Free Thinking "Activist Types"

When the fourth wave crashes in, I want to be there, standing in the surf getting the hem of my pants wet with sandy, salty, smelly water. I want the unruly waves to sweep up my legs. I want to have to sit on a towel all the way home. When the fourth wave crashes in, I hope I’ll be standing next to people not entirely like myself. I hope we can smile at each other in all our differences and support each other with the soft and bracing hand of silence, of care, and patience. 

I recall telling a friend recently, that the debate was still open as to whether we were in a fourth wave or not. Undoubtedly, there were a sizeable number of people who hoped to see the third wave crash and the tide never come in again. To be sure, there was stagnation in the movement for a brief time. I’m not sure why exactly that is and I can only speculate given that I was born at the height of the third wave. I was born to the sound of the Riot Grrrls collectively chanting, “The personal is political” and my mother never rejected the label “feminist” as so many other baby boomer parents did and still do. So I was surprised when very nearly out of the blue, a tidal wave of new interest, renewed fervour and young voices shook the movement back into life. 

A number of new branches also emerged with the advent of the digital age. Feminism in gaming became popular and widely noted due in part to contentious YouTube creator Anita Sarkeesian’s channel Feminist Frequency. Popular media became the subject of feminist analysis and as such, critical thought became something of a popular pastime rather than an exercise reserved only for scholars and professors and the select laypeople that read them. Young girls are going online to protest the unfair dress codes at their schools, which sexualize their bodies whilst ignoring the boys. It’s shocking how abruptly these changes seemingly sprung up from a barren climate that less than 20 years ago produced a TIME Magazine cover posing the question, “Is Feminism Dead?” 

Upon closer inspection though, the change has been anything but immediate or straightforward. There have been several unfortunate moments as well as promising milestones in the months and years leading up to the recent resurgence of interest and activity in feminism. In 2014 alone, Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz carried around her mattress as a protest against the inaction of her school after she was sexually assaulted on campus and Beyonce herself performed in front of a 50ft neon sign reading “Feminist”, introducing the word to the lexicons of young girls around the globe. Laverne Cox made waves both for feminism and for transgender rights when she burst onto the scene with a roll on Netflix’s runaway hit Orange is the New Black. Likewise, looking back on 2015 as we begin a New Year, the past 12 months have been equally eventful, if not more so! 

Taylor Swift joined the ranks of celebrities embracing the word feminist, albeit problematically. 35 women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault appeared on the cover of New York Magazine, taking a stand against the victim shaming and credulity survivors of rape so often encounter from the public. Viola Davis won an Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama making her the first woman of colour to win in that category. She also followed it up with one hell of an inspiring speech. 

In my own experience, more has been said about feminism online than I’ve ever witnessed before. Perhaps though, that’s because more is being said online in general than ever before. It’s a chicken and egg problem that may not have an answer. Nevertheless, the question still stands: is it safe to say we’re in a fourth wave? Or is that something for our future generations to decide, as they zoom around on hover boards back-to-the-future-style and listen to president Kanye West give his inaugural speech? 

 A personal essay on how to keep moving forward after tragedy, how to stay afloat with humour and hot water and how to handle the possibility of Donald Trump becoming president of the United States. 

It seems like a strange exercise to write about how you have no motivation to write. I try to write about everything and so I figure, why should my recent disenchantment with writing be any different? The problem as I see it, is distraction. There’s carnage raging across the world right now that is, more so than ever before, impossible to ignore. The sound of bombs detonating, bullets in winter air and a hundred thousand footsteps searching for something as simple as a safe home. The news is tugging anchor heavy on my mind, as I’m sure it is yours. The barrage of discourse surrounding the events seems impossible to escape and even if it weren’t, would we even be right in trying? Facebook is inundated with statuses, news articles and sombre memes. I feel as though I’m wading through a quagmire of opposing opinions and a thousand shades of righteous indignation. Yes, it’s true- your feelings are valid. Unless of course, you’re one of those islamophobic bigots looking to burn refugee camps and conflate all Muslims with Jihadis, and unless of course, you’re entirely unwilling to recognize that religion is an important factor in this crisis, and unless of course you’re a war mongering fear-aholic and unless of course, you’re a pacifist with no plan but inaction. No but seriously, your feelings are valid and I want to hear your opinion. 

The problem is, nobody seems to have the answers and with so many mouths and keyboards going at once, it’s hard to evaluate any one voice for accuracy or legitimacy. Everyone is steering with their gut right now and if you know anything about guts, it’s that they don’t know how to drive. So how do you navigate around people whose rules you either don’t understand or don’t agree with? Arguing with relatives in the comment section is probably not the most constructive method. You can isolate yourself; just don’t read for two whole weeks and hope that by then, the topsy-turvy world will have righted itself. There are no guarantees of course, and it’s quite conceivable that by that time, another tragedy will have taken the place of current ones. This is the world we apparently live in and as a 20-something year-old, young and clinging to credulity and goodness, I’m learning how to deal with the situation I somehow have inherited as best I can. 

Which brings me back to my original dilemma. How is it possible that life has simply got to keep moving when everything seems to be so backwards? I usually write about pop culture, sometimes about philosophy, politics or activism but I don’t feel particularly qualified to write about this crisis, about ISIS or religiously motivated terrorism which is inconvenient you see, given that it’s all I can seem to focus on when I sit down in front of my computer. So, this is what I’ve decided to do in my admittedly limited wisdom. First, write this article so that in the off chance any of you can relate, we can support each other. After all, isn’t that the best response to an act intended to divide us? Second, indulge in a hot bath/shower or otherwise cleansing ritual while listening to something simultaneously relaxing and attention keeping. For me, that’s probably a history documentary or a science show or a lecture by one of my favourite writers. You can choose something else, according to your taste. Third and finally, I’m going to hug my family and my closest friends and the girl whose bed I share more often than not. I’m going to breathe them in and smile at them because I don’t enough and because today I can and tomorrow, who knows? 

Since Caitlyn Jenner came out, announcing herself as trans, I've consistently supported her. Both against the conservative bigots who would have her denigrated publicly and shamed for her identity as well as by liberal trans activists who say her privilege disqualifies her from representing them as a community. As long as she acknowledges the incredible wealth of opportunities her economic status affords her in relation to say, trans women of colour living in urban poverty then her public advocacy can still have innumerable positive effects. As I said, I was a fervent supporter of her and the activist work she's now taken on. That was until I saw her recent appearance on Ellen. I'm committed to calling out transphobia in the LGB community, of which I am aware there is no shortage of. However, I am convinced that this in no small way justifies Caitlyn's apparent homophobia. To give you a brief over view of the encounter, Ellen began by asking Caitlyn about her well-known political affiliations. Namely the fact that since she gained public notoriety by winning Olympic gold as Bruce in 1972, she has remained vocal about being a Republican, presumably with all the conservative trappings that that entails. One might expect that in light of her recent transition, she'd choose to align herself with a party more accepting of trans people and more sensitive to their struggles and needs as a community. You'd evidently be wrong to expect this. Caitlyn made it clear on the talk show that she not only has no intention of abandoning the Republican ticket but that she is apparently still lukewarm in her support of same sex marriage. While this is an improvement from what she described as her previous traditionalist view of marriage (being only between a man and a woman), it's not exactly the picture of progression either.

Now don't get me wrong, the gay rights movement is not synonymous with the trans rights movement. They both have their distinct challenges as well as their unique histories. That being said, the trans rights movement has gained much from an alliance with gay rights activists and vice versa. It was Marsha P. Johnson, a trans woman who threw the first brick at Stonewall, and from the beginning of the LGBTQ Lib movement gay people have been among the most vocal and fervent supporters of trans rights. When openly gay Democratic representative of Massachusetts, Barney Frank scrapped the portion of ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) ensuring employment protection for transgender people, gay rights groups across the U.S. cried out that they’d rather the legislation not pass at all, than pass without an inclusion of trans workers.

Caitlyn amended her position during the interview, perhaps in part because Ellen DeGeneres seemed so shocked at her dismissal of such a fundamental issue. Still, her reasoning was simply that she didn’t think it right to “stand in front of anybody’s happiness” and that if the word “marriage” is so important (which it is), she guesses she can deal with it. Not once did she mention that gay people have a fundamental right to equality just as she does, and that withholding the term “marriage” from one minority population is in fact a reinstatement of the “separate but equal” ideology that for so long held back the civil rights movement. I’m glad that Caitlyn has changed her mind on the issue of gay marriage, I really am! And hopefully it’s not simply because she suddenly finds herself a part of an oppressed minority. However, I’m not convinced that her reasons for changing her tune are the best ones. Transphobia is deeply related to homophobia as both stem from fear regarding the subversion of traditional gender roles, which in this context are considered essential and biologically determined by sex. The eradication of both, rely on the dismantling of this idea.

Section Four: Epigrams and Interludes. 

On 143 and 145 and what they mean for women in Philosophy.

As a bastion of liberalism, and oft-forgot horrific sexism Friedrich Nietzsche waxes on with little insight about his observations regarding the proclivities of men and women in what is supposedly his most mature of works. Sections cited above note the striking stamp Nietzsche ‘s time left on his views about both gender and the roles of men and women in scholarship and academia. It may come as something far from a surprise to note these tendencies of 19th (even late 19th!) century philosophers. The urge however is both uncontrollable and as I’ll argue, still pressing and necessary. 

How is it that in over two hundred years of Nietzsche scholarship, “God is Dead” remains to be the most widely cited proclamation holding the most inflammatory insinuations? Let’s for now forget the fact that dear Friedrich N. was not the first to voice this idea, but rather his colleague Hegel. Nevertheless, it remains astounding to me that questioning an idea or set of the same could ever be more offensive to polite society than denigrating no less than half the human race to “ the supporting role”. 

It’s been a theme in contemporary philosophy, and indeed philosophy in general but for the sake of specificity, I will only briefly discuss what I suppose could be termed “sexism in theory” from the 17th century onward, starting with Renee Descartes. Cartesian identity theory posited the idea that in order to determine ones own existence, one need only contemplate that very issue. In fact, one need only contemplate absolutely anything because the act itself is sufficient to answer the question. If I’m able to think at all, I must presuppose that I also exist. This seems not contentious in the least at the outset. It only begins to become so when the popular conception of gender at the time is taken in tandem with the idea. 

The 17th century binary of gender was immortalized in metaphor and imagery. Man as the straight and narrow, the resolute and the solid. Woman as the curved and crooked, the wishy-washy and illusive. Similarly, there was at the height of British and European colonialism, a gendered paradigm in which to justify the domination and thievery of foreign land that necessitated equating land to the feminine. The feminine thus became perverse, something to be entered and conquered, alluring in its strange otherness. It was associated with the body and carnal desires while man became the symbol of mind and reason. Hence the importance of this system of gender to Cartesian thought; if man is mind, and one must think oneself into existence, what of the body and what most importantly, of women? 

To be sure, these notions were not new, even to the 17th century. As with many things, it started with Aristotle in Politics where he claims, charitably, that women are subservient to men yet higher than slaves on the social hierarchy. Aristotle may have influenced Nietzsche significantly on this matter but he’s got some Plato circa Republic in him yet. In the latter section of Epigram 143 he acknowledges that it is neither impossible nor unheard of that a woman might possess scholarly tendencies. However, in order to do so or else, as an effect of doing so (Nietzsche fails to make this clear), she is predisposed to “a certain masculinity of taste”. The lack of precision here is startling as never once is the assumption that scholastic ambition is a necessarily masculine trait addressed. 

Some of his supporters have argued that Nietzsche’s view of women was not his own but rather his observation of society’s bias. They claim that expressing it in writing was some Freudian psychological trick intended spark opposition to it. Not only do I find this unlikely given the clues in the text, I also find it unsatisfying as an explanation even if it were true. His denigration of the feminine is mirrored in other works such as the renowned “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. In a section on friendship, Zarathustra relays the notion that women are incapable of being friends, being as they are, too quick to love and too irrational in it. A more likely apologetic reading of Nietzsche’s more sexist ideas is to interpret them as a condemnation of the feminine and not necessarily of women. This was a worn out hat trick in the 19th century and is still used today. I hopefully need not expend energy on explaining why it is no less problematic than it’s alternative. It’s no good venerating women only on the condition that they distance themselves from all that we relegate as “feminine”. Not only does this strengthen the binary notions of gender, it may indeed rule out a significant number of worthy men from consideration. 

Activism looks very different than it did 50 years ago. Online communities have afforded a comparatively safe space in which to protest not just groups but governments in ways never explored prior. The street protest, far from obsolete is now organized online, as is much of its promotion and outreach. The Internet has thus created a vehicle by which social movements are born and people galvanized behind numerous causes, large and small. This can be done in a matter of seconds with the advent of viral content. Under net neutrality, where all online data are on an equal playing field, social inequalities that tend to silence dissenting views or keep marginalized groups out of public spaces, are broken down so that even the most grassroots start-up campaigns stand a chance in the race for clicks.

The Internet became the medium of communication for protesters of Occupy Wall Street and the recent political uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Public Policy scholar Davit Chokoshvili, in writing about the Internet’s role in the Arab Spring notes that since the early 90’s there have been hypotheses among political scientists and hacktivists alike about the Internet as a democratizing force.  Increasing the overall flow of information from largely uncensored sources forces governments to remain responsible to their citizens and betters the credibility of the signals they send. In societies where Internet censorship is ubiquitous, government propaganda need not even attempt to be credible as there is very little competing information available. In the age of globalized Internet, citizens in Egypt were not naïve to the process of democracy, nor to the benefits it affords citizens and this knowledge kicked their revolution against a near 30-year dictatorship into warp speed. Similarly, at the height of the Tunisian uprising Nawaat.org based in the Netherlands began to virally distribute Google Map images of Tunisia’s many secret prisons on Facebook. This gave ammunition to protesters and amplified the importance of the revolution such that the rest of the world took notice. When in response state controlled channels spewed falsities to the Tunisian public defending the regime, the Internet was a means of fact checking and debunking pro-Ben Ali propaganda.

Pockets of the Internet have also become safe havens for oppressed sexual minorities. Members of the LGBTQ community, particularly those living in regions where it remains unsafe for them to be out in their everyday lives, find refuge and valuable resources on the Web where their access can remain anonymous and therefore, their safety maintained. This is not to say of course, that the Internet is any less problematic than real life public spaces. We all know that trolls all too often dominate the comment sections of most sites. It seems that some people select the web as the medium through which they test out their most offensive and asinine opinions. Rather, I argue that the Internet, when managed correctly offers itself as a vestige of hope against government tyranny and social inequality. It is the tool itself that matters. As we know, the content is truly heterogeneous and can be empowering or appalling. Net neutrality and freedom of expression ensure it rightly stays that way.

Some theistic/supernaturalistic objections to this famous Carl Sagan quote are addressed.

Theist Argument: It is possible for something to exist without leaving observable evidence for us to detect.  Or as one misguided writer on debunkingskeptics.com put it, "...extraordinary phenomena can exist without leaving behind extraordinary evidence."

Response: This first point is a completely useless axiom with precisely no basis in the scientific method. Or course there may be things that exist without evidence but it doesn't follow that we then simply assume they exist and speculate as to what they are! That would be beyond counterproductive. We wait for evidence before making positive existential claims- simple as that. Otherwise, without a standard of evidence we'd be obliged to believe in absolutely everything conceivable in theory. Happily, the neutral position on existence claims is disbelief. 

TA: It is possible for something to exist yet the evidence for it hasn't been found or understood yet. The same fine individual mentioned previously goes on to give examples here like the wheel, fire or gunpowder.

Response: Again, an obvious and frankly tedious point. Of course we haven't discovered all that there is to discover yet. That doesn't justify accepting the existence of something without at least equivalent evidence to the grandeur of the claim. This doesn't mean we discount any possibility as futile! Simply that we withhold belief until evidence is forthcoming. 

(Worthwhile to note that some of the examples provided are ridiculous and irrelevant- the wheel and gunpowder were invented: created by humans and therefore actually DIDN'T exist prior to their discovery.)

TA: It is possible that the evidence is already there but that it's subject to interpretation, making it controversial.  I'll spare you the alien abduction example that was given here and leave this point as self evident. 

Response: The beauty of science is that it doesn't deal in proofs. Probabilities embrace a hierarchy of evidences and the strength of claims are weighed on that basis. For example, yes the fact that a number of people report first hand experience of alien abduction counts as some level of evidence for the claim that aliens not only exist but have visited Earth and have for some unknown reason temporarily abducted a few hundred select humans. However, the accompanying fact that none of these experiences can be verified by secondary witnesses or testable observation weakens that line of evidence significantly, just as it would in a court of law. 

TA: "Sagan's statement is based on an unproven premise.  It is based on the premise that paranormal phenomena are either impossible or extremely improbable.   

In order for one to know what is impossible or improbable, one would have to be an all knowing creator of the universe who possesses every knowledge that there is.  

In order to really know all that is probable and improbable in the universe and reality, it would require that one have complete knowledge of every dimension and reality that exists in the universe and beyond."

Response: Let's first of all acknowledge the scientific illiteracy demonstrated in this point. What is impossible or improbable in one universe may not be so in another. Such is the nature of physical laws as we currently understand them (i.e. that they come into existence with the universe they govern and are descriptive, not prescriptive in nature). Thus, when we are making probability statements, we are making them about this known universe alone according to our knowledge of it, unless the claimant explicitly says otherwise. 

The poster also fails to acknowledge Humean epistemology as a system of gauging probabilities. We come to make worthwhile assumptions regarding what is probable or not in our universe based on experience, not on a priori reasoning or a command from on high. 

  Let me preface what is to come by saying, I am not just your average heathen. My family are Sephardic Jews. Some consider themselves Ashkenazim because they emigrated from Spain to Germany in the late 17th century to avoid forced conversion to Catholicism and lost many of their Sephardi traditions. My maternal grandfather escaped the Holocaust barely a hair before the introduction of travel blockades thanks to a tip off from his college dean. I went to a Jewish Sunday school until the age of eleven and my aunt uses Yiddish insults as frequently as she can possibly find a moment for. I grew up listening to stories from the Torah, which for those unfamiliar also comprises the first five books of the Christian Old Testament. Despite the majority of my family being either Reform or Secular, my Sunday School was Orthodox and Orthodox is what I became. Critically engaging the ideas asserted by ones trusted elders is not something that comes naturally to most. It must be taught, cultivated and practiced. It wasn’t until I was thirteen years old and I picked up not just the Torah but the entire Christian Bible, all 66 horrific bloody books of it and read it front to back, that this changed. As I closed the cover on the last page of Revelation 22, I had one of my own.

The entire canon of Judeo-Christian doctrine, at least as it’s contained in Scripture, is just one big suck fest of violence, misogyny, servitude, compliance and tradition. It’s full of contradictions so if you want to love your neighbour, you can justify that with scripture but if you want to sell your daughter into slavery, the verse advocating that gem of an idea is just as easily found. Plus, it’ll be couched in just the right amount of poetic thees and thous so as to sound almost civilized.

So, I got to thinking. What would a modern “true speak” translation of Genesis look like? Well, now you (and I) know.

  GENESIS I-XI

A long-ish time ago… You know, nothing comparable to geologic time but like, way before Shakespeare, Yahweh, chosen name The One True God, having existed for eternity prior, was just beginning to feel boredom’s itch. He considered how he might liven up the universe and perhaps manufacture some quality entertainment. Creation it turns out is a lot like math. Ones got to start with the basics. First, God created light, sky and land yet he was still unsatisfied. The trouble is, most of pretty much everything is hopelessly predictable when you’re omniscient. Then it struck him like a lightening bolt to the head directly from Zeus, his bastard neighbour with the busload of bratty children.

God fashioned the first man from dust and called him Adam. He bestowed upon Adam freedom of the will because who wants to know the full plot of a movie before you’ve even bought the popcorn? God thought about giving Adam some clothes, but his abs were killer so God extended that particular deadline. Adam covered his junk with a palm leaf instead, and it was good.

Some time passed and although Adam enjoyed his time in the tranquil wilderness, he too grew bored, lonely and frankly, horny. Adam asked God to make him a mate. God acquiesced but warned Adam that doing so would require he forfeit a rib. Adam asked God why that was necessary, I mean, wasn’t he omnipotent? God told Adam to shut his antediluvian face before he smote him, like seriously. And so it was that God created the first woman, a fuck-toy afterthought to the world, and called her Eve. Funnily enough, Eve is derived from the Hebrew word “chawah” or “to breathe”, because that’s all Eve was good for.

The day began just like any other. Eve was exploring Eden, probably searching for fixings to make Adam a sandwich when she was met by an emerald serpent blocking her path. The serpent had legs, which should have been hint number one that the situation was not entirely peachy. He suggested Eve eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Eve wasn’t sure what knowledge was, but God had assured her, that shit is evil. Nevertheless, the deviant serpent successfully convinced Eve to eat an apple from the forbidden tree. The jury is out but I’d wager he told her it was a Honeycrisp. Eve reveals herself a true conniving harlot as she slips the apple to Adam as well.

Having finished the fruit, Eve was consumed by guilt and shame because God forbid (literally) a woman lift herself from servile ignorance. God learned of the disobedience and enraged, he cursed all three of them for their insolence.

Eve was cursed with painful childbirth and condemned to forever be subordinate to men.

Adam was cursed to work in the fields for food and a wage. A “curse”, women ended up fighting for the right to do anyway.

God cursed the serpent by confiscating its legs, forcing it to slither along the ground on its belly for the rest of time, which is strange because where the hell did lizards come from then?

Still, despite their collective curses, Adam and Eve had a job to do and boy did they get busy with it. It’s hard work, populating the earth via approximately 800 years of copulation and familial incest. Technically, even Cain and Abel, Eve’s first two sons had no genetic diversity because Eve came from Adams rib and thus, had his identical DNA. It’s like twins getting it on. No wonder Cain went loopy and killed Abel. I’m surprised neither was born with gills. But I digress.

Ten generations of hanky-panky later, and God was regretting the whole “let’s give humans free will” thing. It turns out, a great many of them start killing each other, stealing their neighbour’s oxen, worshiping other Gods like Horus or as God liked to call him, Feather Face and the aforementioned swine Zeus, as well as committing other weird old-timey crimes. He therefore decides that the only logical thing for an all powerful and infinitely merciful sky daddy to do is to kill every single man, woman and child save for one family headed by a drunkard.

God told Noah of his plan for ubiquitous genocide by flooding the earth but assured that Noah’s family would be safe as long as he agreed to build an ark in which to house two of each species for the duration of the catastrophe. Noah, his brain decidedly fermented with wine, failed to enquire after the wellbeing of fish and promptly agreed to build an ark roughly the size of a B.C. Ferry. When God says jump, you say, "how many pounds of poo can one boat hold?" Or, "did a couple of Anglerfish who live primarily at great depths beyond the reach of sunlight and can only survive in salted sea water make it onto the ark?" Posterity indicates that they must have, but the logistics remain foggy.

It rained for 40 days and 40 nights and Josh Hartnett kept his oath. The earth was then submerged under the floodwaters for over a year, at the end of which, Noah and his family emerged the stinkiest people to ever grace the planet.

The lands were once again lush and abundant with flora. Don’t try the flood method in your own garden though; it only works on ancient plants.

Noah’s descendants prospered save for one embarrassing incident with his son Ham and a few too many home brews but unfortunately, sin quickly crept back into the world.

Conservative Christians in most Western nations, and most strikingly in the United States have been steadily gaining influence in matters of policy and governance. Since the US Supreme Court made it's monumental ruling on Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, Christian organizations have lobbied continuously for that decision to be overturned. Their reasoning is entirely motivated by religious faith and doctrine. The claim states something to the effect of, life begins at conception because that is the moment at which the soul enters the zygote. Disregarding the fact that no evidentiary case has been made for the existence of any such thing as a "soul", there are a number of other factors that render this claim absurd. For one, we know that zygotes in early stages of development often split into two identical embryos. Does this mean that another soul is spontaneously generated? If so, that soul wasn't present at the moment of conception. We also know that two or more embryos can merge and form a chimera and that fertilized eggs are often lost in miscarriages. According to the fundamentalist's view, nature or indeed God is the most adept killer of souls. 

It becomes vividly clear by analyzing the position of Christian conservatives that their priority is solely the perpetuation of dogma. They don't truly care about the potential harms of abortion as foreseeable in the real world (which might include trauma to the woman, health consequences, loss of potential life etc). If they did, they'd be eager to provide accessible birth control and comprehensive sex education to women. Note that they seem to care a lot more about banning women's birth control as opposed to men's. Condoms are fine, because men deserve sexual liberation! If Christians really cared about suffering, they'd welcome the life saving advancements promised by stem cell research. Sadly, their concern is the control and domination that they gain from asserting divine sanctions. 

Marriage equality and the civil rights of LGBTQ people is another social and political issue that has been irreparably hindered for decades by religious extremists. This is the case to varying degrees in virtually every country around the world. Fundamentalist opposition to LGBTQ people is not motivated by any true moral concern. They consistently fail to cite any real data indicating measurable harm resulting from consenting adult homosexual relationships. The concern again, is dogmatic social control.

I've encountered a lot of Christians who are dubious about the dangers of theocracy in Western societies. They think we secularists are overreacting and speaking out only to serve our own ideological goals. I believe that this is largely because they are accustomed to the traditional definition of theocracy. They look at countries like Iran after Ruhollah Khomeini's revolution or Saudi Arabia where religion is the law and vice versa. Leaders are divinely empowered and their laws, inspired by God without exception. They look at Europe's historical 'divine right of Kings' and they think, "well that's not what we're talking about so case closed!" 

The truth is, the infiltration of religion into government is dangerous for everyone. It wasn't persecution by atheists or humanists that the early settlers of North America feared. They wished to escape persecution committed by other sects of Christianity that had more political power in their places of origin. 

In a recent TED talks, philosopher David Chalmers presented a piece on the hard problem of consciousness. It is his prediction that in order to solve the mystery and mechanisms of our internal conscious lives, we must be willing to explore ideas that at first strike us as radical. In response to scholars like Dan Dennett who go about tackling the problem of consciousness by in essence denying there is a problem to begin with, Chalmers launches accusations of reductionism. He claims that emergent theories of consciousness; that is explaining conscious experience as a function of the physical brain, implies that what we have philosophically defined as consciousness is in fact no more than an illusion. Unsurprisingly, he finds this brand of explanation unsatisfactory and dismissive of our wealth of everyday experiences, observations and self-reflections. I’d be happy to agree with him there, if it were the case that emergent theories did in fact necessitate that consciousness be accepted as simply an illusion. Needless to say, this is not the case and Chalmers failed to provide any principle upon which it must be. A standard materialist view of consciousness asserts that the so-called “hard problem” may be solved by a theory of emergent function. Consciousness is not a thing, but a process; not a noun but a verb. It emerges from a just-so arrangement of neurons, in the same way that digestion is the function of a just-so arrangement of cells into organs. This of course implies that there must be degrees and perhaps even different kinds of consciousness throughout the animal kingdom (as there is with digestive methods). It doesn’t however; imply that consciousness is an illusion any more than digestion is an illusion.

If, as I’ve explicated, there is no reason to assume emergent theories of consciousness are dismissive of the phenomena, I see no valid reason for favouring more radical explanations such as fundamentalism or panpsychism. Being a philosopher himself, I think it safe to say that Chalmers is intimately familiar (having been drilled with it in undergrad as I am) with the principle of Occam’s Razor. If as I’ve suggested, Chalmers’ primary objection to materialist theories of consciousness as invoked by Dennett and Patricia Churchland for example, is largely a misunderstanding of their intended implications, then doesn’t the scientific principles of simplicity to the best explanation dictate that panpsychism be among the last avenues we consider? It adds a plethora of unnecessary premises to the equation, many of which require their own explanations. To being with, for panpsychism to be true, consciousness must be a fundamental element of the universe (fundamentalism). Otherwise, there is no mechanism by which all matter could possess some measure of it without also possessing a degree of information processing capabilities and structural complexity. If fundamentalism is true and consciousness is a fundamental force of nature, what are the physical laws that govern it? Why are they not yet observable laws in the universe like those that govern gravity or electromagnetism? Chalmers’  ideas about consciousness are not dubious because they’re radical, but rather because they have no empirical backbone to speak of, beyond what current understanding lacks. It’s the equivalent of saying, “we don’t know what caused the Big Bang (if anything), and therefore we must seriously consider the God hypothesis. The flaws or unanswered questions of one theory do not lend credence to it’s alternatives and speaking as if they do, bellies ones apprehension to discuss what actually matters: positive evidence.

When I was a young girl (younger than I am now), my mum used to tell me in an effort to inspire morally admirable behaviour, “two wrongs don’t make a right”. In many ways, this is true and a good piece of advice to propagate. However, there is at least one way in which this mantra is at the outset impractical and upon further consideration, antithetical to widespread modern moral sentiments. Moral principles are as much evolutionary artifacts as they are cultural. Noted primatologist Frans De Waal is certain that reciprocity and empathy are innate aspects of social species and the product of the evolution of morality. Although human ethics have developed far beyond the basics determined by our evolution, without these essential pillars, the rest has no foundation on which to build.