’ Error, it was completely timid compared to what I’m saying now,” Damasio says. He knows his new book may rile believers in the brain as emperor of all. “I was entirely open with my ideas.  If people don’t like it, they don’t like it. They can criticize it, of course, which is fair, but I want to tell them, because it’s so interesting, this is why you have feelings.”

One thing I like about The Strange Order of Things is it counters the idea that we are just our brains.

Oh, that idea is absolutely wrong.

Not long ago I was watching a PBS series on the brain, in which host and neurologist David Eagleman, referring to our brain, declares, “What we feel, what matters to us, our beliefs and our hopes, everything we are happens in here.”

That’s not the whole story. Of course, we couldn’t have minds with all of their enormous complexity without nervous systems. That goes without saying. But minds are not the result of nervous systems alone. The statement you quote reminds me of Francis Crick, someone whom I admired immensely and was a great friend. Francis was quite opposed to my views on this issue. We would have huge discussions because he was the one who said that everything you are, your thoughts, your feelings, your mental this and that, are nothing but your neurons. This is a big mistake, in my view, because we are mentally and behaviorally far more than our neurons. We cannot have feelings arising from neurons alone. The nervous systems are in constant interaction and cooperation with the rest of the organism. The reason why nervous systems exist in the first place is to assist the rest of the organism. That fact is constantly missed.

The concept of “homeostasis” is critical in your new book. What is homeostasis?

It’s the fundamental property of life that governs everything that living cells do, whether they’re living cells alone, or living cells as part of a tissue or an organ, or a complex system such as ourselves. Most of the time, when people hear the word homeostasis, they think of balance, they think of equilibrium. That is incorrect because if we ever were in “equilibrium,” we would be dead. Thermodynamically, equilibrium means zero thermal differences and death. Equilibrium is the last thing that nature aims for.

What we must have is efficient functioning of a variety of components of an organism. We procure energy so that the organism can be perpetuated, but then we do something very important and almost always missed, which is hoard energy. We need to maintain positive energy balances, something that goes beyond what we need right now because that’s what ensures the future. What’s so beautiful about homeostasis is that it’s not just about sustaining life at the moment, but about having a sort of guarantee that it will continue into the future. Without those positive energy balances, we court death.

What’s a good example of homeostasis?

If you are at the edge of your energy reserves and you’re sick with the flu, you can easily tip over and die. That’s one of the reasons why there’s fat accumulation in our bodies. We need to maintain the possibility of meeting the extra needs that come from stress, in the broad sense of the term. I poetically describe this as a desire for permanence, but it’s not just poetic. I believe it’s reality.

You write homeostasis is maintained in complex creatures like us through a constant interplay of pleasure and pain. Are you giving a biological basis to Freud’s pleasure principle—life is governed by a drive for pleasure and avoidance of pain?

Yes, to a great extent. What’s so interesting is that for most of the existence of life on earth, all organisms have had this effective, automated machinery that operates for the purpose of maintenance and continuation of life. I like to call the organisms that only have that form of regulation, “living automata.” They can fight. They can cooperate. They can segregate. But there’s no evidence that they know that they’re doing so. There’s no evidence of anything we might call a mind. Obviously we have more than automatic regulation. We can control regulation in part, if we wish to. How did that come about?

Very late in the game of life there’s the appearance of nervous systems. Now you have the possibility of mapping the inside and outside world. When you map the inside world, guess what you get? You get feelings. Of necessity, the machinery of life is either in a state of reasonable efficiency or in a state of inefficiency, which is most often the case. Organisms with nervous systems can image these states. And when you start having imagery, you start having minds. Now you begin to have the possibility of responding in a way that you could call “knowledgeable.” That happens when organisms make images. A bad internal state would have been imaged as the first pains, the first malaises, the first sufferings. Now the organism has the possibility of knowingly avoiding whatever caused the pain or prefer a place or a thing or another animal that causes the opposite of that, which is well-being and pleasure.

Why would feelings have evolved?

Feelings triumphed in evolution because they were so helpful to the organisms that first had them. It’s important to understand that nervous systems serve the organism and not the other way around. We do not have brains controlling the entire operation. Brains adjust controls. They are the servants of a living organism. Brains triumphed because they provided something useful: coordination. Once organisms got to the point of being so complex that they had an endocrine system, immune system, circulation, and central metabolism, they needed a device to coordinate all that activity. They needed to have something that would simultaneously act on point A and point Z, across the entire organism, so that the parts would not be working at cross purposes. That’s what nervous systems first achieve: making things run smoothly.

Now, in the process of doing that, over millions of years, we have developed nervous systems that do plenty of other things that do not necessarily result in coordination of the organism’s interior, but happen to be very good at coordinating the internal world in relation to the outside world. This is what the higher reaches of our nervous system, namely the cerebral cortex, does. It gives us the possibilities of perceiving, of memorizing, of reasoning over the knowledge that we memorize, of manipulating all of that and even translating it into language. That is all very beautiful, and it is also homeostatic, in the sense that all of it is convenient to maintain life. It if were not, it would just have been discarded by evolution.

How does your thesis square with the hard problem of consciousness, how the physical tissue in our heads produces immaterial sensations?

Some philosophers of mind will say, “Well, we face this gigantic problem. How does consciousness emerge out of these nerve cells?” Well, it doesn’t. You’re not dealing with the brain alone. You have to think in terms of the whole organism. And you have to think in evolutionary terms.

The critical problem of consciousness is subjectivity. You need to have a “subject.” You can call it an I or a self. Not only are you aware right now that you are listening to my words, which are in the panorama of your consciousness, but you are aware of being alive, you realize that you’re there, you’re ticking. We are so distracted by what is going on around us that we forget sometimes that we are, A-R-E in capitals. But actually you are watching what you are, and so you need to have a mechanism in the brain that allows you to fabricate that part of the mind that is the watcher.

You do that with a number of devices that have to do, for example, with mapping the movements of your eyes, the position of your head, and the musculature of your body. This allows you to literally construct images of yourself making images. And you also have a layer of consciousness that is made by your perception of the outside world; and another layer that is made of appreciating the feelings that are being generated inside of you. Once you have this stack of processes, you have a fighting chance of creating consciousness.

Why do you object to comparing the brain to a computer?

In the early days of neuroscience, one of our mentors was Warren McCulloch. He was a gigantic figure of neuroscience, one of the originators of what is today computational neuroscience. When you go back to the ’40s and ’50s, you find this amazing discovery that neurons can be either active or inactive, in a way that can be described mathematically as zeroes and ones. Combine that with Alan Turing and you get this idea that the brain is like a computer and that it produces minds using that same simple method.

That has been a very useful idea. And true enough, it explains a good part of the complex operations, that our brains produce such as language. Those operations require a lot of precision and are being carried out by cerebral cortex, with enormous detail, and probably in a basic computational mode. All the great successes of artificial intelligence used this idea and have been concerned with high-level reasoning. That is why A.I. has been so successful with games such as chess or Go. They use large memories and powerful reasoning. …[It matches] very well with things that are high on the scale of the mental operations and behaviors, such as those we require for our conversation. But they don’t match well with the basic systems that organize life, that regulate, for example, the degree of mental energy and excitation or with how you emote and feel. The reason is that the operations of the nervous system responsible for such regulation relies less on synaptic signaling, the one that can be described in terms of zeroes and ones, and far more on non-synaptic messaging, which lends itself less to a rigid all or none operation.

Perhaps more importantly, computers are machines invented by us, made of durable materials. None of those materials has the vulnerability of the cells in our body, all of which are at risk of defective homeostasis, disease, and death. In fact, computers lack most of the characteristics that are key to a living system. A living system is maintained in operation, against all odds, thanks to a complicated mechanism that can fall apart as a result of minimal amounts of malfunction. We are extremely vulnerable creatures. People often forget that. Which is one of the reasons why our culture, or Western cultures in general, are a bit too calm and complacent about the threats to our lives. I think we are becoming less sensitive to the idea that life is what dictates what we should do or not do with ourselves and with others.

… The importance of feeling is that it makes you critically aware of what you are doing in moral terms. It forces you to look back and realize that what people were doing historically, at the outset, at the moment of invention of a cultural instrument or a cultural practice, was an attempt to reduce the amount of suffering and to maximize the amount of wellbeing not only for the inventor, but for the community around them. One person alone can invent a painting or a musical composition, but it is not meant for that person alone. And you do not invent a moral system or a government system alone or for yourself alone. It requires a society, a community.

You write, “The increasing knowledge of biology from molecules to systems reinforces the humanist project.” How so?

This knowledge gives us a broader picture of who we are and where we are in the history of life on earth. We had modest beginnings, and we have incorporated an incredible amount of living wisdom that comes from as far down as bacteria. There are characteristics of our personal and cultural behavior that can be found in single-cell organisms or in social insects. They clearly do not have the kind of highly developed brains that we have. In some cases, they don’t have any brain at all. But by analyzing this strange order of developments we are confronted with the spectacle of life processes that are complex and rich in spite of their apparent modesty, so complex and rich that they can deliver the high level of behaviors that we normally, quite pretentiously, attribute only to our great human smarts. We should be far more humble. That’s one of my main messages. In general, connecting cultures to the life process makes apparent a link that we have ignored for far too long.