Patriotism

I like Jensen. I had never thought of patriotism this way. What does separate "American" ideals from human ideals? I understand why many of his words are not very popular, they make sense. People don't want to think about the fact that they are in favor of Americans more than humans all over the world. In reality, internationalism should be the only moral view. Patriotism and nationalism are fine and dandy, but when it comes to morals and the treatment of people, it makes sense that there should be one universal idea. What I find most interesting about this issue is the fact that there is an issue. It seems that one would have to be pretty ignorant and close minded to refute the idea of internationalism. If one is really arrogant enough to value one over another, there is an issue. Where this issue does get tricky is during war times when people are fighting to take the lives of others. I could be being a hypocrite right now, but if two people are fighting in a war setting, then I would, as an American, hold more value on the American's life. This is only so because of the war setting. If it were a situation with two civilians I would hold an equal value of the two lives.

I'm Conflicted

On one hand, I believe that we currently don't have the technology to make Freud's theory testable and therefore scientific. On the other hand, I don't agree with Hobson's counter-theory. For me, the coincidence is far too unlikely that dreams are unpredictable and random. Hobson himself states that in the lowest point of non-REM sleep our brain is 80% active. So if only 20% of our brain is not working, it seems to me that our dreams probably come from the 80% of the brain that is working. And if our brain is working, wouldn't it make sense that it is active in a cogent way? I don't think that 80% of our brain is thinking random, unpredictable thoughts that are completely irrelevant to our lives.
Now, I do agree with Hobson's idea that our brain tries to put together the best story it can around the ideas of our dreams, but again, I do not believe that it is all random. It cannot be that these random thoughts just happened to turn into a lake full of snakes in my dream a couple weeks ago. I really struggle to think that my fear of snakes had nothing to do with the fact that they were circling me. So while I am not completely satisfied with Freud's theory, I am not completely sympathetic to Hobson's alternative theory. If, as Soames states, Freud's theory can be updated, modified, and improved upon, I could easily be talked into being a believer.

Testing

Back to the idea that Freud's theory might not even be scientific at all, let's think about it a little more. As Hobson notes, psychoanalytic institutes have been around for 105 years and have not tested this theory at all. All of a sudden our in class ideas of keeping a notebook next to your bed aren't sounding so great. Are we really the only ones to have this idea in the last century and then some? I doubt it. I might not know enough about the theory or about how to test it, but I do not think it is as easy to test this theory as we thought in class. If a person is involved in a study, they are going to be looking for things in their dreams, they are going to try harder. As a result of this, they are going to remember what they want, no matter how objective they try to be. For whatever reason we want to believe in neurobiology, we forgot much of our dreams and we do so frequently. Therefore it won't be so easy to remember them and if we try to put the pieces together to make a complete story, I am sure that there will be personal add-ins that were not in the dream. Because we are looking for testable material, we are going to produce it whether or not it is original and authentic data from our memory. I think it is simply too hard to do. For this reason, at this point in time I do believe that we cannot see Freud's theory as legitimately scientific. If there is some kind of technology that evolves that allows us to view or remember dreams, it is possible that we can test this theory, but until something reliable and consistent emerges I do not think that we can call Freud's theory scientific.

Infantile Wishes

So I hope I wasn't the only one that completely forgot about blogging after vacation. One point that kept coming up this week was the idea that dreams are brought about by infantile wishes. Much of our debating came about because of different views of what the word infantile meant. The idea that we have such complex dreams about what would be such basic desires was puzzling and the fact that we could even have these thoughts or desires as an infant was intriguing as well. I believe that the author simply had a poor choice of words when he used infantile. I think that libidinous or even instinctual would have worked better. Infantile got too stuck on the fact that as babies we cannot have these big complex thoughts, but when it comes to the libido and our instincts, we do not need to have these intricate thoughts, our desires are our desires. These desires are controlled in every day thought by our superego, but the unconscious mind brings forth these urges in our sleep, causing libidinous, not infantile, wishes.

Oedipus Complex

On page 332 of Kheel's essay, she explains that growing boys "must not only disengage from the mother figure, but they must deny all that is female within themselves as well as their ties to the female world". I would counter the idea that this is caused by patriarchy with Freud's Oedipus Complex. As many are aware, the Oedipus Complex explains that young boys have a sexual desire for their mother. However, if the boy continues these desires, a fear develops of the father who has the ability to castrate him and remove his sexuality forever. In my eyes it seems important that this separation is made between a young boy and his mother. Despite what society will do to the boy in the future, removing his sexuality would also remove his identity as a man, and eventually lead to a unisex race. How would that work out? Possibly slippery slope, but that's the only connection I can make right now. If people's identities should be chosen by themselves and not be shaped by the norms of society, specifically those of patriarchal domination that Kheel points out, would it not be important for the young boy to develop an identity of himself as a man. What good would it do for him to grow up and be confused as to why other people are definitely identified as man or woman but he is not? It seems impractical for him to keep his connections to the female world if he is to develop as an individual.

Sacrifice

On pages 331-332 Kheel says that, in the eyes of those who sacrifice, "Birth from a woman condemns one to death, but "rebirth" through sacrifice integrates men into a transcendent order that transcends mortality and death". I'm not sure how I feel about this statement. I think it is safe to say that sacrifice can be classified as an ancient activity, and in the extent of my research, was done to please the gods. Now I admit that I am not an expert on the practices and reasons of sacrifice, but this is what I have learned. Based on this I do not agree with Kheel's statement. The only transcendental quality of sacrifice, that I observe, is an attempt to communicate with beings far greater than mere, mortal humans. If women's connection to nature is to be maintained, and these sacrifices were generally a plea for help or mercy from the gods that control nature......then I guess I just proved against my own point. If the plea is for control of nature and we maintain women's relation to nature, then sacrifices are a manner of further suppressing nature and hence suppressing women. Although I just came to this self-defeating conclusion, I still do not agree with Kheel's statement that "Birth from a woman condemns one to death". Yes, obviously we die and we come from women, but if this is such an obstacle, why would men keep women around forever? Why keep around a source of birth that condemns all to death? Naturally because men have no other way of reproducing, but if they held that much faith in the gods to transcend death, would they not also have faith in the gods' ability to give birth free of condemnation?

Paul Shepard

On page 331 of Kheel's essay she quotes Paul Shepard as saying that "whereas the ecstatic consummation of love is killing, the formal consummation is eating". What? I wasn't too clear on the meaning of consummation so I looked it up and found at that it means a kind of fulfillment, or when something becomes complete or finalized. This further added to my confusion. The ecstatic fulfillment of love is killing and the formal fulfillment is eating? I'm not too sure what kind of love this guy is talking about. I thought maybe I missed a secondary meaning of the word 'erotic' but I can't seem to find something different than sexually arousing. So if we substitute these words we have "the sexually arousing fulfillment of love is killing and the formal fulfillment is eating". I understand that this essay is addressing the dominance of men in cultural relationships, but since when does this domination of women lead to their killing? Yes the domination of non-human animals leads to killing, but the domination of women does not.

Toppling Patriarchy with a Fork

To respond to the Q&A question, I do not think that vegetarianism can be a strong challenge to patriarchy. I think that the ideas behind Kheel's essay are not well known enough to cause a problem with the patriarchal society that we have today, and I think that they will struggle to gain popularity if they become more well known. As Kheel notes, meat is a central part of many western diets and it will take more than an emotionally charged essay to change that. Yes, her points make sense and opened at least my eyes, but I also left the library, went to dinner, and got a turkey and salami sandwich. While I do think that the ideas of male dominance in society are important to research, I do not see a quick solution to the problem. A change from patriarchy is a change from the society that has existed for thousands of years. This research may be the first step to positive changes for society, but it will take much more to actually implement these changes.

New Ideas

What allowance does supernaturalism have for new ideas? It seems irrational to never take into account new discoveries when one’s “revealed, intuited, empirically unresponsive worldview is necessarily true, [that] any contradictions of it must be discounted as illusory and wrong-headed” (5).

First off, I want to take into question the quote from page five. We must keep in mind that this quote comes from a naturalist describing supernaturalist ideas and not in the most charitable way. However, I am skeptical about new ideas and supernaturalism as well. I simply cannot accept the excuse that God acts in mysterious ways that we cannot understand  for an event that contradicts common beliefs. Although we may not have the knowledge or technology to explain everything that occurs, I personally do not believe in inexplicable events. However, I do not believe that religions overly reject science these days, especially in comparison with the past. The church's role in the middle ages through the crusades and other acts was despicable. The whole institution was based on keeping people in ignorance and practically stealing their money away from them. Although this has significantly changed, I am still wary of the history behind certain religions that rejected science for so long.

Question #1

1.      What determines whether we are naturalist or supernaturalist? Is it the way we are brought up? What creates the difference between an appeal to science as “necessarily curious creatures” (2) and an appeal to faith because “afraid of death and wanting our suffering on earth to be redeemed, we gravitate toward the possibility of having souls and gods that transcend mere matter” (2)?

In response to this question that I asked this week, I believe that naturalist or supernaturalist views are determined by our upbringing. I believe that at a young age when we begin to understand the world a bit more we adopt the ideas of our families. If a family goes to church every Sunday and says their prayers every night and really impresses religious beliefs on a child, they will probably develop into a supernaturalist. However, as we grow up into ages similar to ours now, I think these beliefs come under question. As we start to form our own, more informed views of the world, and develop stronger opinions on matters, we have the ability to change our thoughts. Sometimes this change can simply be a result of a change in habit. Since we live at college now, how likely are we to maintain a weekly visit to church? This alone can let religious views fall away if only because there is no longer a parental pressure to go to church every week. So, while our views are developed through how we are raised, they come under much scrutiny especially at this age and then forever more as our world views change.

Clean Up of Last Post

My last blog post was about a "supposed bias" that I found that actually ended up just being my ignorance of the author. Thomas Clark is indeed a naturalist which explains the attitude throughout the article. As for the contradiction I posted about, we spoke fairly extensively on it in class and I believe that I have found the distinction between his two statements. His statement,  "[w]e can reassure the forces of faith non-empiricism that naturalism as a worldview isn't assumed in public policy or discourse" (7) seemed to contradict his previous statement that "whatever our worldview, we have to act as this-world empiricists when arguing for policy" (3). However, the view of this-world empiricists does not carry into further beliefs, only those of the physical world. Therefore, it has no implications on the beliefs of supernaturalists about the afterlife, the birth of the universe, or any other matter outside of the physical here and now. I like this more because it does not seem so biased against supernaturalists and establishes a necessary constant for public policy. It would be impossible to create effective public policies based on different world views and beliefs. The position of this-world empiricism solves that predicament nicely.