Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation... Reasonable - that is, human - men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshippers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life.- Alan Watts
No matter what you do -- guns, no guns, it doesn't matter -- you have people that are mentally ill, and they're going to come through the cracks, and they're going to do things that people will not even believe are possible.
- Donald Trump
Fuck ideology. Sorry if that word offends you. But there is nothing in the English language with an equivalent connotation. I wanted to write this post last week, but I promised myself that I would sleep on it until Monday morning-- as I know from experience; nothing good ever comes from anger fueled writing. But, Monday morning has arrived. And still on my lips as I come out of a restless sleep:
Fuck ideology.
In case my blog is your only news source, last week a young man walked into his class at Umpqua Community College and reportedly asked all of the Christians to stand up and said "Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second." And then he went down the line executing everyone standing. He killed nine people and then himself.
In a tragic ideological entanglement, his ideology led him to shoot them because of their ideology. And, because of our nation's pro-gun ideology, over 33,000 people die from guns in the United States every year. We have 106.4 gun deaths per million people. For comparison, the United Kingdom has 2.3 gun deaths per million people. Since 2002, for every one US citizen killed by terrorism, there have been 1,042 more killed in homicides. Add in 09/11, and the ratio is still one death from terrorism for every 120 deaths from guns. This isn't a little problem, this is a huge fucking problem.
There are hundreds of studies showing that the more guns you have in a country, state, town, or household--- the more gun deaths you will have in that country, state, town, or household. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that stricter gun regulations correlate with declining gun deaths (and vice versa). When Connecticut required a license for handguns, homicides decreased by 40% over ten years. When Missouri repealed a similar law, homicides increased by 23%.
President Obama, in his remarks after the shooting, said: “Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response at this podium is routine. We’ve become numb to this. Our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough... Each time this happens, I am going to say that we can actually do something about it, but we're going to have to change our laws."
Last week I posted that quote on Facebook and have been engaged in arguments with four different friends since then. What about mental health? California has stricter gun laws than Hawai'i, yet 40x the total number of murders! What about the Second Amendment!....
Last week I posted that quote on Facebook and have been engaged in arguments with four different friends since then. What about mental health? California has stricter gun laws than Hawai'i, yet 40x the total number of murders! What about the Second Amendment!....
If you are a right-wing Republican, there is no budging. You can present a thousand gun statistics in support of gun regulation, and it doesn't matter. People kill people, not guns.
The far left does the same with vaccines and genetic modification. The evidence doesn't matter, it's how the idea interacts with our ideological entrenchments.
I did the same with Liquified Natural Gas. With my environmentalist hat on, I wrote a blog post recently explaining how LNG would be a barrier to renewable energy adoption on Kaua'i. Yet, after seeing the numbers for Kaua'i, which were not what I thought, I am now leaning in the direction that it could potentially be beneficial. I went on the radio on Tuesday to explain my understanding of both very valid sides of the wonky LNG debate for our island. The first person I saw after leaving the studio said "dude, you've got your priorities all wrong." The next person I saw asked "How much did the utility pay you to say that?"
And, the scariest ideological fight of our time? Climate change. The numbers are just as clear as gun regulations, yet with the fate of human civilization hinging on our response. And what does our dialogue consist of? Al Gore has a big house. Democrats are trying to impose more government regulation on us. It's overpopulation in those third world countries. Stupid hippies, it's cold right now, explain that!...
Fuck ideology.
It's in our nature to want to see the world in black and white. As I've written before-- we need ideology because in the age of the internet we're facing information overload. We're bombarded with data and we need a way to sort through it all. To keep our head from spinning off of our shoulders we need a way to sort through the noise. And ideology gives us that. But...
My mom's 10 year-old cousins were led naked into a gas chamber because of ideology. My grandpa's mother and sister were shot in the back of the head in the woods outside of Auschwitz because of ideology. My wife was born in a refugee camp because of ideology.
Locking the gas chamber. Pulling the trigger. Burning books. Marching. These were normal people, doing horrendous acts of violence.
As Victor Frankl, who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust wrote: "For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. So, let us be alert-- alert in a two fold sense: Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake."
And, right now we're failing. The country is more polarized than it's ever been. When Donald Trump says that "no matter what you do-- guns, no guns, it doesn't matter," he is wrong. He is choosing to turn his head away from the data. Yet, by categorizing the world as black and white he is appealing to our ideology. And we eat that shit up.
Increasingly, those who are ideologically driven, those who see the world in only two shades, are driven to politics--- the business of ideology. And we grow further and further apart.
Trump is a representation of us as Americans. Far left or far right, he is who we deserve. And, I'm sick of it. So....
And, right now we're failing. The country is more polarized than it's ever been. When Donald Trump says that "no matter what you do-- guns, no guns, it doesn't matter," he is wrong. He is choosing to turn his head away from the data. Yet, by categorizing the world as black and white he is appealing to our ideology. And we eat that shit up.
Increasingly, those who are ideologically driven, those who see the world in only two shades, are driven to politics--- the business of ideology. And we grow further and further apart.
Trump is a representation of us as Americans. Far left or far right, he is who we deserve. And, I'm sick of it. So....
Fuck ideology.
Edit 10/06 - I also want to share this powerful essay about the right to bear arms. I understand completely that my perspective on gun regulation is a symptom of my relative privilege. I've never had to hunt for my food nor felt the need to have a gun for protection. And, after watching my friend shoot a boar twice with a .22 and not kill it, I understand fully the need for high caliber rifles when hunting (it's the most humane way to take down an animal). But, there is no moral argument against increased regulation. If you want a gun for protection or hunting, you should be able to get it-- but there should be plenty of hoops to jump through on the way to gun ownership.
“Fuck rational thought”
ReplyDelete― George Carlin
Your premise argument wrt to gun violence data and presumed effects it may have on a reduction to crime, violence and even mass killings depends on the authenticity and honest completeness of the sample data.. And a carefully objective analysts.
ReplyDeleteBecause you have not provided references to such data not analysis, it is more than difficult to achieve a valid persuasive argument.
In fact it comes off as simple ad hominem ideology .. The very thing you claim should beer fucked.. And I would agree in that sense.
Unless you are open to walking into that hard challenge of doing the complete research that conclusively indicates specific gun control will have positive effects without the unintended consequences... There can be potentially many.. You aren't serving the truth.. Only ideology.
My suggestion is to tear yourself away from there temptation also to group dissimilar and mutually exclusive issues together as well. It smacks of providing some bigoted stereotypical assumption..
This from a reader.. Who doesnt care for religion.. Opposes genetically altered food. Supports right to life, condemns abortion, cites independent succession rights as a relief from an overbearing state .. And who would never concede self defense or self survival interest to the state, a neighbor, of even a close friend.
I'm oppressed to gun bans or excessive gun control, for common sense reasons. Dinner of which you actually pitched out there.. EVERY STATE THAT EVER EXISTED TO MANDATE THE SEIZURE OF FUNDS FROM A POPULATION HAS NEVER ENDED WELL.
I don't plan on making that long list of victims.
It's the most honest and moral judgement a person must choose..
I would not recommend giving away your rights. That's my advice. Don't expect anyone enter to share your views. We all have different levels of trust and faith in.. Humanity.. It's a practical reality based point of view.
Just friendly feedback.
Thanks for the commentary. The data regarding the effects of guns on homicides is overwhelming. Yes, the links were mostly to analsysis of the data and not the raw data itself-- but, when you look at a weather report are you looking at barometric pressure, temperature, and wind speed and doing your own analysis? We constantly have to rely on the analsyis of others, and part of coming to conclusions is to be able to pick good sources of info. Do you find any faults with any of the sources I linked to?
DeleteMy theme in all of my writing recently is that: there is an objective right and wrong to everything. Sometimes there's not enough data to know that answer, and we have to do the best we can with the available data (i.e. abortion-- first trimester is ok, third trimester is not-- where's the cut-off point where we can conclusively say conscious life has begun?). And sometimes the data is very, very clear. Such as gun regulation and climate change.
Yet, so often we frame these dialogues in terms of values instead of freedom. "It's my god-given right as an American to own lots of guns without background checks or waiting periods, and saying otherwise is anti-freedom." Even if gun advocates believe that wholeheartedly, if that belief leads to thousands of avoidable deaths.... then they are wrong.
Luke,
ReplyDeleteIdeology in my dictionary is "a system of ideas and ideals" … I'd say that unsystematic thinking is not a very desirable alternative. Last thing I want to do is put words in your mouth but I believe you are referring to a pernicious sort of ideology based on false information and skewed reasoning for the purpose of influencing or controlling people to another's ends. Intuition is a good alternative to ideology to consider although I suspect it is systematic, just unconsciously so.
Even if there was a "camp" as you suggest I wonder how many people would attend? I think that the first step is recognizing false ideology, then a willingness to change, and then the camp could help … but how do the first steps happen to get there?
As a start, I think it would be great if everybody was familiar with https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
About gun control this may be of interest:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-simple-truth-about-gun-control
Thanks for continuing to think and challenge and share your views.
Sorry, I meant "camp" metaphorically-- as in ideological camp (i.e. liberal or conservative). I've changed the wording because it was definitely unclear.
DeleteAnd no, I'm referring to ideology exactly as you defined it-- a system of ideas and ideals. We use ideology to drive our decision making on complex subjects. I am arguing, and have been making the same point in every post for the last few months, that we need to use data. That there are objective answers to all of these ideological issues, and we need to use whatever data we can to come up with a decision. But, instead of looking for that data, we rely on our ideology. Does gay marriage corrupt society? The data clearly says no. Does consciousness begin at inception? The data says no. Do vaccines cause Autism? Very, very, very clearly the data says no. Does genetic modification harm the environment? The data says no (while it is used to further some farming practices which do harm the environment and lead to an over-reliance on petrochemicals, the breeding technique is not the problem). Does gun regulation lead to safer societies? The data is screaming-- yes!
But, instead of looking at the data, we let our ideology lead our decision making so that we fit neatly into oppositionary camps.
As always, thanks for your thoughtful commentary.
Rereading your edit I see that I completely missed your point there … never mind my 2nd paragraph above.
DeleteI would very much like to understand better your rewritten point, that "we need ideology because in the age of the internet we're facing information overload". First, I would say that ideology is much older than the internet - Marxism is an ideology and it isn't the oldest, many old cultures have lots of ideology baked in as myths, practices, castes, etc. Second, how is being data driven not ideology in itself, being a system of ideas (about how to interpret data)?
But I don't want to nit pick terminology: the deeper point here is with the internet we now have fabulous amounts of raw data now available to us, in quantity (and sometimes quality) unimaginable a generation ago.
One lens I find useful is that ideology is a shortcut for lazy thinking. Take thinking prepackaged by the "expert" of your choice, extol their wisdom and authority, and you need not do the hard work of learning and thinking about hard issues yourself. Doing that work - or at least checking the sources and references of the work of others - may be the antidote for ideology. We all have the tools with a computer and internet connection and a brain, but it does take a lot of time and effort.
Thanks again.
I started my Monday morning reading an article published in Esquire mag in July about the despair that climate scientists are living with right now. (not linking it cause I'm a computer neophyte). Suffice it to say, folks are being too fucking stubborn right now. I've been guilty of being an ideologue most of my life, but things have just gotten out of hand and it's time to stop being so myopic! On both sides.
ReplyDelete