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March 26 1997, San Diego police discovered the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult, who had willingly taken their own lives in the belief that their souls would be whisked to the "next level" by aliens traveling in the wake of Comet Hale-Bopp, which they believed carried a spaceship in its luminous tail. They had college degrees and held jobs. They lived in a pretty Mission-style house in a nice neighborhood. And they willingly killed themselves for a story and a guru / leader. HERE is the WIKI on Heaven's Gate.
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So... how 'rational' are we? Really—in how we behave, believe, interact in our everyday lives. This week we get to write about all the things many of us wanted to talk about for hours—maybe over beer: the faith-science wars, absolutely certain transmen and apotemnophiliacs seeking body modification, Kayla's dad thinking the earth is cooling, bleeding mystics (and cute teenagers); indubitable 'selves,' reason (and faith), human rights of all kinds, patient's rights, Jehovah's Witnesses thinking the Bible forbids their kids blood transfusions, suggested away warts, lots of us certain that we can't survive without food and water, Ray Kurzweil hoping for a 'singularity' when he can become a silicon immortal, Ashley wondering if she really needed to vaccinate her kids, and the entire mind-body split and its legacies.
What we've been calling the 'Cartesian Moment' (Descartes' successfully elevating REASON to the center of all knowledge, and banishing the BODY and all its attributes) changed everything. A 17th century meme, that put facts at the center of our World View. Sort of. We'll start our deeply political work on drugs, sex, bodies and lives by calling the 'Cartesian' split (a 'dualism') into question on many grounds. Latour takes a whole book.
Robin claimed that we were all 'Cartesians' even if we'd never read a word of his or even heard his name.
Robin claimed that we were all 'Cartesians' even if we'd never read a word of his or even heard his name.
• universal reason, manifested in 'common sense,' universal in all people, the seat of the 'soul' and making us human, structured like the universe, and finally: capable of finding all knowledge—just by meditation. AND (maybe more important), anything not 'reasonable' (thanks Mr. Spock or Mr. Data) is seen as flawed, weak, feminine, childish, sinful, trivial and unimportant.
• radical individual for Descartes, the starting point of all knowing. That singular 'thinking thing,' who with no help from community, dialogue, labs and the data they make, churches, historical knowledge, Scripture—anything—can literally discover the universe. Yikes! Aren't we great?
• bourgeois subject (sorry for the jargon), but for Monsieur D, it's not the clergy, the Pope, the king, the aristocrats, or even the professors who can get to truth; we all can. We are 'endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,' and we all have universal reason (he calls it 'common sense' in another writing). In one move, Descartes (with a lot of help, of course from others who share his meme) opens the door for the bourgeois revolutions to come—all founded on the idea that individuals can know and should govern their lives. Revolution coming…!
• and what about Mr. God? Well, (s)he necessarily gets redefined. No longer the smiter, the world-changer, the prayer-answerer, the stigmata-creator, the personal friend-and-Saviour who speaks to us (well, that god won't get invented for another couple of hundred years…), God becomes something like a 'watchmaker god,' setting the universe in motion and stepping back. Or a 'first-cause god.' And finally: an absent god.
• and what about SCIENTIFIC DATA? all our scientists said 'this doesn't look like science,' because it had no data sets, no methods, no analysis. Isaiah asked me when the familiar 'scientific methods' came into being and was a little surprised to learn that it's a 19th century invention (and of course: German). Science today begins with data (or so we think), and we have lots of instruments to gather it. Descartes had scant resources, and so casts all 'empirical' data into doubt, placing his reasoning mind (in a vat) at the center of science. This too, is science, folks. And it anchors how we work today. But it feels a bit foreign because of how we work.
• and what about SCIENTIFIC DATA? all our scientists said 'this doesn't look like science,' because it had no data sets, no methods, no analysis. Isaiah asked me when the familiar 'scientific methods' came into being and was a little surprised to learn that it's a 19th century invention (and of course: German). Science today begins with data (or so we think), and we have lots of instruments to gather it. Descartes had scant resources, and so casts all 'empirical' data into doubt, placing his reasoning mind (in a vat) at the center of science. This too, is science, folks. And it anchors how we work today. But it feels a bit foreign because of how we work.
Fair enough. So now what?
Well, for starters, let's try to make 'common sense' of the idea that we're sort of trapped by the ways we see the world, and have trouble imagining things any other way. The idea that the world is 'framed' by certain 'paradigms' or 'world views' or 'ways of seeing'—ours being pretty 'Cartesian.' though by no means consistently so. Remember Kristy talking about living half in a Hmong and half in a Western world.
Explain how Descartes 'inhabits' Steven Pinker, or the National Geographic producers, or Dr. George Buchanan, or people loving Blessed Teresa (or some of us thinking 'she faked it'), or the problems around how 'intercessory prayer' might 'work', or geneticists looking for the 'altruism' gene, or Cindy Whitehead getting us to see 'asexual' as a 'disorder' ('Isn't it time to "even the score",' on Moodle), or the guys writing the DSM5, or (the other side) Kellyanne Conway talking about 'alternative facts,' or President Trump ignoring that black eye picture, or the Founding Fathers, or anyone convinced that they inhabit the wrong body, or, or, or. Find a good example to read closely—ours are fine; but yours are better if you've got one. Whatever works.
Then suggest how this all plays out—theoretically, scientifically, ethically, historically, whatever. Work with our readings. How are we bamboozled, and how might we get un-bamboozled? Alternatively: how does our 'reason,' rightly used, steer us right? How do we need to think in order to see more clearly? If you want a model, it's probably Carl Elliot's detailed, balanced, personal meditations.
Guys: this is philosophy, but it is not a 'philosophy paper.' Worry a lot less about getting Descartes right (though it won't hurt), and more about finding some really cool thing to explain through our work so far.
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