Knowing Evil

May I recommend a wonderful article on Hannah Arendt? Perhaps you saw the movie?

She has been my mentor since I went to U of Chicago in the 60s--a great political thinker. Her coverage of the Trial of Adolf Eichmann for the New Yorker, made into the book Eichmann in Jerusalem is a classic in the study of the meaning of evil.

And she was condemned for it. For many Jews, she seemed to be downplaying Eichmann's anti-Semitism. She seemed to be saying that he was not such a unique monster, that like him others even Jews went along with the Nazis, that her charge of "banality" was simply not enough to get at his diabolic evil. She seemed to be letting him off the hook and minimizing his crime.

Not so! In my reading she was showing evil in all its depth and breadth much more so than those who  attack her.

When we worked on Chicago's West Side, we learned that the racism, which divided the city black against white, screwing both upwardly mobile hard working new immigrant blacks and also former immigrant hard working Poles, Italians, Irish, and Jews, was not caused by the fearful lower class whites running away or the black families moving in the same way that the former immigrants did. They were both victims of real estate and banking practices supported, even financed, by government policies. These institutions were run by liberal minded officials who just made money off those practices and policies without questioning them. These liberals did not disdain either black people or white and would have welcomed them into their families. But they went along.

No, the racism in Chicago was (still is?) not as bad as Apartheid in South Africa or Nazism in Germany and these officials certainly were not overseeing the Final Solution the way Eichmann was. But they were just as responsible. And so are we if we do not question and oppose practices that make victims of people and rob them of their dignity.

The thoughtlessness that goes along with these practices and polices is not just an unfortunate condition, it is a choice that has consequences. It is the actions, not the intent, that should be judged and which Arendt was judging in Eichmann--not his anti-Semitism, but his following orders to brilliantly organize the extermination of thousands of innocent Jews.

But judgment requires critical thinking, the thinking that raises questions about what we have been told and that contradicts the commands of authority to avoid the knowledge of good and evil. That is why Eve is my mythic heroine. She chose to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge despite the consequences to her. St Augustine preached that Eve brought evil into the world. But, no, she brought the knowledge of evil into the world so we might do something about it.

And Hannah is Eve today.

Simple Thought (2)

(I'm working on a book that is taking time. Cousin Vinnie said to keep my blog short. So...)



Ever notice that:

• what we dislike in others, is usually what we are?

• when we most boast about our party or principle or nation, we are expressing the least confidence in them?

• when we condemn another culture or religion or viewpoint, we show the pettiness of our own?

Probably not.

Thoughts (1)

Cousin says I need to limit my blog to four sentences.

I explained to him that these are not ads or editorials, not bumper stickers or opinion pieces, and not recitations of facts or pronouncements. They are thoughts and, as laborious or perverted as they may be, I want to portray the workings of my thinking so I can keep criticizing and advancing it.

But, since I am taking the time to write an essay on thinking and information theory, I will try to be much more brief in these next few blogs.

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Simple Thought One:

Why are those of us who are most secure with God in heaven, with clear fixed principles, with patriotism and politics, are so insecure that we promote walled borders and gated communities, armed forces and ownership of arms, tough policing and more jails? Why are we so afraid?

Philosophers Are Scientists Too

Nice piece (Physicists Are Philosophers, Too) in Scientific American in which the late physicist Victor Stenger defends philosophy from the attacks of those who say that Physics is enough to explain reality.

I submitted my comments:

Philosophers are scientists too. To defend philosophy, it is important to demystify it. Richard Rorty makes philosophy "literary criticism." And I think he is on to something. 

Philosophy is critical thinking in and of all the disciplines of knowing--including art, myth, religion, common sense, and physical science. When the scientist reflects on her trade or another critical thinker like Karl Popper reflects on the scientist's way of doing science and how that fits with others ways of modeling the world, they are doing philosophy. Some call it secondary reflection, the reflection on the first mode of modeling your world. 

To do this I think good philosophers stay up to date on the latest practices and theories of science, and especially now, evolutionary psychology and neuroscience which are casting more light on our ways of thinking and consciousness. Philosophers need to be scientists too in using evidence that can be accessible to all whether in the laboratory or phenomenologically. In second reflection, the thinker reflects back on his/her previous enterprise from within, as it appears while doing it, and tries to communicate what she is doing and why. 

Philosophy may no longer be queen of the sciences, but she is a worthy handmaiden.

To My Theist Friends

I have been pretty clear that I don't need "God" in my life or language. (click here) Besides being an unscientific and irrational proposition, I have concluded that belief in God often squanders opportunity and responsibility and that religions, especially those of the monotheistic brand, bring with them a lot of evil into the world.

Radical Islam, Fundamentalist Christianity, Righteous Judaism attack each other as infidels while requiring strict adherence to their immovable principles. They are paternalistic and hierarchical. They fear novelty, justify violence, and sacrifice the others on the altar of the Absolute. They eschew critical thinking because they are in unique possession of God's revelation. They claim infallibility because of their special relationship with the Almighty. They practice exclusion of aliens and make aliens of those who disagree with them. In doing so they feed fear, ignorance, and hate. While condemning idolatry by affirming that there is no god but God, they make idols of their God, their Prophets, their Scriptures, their Laws, their dogmas, and their institutions. And they are willing to sacrifice their perceived enemies to their idols.

However, I work closely with Christian, Jewish, Muslim congregations committed to social justice. I understand that historically each of these three religions of the Book were founded by advocates from and for the lower classes in society with visions of social equality, freedom, and justice which I share. I also have many friends and colleagues for whom God is an important part of their life, their stories, and their commitment to peace through justice. With them I see that God brings a lot of good into the world.

So when I hear my friends and colleagues talk "God," this is what I choose to hear. I hear them affirming Transcendence, i.e. their willingness to pass beyond idols by continued questioning and criticism. I hear them affirming the Worth of persons over things. I hear them committed to the Future of the world by acknowledging but letting go of the past. I hear them desiring to act with optimism out of Abundance, rather than with gloom out of scarcity, focusing on the possibility in nature and humanity rather than on its limitations and evil.

So when they talk "God," let me think not of a powerful entity over nature. Let me think of the Power that is being engendered in human concerted action. Let me think of the way the mystics experienced the Void: God is the Nothingness from which all things come--ex nihilo.  Neither matter, nor energy, God as the Universal Void is Cosmic Consciousness. God does not exist, but is the condition or context for all that does. Or let me think God as the Universe in all vastness united as a Whole with interacting parts. Or let me think of God as Universal Consciousness Becoming through matter's complexification and through our interaction with it, a sort of Omega point in the human experiment.

None of these propositions are falsifiable and so not verifiable. However, the advance of science may lead to these propositions either by demonstrating that they are not incompatible with the laws of physics or through new testable theories. I especially mean quantum information theory that may surpass and unite both classical and quantum mechanics by understanding all of reality as information processed by a universal computing complex.

In this theory all information can be understood as made up of quantum bits--positive and negative matter/energy points all of which cannot be without being in relation to one another. God is that universal computing complex in which all information (including that of its processor) is contained and processed thus being the union of positive and negative energy/matter. But then, according to information theory, God as the sum total of information is Entropy. And God as the Whole of parts that exist only in relationship is Love or Empathy.

Entropy and Empathy, the Yin and the Yang, Negative and Positive.

Again, all that is pretty far out and seems fit more to science fiction than science. It is more suggestive poetry than true knowledge. We as yet have no way to test these speculations through experimentation and observation and so to give them usable meaning.

However what we can observe and test, at least phenomenologically and even neurologically, is human consciousness as transcending.

Human consciousness as observed in its varieties of religious experience, in its poetry and image making, and in its drive to know develops by passing beyond its products, its goods, its truths, its self. So while we can come up with no concept of God or Universal Consciousness or Great Void or Omega Point or Universal Information Processor, we can perhaps have a notion of God which is but the experience of our own transcending consciousness existence in the world.

Human consciousness is thus the stretching towards greater subjectivity through greater objectivity and so constituting space. Human consciousness is also temporality, a stretching to past and future and so constituting time. Human consciousness is the stretching between the individuality of the self
to the society of persons and so constituting community. Human consciousness is the "no-thing-ness," the void within, that is the ability to negate and so refute imagination's products: the idols to be transcended.

So can I affirm the existence of God? No. But I can understand the notion of God that my friends and colleagues use. I can affirm their openness and willingness to transcend, to put themselves with all other persons acting for a better world, for a future in which we all share, for a hope in universal love.

Can I affirm that such a love, future, transcendent truth does exist or is indeed coming? No. But here is where Pascal's wager makes sense for me. I choose to bet on it, not because of some game theory reward, but because the wager of faith itself makes such a transcendent future possible.

Even More on Critical Thinking

Karl Popper was the expert on scientific method. He observed and described the activity of scientists, the way that they achieved knowledge and the way that the world accumulated knowledge. "Science" is the Latin word for knowledge. So as one of my mentors, Bernard Lonergan SJ, pointed out, understanding the way of science is understanding the way of knowing even in art, history, philosophy, religion, and ordinary common sense.

Popper's insight is that negation is key to the scientific method. In fact a proposition or theory has no meaning unless it can be "falsified." The scientist uses imagination to first "conjecture" and then experiments for "refutation" and then revises the conjecture for continued refutation. When the probability of refuting the proposition dips towards zero, the more certainty there is for its verification.

This conforms to St. Thomas Aquinas's teaching that the way to truth is analogy and negation: the via negativa. Thomas, unlike Anselm, taught that humans use media, i.e. categories/analogies, what we now call models, to think and that we achieve the truth of those models through negation. John Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness) identified human consciousness as nothingness which applied to posited objects in the world achieves knowledge. No and yes and no and . . . . .

To know is to affirm and deny together. The affirmative is the symbol that is constructed to attend to and link many observations. It is the use of imagination to posit or conjecture. The negative is the refutation of the conjecture. It is also the limitation of the imagination. It is why knowing involves definition and distinction. Definition means putting limits or boundaries to a category or symbol. Distinction is clarifying what belongs in the category or model and what does not.

The "critical" in critical thinking is the use of doubt, question, skepticism, or negation in making or receiving propositions. When we affirm with certainty, when we hold absolutes, when we believe without question (or I say, without faith), we bask in and we show our ignorance. Likewise when we deny a position despite the evidence and despite the high probability of its verification by its inability to be refuted, we also bask in and show our ignorance.

The Cousin Vinnie's of the world demonstrate their ignorance, their lack of thinking or refusal to think, when they affirm and pass on positions without taking the time to question them or when they deny positions that have been carefully verified. Examples include the stereotyping of women, Muslims, African Americans, the idolization of a political or economic system, and the denial of climate change or evolution. I regret ignorance in myself and reject it in others especially when it is fueled by the fear of change. The ignorant are either blindly optimistic or fatalistically pessimistic or often both. They conjecture without refutation. They believe without faith.  They blame, name, and shame without taking responsibility.

The problem for humanity and our world is not conservatism or liberalism, right or left, religion or atheism, science or arts, government or corporations, the East or the West. The problem is the inability or refusal to think critically.

More on Critical Thinking

For me education is learning the art and habit of critical thinking. It is the opposite of imposing a position. To educate (e-ducare) means to "lead out." Out of what? Out of the box.

We need boxes, i.e. categories, to think. Those categories are given to us by others, by our parents, teachers, and preachers. But we don't just take the boxes, we learn how those boxes were made. We learn the ways of coming up with those boxes--and how to refine, expand, interpret, integrate, and even reject the boxes we have been given. We develop in dialogue with others our own boxes that we might transcend them.

I think this requires a taste of creating boxes in many fields: language in everyday living, formulas in math, models in science, plans in urban development, forms in art, myths in religion, organizations in community building, constitutions in nation building--symbols in all our modes of thinking. We learn to be attentive to the history, style, and context of the construction of our boxes so we can interpret them across fields and cultures.

But I think education in critical thinking also requires a mastery in thinking in one or more fields. In a chosen field, we apprentice ourselves to masters to experience their style and approach in box-making, and we "pass" beyond the master when we create our own boxes.

Although I believe that education in critical thinking should be the primary mission of schools, education does not necessarily mean going to school or getting a degree. The classroom, the workshop, the sanctuary, the dining room table, the public forum, the think tank, the seminar and webinar should be places where teachers set the context and resources for students to become "eager ones" (studere) to follow their bliss in the quest for life.

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If a child for whatever reason (poverty, abuse, nutrition, lack of healthcare and other resources) does not have this opportunity, a great injustice is being done. If an adult who has this opportunity does not take advantage of the opportunity to transcend her/his boxes, a great injustice is being done. If an organization or nation, does not encourage its leaders at all levels to have and take advantage of this opportunity to learn, a great injustice is being done. This injustice is not only to persons, but to society, to all of us.

Critical Thinking

Most people would agree that critical thinking is to be encouraged, don't they? Certainly over uncritical thinking or not thinking at all. Or is that just an assumption of elitist academics pushing "liberal" education which is what the just-follow-your-common-sense Cousin Vinnies of the world might assert?

What is critical thinking? Why is it important? How can it be fostered?

Here is a brief definition of critical thinking from the Foundation for Critical Thinking:

"Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness..."

The notion of "critical"  comes from the Greek kriticon (discerning judgment) and kriterion (standards)--both of which are indicated in the above definition.

Some of the elements in critical thinking are:

• a fair and open mind; that is, able to change with new evidence, able to listen and enter into opposing viewpoints.
• expression of the question for inquiry or problem to be solved with recognition of the limits of inquiry and solution.
• continuous observation and exploration; that is, research and further inquiry.
• expression of conclusions that are tentative and testable.
• experimentation; that is trying out conclusions to see if they work objectively with others.
• response to challenges by peers with noted adaptations and new questions and problems.

Critical thinking implies the questioning of all belief systems, all previously affirmed conclusions, all assumptions, all doctrines. It means ongoing inquiry based on the desire to know, not the desire to uphold some existing position.

Without critical thinking, we are hung up in the status quo. We are stuck in old thinking, in the habits that maintain what is, in keeping things the way they are insofar as they keep us in control. We are kept comfortable without tension, without contradiction, without thinking. Critical thinking makes us uncomfortable with where we are and what we know. Critical thinking prompts and excites us towards new possibilities.

Without critical thinking we are who we are, but not who we might be. Without critical thinking, we are caught in what is, and blocked from what could be.

What makes thinking critical is that it questions thinking itself and the products of that thinking whether it is in religion, science, philosophy, economics, politics, or day to day life. What makes thinking critical is that it is engaged in action to change the world and be changed by the world.

In the Beginning is the Story

In the Beginning Was the Story

Do you dream in stories? I do. They often seem so real until on awakening I try to recount them. Then they seem implausible and even silly. I suppose that while sleeping my brain is freeing neurons by discharging memories and rearranging them into narratives. A departed friend or a past acquaintance appears in situations in which sometimes I am the main character and other times just an observer.

In those situations feelings spring forth, regrets at having not finished something, fears of being unprepared, exhilaration in flying above the world, excitement while acting on a stage, accomplishment in teaching a way to do something, wonderment in facing great opportunities. No wonder that Freud and his followers claimed insight into their patients' psyches through their dreams and that shamans and priests discerned higher powers speaking in dreams.

In Hallucinations, neurologist author Oliver Sacks shows that most internally brain generated visions whether stimulated by sensory deprivation, drugs, strokes, parkinson's disease, or epilepsy are contained in stories and can be narrated by the experiencing person though often in concepts that were previously learned and culturally connected. Though interestingly he shows that in the aura of a migraine the brain often produces patterns enough for him to speculate that the brain, like nature and life, has a self-organzing function, makes patterns in chaos including stories from disparate events. Just as a perception can be a hallucination for an individual, might a story be a hallucination for a group?

The brain, thanks to the development of the frontal cortex, weaves sense perceptions and their accompanying feelings into stories and thus makes mind. Mind is forever trying to make sense of things through stories. We have learned that thinking is using categories and making analogies, fashioning symbols and constructing models. But they are brought together to appear in stories. All our modes of knowing involve narratives--the forms of art, the formulas of science, the words of ordinary language, the myths and rites of religion.

I even hypothesize that the story is the unity of all human knowledge.

The story not only makes a mind; it makes a people. Consider the Iliad and Odyssey of ancient Greece with its heroes, gods, city-states, alliances extending to Alexander and the Ptolemaic empire. Consider the twelve tribes that shared their stories and became the Hebrew nation from which came the Jewish Rabbinic, the Christian Roman, and the Arabic Islamic stories and civilizations. Consider the indigenous peoples of the Americas who told origin stories to protect their peoples and their lands. Stories teach what is true and false, right and wrong, real and ideal, godly and demonic.

In French "story" and 'history" are the same word histoire. The wars between Protestants and Catholics, between Asians and Europeans, Soviets and Americans, and other civilizations even today are conflicts in stories. To resolve these conflicts we need to know the stories of peoples and nations, appreciate and share them sympathetically, and be willing to create an new more inclusive story.

When we really want to know a person and what makes him or her tick, we need to know that person's story. When we build a relationship with that person, we share stories and find what is common in our very diverse stories--a point of convergence that we know is always there.

I am my story. My story is mystery until I tell it to myself and to others so I understand its power over me and transcend it. You are your story. When I listen to, really entering into your story, I know and become you. When I share my story so that you can understand it, we make a connection. We are a series of events--in process. Not immutable essences. We are stories that have no ending, still being written, in process. To know each other we must enjoy each others process of becoming--who we are  and will be. Through our accounts, our sting of words, gestures, and designs, we recall our past memories; we intend you future ideals; we integrate our present existence, our presence. Only when we learn to do this as persons and as communities will we have a chance of uniting stories and building a history that celebrates our individual uniqueness and our communal mission.

Story is the unity of our divergent ways of knowing. Religion is a story and tells stories to give meaning to humans in the world and to teach them to achieve their purpose.  Common sense uses stories to teach us how to live in the day-to-day ordinary world. Science critiques and refines the stories of religion, art, and common sense to tell the story that explains the universe, nature and its elements, and life and humanity. Art creates and embellishes the stories that religion, common sense, science, and all our modes of being in the world uses.

Which story do we tell? When is a story true or false?

Indigenous fables, origin stories, religious myths, heroic tales, prophetic parables, news accounts, historic fiction, science fiction, memoirs, biographies, histories of nations, histories of civilizations, natural philosophy, sacred scriptures, diaries, blogs, books of revelations, case studies, poetic anthologies, anthropological observations, recorded memories, adventure tales, movies and documentaries, fairy tales, romances and novels, crime stories--all are works of art, human creations. Are some true and some false? Some to be taken "literally" and some not? Some good and some bad?

The better question might be: how does the story lead us to truth or what is the truth that the story is revealing and/or concealing?

Truth and falsity, good and evil, right and wrong are matters of "judgment"and "decision"--the Greek word for which is crisis from which we get the word "criticism," "critique," and "critic." Richard Rorty in demystifying philosophy said that a philosopher is but a literary critic. The way to truth is  through criticism, i.e. making a judgment based on evidence that others (e.g. peers) can review.

In critiquing our stories, we need to be attentive to the genre, to the intention of the story-teller, to the context and culture in which it was written, to the values of the story-teller, the critic, and others to whom the critic speaks. In addition, the sharpness of style, the vividness of images, the clarity of meaning, the fun of expression, all make for the interest, affection, and education of the reader or listener. Since the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, we use the methods and canons of science to discover and explain the truth in our stories.

Joseph Campbell and Mercia Eliade discovered and expressed the truth in myth and in the tales of gods and heroes. Theologians using historical criticism unveil the truth in the gospels and other sacred scriptures. Anthropologists uncovered the truth of indigenous fables and origin stories and the revelations of spirit driven prophets and priests. Art critics enter the images of novelists, film-makers, painters, and fiction writers to reveal the beauty, the beliefs, the existence and future of humanity. Trained historians and biographers search the records to marshall the evidence for the conclusions they reach.

The Iliad was a great story expressing truths about human existence and the culture of Greece even before Schliemann discovered Troy. It is not necessary to prove that Noah's Ark and the Great Flood existed to affirm the moral of the story. The story of the Big Bang and Evolution is the latest and best origin story that we have because it is based on evidence that others can review. However, it is not the final story--because our story is still being written.

We divide our libraries and book stores into fiction and non-fiction and yet the line between is so fluid and fuzzy. There are political, economic, and historical works in non-fiction which are almost totally made up, self-promoting without peer reviewed solid evidence, and based only on the self-interested opinion of the writer and his tribe. And in the fiction section there are poems and visions written by great thinkers that plumb to the deepest truths of human existence.



It is a matter of interpretation and that is what experienced critics, those familiar with the genre, the scope, the history, and the context of the story do. They interpret and pass judgment on the value and truth of the story. And often they disagree. But usually there is a convergence as they learn from one another.

The science of interpretation is called "hermeneutics." But hermeneutics is another word for criticism. Since all thinking involves "figures of speech," i.e. analogy including metaphors and similes and since most analogies are contained and take meaning in stories, interpretation is our way to critical thinking. And critical thinking is our way to truth.


Next: What is critical thinking? Why is critical thinking important? How is it taught?