The Needs of Society and the Human Animal

In light of this, here is a passage from Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 259 (my own remarks follow):

Mutually refraining from wounding each other, from violence, and from exploitation, and setting one’s will on the same level as others—all these can in a certain crude sense become good habits among individuals, if conditions exist for that (namely, a real similarity in the quality of their power and their estimates of value, as well as their belonging together within a single body). However, as soon as people wanted to take this principle further and, where possible, establish it as the basic principle of society, it immediately revealed itself for what it is, as the willed denial of life, as the principle of disintegration and decay.

Here we must think through to the basics and push away all sentimental weakness: living itself is essentially appropriation from and wounding and overpowering strangers and weaker men, oppression, hardness, imposing one’s own forms, annexing, and at the very least, in its mildest actions, exploitation. But why should we always use these precise words, which have from ancient times carried the stamp of a slanderous purpose? Even that body in which, as previously mentioned, the individuals deal with each other as equals—and that happens in every healthy aristocracy—must itself, if it is a living body and not dying out, do to other bodies all those things which the individuals in it refrain from doing to each other: it will have to be the living will to power, it will grow, grab things around it, pull to itself, and want to acquire predominance—not because of some morality or immorality, but because it is alive and because living is precisely the will to power.

But in no point is the common consciousness of the European more reluctant to be instructed than here. Nowadays people everywhere, even those in scientific disguises, are raving about the coming conditions of society from which “the exploitative character” is to have disappeared. To my ears that sounds as if people had promised to invent a life which abstained from all organic functions. The “exploitation” is not part of a depraved or incomplete and primitive society: it belongs in the essential nature of what is living, as a basic organic function. It is a consequence of the real will to power, which is precisely the will to live. Granted that this is something new as a theory, but it is, in reality, the fundamental fact of all history: we should at least be honest with ourselves to this extent!

There can be no doubt that the way of natural life has always been the appropriation of limited resources by entities in competition for them and the exploitation by stronger entities of weaker ones who are unable to retain the resources they have appropriated. And, as Nietzsche points out, where nonviolence becomes a principle, perhaps rather than a practical solution, it is only a door to weakness. Where nonviolence is a practical solution, it can be foregone when circumstances necessitate; but principles cannot be surrendered without hypocrisy.

But then, creating separate, controlled spheres in which the idea of violence-as-nature can be play-acted without actual, sociopolitical consequences isn’t much different from masturbation. In both cases, the natural (i.e., biological as opposed to cultural) way of life is reenacted without consequence in order to fool the mind into believing that something real has been accomplished, thereby satisfying an impulse and implicitly declaring it both good and undeniable, while simultaneously confining and thereby denying it for all those vast portions of life from which it has been confined.

There may be a physiological impact in the bodies of the participants of confined violence, but if the rationale is to access a mental benefit that would (or should) otherwise be gained by the actual (i.e., unconfined and consequence-causing) practice of the behavior, then there is a fundamental contradiction: human beings ought to practice violence because it is the natural way of life, but human beings ought to practice it only within artificial confines because society is better where the violence is not unleashed. Clearly, under this rationale, the needs of society outweigh the needs of the human animal, or else the animalistic violence from whence humans have arisen would not be confined. Thus, the question arises: If the natural way of life is violence, then why should society, which requires nonviolence for most of its practical functioning (where that nonviolence, if not principled can be set aside when necessary), be allowed to dictate that violence be confined? Rather, one would expect the rationale to be that violence, if natural, is a key factor in the evolutionary success of the human species and therefore ought to be encouraged in all spheres. Yet not even the advocate of contained violence, who claims that violence ought to be practiced because it is the natural way of life, will dare to inhabit that realm of possibility and espouse outright revolt against the nonviolence that allegedly drives him into the confined practice of violence. In other words, the nonviolent needs of society triumph over the violent needs of the individual.

But why should the needs of society outweigh the needs of the human animal, if the way of violence by which the human animal rose up and created its society is the most natural mode of being? The answer may simply be that human society, with its practical methods of commerce and law given priority over the methods of physical violence, has provided to our species more growth, more benefits, more comfort, and more prosperity than the way of violence ever did. The practitioners of contained violence claim that this growth, these benefits, comfort, and prosperity come at the cost of denying the nature of the human animal ensconced within them, but even they are not willing to give up those treasures and commit themselves wholly to the way that satisfies the ancient, violent, primate body.

Thus, if the way of nonviolent society, where nonviolence is a practical solution (to be used or not where circumstances requires) rather than a principle (to be followed without exception, on pain of guilt at hypocrisy), is the way of success and the way of continued future progress, then it makes little sense to cultivate the countervailing impulse to violence, confined or not.

To recapitulate and conclude, the practice of confined violence without sociopolitical consequences under the rationale that it is natural to the human animal is both an internally contradictory posture and externally contrary to the needs of the society that creates the circumstances that allegedly necessitate the practice at all.

Life Finds a Way

Check this out: “Israeli scientists say they have discovered a prehistoric ecosystem dating back millions of years.” (Via decorabilia.)

From playfuls.com:

The underground cave includes an underground lake, in which the crustaceans were found. The lake is part of the Yarkon-Taninim aquifer, one of Israel’s two aquifers, yet is different in temperature and chemical composition from the main waters of the aquifer. The lake’s temperature and salinity indicates that its source is deep underground.

Among the interesting features of the discoveries thus far in the cave is that two of the crustaceans are seawater species and two others are of a types found in fresh or brackish water.

This can provide insights into events occurring millions of years ago regarding the history of ancient bodies of water in the region.

And from News@HebrewU:

The cave, which has been dubbed the Ayalon Cave, is “unique in the world,” said Prof. Amos Frumkin of the Hebrew University Department of Geography. This is due mainly to its isolation from the outside world, since the cave’s surface is situated under a layer of chalk that is impenetrable to water. The cave, with its branches, extends over some 2½ kilometers, making it Israel’s second largest limestone cave. It is to remain closed to the public to permit further scientific research.

Now, let’s play Spot-the-Intelligent-Designer. Are you ready? Read all the information you can about this cave and its inhabitants and see if you can figure out God’s—er, uh, the Intelligent Designer’s—message in the details. (Or is it the devil that’s in the details?)

Not Just a Game

My brother sent me this link about an upcoming video game based on the Left Behind series.

Here’s a description from another blog:

This game immerses children in present-day New York City — 500 square blocks, stretching from Wall Street to Chinatown, Greenwich Village, the United Nations headquarters, and Harlem. The game rewards children for how effectively they role play the killing of those who resist becoming a born again Christian. The game also offers players the opportunity to switch sides and fight for the army of the AntiChrist, releasing cloven-hoofed demons who feast on conservative Christians and their panicked proselytes (who taste a lot like Christian).

Really. Look at the game description on the official website. These people are insane.

Brilliant Protesters

Up in Olympia, fun stuff is happening:

Police fired pepper spray as about 150 anti-war protesters tried to enter the Port of Olympia amid demonstrations against the shipment of Army equipment to Iraq. Twenty-two people were arrested Tuesday, officials said.

Because, you know, now that we have troops over in Iraq, the best thing to do if you oppose the war is to try and block the shipment of equipment to them, so they’re left hanging. That’ll show those bullies in the Bush administration, yeah.

Grades

Final grades have been released. In every class but Civil Procedure, I either improved on the midterm grade or stayed at the same grade. Where my midterm GPA was 82.4, my final GPA is 83.8, but I have yet to learn my class standing. Here are the numbers, class by class, final grades for my first year of law school:

• Contracts: 87
• Torts: 87
• Civil Procedure: 77
• Legal Research & Writing: 85

While those are all good grades (recall, there’s no curve at my school), I’m not confident that I managed to keep my rank of third in the class. We shall see.

Techie Fights

Check out this article on real-life fight clubs. Few things seem sillier to me than a bunch of Silicon Valley engineers getting together to beat the crap out of each other, just for kicks, but these guys take themselves pretty seriously:

Five-year fight club veteran Dinesh Prasad, 32, a heavily tattooed Santa Clara engineer, said he once broke a rib in a match but never complained to his fellow combatants. He also recently skipped his first wedding anniversary to attend a fight rather than drive to Los Angeles, where his wife is finishing law school.

“I came here to get over my fear of fighting, and it’s working,” he said. “I’m much tougher than I was five years ago. I’m not at the level of these other guys, but if things were to get tough, I can get tough, too.”

Right. I’d like to hear from Prasad’s wife. Why didn’t she get interviewed for the story? And I wonder if these guys remember how the book and movie Fight Club ended? It turned out that the “fight clubs” were the creation of somebody with severe mental illness.

“Imcumbistan.” Nice.

Here’s a commentary on the stupidity of our legislators that is as worthwhile for its insights as for its witty prose.

Crucifying the X-Men

The Partner and I got out to see the latest X-Men flick yesterday afternoon. Although I suspect I enjoyed it a little more than she did, we agreed that it was pretty weak overall. This would probably be the place to put the “WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!” bit, but really, there’s not much to spoil. Everything that comes up is eventually just knocked down and we’re left with little more than a re-shuffling of the mutant deck. No big developments. At any rate, if you don’t mind being “spoiled,” by all means, proceed.

(Also, I’ve not read any of the comics, so I can’t speak to that relationship. If you want to comment and tell me I’m a fool because of some information that’s in the comics but not in the movie, then buy me the necessary compilation in book form and send it my way. Yes, I will read it.)

Where was the story in this movie? Right from the beginning we get this heavy idea that a cure for the mutants has been developed (and there’s a potentially juicy angle that it was developed by the father of a mutant), but the philosophical impact such a cure might have is pretty much swept to the margins and before you know it the mutants have lined up against each other for the inevitable, climactic battle. What happens to the cure? Is it destroyed in the carnage of the final showdown? Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to think, and I’m sure lots of people will think that — or maybe that’s what the comics say, I don’t know — but how hard would it have been for the filmmakers to throw a line to the effect, “If they destroy this building, everything is lost!” That would have removed all doubt and allowed the destruction and mayhem to effectively, if not satisfyingly, tie up that loose end.

Meanwhile, we have the odd fact that the X-Men are lining up on the side of the cure (to which they may or may not object — the one conversation where they discuss it is interrupted and never finished), although presumably not because they think mutants ought to be cured, but because they’re trying to rescue the young mutant from whom the cure has been developed. Considering an earlier scene where Professor Xavier (i.e., Captain Picard) expounds his moral theory of self-sacrifice for the greater good, as well as a much later scene where two key characters make some rather huge sacrifices themselves, it seems odd that Xavier’s followers and disciples would stand in the way of Magneto’s quest to destroy the cure while they have failed to express much disagreement with his goals simply to save this one kid. Why not let him die for the greater good? With all the destruction that results, theirs is a strange morality, especially considering how the X-Men appear to act with relative ignorance, falling back on clichés like “We stand together.” Well, Wolverine, I’m glad you stand together; do you know exactly what you’re standing together against? Or why? Maybe you do, but you never bothered to tell us.

So we have this huge battle at the end where Magneto and his posse show up at Alcatraz and all hell breaks loose. (And what’s with his posse? They just look like a bunch of leftover extras from The Matrix and despite their great numbers are pretty much blown away by six X-men. Some mutants they are.) The nearly nonexistent but potentially satisfying subplot involving the maker of the cure being the father of a mutant is surreptitiously snuffed with a predictable act of heroism that is so scantly set up it almost seems like a deus ex machina. Meanwhile, mayhem continues until enough characters are killed off that the next sequel perhaps won’t continue with the trend of the exponentially increasing cast. Good riddance. Maybe with fewer characters needing narrative maintenance, they’ll have more time to tell a story.

But wait. The final scene of the movie revives an earlier doubt that the cure is actually permanent. What, so you mean we’ve been sitting here watching a rain of death and destruction over what is essentially a non-issuse? It’s Hitchcock’s MacGuffin theory run mad!

When the plot of a movie is so hopelessly crippled as this one, I usually expect that the focus will be on character development. So what do we have? Ultimately, as I alluded to above, it seems that characters are more killed off than developed. But wait, one of them has “died” once already and another, well, just stick around until the credits are over and you’ll see what I mean. So maybe they’re not dead. But for the purposes of this movie, they’ve been “killed.” Several key characters are “cured,” but then, as I mentioned earlier, the final scene undercuts the finality of the cure. This does not bode well. When the only way to keep your story going is by continually killing and resurrecting your characters, or having them undergo apparently permanent changes that are really only temporary, you’ve got some serious shortcomings in the creative department. Aren’t there more interesting things that could be going on? Kill off your characters, sure, but then replace them with new ones — don’t keep bringing them back.

What about the other characters? All of the younger mutants are relegated to silly teenaged rivalries and love triangles that ultimately come to nothing and have no real bearing on the rest of the “story.” Rogue (Anna Paquin) takes the cure, but then comes back to the school for mutants, but then we’re led to believe the cure isn’t permanent, but she couldn’t possibly know that yet, so the whole thing seems rather stupid and fruitless.

The big thing in this movie, I suppose, is the whole “Phoenix” thing with Jean Grey. Color me disappointed. She died in the last movie. Now she’s back and more powerful than ever before — bordering on omnipotent, it seems. But she spends most of the movie just standing around looking rather pale and vacant. Then at the end, despite her phenomenal cosmic powers, it’s an astoundingly simple task to finish her off. Oh, and cut to the obligatory screaming-at-the-sky scene, too. (Sorry, I can’t see one of those anymore without thinking of Ranier Wolfcastle on The Simpsons screaming, “Mendozaaaaa!”)

Also, my dear Partner was rather distressed at the “Phoenix” terminology. “What can a phoenix do?” she asked. “Heal people? Fly? Why do they call her a phoenix?” I suggested that it’s because Jean Grey came back from the dead, but the Partner would have none of that. “It’s just stupid. There’s no reason to call her ‘the Phoenix.’” Maybe she has a point. At least, so far as I recall, they didn’t mention anything about this “Dark Phoenix” thing that all the comic-heads are talking about. Sorry, but can’t all you comic-book-fantasy-sci-fi people come up with a better adjective than “dark”? Everything is always “dark” in your stuff. It’s such a lame, vague adjective. So I’m glad the filmmakers left that one out of the movie.

Finally, on the upside, we get the cool opening scene where Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan have twenty years shaved off their faces via digital imagery, the new girl Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) is extremely easy on the eyes, and the scene where Magneto destroys the Golden Gate Bridge is the sort of fanciful-but-realistic kind of carnage I appreciate in a superhero movie. Also, there’s something vaguely satisfying about seeing Sir Ian McKellan in that supremely ridiculous looking helmet he wears. You’ve got some talent if you can wear that stupid thing on your head and still affect some kind of gravitas.

One more thing, mostly unrelated. Before seeing the movie, we had lunch at a restaurant where you can eat outside and within view of the front of the theater. While eating, we noticed a couple of Christians protesting The Da Vinci Code. They were sitting in the shade holding signs that said “Stop the Blasphemy!” and suggested that the film disrespects “Christ and His Church.” We reflected on how far Christianity has come. A couple thousand years ago, people hated Christians — stoned them, burned them at the stake, threw them to wild animals for entertainment, etc. — and it was a mark of great faith for the Christians who endured torture and persecution. But these days, if you want to show your conviction, all you need to do is sit in the shade, hold a sign with a vague imperative, and let thousands of people walk past and ignore you (or chuckle in amusement as we did). Good times. If it gets you out on a Sunday afternoon, I guess you’re not doing too badly.

Cry Me a River, Congress

Darren Allen writes in the Rutland Herald (of Vermont) about the Congressional uproar over the FBI search of Representative William Jefferson’s offices and compares it to the Congressional toadying that has accompanied the extraordinarily broad wiretapping authorized by the executive branch:

It’s one thing for the crew of insiders to act like they’ve somehow been wronged by what looks like, from all accounts, a perfectly lawful and reasonable search of a crime suspect’s office, a suspect whom authorities say didn’t cooperate with them for months.

It’s quite another for them to expect that we will share their outrage.

After all, they certainly don’t seem to share ours when it is our privacy that is being violated.

Preach it.

Another Pound of Flesh

Earlier today I picked up the casebooks for my two summer electives: Federal Indian Law by Getches, Wilkinson, and Williams, 5th edition; and Advanced Torts by Christie, Meeks, Pryor, and Sanders. The hole just got another $173.84 deeper.

I need a new job and a wealthy patron. There’s a firm in Fresno that just posted a listing for part-time law clerks today. Time to polish up the ol’ résumé. Either that or ask my boss at the bookstore for more money that I know she doesn’t have.

Education is great, but I wish it didn’t cost so much. The problem has been around for a long time, though. Here’s Socrates, as written by Plato, speaking to Hermogenes in the dialogue called Cratylus:

Son of Hipponicus, there is an ancient saying, that “hard is the knowledge of the good” . . . . If I had not been poor, I might have heard the fifty-drachma course of the great Prodicus, which is a complete education in grammar and language—these are his own words—and then I should have been at once able to answer your question. . . . But, indeed, I have only heard the single-drachma course, and therefore, I do not know the truth about such matters; I will, however, gladly assist you and Cratylus in the investigation of them.

But unlike Socrates, I can’t just go out and practice law without having taken the modern equivalent of a whole bunch of fifty-drachma courses. If I did that, no one would force me to drink hemlock, but after accruing as much debt as I already have and receiving the penalties for practicing law without a license, I might go for the hemlock of my own volition.

(And yes, that’s how big a nerd I am: when I complain about the costs of education, I quote Socrates.)