Audience Participation

Two somewhat related requests:

1. Despite my relative certainty about the things I’ve discussed so far—the value and necessity of human reason, above all else—there are quite a few issues about which I don’t have ironclad opinions. In that vein, if there are any topics, specific or general, about which you would like me to post, please feel free to leave a comment here to that effect (or email me). I’ve got no scarcity of things to write about (he says, adding a twelfth post to his queue), but I’m genuinely curious about what sorts of things you’d like to see me write about, if you have any particular preference.
2. Speaking of issues on which I haven’t come to a decisive conclusion, I’d like to get a bit of conversation going about the concept of hate crime legislation. The ‘sensible’ position, at least in the circles in which I run, is that such laws would by definition be thought legislation, in that they place an additional criminal burden on anti-[group] thoughts above and beyond already-prohibited violent actions, thus violating the principle of freedom of conscience. The suggestion of this argument is that hate crime legislation would be on principle no different from a legal prohibition against bigoted thoughts—the only difference being that bigotry would be a secondary violation, so to speak. The obvious rebuttal here is that intent and mental state are already considered in the law in quite a few places, most notably in the various distinctions between degrees of murder/manslaughter. This seems to be more a matter of the absence or presence of intent than about the content of that intent, I suppose, but hate crimes could be represented similarly–the absence or presence of anti-[group] intent in the committing of a violent crime.

   My instincts here run in two different directions. On the one hand, I am very receptive to the hesitance to regulate thought in any way, and to the theoretical dangers of encoding a sort of prohibition of certain beliefs, even if those beliefs are idiotic and hateful. I recognize that the burden rests on those doing the regulating, and that rights are assumed to exist unless otherwise specified. On the other hand, the “hate crime legislation -> thought crime” argument seems to me somewhat misleading; I’m not entirely ready to say that enforcing hate crime legislation would be the same in principle as enforcing a prohibition on bigoted thoughts. It should be noted that the desire to kill someone because of their sexual orientation/gender/race/etc. can and should be distinguished from the belief that someone is inferior because of those characteristics, though obviously they are fundamentally linked. The question there, I guess, would be whether there is something to the willingness to commit a hate crime besides the belief in the inferiority of the victim’s group and a willingness to kill in general, and I’m not really sure how to answer that. Society has a definite interest in decreasing the number of violent crimes committed, and this is one of the main functions of the legal prohibition on violent crime: to create a state where the cost of committing a certain crime (imprisonment, etc.) is greater than the perceived benefit of committing that crime (material gain, emotional satisfaction, etc.). Hate crime legislation would seem to act to create such a state of affairs by targeting one of the potential impulses towards violent crime. The other function of law is protection in a more direct sense, i.e. removing dangerously violent people from the general population so that they won’t kill people, and it seems to me that the thought crime argument is more relevant to this dimension of law. As a deterrent, though (see desire utilitarianism), it doesn’t seem to me entirely out of the question.

What say you, dear readers, on either of these counts?

—Urizen

Update on “Clooney” Blog Post

I don’t like lying to readers, and as our friend filthy_habit pointed out, the Huffington Post article allegedly by George Clooney was not in fact written by him. Yesterday, Arianna Huffington apologized to the public for the misleading blog post which was, in fact, composed from compiled Clooney interviews. Just thought you all should know.

Livejournal Feed

Looking at our referral logs, I noticed that somebody has been kind enough to set up a Livejournal syndicated feed for IP (and, I am told, one for comments). So for those readers who hail from Livejournal, you can get your fix there.

(N.B.: Please don’t comment on the Livejournal feed. We won’t see it if you do, and the comments will disappear if the feed updates and removes the posting. Follow the link and make comments on the IP site.)

Locke Week?

Also, for the record: I’m diving into Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, and I’m planning to do a series of entries on various aspects of it over the next week or so. I may have an unrelated post or two before that starts, but either way, I’m hoping to have the first Locke post up tomorrow night or thereabouts. So look for that, if it’s something you care to look for.

–Urizen

Already a Month; also, Links to Smart People

As of early this morning, we’ve been up and running for a month. I’m hoping to pick up the pace in the coming weeks and months, but for now, I’d like to link to a few people who are doing some particularly good blogging of late.

Alonzo Fyfe over at Atheist Ethicist (whom I just realized I had neglected until now to add to our blogroll) recently passed the 150 post milestone, and in the process he gave us an index to some of his best posts on reason-based morality, a subject that’s near and dear to my heart (and mind). I’ve only been reading him for a month or so, since his post on the Pledge appeared in the Carnival of the Godless, and I haven’t had a chance to go back to all of his older posts, but what I’ve read has been both rigorous and very readable. He’s been particularly good lately on the Danish cartoon debacle, too.

While I’m on that subject, Ed Brayton has been, to my mind, the best and most comprehensive source of commentary on the Danish cartoons, from the humorous and ironic to the insightful and downright frightening. (You should also check out some of the other stuff at Positive Liberty while you’re there.)

Dave Neiwert over at Orcinus has a long history of excellent commentary on eliminationist rhetoric, and while I don’t necessarily share his views on hate crime legislation, I do think it’s extremely important to understand how rhetoric turns to action, and he articulates this more effectively than anyone else in the blogosphere.

Lastly, I should nudge you all rather forcefully towards Thoughts from Kansas. Were some strange person to put a gun to my head and force me to stop reading all but one of the blogs I currently read, TfK would be it. Great on science, great on politics (both local and national), great on the interactions between the two (three?). Look; manimals! (Edit: I just have to add this, because it’s too good. TfK on McCain’s campaign finance flipflops: “Like all great indie acts, his early work was better.”)

—Urizen

The, er, Ninth Step

Better late than never, I suppose: I am author number four.
By way of introduction, I list my interests, a turn-off, and beliefs.

1. My primary interest is in how things work. In the past few months, this has led me to study, among other things, sociology, religion, productivity, physics, the brain, and nutrition. Mostly, I have a short attention span.
2. I will listen to anything but memorized responses. I hate memorized responses.
3. I believe in three things only: human agency, discourse, and chocolate.

And that’s that.

-Westin

For the record . .

Author #4 is on a bit of a vacation for the next couple weeks. We’re going to get started without him, because, well . . we don’t love him enough to wait. Give him a nice welcome when he gets here, though.

Time for Honesty

First, an apology. I was supposed to have this up when 3edgedsword and Urizen each posted their respective introductions. Gentle reader, I know that first impressions are of the utmost importance, and I have already gone and cocked this one up. I am hoping that this will be the last time I fail to update here in a timely fashion, but let’s be honest with each other – it probably won’t be. Thus, please accept this as not only my apology for this trespass, but as a preemptive apology for my future trespasses, whatever they may be. I am sorry, and I will endeavor to serve you as best I can in the future.

Now, to business. Why am I here? What business do I have tell you how things should be? The truth: Because, and absolutely none. That first point may deserve clarification. I am here because I am dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with the status quo, and I want it to change. Do I think that I can do that from here? Absolutely not. Even with the formidable mental, rhetorical and philosophical powers of my Intelligent Party compatriots, we haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of changing everything just by talking here. You do, and so I am embracing the mantle of the do-it-yourself instant pundit in a desperate attempt to rejuvenate the public discourse. The current political climate across the United States is overwrought with empty rhetoric and crowd-pleasing politics. I think that politics should be less about telling people what they want to hear, and less about what party you want to align with. People should be able to hear what is distasteful but correct, and they should hear it on the public arena.

But mostly, I’m here because politics makes me sick. I am appalled when people I agree with resort to ridiculing and ignoring the other side for the simple reason that they are the other side. My favorite people disagree with me. They disagree with me eloquently, intelligently, and above all reasonably. That, more than anything is why I am here now. Because I want to be disagreed with, and I believe that discussion can only help. I know that things I say will be wrong, impractical, or naïve, and I’m okay with that. As long as you tell me when and why I am.

-Demosthenes

And so it begins…

We have nothing to fear from the truth. This is the fundamental belief that drives a great deal of human endeavor from philosophy to science to journalism. I submit that the best way to this is by the dialectic and debate. We must be able to argue about and defend our points of view for them to mean anything to anyone else, or to ourselves. This blog is not about adhering to the political dogma of one group over another, but attempting to provide reasoned arguments for the best solution to a given problem. The goal here is to force readers to consider their words, and reconsider their points of view. And hopefully your comments will make me revise and refine my own statements as well. In this process, we are not opponents simply because we disagree; our only enemies are those who suppress ideas, free speech, and the personal liberties none of us should take for granted.

Thanks for reading.

-3edgedsword

The First Step

I want, before I begin posting items of real substance, to introduce myself and my perspective on things. Mostly the latter, really.

Blogging has pretty effectively exploded over the last year. For better or worse, damn near everyone these days seems to have something to say. Opinions and assholes, and all of that. A lot of it is unmitigated crap, sure, but by and large I think the advent of the blogosphere (much as I loathe that term) is A Good Thing. It gives us the opportunity to have real debates about things that matter–something other than just late-night rambling conversations with close friends who, for the most part, already know what we think. In that vein, I wanted to start publishing my thoughts in a more visible venue. I don’t harbor delusions of being able to singlehandedly influence public policy, but I think every piece of reasoned argument that people are exposed to adds something to our understanding of the world. I think we could all stand to spend a bit more time writing and reading and talking and pondering. I have faith in the powers of human reason to make the world better and more fulfilling, and I believe it’s a worthwhile and increasingly necessary pursuit to exercise those powers of reason and to think through the myriad of issues relevant to modern life.

As far as what things interest me enough for me to post about them, I can only offer you a laundry list and a disclaimer that the list is constantly growing. I make no guarantees about the consistency of my interest in a given topic or issue, though I suspect a broad interest in politics and philosophy will be more or less constant for however long I’m blogging. At present, I am especially interested in liberalism, atheism, political philosophy, epistemology, morality, philosophy of science, public policy, cultural criticism, and education. Who knows what else that list will encompass a month or a year from now.

The plan, insofar as I’ve formulated a plan, is to write until I’m tired of writing. It’s a distinct possibility that I won’t ever actually tire of writing, and that there will be a steady stream of excessively wordy, argumentative posts from me for a long time to come. There are, as you will soon discover if you read this with any regularity, a lot of things on my mind.

I should also say that I’m tremendously excited to be blogging with the people I’m about to be blogging with. They’re bright, interesting people, all of whom I’ve known for years now, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what they have to say. It is my hope that once we start posting, we’ll generate some valuable discussion, both among the four of us and between us and whoever reads this blog. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone reading The Intelligent Party to comment, whether in agreement or disagreement; I’m looking forward to forcing myself to think through various issues, but the real value comes from debate and discussion. I will consider this a successful venture if we’re able to engender such debate. As much as I enjoy rambling, it’s not really the goal.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can really get started. Here goes nothing.

-Urizen

Greatest hits:

• Why Reason?
• A Rational Morality
• The Denial of Objective Reality
• The Domain of Moral Judgment (Morality Part Deux)
• Misguided Metaphors and the Perversion of Ideals
• Unholy Alliances and the Monolith
• Moral Reasoning vs. Moral Behavior