It's funny, as I get older I wish my ancestors had done more to hold on to...... something. Something to pass to me to keep alive. But there is nothing. And it seems America itself is turning its back on a distinct American identity (in part due to quite reasonable issues with our history). And all that's replacing it is anger and unhapp…
It's funny, as I get older I wish my ancestors had done more to hold on to...... something. Something to pass to me to keep alive. But there is nothing. And it seems America itself is turning its back on a distinct American identity (in part due to quite reasonable issues with our history). And all that's replacing it is anger and unhappiness. I used to be quite individualist. But now I kind of see it as a dead end, for most people. I don't have a strong feeling on whatever's going on in the middle east or the real Channuka story (I'm not jewish). But I have to say I politely dissent from the authors POV.
I hear what you’re saying. To be clear I’m not against traditions, Christmas is a tradition. What I’m against are bad traditions and the idea of maintaining separateness for separateness’s sake.
I am not a multiculturalist, I believe in the great American Melting Pot. That means we should adopt the best traits from all cultures and drop the worst. You are right people are turning their backs on a positive American identity, and I agree that’s terrible.
I linked to this in the essay when I mentioned “melting” in the opening, and then again later when I mentioned Israel Zangwill, but he proposed the beautiful vision of the American Melting Pot that I align with. You might enjoy reading my prior essay about that perspective here: https://www.wetheblacksheep.com/p/the-forgotten-american-masterpiece
Well, I think where we disagree is your belief that you can identify the "bad traditions" and dispose of them. I'm a Chesterton's Fence guy. The way that applies to what you have written imho, is this: I believe the vast majority of humans (maybe not you but most) are dissatisfied with the material world. It does not, ultimately, make them happy. Whether this is a result of how a god built us or an accidental side effect of 8 gazillion evolutionary adjustments in our species, I will not speculate. For millenia humans have tried to come up with systems of thought and behaivor that compensates for this. There's not a single way. Often these are called "religions" but there are others. The endless rules around French-ness or, maybe even better, Japanese culture for example. In short, for centuries people have engaged in trial and error to find what actions, thoughts, and behaivor makes them happy. And quite often it's like exercise: annoying and cruddy while you're doing it, with no obvious benefits.
But over time they emerge. Maybe your religion requires you to pray at specific times every day. Your family are really strict about this. And it sooooo sucks. It's boring. You have to stop whatever your doing and do it, which screws up your day. And its embarrassing around people who don't do it. And it doesn't seem to help you. But you keep doing it because you are forced to. And then eventually, decades later, some horrible thing happens in your life and you realize those daily prayers are suddenly not a burden, but a refuge that comforts you. And the thing is, if you hadn't been doing it all this time you would not even know what you were missing when you needed it.
We have more access to information now, sure. But I dont think that we are any more knowledgeable about how to find this happiness than a guy in a hunter gatherer band 40,000 years ago was. So we have to go by that century upon century of trial and error because that's all we got.
When I read your essay I got a general attitude of "Pfft. Those old dummies did so much dumb stuff. Let's just pick out the diamonds, duh!" (Please forgive me if I misunderstood.) But I don't think you or I or anyone is smart enough to do that. At least not reliably. So I'm not telling you not to change anything you do. Your change is just another tiny part of the multi-millenia trial and error I mentioned. But I do want to just say, in an extremely friendly way, "Bro, you might be throwing something away that you don't even know the value of yet. So be careful."*
That's all.
*Personally, for the sake of national comity, I'd rather we had a single set of traditions we all did. But we don't. I recognize that my counsel to hold on to your sub groups traditions works at odds with the ideal of a national melting pot set of traditions. I dont have some grand philosophy to reconcile this. Only that we work with what we are given. And, personally, I can't recommend someone forego the practices (aka life solutions) they've been given just to pursue a new set of practices that won't be fully tested until all of us alive now are long dead.
No, I don't think that's exactly right. I am strongly in agreement with you that culture is evolved (see Dawkins' idea of memetics), but that doesn't strip us of responsibility to look at the world rationally and make judgements. I also strongly agree that we need to be careful to look at what we're throwing out and to try to understand why certain cultural practices evolved so that we can maintain what is important in them, and we won't always do so perfectly—there will be trial and error like you say—but if we didn't try to progress by working to understand and iterate, we would still be living with many of the barbaric traditions we had thousands of years ago. And we would have no model to challenge the barbaric traditions that many cultures still practice today, such as FGM.
For a good attempt by an atheist to understand and integrate the value of religious traditions, I would look at the book "Religion for Atheists" by Alain Badiou. I'm sure it's not exactly right about everything, but I think he approaches the topic in the right way by looking at religion with generosity and care.
I think your prayer comparison is apt. I was raised in Orthodox Judaism and one is expected to go to synagogue and pray three-times a today. It's not just "boring," but a major impediment to life. Even if there will be a time someday where prayer might help me, I can say with 100% confidence that it's not worth the regular practice to get there.
In my view, Orthodox Judaism holds on because of many memes within it that promote its self-replication by preventing assimilation. Prohibition of intermarriage, physical separation through circumcision, indoctrination of children, and holidays like Chanukah. It's a "parasitic" meme in that it self-replicates at a cost to hosts, rather than in symbiosis with them. And this separation has brought harm to Jews repeatedly throughout history. I could list many good things in Judaism that I would keep—and Christianity for example has already kept many of those—but on the whole I do not think the evidence shows that it's a good tradition for today's world.
Uhh, no. Nothing to do with consumerism is described anywhere in this comment nor in my article.
Having said that, I’m happy to defend consumerism. Here’s more of the Ayn Rand quote I abridged at the end of the article: “The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only ‘commercial greed’ could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.” http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/christmas.html
It's funny, as I get older I wish my ancestors had done more to hold on to...... something. Something to pass to me to keep alive. But there is nothing. And it seems America itself is turning its back on a distinct American identity (in part due to quite reasonable issues with our history). And all that's replacing it is anger and unhappiness. I used to be quite individualist. But now I kind of see it as a dead end, for most people. I don't have a strong feeling on whatever's going on in the middle east or the real Channuka story (I'm not jewish). But I have to say I politely dissent from the authors POV.
I hear what you’re saying. To be clear I’m not against traditions, Christmas is a tradition. What I’m against are bad traditions and the idea of maintaining separateness for separateness’s sake.
I am not a multiculturalist, I believe in the great American Melting Pot. That means we should adopt the best traits from all cultures and drop the worst. You are right people are turning their backs on a positive American identity, and I agree that’s terrible.
I linked to this in the essay when I mentioned “melting” in the opening, and then again later when I mentioned Israel Zangwill, but he proposed the beautiful vision of the American Melting Pot that I align with. You might enjoy reading my prior essay about that perspective here: https://www.wetheblacksheep.com/p/the-forgotten-american-masterpiece
Well, I think where we disagree is your belief that you can identify the "bad traditions" and dispose of them. I'm a Chesterton's Fence guy. The way that applies to what you have written imho, is this: I believe the vast majority of humans (maybe not you but most) are dissatisfied with the material world. It does not, ultimately, make them happy. Whether this is a result of how a god built us or an accidental side effect of 8 gazillion evolutionary adjustments in our species, I will not speculate. For millenia humans have tried to come up with systems of thought and behaivor that compensates for this. There's not a single way. Often these are called "religions" but there are others. The endless rules around French-ness or, maybe even better, Japanese culture for example. In short, for centuries people have engaged in trial and error to find what actions, thoughts, and behaivor makes them happy. And quite often it's like exercise: annoying and cruddy while you're doing it, with no obvious benefits.
But over time they emerge. Maybe your religion requires you to pray at specific times every day. Your family are really strict about this. And it sooooo sucks. It's boring. You have to stop whatever your doing and do it, which screws up your day. And its embarrassing around people who don't do it. And it doesn't seem to help you. But you keep doing it because you are forced to. And then eventually, decades later, some horrible thing happens in your life and you realize those daily prayers are suddenly not a burden, but a refuge that comforts you. And the thing is, if you hadn't been doing it all this time you would not even know what you were missing when you needed it.
We have more access to information now, sure. But I dont think that we are any more knowledgeable about how to find this happiness than a guy in a hunter gatherer band 40,000 years ago was. So we have to go by that century upon century of trial and error because that's all we got.
When I read your essay I got a general attitude of "Pfft. Those old dummies did so much dumb stuff. Let's just pick out the diamonds, duh!" (Please forgive me if I misunderstood.) But I don't think you or I or anyone is smart enough to do that. At least not reliably. So I'm not telling you not to change anything you do. Your change is just another tiny part of the multi-millenia trial and error I mentioned. But I do want to just say, in an extremely friendly way, "Bro, you might be throwing something away that you don't even know the value of yet. So be careful."*
That's all.
*Personally, for the sake of national comity, I'd rather we had a single set of traditions we all did. But we don't. I recognize that my counsel to hold on to your sub groups traditions works at odds with the ideal of a national melting pot set of traditions. I dont have some grand philosophy to reconcile this. Only that we work with what we are given. And, personally, I can't recommend someone forego the practices (aka life solutions) they've been given just to pursue a new set of practices that won't be fully tested until all of us alive now are long dead.
No, I don't think that's exactly right. I am strongly in agreement with you that culture is evolved (see Dawkins' idea of memetics), but that doesn't strip us of responsibility to look at the world rationally and make judgements. I also strongly agree that we need to be careful to look at what we're throwing out and to try to understand why certain cultural practices evolved so that we can maintain what is important in them, and we won't always do so perfectly—there will be trial and error like you say—but if we didn't try to progress by working to understand and iterate, we would still be living with many of the barbaric traditions we had thousands of years ago. And we would have no model to challenge the barbaric traditions that many cultures still practice today, such as FGM.
For a good attempt by an atheist to understand and integrate the value of religious traditions, I would look at the book "Religion for Atheists" by Alain Badiou. I'm sure it's not exactly right about everything, but I think he approaches the topic in the right way by looking at religion with generosity and care.
I think your prayer comparison is apt. I was raised in Orthodox Judaism and one is expected to go to synagogue and pray three-times a today. It's not just "boring," but a major impediment to life. Even if there will be a time someday where prayer might help me, I can say with 100% confidence that it's not worth the regular practice to get there.
In my view, Orthodox Judaism holds on because of many memes within it that promote its self-replication by preventing assimilation. Prohibition of intermarriage, physical separation through circumcision, indoctrination of children, and holidays like Chanukah. It's a "parasitic" meme in that it self-replicates at a cost to hosts, rather than in symbiosis with them. And this separation has brought harm to Jews repeatedly throughout history. I could list many good things in Judaism that I would keep—and Christianity for example has already kept many of those—but on the whole I do not think the evidence shows that it's a good tradition for today's world.
Fair enough. I respectfully dissent.
Uhh, no. Nothing to do with consumerism is described anywhere in this comment nor in my article.
Having said that, I’m happy to defend consumerism. Here’s more of the Ayn Rand quote I abridged at the end of the article: “The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only ‘commercial greed’ could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.” http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/christmas.html