In my last post,
I argued that there is no single, “true” meaning of life, which applies
to everyone. The meaning of life is a matter of taste, not of empirical
truth. Thus, no matter how meaningful we find some belief system or
activity or set of values, we shouldn’t insist that others embrace it.
Meaning of life, says 1983 Monty
Python film, is, "Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a
good book every now and then."
My post was inspired, in part, by two friends’ gentle attempt to
persuade me to try a Buddhist retreat, but let me offer a more extreme
example of proselytizing: I once encountered a Christian who, when I
resisted his exhortations to embrace Jesus, compared me to a man on a
burning plane, to whom he was offering a life-saving parachute.
He saw himself as compassionate. I saw him as nutty. Demanding that
people embrace your faith because it works for you is as absurd as
demanding that they listen only to Lady Gaga or have sex only with
stuffed animals. If we could all adopt a live-and-let-live perspective
toward each others’ meanings, we’d be a lot better off.
I hoped for, and got, some critical responses, which I’m posting,
along with my replies, here. My Stevens colleague Garry Dobbins, a
philosopher, objects to my interpretation of Socrates: “You err when you
say, ‘Socrates implied that there is one optimal meaning of life when
he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”‘ Socrates was not
saying that the only life worth living is one in which someone sits
around all day examining his life! No! Socrates was saying that
EVERYONE, whatever she or he does, who never, and regularly, challenges
her or himself by asking such questions as ‘Am I lying to myself
saying/doing this?’ ‘Is that bastard over there who just accused me of
being partial, or prejudiced, really TOTALLY mistaken?’ and so on, is
not living an ‘examined’ life, and is thereby not living up to what we
might fairly call a ‘high’ standard. You might say to me, ‘I don’t CARE
to live UP to any such standard!’ To which I would say, ‘Out of your own
mouth you stand condemned: not mine!’ So, Socrates’ words are perfectly
consistent with someone being a doctor, lawyer, or Indian Chief–or
candlestick maker for that matter–and examining her, or his life, or
NOT.”
My reply: “Garry, I admit Socrates irks me. To me he comes across as
an arrogant jerk, bragging about how wise he is compared to poets,
politicians and everyone else. (He’s wise because he knows how little he
knows! The irony.) You try to soft-peddle the implications of his
‘unexamined life’ remark, suggesting that he’s asking only for a little
ethical introspection now and then. I don’t buy it. Socrates demands
much more of us. His allegory of the cave describes ordinary people as
hopelessly benighted, living in a world of illusion. If you’re not
trying to escape the cave, you’re not really alive, hence your life is
worthless. This is exactly the sort of extremism that I’m deploring, and
that I see in both religious and secular zealots today.”
Lee Vinsel, who teaches science and technology studies at Stevens,
writes: “Isn’t your philosophy just a tepid form of liberalism? The
problem with this kind of philosophy, which also fits some forms of
Existentialism, is that it squishes all of the interesting tensions in
life by pretending they don’t exist. The ‘Whatever, man; you do your
thing; and I’ll do my thing; and as long as our two things don’t
interfere with each other’s things, dude, then everything is copacetic,
dig?’ answer isn’t very interesting a) because it describes what, like,
dormant kids who sit around in their pajamas and play
World of Warcraft
all day think anyway, b) because this variety of liberalism has been
around for a long time to not much effect, and c) because it experienced
a major uptick in the 60s and look how that turned out. Finally, isn’t
the fact that the U.S. liberal, ‘whatever, man’ consensus is leading our
world right off the cliff environmentally and otherwise proof that
philosophically this isn’t the way to go?”
My reply: “Lee, liberalism hasn’t had much effect? Really? Looking
just at the 60s, that was an era of enormous advances in rights for
women, gays, blacks and other oppressed groups, and major grass-roots
challenges to U.S. militarism and imperialism. Young people questioned
the values of their elders and experimented with alternative forms of
spirituality and social organization. Many of those experiments failed,
but they were well worth trying, to my mind. I also reject your
suggestion that liberalism is somehow to blame for our global problems.
Ideological self-righteousness–whether religious or economic or
nationalistic–is what threatens to lead us ‘off the cliff,’ as you put
it.”
A friend who’s into meditation writes: “You portray us as born-again
Buddhists trying to browbeat you into trying Buddhist meditation because
WE liked it. Not fair. In fact, we only argued that if you were going
to keep CRITIQUING meditation, you should really try it. (Not by reading
about it, interviewing people about it, or taking a class here and
there over the years – but by doing sustained meditation.)”
My reply: “I’ve never been psychoanalyzed or taken an antidepressant.
Does that mean I shouldn’t criticize SSRI’s or psychoanalysis? I’m
often faulted for not knowing enough about things I criticize, but no
one ever accuses me of ignorance when I
praise their pet
belief. Now, you could argue that my criticism of others’ beliefs is
inconsistent with the live and let live philosophy I spell out in my
post. I worry about that now and then. But when I look at the world
today, I don’t see it suffering from an excess of skepticism. Quite the
contrary. Anyway, that’s my convenient self-justification.”
Dr. Strangelove comments on my blog: “We like to believe there is no
universal meaning of life. What about democracy, human rights, right to
life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Don’t we all agree to that?”
I reply: “As I said, I’m not a total relativist. There are certain
meta-beliefs, or meta-values, that are good for us to share,
collectively, so we can create a society in which we can pursue our
individual meanings as freely as possible. These are the meta-values
embodied in liberal democracy. Now some people will devote their lives
to promoting the spread of democracy, tolerance, open-mindedness, and so
on, and that’s fine. But if you insist that others join you in your
social activism–and that your life is more meaningful than the lives of
others who are not social activists–that’s not fine.”
Prazeologue comments on Twitter: “Logically your observation is self
refuting. If it is true then it refutes itself. Bit like saying ‘I’m
always lying.’”
I reply: “Yeah, as I once said about Thomas Kuhn, all skeptics are
self-refuting. When I say no meaning-of-life system is true, I’m
offering up another meaning-of-life system, which must also be false. I
get it. But that, I like to think, is a paradox and not a
contradiction.”
Andy Russell, an historian of technology at Stevens: “I’m glad
fishing is part of this discussion. At the moment one of my favorite
philosophers is Billy Currington, who wrote ‘A bad day of fishin’ beats a
good day of anything else [
http://youtu.be/Pptj7_GXMks].’”
I reply: “Now THAT is a wise man. I bet Socrates never went fishing.”
Image courtesy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python’s_The_Meaning_of_Life.
