Vade Mecum

\vay-dee-MEE-kuhm; vah-dee-MAY-\, noun:

1. A book for ready reference; a manual; a handbook.

2. A useful thing that one regularly carries about.

~~~~~~~

If you’re so unhappy with America, then you can just leave. Continual dissatisfaction with the government is rewarded with sentiments akin to “You’re being un-American” with the implication being that to voice (perhaps persistently) an opinion not reflected in the government is to defy American values.

How could anything be further from the truth? The American system itself is set up to promote unfiltered diversity of voice, and to use that voice is fulfilling an American promise. No one will go unheard. Offering an opinion and demanding change is not only not un-American, but necessary for the American system to function.

Perhaps most would prefer democracy when it works for them—it would not be a foreign premise, I think. It is certainly an appealing one, if you’re the one in power. But if real democracy was taken away (more than it has been), most people would scream in unison that they require an arena for their opinion in order for government to be successful. We cannot ask that opinions flee the arena due to their confliction with our own, nor can we ask those dissatisfied with the government to depart.

Like with science (as those writing the Constitution noticed), unpopular opinions must be voiced in order for balance and order to be maintained; in order for government to be successful and representative of the masses. Revolution is stemmed specifically by demanding it as a given right, should the people become dissatisfied with their government. Free speech reign because it, above all else, keeps us free.

I try to keep in mind, when encountering differing opinions from my own, that it is always preferable to listen—I may either strengthen my own opinion, find that the other has good points to make, or find someplace in between the auxiliary opinion and my own. Information is not, and should not be perceived as, frightening. Listening only to our own definitions defies American logic. This is, of course, an America long matured (or long after, at least) the original Constitution, but if it had to be built from the ground up again, and had to be effective, I do not think it would be written very differently.

I posit that there is no system of thought that works better without diversity than with it. Unpopular opinion has the ability to be beneficial, and even if it’s not beneficial, without the ability to voice it there is little chance the beneficial opinion could be discovered. We do not have the foresight (or the right) to know which opinions deserve the public stage and which should just get out of the country. We do not have the knowledge to justifiably and epistemologically assume that our opinions are the only ones worth hearing. I’d rather welcome diversity (of all types) into the fray. To me there is nothing more American.

Stentorian

\sten-TOR-ee-uhn\, adjective:

Extremely loud.

~~~~~~~

There exists an intrinsic flaw in much of journalism. Journalism is one of those fields (akin to history and science) where the best of it is created from objectivity. Especially like history, where an accurate retelling of the past is essential to its integrity, and depends upon the objectivity of its presenter, journalism is tasked with retelling on a more ephemeral basis. Due to the nature of the material (being in the present) and its affect on culture and the future, journalism has weight attached to its ability to alter the mood, decisions and wisdom of society. It is often vaguely demanded of journalism to be objective. But how is it possible?

Reporting is done in three basic forms: Television, Newspapers and the Internet. The first two are necessarily owned by someone or something. A newspaper might be owned by a sole person who holds him or herself to high standards of objectivity, or the newspaper might be owned by a large corporation which, as it grew, became less concerned with objectivity and more concerned with a mixture of in-house interest and public predilection. It is not a leap to assume the former is most likely the only one to reach a large and nationally impacting audience.

The power of media and journalism is defined by how large its audience can be. When newspapers were idiosyncratic and local, their potential for objectivity was greater, but their power of audience was much smaller. Therefore, a large problem with journalism in television and newspapers is that its persuasive power is far more often than not (if not, entirely) made possible through large and financially motivated cooperations, whose prerogative is not objectivity. The more blanketed a television broadcast or a newspaper syndication becomes, the more necessary it is for that proliferation to occur under a cooperation with higher interests.

Thus exists the intrinsic flaw involved in 'mass' media. It is far more difficult these days to attempt objective reporting when speaking out in a local neighborhood without some overarching conglomerate sensitive to and censoring certain matters is unlikely. Objectivity in journalism, like its application in history, philosophy and science, thrives on a lack of authority and censorship. So where could objective journalism, on a mass scale, survive?

While it remains an enterprise undermining all of the aforementioned forms of media, the Internet will be the ultimate expression of democracy. Its audience is unlimited--only publicity that is in short reserve, as an online newspaper that holds objectivity in high regard might be worthy of perusal, but virtually unknown. It is in this playground that, should the foothold of major cooperations be unable to wrap their fingers around, classical objective journalism could rise again. It has certainly already begun again, with the proliferation of blogs, which, while they may not always or even often be objective, provide a breadth of opinion far more representative of the American mood than that on the television stations or in the newspaper columns owned by conglomerates. The Internet is the ultimate tool of democracy--an, as far as I can tell so far, effective mode of uncensored interpersonal communication completely embodying the standards of free speech that allow objectivity to be found among seas of bias.

Now, what I may be naive to in this discussion is how television and newspaper reporting differs in other countries (as my knowledge extends little beyond America). I do not envision it being very much different, whether through such media requiring wealthy conglomerations to spread or through governmental control, but it is certainly possible that countries outside of America might have certain widely read newspapers or widely watched television shows that prize objectivity more than most thrive (as it's a gross overstatement to say all American shows or columns are loyal to a higher head).

It's my hope that the Internet will undermine financial (or political) control of information. It has not done a bad job so far--it's wholly possible that someone experiencing a genocide or something of the sort might not be able to take that information to a newspaper, where a cooperation above them has stake in the genocide, but could walk into an internet cafe (this depends on the country, of course, the power requires internet access--a potentially dangerous loophole) and post that information on the web, cutting out the middleman for the unfiltered information. While it may contain a bias in one direction or another, I truly believe there's no better way to present information than uncensored--even if that information is a subjective retelling.

We should demand of ourselves objectivity, but is detrimental to democracy to demand only what we think to be objective information from each other. Instead, as I think was intended in the Constitution, unfiltered free speech, like in matters of philosophy, journalism, history and science, is always conducive to a collective search for truth. To censor anything, whether it is by indirect influence or conglomerate control does nothing more than serve an often-times essentially moral-less higher power that works regardless of personal or professional morals. We owe it to ourselves not to put our information through this sieve, should it taint our observations. Proliferate the internet--the last (so far) free realm of information.

Sybarite

sybarite \SIB-uh-ryt\, noun:

A person devoted to luxury and pleasure.

~~~~~~~

Maybe physics isn't a bad place to start. When the reality hits that the entire universe is governed by a set of impartial laws, that nothing is exempt from these laws, that we can look at these laws (as we have interpreted them) and say, "Look, here is a truth. No matter how many times I drop an apple, it will fall. I understand why, and this truth will never change."

From there, one can wonder how many other laws are like this. One begins to understand the true aim of science (or thought in general)--to find these laws, to make sure they're there, that we can test them. Criterion gets established for the strongest truths. We have to trust our skepticism. To find truth, we find, we have to question ourselves.

We have to question what makes each of us different, at least at some point. It becomes striking how small the differences are, when one looks at the whole picture. Just as the Earth becomes infinitesimally small when recognized in the grand scheme of the universe, so do we. This can be merely depressed, or it can be, more valuably, humbling. One can start to recognize himself or herself as one of many humans spread across the planet. When impartial observations are applied, it becomes clear that much of our lives are the same. We seek love and affirmation. We get afraid, and it makes us hate. Our instincts, intellectualized, combine with social circumstances to make the best and worst of us. We are admirable in our capacity for imagination and mercy.

An individual is not a single, removed entity standing among a sea of faceless or foreign bodies, but a face among faces, subject to many of the same laws of living that all the rest are. And once this concept is established, the question arises: Can we still believe in evil? It is more difficult to be upset with an adversary when one truly understands his or her position. Likewise, it is difficult to justify that any person in the world is evil upon recognizing that we are all subject to many of the same laws, and at the very least are disposed toward the same desires: love, security and health. This is not to say the unflinching laws of physics works its way up into subjective human experience--we are subject to many different laws too, but the most important ones are too similar to label coincidence.

A standard has only just recently, in the last few hundred years, been established in our world: humans are not exempt from a singular, unified description. Spawning from the revolutionary observations of people like Darwin, Freud, Einstein and even Marx, it became clear that humans were not, and should not be, removed from critical observation. While the application of the understanding has been murky (first women and blacks didn't count, now the line is grey with homosexuals, remaining racial tensions, varying religions), the idea that we are really not largely unlike one another is thankfully gaining ground.

It's a bit of a slippery slope scenario: upon understanding that one can't undermine human rights by excusing some people from the grounds of "human" by classifying this description under racial, political, sexual or religious terms, it becomes exponentially clear that there is a correlation between all of these things. They are united by their shallow justification of wrongdoing to other human beings. To strip another human of the rights provided by the recognized standard, one must be classified not only an enemy, but not human. At least it requires more work than it used to.

Inalienable rights. I think that should speak clearly enough. That none of us should be subject to alienation by our fellow humans: that none of us should be considered enemies or evil. What disputes we have can clearly not be settled by gods alone, as they rather prefer to choose sides (at least in the eyes of their propagators) and thus dilute the "we are all human" standard required to find peace among this planet. To claim oneself part of a chosen people is anathema to kindness, freedom from oppression and equality, because chosen people have unchosen adversaries: people subject to different laws and judgments.

The cure? Like I said, physics is not a bad place to start. Seeing pictures like the one in the top right corner remind that even should we be the chosen ones, we have at our hands a feeble amount of power. Secondly, it speaks loudly that our home is a small one that should not be meaninglessly torn apart merely because we as people cannot put into action the very standard that allows our minds and lives to flourish: we all have inalienable rights, because we are all subject to many of the same laws.

And while those laws are not like physics, and cause cruelty to some and not to others, we must always side with the human race before siding with our temporal predilections and dispositions. We only want our group to be chosen because it's a little less fear on our plate, but I truly believe that if we were to realize that fear is largely the same on every plate, it would be a lot harder to satiate by adding to one another's plate in an attempt to clear one's own. How much longer can we ignore our similarly unalienable similarities? To find a standard by which we can understand our species and find a happy peace for all is more advantageous, kind, moral and mentally, emotionally and physically rewarding pursuit than finding temporal ways to keep one or more chosen peoples satisfied.

Extant

\EK-stunt; ek-STANT\, adjective:

Still existing; not destroyed, lost, or extinct.

~~~~~~~

Underage children have the ability to emancipate themselves from their own parents should their conditions of living depreciate to such a place that they are in danger of persistent or lifelong mental, emotional or physical harm. Minors across America, should the situation prove detrimental, can claim themselves the victim of abuse and gain the natural human right to be removed from a dangerous environment.

They are innocent. Terrorists are not. But merely for this reason, should they be stripped of all human rights? I thought that humans with the capacity for moral imperatives and logical reasoning had gotten beyond this point, and the Bush administration insists on tugging us back in an arrogant attempt to claim some lives worthless, or at the very least too evil to be concerned with.

Identifying torture, as the administration has, as nothing more than the actual threat of imminent death is an insult to moral agents worldwide. It undermines with such shallow intention those issues which should be foremost on our table—case in point, the rights of all humans, everywhere. People have a right not to be tortured, and by that I mean the non-morally-reprehensible definition of torture: the revoking of autonomy from a willful human by means of physical, emotional and/or mental duress. Not only is the practice unyielding in substantial or even moderate results, it fundamentally contradicts many of the most important pieces of wisdom we have gained about the worldwide respect for human life and human autonomy.

Since the introduction of agriculture, humans have survived by their very defiance of situations beyond their control. To revoke that from anyone, unless the circumstances prove so severe there is literally no other choice (and those situations are few if any) is incredibly morally reprehensible. That our own government weasels its way into re-instituting it by creating its own shallow definition to sidestep Geneva is an insult to intelligent peoples nationwide. I can’t believe we even need to prove why it’s wrong anymore! The issue should not be extant.

Well, at least I got to use the word of the day in my rant.

Traduce

–verb (used with object), -duced, -duc·ing.

to speak maliciously and falsely of; slander; defame: to traduce someone's character.

~~~~~~~

When in absolute (or effectually/relatively absolute) power, one's greatest fear must be oneself.

It seems an unfortunately natural human impulse to, when removed of insecurities (such as fear for survival or well-being) to, in the absence of fear, relax and exhibit a more impulsive attitude. The United States is a worldwide superpower, likely the greatest (in terms of force, anyway), and has for some time now exhibited, instead of restraint, a penchant for aggressive tendencies. This is the opposite of what I think should be expected of a superpower that is here to stay, one that would, upon receiving the title of "most powerful", rightfully fear, above all else, itself.

As a superpower, it is very easy for our impulsive attitudes to become a serious threat to the rest of the world. Having power and misusing it demands our dismantling. Therefore, should America like to continue being the "most powerful", it should fear itself, its image, and its motives above all else, because this is what will be our undoing.

The current administration has reprehensibly neglected this rather simple and intuitive precept. It has given the world a reason to fear us--and fear is at the heart of rebellion. It is a dark irony, in a way, in that the excuse for excising liberties and percolating impulsive, roguish and arrogant activity around the world is that we are "fighting the war on terror" and effectually becoming the nation most worthy of fear.

Diplomacy and careful introspection is the only way. Aggression, clinging to power, pretending we have nothing to fear--these are the facets of nations, leaders and governments that were not only historically apt to destruction (externally or internally), but necessary to be destroyed, for the safety of the world. If America fears nothing, something is wrong. At the very least the greatest nation in the world can spend more time thinking than acting, and will, as a result, provide a good example of what a modern and hopefully future government should look like: one with humble and democratic intentions. Otherwise we as a country will not survive, and maybe, as a result of our transgressions and the monumental conflict it would take to destruct the current American ego (in terms of international relations, at least, and I use "ego" to mean government), the world itself would fall under threat. I don't think I need elaborate on imperatives past this.

Slake

\SLAYK\, transitive verb:
1. To satisfy; to quench; to extinguish; as, to slake thirst.
2. To cause to lessen; to make less active or intense; to moderate; as, slaking his anger.
3. To cause (as lime) to heat and crumble by treatment with water.

intransitive verb:
1. To become slaked; to crumble or disintegrate, as lime.

~~~~~~~

We must always care for one another's lives.

On this principle alone, I think, the concept of a doubly justified war (as discussed in class) is entirely impossible. Imagine a situation in the hunter-gatherer era, just to make matters simpler. Due to flash floods, one tribe (Tribe B) has been forced into another's (Tribe A) land. There is nowhere else in the world for them to go--they must occupy the same territory. To add, there are insufficient resources to support them both. Nature has willed them into this position.

What if Tribe A, with no resources to support Tribe B, waged war with them to protect their territory, and Tribe B, forced into these circumstances, waged war to survive in the face of limited resources? Both of them require the land and its resources, and there is only enough for one tribe of people.

This is a situation in which both sides' survival is at stake, and even if both sides were moral thinkers, the end result of this combination is certain death for half of Tribe AB. The truly moral thing to do, I think, and it bridges on being supererogatory, is for Tribe A to allot Tribe B a position in their land, and graciously share the resources, facing the hardships together. Even in this situation, war could be averted, though war is a far more likely choice.

In this situation, it is hard to claim that war is unjustified from either side. But the key element here is someone has to strike first. Someone has to claim the survival of their tribe of superior importance than that of the other tribe. Someone has to announce an enemy.

~~~~~~~

Humans have not traveled far from the subconscious instincts preceding self-awareness. If an enemy threatens survival, all of the emotions that flicker on (fear, anger) lead to the intellectual presumption of "evil" and the rousing of hatred. These are severe defense mechanisms: intellectualized notations from the body to protect and fight in order to survive. Applied on a large scale, however, these concepts are dangerous.

We can reason, and as such make the case that none exemplify or even meet the conditions of this base conception of "evil", because of its very nature as a base conception. As such, aggression becomes harder to justify. When we can reason with our enemies, we have less excuses to hate them, and they to us. Even when thrust into situations in which our survival depends on some dying, such as above, we would still have a responsibility to one another rather than purely to our own. We recognize other humans as being worthy of life. We can no longer fight amidst ourselves, without alternatives, purely to survive. The situation simply no longer occurs. Instead, we are faced with a continuous responsibility to recognize one another as humans, and care accordingly. Even taking care of our own does not infer aggression as the first step--only as a last result.

What I'm getting at with all of this is that the hypothetical situation I outlined above is the closest thing to a two-sided fully justified war. I cannot think of a scenario closer, nor one that can fulfill this prescription. And I think the reason is that we have a responsibility to respect and be concerned with the lives of each other, at least as much as we care for ourselves (sounds like the golden rule, maybe it is). As moral beings, we must refuse tactics that attempt to justify our actions, like labeling our enemies evil, or labeling aggression self-defense. These are childish things, I think. But if we undid all our actions, perhaps, we'd find ourselves replete with childish motivation.

~~~~~~~

If the concept of just-war was understood and adhered to worldwide then there would be no war. That alone should invoke an understanding about the aims and morals of war. It is only reasonably justified for one side at a time (much like individual murder). That is the nature of conflict--even though both may be experiencing equally difficult emotions, the first to harm is always in the wrong. This is reminding me of a quote from Jesus Christ now, and in this respect he (or whoever wrote his dialogue) was correct.

We have a responsibility to examine the intentions and hardships of our supposed enemies before unrighteously denouncing, condemning, and forcefully seeking to destroy them. I am not claiming we should stray from self-defense of ourselves or those experiencing horrors like genocide--I am only inferring that we have the responsibility to exhaust to a reasonable degree other means of interaction. And while that is an enormously vague area, I do believe that if it were even attempted, if diplomacy was the standard instead of aggression, then it would welcome our enemies into a more comfortable arena of respect and war would no longer exist.

~~~~~~~

We are able to reason. And if a two-sided, morally justified war is unreasonable, then war itself is unreasonable. We must take care not to be on the side of aggression. If we were to relate this to another moral issue, murder, we must take care not to be the attempted murderer. And to this effect, largely using presumptions of justification rather than actual justification, we (and plenty of nations throughout the history of humanity) have failed.

However, I do think a peaceful arena is possible, and that, despite the spikes on the chart, we have been slowly and steadily moving toward it. At the very least, perhaps, we are slowly applying the standard that everything deserves life, first to our human friends, then to humans in general, as well as, more reluctantly, our human enemies, and finally, perhaps, to all sentient things. Perhaps I'm wrong; I hope I'm not.

Bouleversement

bool-vair-suh-MAWN\, noun:
Complete overthrow; a reversal; a turning upside down.

~~~~~~~

Today's class gave me some more motivation for adopting a diet closer to that of a vegan. I've been making the transition deliberately slow because of my inability to have ever managed a healthy diet, but upon close inspection I've found that the resistance is not due to any moral uncertainties, but lethargy. Giving up meat wasn't that big of a deal. I only really liked chicken anyway. Giving up cake, cheese, milk, things with eggs in them (I never liked eggs themselves): now that's difficult. But even so, most of those things that I enjoy aren't even good for my health (minus the vitamins that I can ascertain elsewhere). Then, when I'm done figuring out what kind of diet will keep me alive and align with my moral understandings, it's time to look at products of all types that I may not even know are derived from nonhuman animals.

This will not be easy.

But the biggest thing for me, I think, is that I'm not being forced to do this. I don't feel like there's a dogma or an authority demanding this of me. A big personal issue I have is that I must feel like (even when it's not the case and I know it) it's my decision. And the only thing I'm satisfying in this change is my moral sensibilities. I'm not worried about what anyone else will think of me, even when I openly discuss my morals about the matter. I'm not worried about being punished or judged, whether I'm wrong or not. It's more like adjusting my life to no longer include Santa or the Easter Bunny. I have come across some things that I perceive to be true, and as long as I believe them to be true, I should (and will) act appropriately. And as much as it can be hard to do so, I know it's worth it. Becoming a vegetarian, enacting moral beliefs, felt really good; much better than sticking to chicken just because I enjoyed it. I think veganism will be the same.

Most of the reason I'm writing this is to re-affirm it for myself. I'm sure that I'll question my motives several times (making sure I'm not out to be haughty or impress or even just to have a good excuse to eat better), and I'm sure I'll break my whole system of beliefs down several times to make sure the pieces build back up the same. But this is right, I think.