Bad Faith

I really liked reading about Sartre's idea of bad faith. He states that "bad faith is an attempt to escape anguish by trying to represent one's attitude and actions as determined by one's situation, or . . . anything other than one's own choices" (190). I think that this is a great counter argument to all of the discussions we had about determinism versus free will. No matter whether or not our actions are predetermined by some greater force or not, we all make choices. These choices reflect our thoughts and cannot be pawned off on something other than ourselves. I think that people who have bad faith, in this sense, are those who cannot handle the radical responsibility that comes with radical freedom. They are not ready to handle the consequences of their actions when there is no longer a mediator watching everything that they do. If people can get over, or avoid totally bad faith, then I believe that they are capable of living a radically free life, but not until then.

Consciousness and Objects

Another of Sartre's ideas is that of conscious beings versus unconscious beings. He says that a human is a "being-for-itself" while an inanimate object is a "being-in-itself"(185). The distinction for this comes to subjectivity, or the awareness of being something other than an object. This is what happens in early human development. A baby is not sure of its identity for a while until it determines what it is not, and then it begins to understand that it is something, it is somebody and that there is a world outside of it. On the other hand, a sapling does not go through this process on the way to becoming a full grown oak tree. Trees, or any other unconscious object in the world have no ability to differentiate themselves from other objects and are thus in a different state of consciousness.
Sartre then goes on in the discussion to say that we want to become God because we want to be a being that is "in-itself-for-itself" (Sartre qtd. in 186). I disagree that this God is "perfectly complete and self-justifying" (186). In order to be God, one would be completely aware of everything in creation. This requires the asset I just mentioned in being able to distinguish oneself from another being. In doing this, God becomes simply a being-for-itself, not a being in-itself-for-itself.

Late Sartre and Existentialism

The chapter on Sartre's work starts off with a brief overview of the ideas of existentialism. It touches on the ideas that existentialism focuses on the individual and their experiences, if there is a point to life, and exercising one's freedom and encouraging others to do so. This made me think back to Sartre's later works in which he talks about helping others. He says that we must first “use our freedom to change ourselves for the better; and second, to do what we can to work toward a worldwide society in which all people have equal opportunity to exercise their freedom” (199). So while the first priority is still on the individual, Sartre turns to an idea of a more universal well being. Is this idea of helping others straying from the idea of existentialism? I honestly am not incredibly well versed in existentialism, but it seems that if the main focus is on the self and the debate over a meaning of life, helping others would not be high up in the priorities of an existentialist, but maybe I am seeing existentialists as more selfish than they are.

Radical Freedom

As I wrote my Q&A I thought about whether or not people really do want radical freedom? Obviously everyone would say that they do, because what is better than freedom right? It's what America stands for! (little bit of sarcasm for the conversation a few weeks ago...) But can people handle the responsibility that comes with this freedom? I think that laws are around to help us make the hard decisions in life. If there was pure anarchy and we all had radical freedom, why wouldn't we steal if we were hungry? We need to satisfy those basic human needs that Sartre admitted to in his later work, so what is to say that we wouldn't steal food for ourselves? The idea that stealing is illegal restricts our radical freedom in a way that allows us to avoid difficult situations. Without the law we would simply have a moral struggle with ourselves to decide whether or not to steal the food, but with that freedom slightly restrained, the decision is easy. So I still can't decide if people would want to live a truly radically free life, I think that many would find it far too demanding on their morals and would crawl back to the easy life of laws and regulations.

Sartre

I have never thought of the idea of anguish at all other than fear. However, I really like the way Sartre sees anguish, as "the reflective apprehension of freedom by itself" (Sartre qtd. in 189). Freedom, at its purest form, is pretty scary. We already have to deal with this as college students. We have new found freedom with where we go, when we go, what we do, when we do it; almost everything is completely up to us. I would say anguish is what happens when we wake up in the morning and contemplate not going to class. It would be so easy and so nice to crawl back under the covers, yet most of us (well some of us at least haha) make the decision to get up and get dressed and go to class. This is why we grow so much as people through college, we learn to deal with this anguish, this fear of having to make a decision, and we get conditioned to (hopefully) make the right decision. Now that I think of it, athletics seems to be a great example of anguish. It doesn't even have to be out on the court or the field, it can happen in the gym. We have the freedom to do what we want yet we decide to stay on the treadmill for another mile, we decide to squat another set, we decide to hold planks as long as we can. This may not be the best example, but I thought that it could fit in sorta kinda maybe.

Revolt Now or Later?

One of the main ideas of Marx is the fact that the capitalist system needs to be overthrown. The question then is, when? Obviously a huge revolution of a whole system is not an easy task, so many have tried to reform it and make it a little bit easier for the people. Is this a good thing? Marx's followers were split on the idea. On one hand there were people that did not want reform because they thought that reformations would distract the oppressed. Rather than thinking about, and struggling for their rights, they would be worrying about the levels of oppression they experienced. These thinkers wanted workers to be  held at the worst conditions without reform to force an overthrow of the system. On the other hand, those in favor of reforms thought that reforms were like windows to a better world; you're not there yet, but you can see it and now you want it. These people thought that the glimpses of a better world that are brought about by reforms would cause a chain reaction in the pursuit of better and better lives, culminating in the overthrow of the capitalist system. The editors then go on to note that the capitalist system in Marx's time is so changed by the reforms that have occurred that many communist ideas are actually embedded in it. So my question is; what do we have left to do? If all of these reforms have made today's capitalism merely a shadow of what it used to be, is it really that bad? To what further extent do we need to act towards communism to defeat capitalism?

Modern Economics

On page 172, the editors talk about how Marx's theories seem to have come out so wrong for the western world after being so accurate for China and Russia. China and Russia, notice, had communism rise up early in the 20th century, while it is still delayed in the west. What is the reason for this? Technology. We have been living in the information era. We are no longer a society that depends on the physical production of goods because we need many more services provided. We need someone to do our taxes and to cut our hair and take care of our pets. This is the reason that China is flourishing so much under communism these days. Since "there are now large numbers of white-collar workers such as office staff, government employees, medical staff, teachers, and lawyers" (171) here in America, all of our labor demands go to China. China is then the perfect habitat for production, because of communism, and they do what used to be slave work, for an incredibly low price. When the editor says that "Marx should have paid more attention to slavery" (172), I think he should have said that  Marx should have paid attention to the labor that slaves provide, not the slaves themselves. Through technology, we now have more needs than simply those of manufactured goods and harvested agriculture. Although those maintain their status as important goods, we are able to have them produced in China at a low cost. Until this changes, I don't see communism making its way to the United States because the labor market here with all the office workers and so on cannot be regulated in a way that physical, manufacturing labor can be.

Marx the Scientist

The reading this week talks about Marx's quest for a scientific way to understand history and people in order to determine where things will go in the future. I think we can all agree that that is not only a little over ambitious, but impossible. I say that it is impossible because of the same issue we came upon with Freud's dream theory. The problem with Freud's theory was that it was not falsifiable, we could not find a counter-example because none existed; all of Freud's examples were dream's of his own. I think that this is a similar situation. As the editors put it in the book, "We know of no similar histories elsewhere in the universe - nor can we do experimental reruns of historical events!" (170). This shows the fallibility issue. There is nothing that can be tested or compared. History happened, and while one could analyze it and attempt to find patterns in it, there is no way to test it. Theories of human nature may be a little easier to test  and monitor, but when applying such ideas to 'history' in general, encompassing all the countries of the world, it is not possible to determine causes and effects for everything that happens. I think Marx was smart to say "that the economic basis has a very significant influence on everything else" (170), but is not a total determinant for what happens everywhere in the world.

Where You at God?

One of my questions on my Q&A that I passed in today in class was about God these days. The Bible is a good collection of stories, literal or metaphorical, but why has there been no follow up in the last 2,000 years? Where has God been? I'm sure He isn't up there saying that He did a good job and everything has worked out just the way he wanted... So when are we going to hear from him? When is the Bible's sequel going to come out? I'm not as interested in it as the second Hunger Games movie...but it would still be pretty interesting. In all seriousness, the world is not a place of prosperity and loving kindness, and if that is what God wants us to be all about, why did he intervene in the world for a short time span back then and then never since? I think we could use a little guidance, a word of advice, or even a threat to flood the whole planet unless we get our acts together.
On the other hand, what is keeping us from saying that this is proof that God doesn't exist? For all we know, we are victims of the biggest hoax in the history of the world, at the hands of a few tricky scribes of the ancient past. People say it all the time, what kind of god would let things happen to people? What "mysterious way" is God acting in that allows for the Holocaust, genocides in Africa, and worldwide terror attacks? If He exists, I think it might be time for God to show us that he's still around.

Why God Created Evil

In class the other day we were talking about why God even created evil. If he is so powerful, why would he create evil when he could just create a nice, perfect little world? I think that He created evil to empower us. This ability to be good or evil gives us a power to choose our own lives. By doing this instead of determining that we will all be good, God gives us a sort of trust. Then, I believe, God hopes that the desire to be evil will eventually fade away in people and they will realize that they still have the ability to convert back to good. This fits in perfectly with the ideas of salvation and forgiveness. If God determined us to always be good, I don't think that people would be happy with the idea that they don't have a choice to live their life. But how would that work anyways? If we were created to always be good then would it be possible for us to resent it? It seems like it would work out, for God at least, if he determined our lives to be good. So did he mess up? Or did he just think it would be more fair for us if he gave us the option to decide how we want to act? It just seems like a whole lot of questions can be asked of God, and frankly, the whole "God works in mysterious ways" excuse isn't cutting it.

Blame the Bible, not Kanye

While I was just doing some catching up on the reading I noticed the conversation about equality of the sexes. First off, I find the inconsistencies in the Bible really interesting. This evidence of multiple contributors is pretty obvious since it is unlikely one person wrote the entire bible, but it is interesting to see these different views come together. One example of these differences is the relationship between males and females. In Genesis, the first mention of the creation of humans has a man and a woman being created simultaneously, while, later in the chapter, the man is created first, and the woman is created from his rib. Already we can see where this is going; one view seems all for equality while the other view hints at women's dependency on men. This view also shows that Eve was the first to give into sin and then coax Adam onto the dark side (Genesis 3:6). This decline in humanity turns into ammunition for future sexism by attaching sexuality and sin to women.
So to bring this back to my title, I'm going to say that although I don't agree with the way women are portrayed in music these days, the attitude did not start with Kanye West and Jay-Z, but with some  Hebrew guys writing the Bible back in the day. Apparently we don't progress as quickly as we should if we haven't gotten away from sexism after however many thousands of years.

Take a Hike

Jensen mentions in his article that he is often told that if he doesn't like America he can leave. He responds to this with the idea that he is exercising his right to become part "of a struggle to make real a better world" (6). While I understand where he is coming from, I can't help but feel a little resent towards this response. Why should he struggle to make the world better through writing articles? Why shouldn't he leave? I do realize that these are somewhat ridiculous questions to ask, but I want to entertain the thought for a few minutes. One of the main arguments against patriotism in this article is the fact that freedom, democracy, etc. are not American ideas. It is also mentioned that some other countries do a better job exercising certain of these characteristics. So, Robert Jensen, go there. Go live where you can be happy and have a great democratic government with plenty of personal freedoms. Some people might see this as giving up on America, or giving in too easily but is it really? Why do we pick majors in college? We like subjects, but we are also usually better at these subjects. Why am I not a science major? I detest the subject and I have been utterly unsuccessful in it over the last 6 years. So I gave it up and I'm now a Sports Management major, something I like and I think I might be pretty good at. Is it really that terrible for me to give up science? I don't think so. Is it really that bad for a citizen to get fed up with their country and leave? I don't think so. It doesn't seem like such a terrible idea, so why not give it a shot Jensen?

Patriotism and Politics

As we were discussing how to more properly define patriotism, I began to wonder about politics. All week we talked about how Senators and presidential candidates always say that the U.S. is the best country in the world, and how that is patriotic in a self-centered way, but not in the internationalist sense of fighting for freedom and the rights to voice opinions and defend the greater interests of people. So what would you have Barack Obama say? "Reelect me so that we can maintain our status as the nation that has good intentions but is no better than the other countries of the world" That will get politicians real far in the polls. Now, all sarcasm aside, is there an actual solution to this? I think that the problem is not in the politicians, but in the citizens, for the reason I just stated; politicians won't get anywhere in polls if they speak in an internationalist sense. Is it possible to broadcast this message farther than MCLA's philosophy department so that our fellow citizens can become enlightened? I'm not so sure it is, and for this reason I also do not believe that any political candidate will refrain from the phrase "America is the greatest country in the world".

Acceptable vs. Radical

One of the points that I really liked this week was the distinction between emotional attachment to a country and comparing the value of lives throughout different countries. I think that we all agreed that emotional attachment is acceptable, healthy, and expected for citizens of a country. This attachment comes about for many different reasons, mainly the fact that most of us were born and raised here and have physical and emotional connections to the people and places inside the borders of our country. There is nothing wrong with this behavior until we start valuing these connections that we have more than the connections that other country's citizens have. It would be incredibly ignorant of us to think that we are the only people capable of having attachments to our country, which is why it is no more acceptable to kill an Afghan than to kill an American. I think that the sports analogy we made in class did a great job of clarifying this point. Being a fan of a sports team is great. It gives you something to do on the weekends and gives you bragging rights when you get to class, but things get out of control once violence gets involved. The Vancouver Canucks hockey fans in Canada last year were clearly out of line in trashing their city as a result of losing the Stanley Cup Finals to the Bruins, just as any person would be just as wrong to kill an Afghan as to kill an American.