A life of philosophy of life

In an article that is by now almost three years old, James Ladyman (Dept. of Philosophy, University of Bristol) defends specialization in philosophy and attempts to refute the claim that philosophy needs to be accessible. He's quite clear in his points, which is appreciated, and stands in stark contrast with far too many writings on this subject. (But hey, they're not paying us enough to be clear, at least not the ones around the mean of that lovely bell curve.)

First off, Ladyman has in mind here professional philosophers, that is to say, people who earn their living doing philosophy in an academic department. Second, he has in mind a particular kind of philosophy, specifically that which has an "overlap between a subfield of philosophy and another specialised subject matter, where that may be the history of philosophy itself. This is the kind of philosophy that I am most sure is worthwhile."

He then argues that, just as it is unreasonable to expect of physics or of mathematics that they abstain from any technical jargon, and to insist that they be totally accessible to the layman, so too is it unreasonable to make such a request of philosophy. After all, if physics is complex and requires specialization in order to be investigated, it seems appropriate that the philosophy of physics would be complex and require specialization as well. If the philosophy of physics aspires to say anything meaningful or helpful about physics, then its practitioners must specialize to the point of understanding the subject matter of their philosophy. "It is absurd for philosophical inquiry into nature to be conducted in complete ignorance of science. Hence, some philosophers must specialise in some parts of logic, mathematics and science, and bring their knowledge to philosophical debates with their colleagues. ... It would be folly to suggest that philosophical debates about philosophical logic – as well as ancient questions concerning essence, existence, identity, individuality, properties and so on – should be conducted among experts in an idiom that is accessible to the layperson."

Without engaging with the technical language of science, it would be impossible for philosophers to interact with scientists, therefore making it impossible to meaningfully engage with that science. To abstain from engaging in that language would mean to abstain from analyzing the science from which it arises: "There would be something badly wrong if work in the philosophy of physics were as accessible to a linguist as to a physicist, or if work in the philosophy of language were as accessible to a physicist as to a linguist."

Ladyman then goes on to set up a dichotomy between, on the one hand, these highly-specialized fields, where large advances are hard-won, and achieved through a small army of researchers each working on their highly specialized slice of the pie; and, on the other hand, those who popularize philosophy in countless books, for which there is a thriving market and an ample supply. "There are many excellent people who mediate between academia in general and the rest of the population. I am baffled as to why people are calling for all academics to do these things. The case of philosophy is in this respect no different from that of pure mathematics or microbiology. The idea that every scientist should be a part-time science journalist and public speaker is absurd."

Ladyman goes on to make some rather biting remarks about using jargon as an excuse: if philosophy is so difficult and obscure, it can't be all that important, and this belief justifies not putting in the effort necessary to learn the language and get up to speed on the ongoing debates. For what it's worth, I think that there's a grain of truth here: people really do dismiss philosophy quite quickly, and are always ready with just such a rejoinder when one (often a philosophical one) presses them to learn more.

Finally, Ladyman claims that because our knowledge has advanced so far that only through specialization and the work of experts can hitherto-unanswered philosophical questions be addressed, knowing that these questions will be minute, but add up to a more impressive totality when all taken together. "This may not amount to advancing our understanding of the meaning of life, but it is in keeping with Socrates’ conception of the philosopher as gadfly, asking awkward questions and exposing epistemic hubris. Our knowledge of the world has grown immeasurably since ancient times, and philosophers would be failing in their role if they did not specialise sufficiently to know enough to be able to point out exactly where lie the limits of our understanding."

As many of you know, my belief is that accessibility is an important virtue in philosophy, and so I'd like to take this opportunity to respond to Ladyman. First off, he begins with the assumption that philosophy must always be a philosophy of something, where he basically believes that that "something" will be another highly specialized academic discipline. However, what about a philosophy of everyday life? Surely there are problems that one encounters outside of specialized research that have philosophical bearing, and for which a philosopher's insights would be very valuable. During the last few decades, when this sort of Lebensphilosophie has been out of vogue (in North America) and outside the realm of accessibility (basically everywhere), everyday life has changed a lot. There are new problems that need philosophical treatment, and so it is a non-starter to claim that philosophy has already solved those problems and that the only live issues are now at the fringes of our knowledge. We encounter the fringes of our knowledge every day in the practical world; one need not go to science to find such limits. If philosophy of physics is supposed to be meaningful to the physicist, then presumably the philosophy of everyday life should be meaningful to those who live it!

That is not to say, of course, that there are not interesting and important problems to be found in the philosophy of specialized sciences. The discovery(?) of the Higgs boson at the hadron collider in Switzerland raises enormous questions about the fundaments of reality, and what it is for stuff to be stuff. Ladyman's argument about such research basically claims that because we don't reprimand mathematicians or physicists for using jargon, we shouldn't reprimand philosophers either. He assumes that jargon in math and physics is acceptable. That's not necessarily the case. What's being discussed here is whether jargon should be accepted, and whether it is accepted from math or physics (or philosophy) doesn't determine what ought to be the case (that's an instance of the naturalist fallacy). If jargon is not acceptable in physics or math, then it isn't in philosophy either. If it is acceptable in physics and math, we might still not accept it from all philosophy, because not all philosophy will treat specialized subjects of this nature, as I argued above.

What I've tried to argue here is that there is important work to be done in the philosophy of everyday life, and that professional philosophers are not doing enough to address that (in a way that is accessible and meaningful to the people that it concerns). But Ladyman has claimed that there are plenty of authors who popularize philosophy, "excellent people" who mediate between academic philosophy and those outside of academia. Certainly there is a healthy market for such books, and there is an adequate quantity of them to satisfy the demand, but is there an adequate quality? As a philosopher myself, and one who currently resides in the Ivory Tower, I have had many students arrive at my office with one or another of these books, and I've seen what they have to offer. (I've even read a few of them myself.) They really aren't very good, and in  my estimation that's because the academic realm doesn't give any recognition to those who successfully popularize the field. Consequently, "excellent people" by and large do not venture into these realms (with the notable exception of Alain de Botton, who's actually English once you get past the name).

It is certainly tough to recognize the great thinkers of one's own time, to separate the wheat from the chaff without the benefit of historical retrospect. But it's not very difficult to see that many people who publish these popular philosophy books are on the fringe of academia: they are not hailed even as potentially great thinkers. I hate to say it, because I have friends who have published these kinds of books, but they aren't the up-and-comers who will one day make a splash on the academic scene, and even if they do (and of course I hope for such things for/from my friends) it will be in spite of more than because of these popular texts. When was the last time that a big-wig from Oxford or Cambridge decided that they would take a nice sabbatical to write a book about the changes in the philosophical landscape brought about by the advent of Facebook, and write it in a way that Facebook users could understand, relate to, and reflect upon? The people that academia hails as its brightest lights just don't deign to illuminate such things.

Ladyman is right. Studying the philosophy of physics or math requires engaging with those fields, and that means engaging with their jargon (whether those fields ought to fall back into jargon or not). But there is an appreciably large and important segment of philosophy, namely, the philosophy of life, that should not be inaccessible in that way. Real people have real benefits to gain from real good philosophy of life. That sector of our field doesn't get enough attention; and when it does get a little, it's not the intellectual heavyweights who are weighing in. One contributing reason for the problem is that academia simply doesn't recognize such work as philosophically worthwhile, and therefore doesn't prioritize it.

What, and with which, and to whom, part 2

Also, In this post last week, I treated the first five arguments from this article, which seeks to rebut some claims made by proponents of gay marriage. This week, I'll tackle arguments 6–10.

#6: Proponents of same-sex marriage point out that if reproduction is really the kernel of marriage, then same-sex couples shouldn't be the only ones excluded. Why are infertile couples allowed to marry? Or couples well beyond the years of baby-making? To these questions, Vogt replies that, in the case of young couples who are infertile, it would simply be too expensive and invasive to test them all for fertility before allowing their marriage, not to mention the fact that fertility tests are not always so reliable. Fertility, in fact, is just not so simple an issue as "yes" or "no," as many couples these days learn only once they start trying to have kids. As for elderly couples, "these marriages are so rare that it's simply not worth the effort to restrict them."

Vogt's point about the drawbacks of fertility tests before marriage is well taken. However, there's a lot more going on here. Why does child-rearing not figure more prominently in the process of getting a marriage license, or in the ceremony? Doing fertility tests may be expensive and invasive, but one could easily make it a mandatory question in the paperwork: "As far as you are aware, are you fertile?" They aren't asked whether they're fertile; they aren't asked whether they even want children; they aren't asked whether they're getting married for the purpose of having children, which is apparently the only reason that's supposed to matter. If the author were right that having children is the kernel of marriage, then we wouldn't have people getting married without any intention to have any. And that includes the elderly.

(Also, getting back to our dear elderly, the fact that Vogt is happy just to dismiss the problem because it's small suggests that he's not very concerned about applying rules consistently here. Whether he means it or not, his remark that I quoted above just comes off as him trying to shoe-horn marriages of the elderly into line with his position, despite a glaring difficulty there.)

And besides, same-sex couples can have children. I mentioned advancing reproductive technology in my last post, as well as the fact of adoption.

#7. And, claim proponents of same-sex marriage, gay parents are just as able to rear children as heterosexual couples. But Vogt disagrees. He cites the meta-analysis of Loren Marks (LSU), according to which studies showing the equivalence of homo- vs. heterosexual couples is not very well supported by the data. Vogt goes on to cite the Regnerus study, on the basis of which same-sex parents were claimed to be inferior to heterosexual parents. The Regnerus study has been the subject of massive criticism from within the academic community, and even Regnerus himself admitted that it couldn't possibly conclude anything about the quality of homosexual parenting. So Vogt shows the other side didn't do their homework on the data, and then goes about appealing to data that's just as shoddy.

However, I think that his discussion really misses the point of the adoption question. The question is not about whether we should take children from happy heterosexual families and have them bunk in with the mean old homos down the street. The real question is whether homosexual parents would be good adoption candidates for children who are either in broken homes or in foster homes. All the research suggests that stability on the home front is a massively important factor in raising happy, well-adjusted kids. Allowing same-sex couples to marry can both increased the stability of their relationship, and act as a sign of that stability when applying to adopt children. We already allow same-sex couples to adopt, and if we're so concerned about children, then we should allow these same-sex couples to adopt for the benefit of the children they raise! A stable household is better for kids than one that isn't stable, regardless of the gender of the parents, and allowing same-sex marriage is a good way to promote greater stability as well as to increase the accuracy of identifying stable couples as candidates to adopt.

 #8. Opponents of same-sex marriage are often called bigots and/or homophobes, and Vogt rightly points out that this isn't the case. Certainly homophobia and bigotry are likely to lead to opposition to same-sex marriage. However, that is not sufficient evidence to conclude that all who oppose it are homophobes or bigots. (That would be to affirm the consequent, which is a logical fallacy.) Calling people bigots and homophobes is a great way to bring any constructive discussion to an end, so there are good reasons not to do it. Furthermore, it's probably not true that all people who oppose gay marriage are bigots: the fact that Vogt is engaging in rational debate shows that's true. I don't agree that he's on the right side of the debate, and I press people who oppose gay marriage to either provide a more solid foundation to their position or to give it up; but the fact that there is sensible, rational debate on this issue, rather than just name-calling, is of crucial importance, and for that I applaud Vogt (and people like him on both sides of the fence) for doing what they do. Simple vilification and dismissal get us nowhere, and many proponents of same-sex marriage are guilty of doing that.

#9. Proponents also draw parallels between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement. Specifically, they see a parallel between the opposition that once existed (and sadly probably still does in some places) toward inter-racial marriage and the opposition that currently exists toward gay marriage. Vogt's argument, that child-rearing is the purpose of marriage, avoids this problem. Because inter-racial marriages can be fertile while same-sex marriages can't (or so he claims), he has a principled reason for accepting inter-racial marriage while denying same-sex marriage. I have offered counter-arguments to that, and still hope to get some responses that cut ice on those issues.

However, the proponents who trace this parallel are not completely off the mark either: it has been said of both inter-racial and same-sex marriage that "that just ain't nat'ral!" While Vogt may avoid this problem because of the basis of his claims about the basis of marriage, be they right or wrong, there are certainly a number of positions against gay marriage that don't avoid this charge, and so the proponents have a point in bringing it up. However, some of the people who hold such positions might just be willing to bite the bullet on this one, and claim that, indeed, inter-racial marriage ought not to be accepted either. ... I don't even know what to say to those people other than to stare at them, mouth agape.

#10. Some proponents of same-sex marriage point to easing of attitudes on the subject here and there, and say that the tide is turning: gay marriage will soon be acceptable. Therefore, we should be on the right side of history and jump on the bandwagon. Vogt rightly points out that these tremors in the U.S. are not earthquakes: the changes have been here and there, and it's a stretch to conclude on that basis that the tide is definitively turning.

What he neglects to take into consideration, and this is a criticism that I find myself leveling against Americans far too often, is the rest of the world. The U.S. has taken a position of insulation for decades (except when their economic interests are at stake, apparently), and they forget that the rest of the world actually also has discussions about what's acceptable and what isn't (among other discussions). Looking outside their own borders more often might not be such a bad thing, on the issue of gay marriage as for so many other issues. It's important in this particular debate because the turning of the tide on this issue would not simply be an American phenomenon. The world is smaller than ever, and isolation along national borders is progressively more difficult every day.

Looking to the international scene, then, it seems that the small signs of a turn in the U.S. are relatively small fries compared to much of what's happening elsewhere in the world. Same-sex marriage is not nearly as controversial in some countries where it is legal and basically acceptable. (Note also that said countries have not yet been struck down by the will of God.) By contrast, there are also countries where it's a non-issue because it is completely unaccepted.

Vogt does bring up a very important point here, though: it's notoriously difficult to anticipate the turns of historical tide. The evidence of such a turn is usually the turn itself, and is only really discernible in retrospect. The evidence we have right now is not sufficient. The jury is still out on whether history will look back on this as the turning point, or just a blip on the radar.

Two things that he doesn't mention are that (1) we are not completely the slaves of fated history. What decisions we make now, as individuals, actually has a bearing on how people in the future will look back on us, and on what views they will hold. It's not yet a settled issue whether same-sex marriage will be accepted in the future. The other point, and this is far more important and I wish that Vogt had brought it up, is that (2) the tide of history doesn't always turn in the direction that it ought. Just because lots of people believe something, or think that it's right, does not make it so. Our history books are replete with hard-learned lessons to this effect. If you think that masses always get it right, just look at how many people believed the Nazi propaganda in the 1930's and '40's. (I had to mention the Nazis: after all, what online discussion of values, cultural change and (in)tolerance would be complete without bringing them up?)

The Bubble

Here's an interesting problem coming down the pike for academics in the arts. Students in Quebec protested a hike in fees, and the Parti Quebecois got elected on a platform that included cancelling the hike, which they did. However, in a summit on education, the PQ immediately announced that they were going to cut higher education budgets (retroactively, no less), which led to massive public outcry. In any case, the cuts got handed down, and so now the universities are left trying to bridge the gap. McGill University decided to bridge the gap by cancelling 100 classes in their Faculty of Arts. (The article unfortunately doesn't mention what, if anything, has been slashed on the science side of the world. I would be shocked if there weren't even minor cutbacks made to at least appear to be distributing the burden evenly.)

How are these 100 arts classes going to be cut? The proposed solution is to move to larger class sizes by cutting the smaller classes (which also typically tend to be higher-level). So these high-level, small-enrolment classes, taught by tenured faculty, will be offered either less frequently, or no longer offered at all. Those faculty members will instead be asked to teach more of the higher-enrolment, lower-level classes, which are currently taught mostly by sessional instructors. And because tenured faculty are so expensive, the university will ease the burden on their time by increasing the number of teaching assistants, with the added benefit that these teaching assistantships are probably the single most important source of funding for the university's graduate students. End of the day: bigger classes, taught by tenured faculty (who presumably are better teachers, but that's far from a given); but with more mediation between professor and student, with that mediation taking place via greater TA support; fewer high-level courses for majors; fewer sessional positions; and the capacity to fund more graduate students.

Here's The Bubble. With more funding available through TAships, the university will be able to take on more graduate students. However, the growth in holding capacity for graduate students is not an indication of a stronger and healthier market for the arts; rather, it's a particular manifestation of humanity's latest sickness. In fact, the number of viable teaching positions is decreasing, and a greater proportion of the work is being shifted onto TA's (knowing that essentially the majority of that money comes right back in tuition anyway) so that the same number of students can be accommodated with using fewer expensive faculty. Here's the rub: we'll be training more doctoral and master's students, but cutting away the academic job market into which they hope to move.

The value of an undergrad degree, especially in the arts, has been the victim of rampant inflation in the last few decades, as more and more people get them. Unfortunately, the increase in quantity has also been accompanied by a decrease in quality. So the B.A. is currently worth, at least in economic terms, a shade less than the paper on which it's printed. A B.A. gets you a job in nothing, despite the immense importance to citizenship that critical reflection and cultural exposure bring. It seems that the MA and the PhD are heading in the same direction, a fact that greatly saddens me and makes me wary of the direction in which our society is headed.

Where do we go from here? It seems to me that we need to rethink the interface between humanistic studies (at all levels), and the economic world into which graduates will mostly emerge, with fewer and fewer of us able to hide behind the shield of academic employment. And that requires looking more closely at the humanities: what exactly are the skills that we learn; how can we shed some light on their importance to the market? And how can we make it clear that the value of being a critical and reflective citizen can't be treated as an economic sector heading toward market failure?

What, and with which, and to whom, part 1

This week, I'm going to tackle the first half of an article that a friend of mine posted to Facebook quite some time ago. The article recaps ten arguments against gay marriage, and my intention is to deal with the first five in this installment, and then come back to the next five some time soon (i.e.: next week, if all goes according to plan). So, here goes.

#1: The first argument is that though marriage has evolved through time, all over the world it has been recognized as a union between one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children, which is the fundamental essence of marriage. The author claims that though it could change again, that is no reason to assume that it should.

The structure of this argument is as follows: marriage has been one way forever; therefore, it ought to remain that way. This is a fallacious argument. Nothing says that things ought to remain the way that they always have been. Adopting the same argument structure, I could conclude that there ought to be massive wealth disparities forever because there always have been up to now. So there's clearly a problem with this argument structure.

Secondly, there is a problem with the claim that marriage all over the world has recognized the fundamental essence of one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children. There are polygamous societies, which clearly don't fit that mold. There are also societies where children are raised by the community rather than by the immediate family alone (and in fact, our own society might learn a thing or two from that). Clearly, there are societies in which marriage has not been between one man and one woman, and where child rearing and marriage come apart.

It is false to claim that marriage has universally embraced this essence. And even if that were the case, that fact alone would not justify the claim that it ought not to change.

#2: Those supporting gay marriage claim that to exclude homosexual relationships from the recognition of marriage is unfair, that it treats people unequally. In response, the author argues that equality means treating similar things in a similar fashion, not treating different things equally. Any unmarried man is allowed to marry any unmarried woman, so we all have equal rights! Why are same-sex couples different? Because they cannot produce children, nor can they "ensure a child’s basic right to be raised by his mother and father" (which I'm not sure is a basic right, as the author presumes but does not justify). The author then concludes with the point that there are many benefits that come with marriage, and to allow homosexual couples access to these benefits would be an unfair favoring of homosexual over heterosexual relationships. That last point is entirely unclear to me, and the author doesn't do nearly enough to justify his claim. If two people are married and upon the death of one, the other receives the remaining pension, what does it matter whether the two are of the same or of different genders? How would it be an unfair advantage to leave that parameter unspecified?

The author's point here again relies on accepting the definition of "one man and one woman for the purpose of child rearing" as the essence of marriage, which he failed to support in his first point. Even if that is a big part of marriage, it certainly is far from its only feature. Love figures prominently in marriage, one would hope, as does the social stability of having a partner on whom one can rely, a confidant, etc. These are all important features of marriage (and if you want to know why so many of those fail these days, perhaps its because a man and a woman making a baby isn't all there is to marriage, as this author tries to convince us), and they can be just as easily true of homosexual as of heterosexual relationships. (Here is an interesting article on the benefits of a strong marital bond; recognize that these benefits seem equally applicable to gay as to straight marriage.)

As for raising children, adoption is certainly a reality in our world, so there's no reason that a homosexual relationship couldn't involve children. The author makes some toss-away claim about the fundamental right to be raised by one's own parents, but that's nowhere written in stone, and in many cases children are raised by aunts and uncles, grandparents, close friends, etc. Do we refuse marriage in those instances? Furthermore, as technology advances, the possibility of making a child that is the biological offspring of two same-sex parents becomes more and more of a reality, sidestepping the issue of raising "someone else's child."

#3: The author then moves on to address the claim that anyone may marry whomever he or she loves. In fact, the author claims, the government doesn't support marriage for the sake of love, but rather for the sake of children, and once again, because homosexual couples cannot raise children (which I again must press the author to consider more closely), the government should not sanction such marriages.

What the author again overlooks is that firmly entrenched within our society is the notion of a long-term, romantic, sexual relationship with a single partner. That notion also embraces the raising of a family, but the child-rearing aspect is not the only salient feature! Much of our sense of self and sense of worth is based on our relationships, and to have one's (arguably) most important relationship not be deemed worthy of public/official recognition is extremely damaging.

Furthermore, the social benefits of a romantic partnership, as in the pension example I mentioned above, are certainly values that the government has an interest in endorsing. Social services these days are strongly overburdened because children are no longer looking after their aging parents as they once did. Imagine how much worse the situation would get if aging spouses didn't look after one another. Part of looking after one another means sharing social benefits such as insurance and pensions, which are often linked to marriage. The government therefore has an interest in supporting as many such successful partnerships as they can find!

#4: Some same-sex marriage advocates say that whether they are allowed to marry or not is irrelevant to heterosexual couples, to which the author replies that to expand the definition of marriage would weaken the institution itself. Marriage is already about as diluted as American beer, so any further weakening would just break the darn thing, as people wouldn't take it seriously anymore.

Secondly, the author draws on an example from Toronto where a couple's desires for their child's education were overruled in the name of an education about tolerance. Thirdly, he believes that it threatens religious freedom.

The second and third issues are ones that I gather probably pull more weight with Americans than they will up north. Canadians don't get scared as easily by the prospect of having their children learn things that they don't agree with. Learning doesn't mean accepting, as many a parent probably already knows, and therefore to have tolerance included in the curriculum doesn't necessarily bring about tolerance. (Too bad, I know.) Furthermore, the religious freedom issue is not a hot-button topic up here the way it is for them southern folk. We certainly take it seriously, but when discussing the legal, not religious, definition of marriage, I think that most Canadians don't take it to be an assault on Christian values.

The first point, about the broadened definition weakening the institution, is actually one that deserves further inspection. It's true that opening up membership to an exclusive club can make it lose its cachet. But how much would the scope be widened, and what would be the principle according to which some are allowed and others not? I'll explore this issue more in #5.

#5: The author claims that if we break from the "one man one woman, for the purpose of making babies" definition, then we lose traction on where to draw the line. It's a slippery slope argument, which the author claims is not merely hypothetical: in some places where same-sex marriage is allowed, polygamous groups have sued for recognition as well. "When sexual love replaces children as the primary purpose of marriage, restricting it to just two people no longer makes sense." (First off, I'd like to point out the little jab at "sexual love," which presumably is being derided by comparison to "real" love. My spidey sense just tingles at that one.)

Once again, the author is begging the question. He assumes that polygamous relationships are not acceptable without offering any proof. According to his definition of marriage, of course it's not. But it's specifically that definition that's at issue here! It appeals to people's gut reaction against polygamy to motivate the fear of the slippery slope. One could just as easily flip the argument on its head and ask what, if anything, is wrong with polygamy. The point here is not to begin with assumptions about which marriages are acceptable and which aren't, and on that basis to formulate rules to justify one's position. Rather, one is supposed to be inspecting one's notions of marriage itself, and that includes inspecting our intuitions: what do we think about polygamy? And are those intuitions justified? Perhaps the proper response here is not to say that allowing same-sex marriage would also allow polygamy, and that's not acceptable. Perhaps the proper response is to say that we should also be examining our intuitions, trying to figure out why it is that up to now, most of us have taken it for granted that polygamy is wrong.

If we are open to reflect on that issue (and I'm not saying here that we must or even necessarily should allow polygamy), then we realise that the author is just trying to scare us out of considering the issue of same-sex marriage. What we should be doing is reflecting on the basis of marriage, not being scared out of doing so. Getting back to point #4, the issue of diluting marriage cannot be properly assessed until we find a new equilibrium point: what would the new basis of marriage be? Until that question is answered, the issue of how much marriage is diluted by its redefinition cannot be addressed. The scope of marriage can be widened by just weakening the rules, and there dilution might become a reasonable concern. But the scope can also be widened by adopting a different set of rules, one that valorises parts of marriage that we've already discussed here (e.g.: social stability) and that need not entail a weakening of the institution.





Anyway, that's all for me for this week. Until next time. Looking forward to some nice, heated debate on these cold winter days... though there are no such things in southern Ontario, apparently.

PS: The title is a reference to an amazing limerick about a whore from Khartoum. Totally worth checking out.

Doing our part

            In her Christmas message, Queen Elizabeth spoke of the importance of service to others, of reaching out beyond our familiar relations and putting the common good before our own personal interests. Her discussion of duty arose in the context of the volunteers for the Olympic Games (oh, sorry, make that “London 2012”), the fire, police and hospital servicepeople, and the military folk, all of whom give up great swaths of their time in the name of something larger than themselves.

            Relating this issue to the story of Christmas, our monarch reminded us that Jesus was sent to earth to serve, not to be served; greater than to receive a gift is to give one. (For those wondering why the Queen of Canada would speak of Jesus, remember that she is the head of the Church of England.) She specifically cited the last few verses of the Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter”: “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring him a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part. Yet what I can, I give: my heart.”

            The verse about wise men struck a particular chord with me. Where are our wise people; what are they doing; and how are they benefitting the community? They are supposed to be doing “their part,” but they seem so invisible, so what part is that? Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading Roch Carrier’s Le Rocket, in which Carrier explains how Maurice Richard sparked a sense of hope in French Canadians, and how Quebec society began to change during his days with the Canadiens de Montréal. A fascinating aspect of that book is the occasional appearances of some important and impressive political figures: when recounting the strikes in mining towns in Quebec, the young Pierre Trudeau, then a journalist, arrives on the scene to document the events. Later, Trudeau founds Cité Libre, a political journal that was very critical of Dupplessis’ politics. That journal was co-founded with René Lévesques. And near the end, Carrier himself writes personally to the editor of Le Devoir: Pierre Laporte. Charles Taylor, Canada’s most famous philosopher, ran for federal office in 1965, and lost to Pierre Trudeau. These were all very well educated people.

            The wise men of the day contributed to public life all those decades ago. But where are they now? In what riding do I get to choose between intellectual titans, each of whom I would be thrilled to have represent me on Parliament Hill? Sadly, they are all too few, and more often than not we elect one candidate simply because the others are even worse. Political discourse is the same humdrum of empty promises. We’re all very concerned about how much F-35s will cost, but our politicians never seem to address the issue of whether a greater military strength is the direction we want to take as a country. Is that really the Canada we want to build for the future?

            The public sphere needs its intellectuals to take a more active role in contributing to our society, because public discourse about values and about direction for our society is pitifully superficial, when it takes place at all. That is not to say that we should turn over such discussions to the high-priced help, tossing the discussions to the intellectuals and butting out: what we need is inclusive public discourse that doesn’t fall back into obscure jargon and technical terms, which most people neither understand nor care about (and rightfully so).

            Our society invests in its intellectuals through the public funding of higher education, though there’s less and less of that funding with each day, as this province knows only too well after the events of this past year. We say a lot about what’s a fair share for students to pay to supplement the public investment in education, but when do we ever talk about what the society gets for the money it puts in? It’s important for intellectuals to offer a return on that investment. It’s a matter of duty.