on being good.

[queenlua]

Here are some links that are relevant to some thoughts I've been turning over in my head lately wrt the very broad areas of morality and tribalism:

Reflections of a sellout; how diversity would strengthen social science. There have been a few grumpy analyses of academia by conservatives that I've read before, and I've found most of them unconvincing—they tend to obsess over things like "x% of professors voted for Obama!" without demonstrating how that actually affects their teaching/research. This one, however, is better-argued and far more damning, and was a little shocking to me in some respects. The author points out how a lot of social science research comes with pretty strong left-leaning biases because of the way their studies are set up and measured—i.e., a study that qualifies a trait like "openness to experience" in such a way that it really means "openness to upper-class liberal hobbies," and a study that identifies thoughts like "hard work tends to pay off" as a "rationalization of inequality" (???), shit like that.

This is pretty sad news for social science, coming on the heels of a pretty significant crisis in psych research—turns out you can't fucking reproduce most the results of the most important studies, oops. (Apologies that I can't find a better link than The Guardian atm; I was getting drinks with a CS/communication professor a couple weeks ago, and he talked in some detail about the specific systematic statistical / experimental design errors psych has been making & why they're so egregious, but he has not typed up a blog entry on the subject and I cannot find one at the moment!)

Anyway. The moral is, instead of the usual depressing-yet-normal pipeline of "good science is performed, but the results are tentative/incomplete, science journalism publishes a distortion of the original thing and people start believing a distortion," we have an even more depressing pipeline of "junk science is performed, said junk science gets even more distorted by journalism, and self-satisfied liberal-types will snarkily post BS studies like "religious people are less empathetic LOL THOSE BIBLE-THUMPERS."

Which sort of hackishly transitions into my next train of thought, which I was thinking about today because, well, some Very Smart Young Liberal Type cited that study during a casual conversation today, and it reminded me of Darcey's observations on moral values that are not based on SJ causes (plus a small addendum). (Darcey's blog is one of my favorite things on Tumblr right now and I recommend plumbing through the archives if you're into thoughts on death, mysticism, tradition, ritual, etc.) tl;dr, she points out there's a lot of virtues people can value, like taking care of your responsibilities, or being dutiful to your family, and so on, and it seems a little weird that left-wing radicals, particularly in the echo chamber that is Tumblr, focus almost exclusively on the SJ-based virtues.

Which resonates some with my experience. Basically, a lot of the culture of secular morality that I'm surrounded by these days is based on having "correct" beliefs. For instance: don't be religious; religion is silly fairy-stories that Educated People don't bother with. If you are religious, definitely don't mention it, or if you do mention it, emphasize that you're not one of those religious people, really, you don't actually believe the Bible, you just think it's a cool book. Stuff like that. It was an underlying attitude at my liberal undergrad college, and it's the underlying attitude at my liberal Seattle-based workplace.

And—to be absolutely clear—I don't mean this as a screed against Dem Coastal Left-Wing Elites, really. I check off pretty much all the boxes on the Coastal Left-Wing Elite list these days; they are one of the tribes I belong to now, for better and for worse. Plus, I just don't think there's a good solution to the general problem of ingroup/outgroup behavior—because that's totally what this is. When I lived in Kentucky, I was annoyed because being atheist/queer/etc marked you as an outsider weirdo, and I thought that was unfair; now that I'm in Seattle, being pro-gun-rights/religious/etc will mark you as an outsider weirdo. I don't really know how to change basic human nature in general, and have no desire to do so. But I guess I do have a desire to figure out... I don't know, a different standard to hold myself to? A higher standard? A personal morality based on something other than being successful & a relatively non-disruptive citizen & not being actively repugnant to be around?

Because I support a lot of social justice causes; I vote in elections; I donate to charities that matter to me; I try to be nice and such. But I think there's a difference between merely being nice and being good, and when I think good, I think of things like—well, honestly, I remember a lot of my old church leaders. The youth minister at my Baptist church kept me hanging around Christianity far longer than I would have otherwise, because he was just so energetic and giving and kind and conscientious that he made you want to treat others better, care more, give more, and I wanted to be like him. (I didn't leave the church until he did.) I think of, say, my grandpa, who volunteered so much time & energy to his small community in rural Missouri, serving on the school board, funding scholarships to the community college, volunteering to teach workshops and stuff like that. How, when he started his medical practice, most people didn't have any money to spare, so they'd offer him stuff from their farms—eggs or chickens or whatever they could manage to give—and he always said that's just fine. He spoke of medicine as a service, didn't seem to understand why you'd do it unless you really wanted to help other people—which was such a refreshing thing to hear compared to listening to the premeds I was surrounded by in college.

The grandpa thing is kind of a sappy tangent, sorry. But I guess it's kind of fitting, right, I guess, if I'm mulling over stuff like this.

I started a project a long time ago, where I was reading a bunch of random contemporary philosophical tracts, because effective altruism / radical utilitarianism distressed me, and seemed to be a dominant mode of morality among techie types, and I was trying to argue for post-Aristotlean virtue ethics as a more appealing alternative. It was an interesting project, interesting reading, but I guess now I'm interested more in virtue ethics (or any appealing system of ethics, really) in their own right, rather than as a reaction to utilitarianism, and also I want to do less intellectualizing about goodness and more doing it. Whatever it is that means.

ETA (Dec 27): This link came up on my Facebook and seemed to relevant not to drop here.

Comments

[mark_asphodel]

Yeah, this is a Big Damn Problem both with tumblr and with well, society and where we're headed.

I work with primarily old-fashioned conservative family men (regardless of age-- the Millennials are panning out the same way as the Boomers and GenXers here). They love Trump, hate that Kenyan Muslim dude in the White House and his socialist policies, and politically are mostly pretty spiteful. But they're... nice people? Who mostly love their wives and kids and support their families and go to the churches where they reinforce all the patriarchal bullshit and do anti-gay missionary work in Uganda (so not kidding) and volunteer at the county fair and drive their teenage daughters 1000 miles for both cheer squad competitions and anti-abortion rallies. Some of them are my friends. When my dad was sick, dozens offered their prayers. I think prayers are useless and their god's not real but I thanked them sincerely because that was their mode of compassion.

It's a mess. My husband says it's bad for me to be immersed in that for 40 hours a week. On the other hand, I know what it's like outside the bubble?

If you are religious, definitely don't mention it, or if you do mention it, emphasize that you're not one of those religious people,

Tho I had a co-worker I have known for twelve years tell me last Thursday that he'd lost all respect for me because he'd noticed I skip "under God" during the Pledge of Allegiance. Just throwing that out there. The reinforcement of "correct" belief in the south and the heartland is every bit as smothering.

it seems a little weird that left-wing radicals, particularly in the echo chamber that is Tumblr, focus almost exclusively on the SJ-based virtues.

It's really alien territory. You get into that zone where, as the blog you linked to points out, the idea that people should get more time off work to spend with their families is not considered a public good because UGH families, or that civic holidays are terrible because of colonialism. The basic nuts-and-bolts aspects of a traditional civil society are either valued less than SJ values or outright condemned, and I don't see SJ offering anything up in the place of what's being rejected other than some kind of weird segregated tribalism.

Then again, the very vocal and angry people on tumblr may have an issue with the concept of family because their own nuclear and extended families were shit to them, the same way that Ireland is falling away from the Catholic Church because hey, it was a cover for all kinds of systematic abuse. What do you do when the central pillars of a value system fail so terribly?

Family failed. The State failed. Churches failed. Justice failed. Education failed. Unions failed. Hard work and discipline didn't pay off for three decades. So... now what?

[queenlua]

Tho I had a co-worker I have known for twelve years tell me last Thursday that he'd lost all respect for me because he'd noticed I skip "under God" during the Pledge of Allegiance. Just throwing that out there.

Ouch. Yeah, perhaps I didn't phrase it as aptly as I'd hoped, but, I've been on the "wow I just found out you're not religious and therefore you are a damned sinner" side of the equation too—it goes both ways, and I don't know a super-great solution for it.

I know which side of the equation I prefer to be on—my own beliefs/values align better with the coastal-types, and in general I prefer the faintly patronizing tone liberals take with Outsider Viewpoints to the shock/horror/loss of respect/etc that conservatives tend to take toward Outsider Viewpoints—but it's definitely an "everyone" problem to some degree or another.

re: the anger thing: there's also the aspect of like, I do think spaces for anger and radicalism are important! In the sense of like, okay, there's the stereotype of the Obnoxious Teenage Atheist who has shed his Conservative Protestant Church and Seen The Light and acts like a giant smug superior asshole about it to everyone. And, as annoying as I find Obnoxious Teenage Atheist to be, I understand being angry at the church you were raised in. A lot of the times, that anger, that smugness, the long rants on the internet, are all just some kid trying to work through grief/confusion/whatever, and I think that's valuable.

I just don't want them to still be an asshole about it ten years later.

(And, I mean, you can see this in the secular student associations popping up at colleges, or in the Effective Altruism movement to some degree—it's the outgrowth of people who were once really angry but now are kind of over it, and are trying to replace that anger by building a new community. But none of these communities seem big enough—yet, at least—to really form the whole value-system-pillar thing.)

(And of course, this is all just an example! That I am citing solely because I'm more familiar with this area; I imagine there's similar stories for other subcommunities.)

So... now what?

Yeah, pretty much :/

[mark_asphodel]

A lot of the times, that anger, that smugness, the long rants on the internet, are all just some kid trying to work through grief/confusion/whatever, and I think that's valuable.

I think that's actually the hallmark of what's so destructive about this attempt at a movement-- it's mostly about the grief/grievance of the individual. There appears to be little to no concept of a genuine collective good, a collective good for which individual desires sometimes need to be muted or sacrificed. Seriously, every time that damned post goes around downplaying America's terrible vacation and holiday policies "because some people don't want to spend time with their families" I just see a bunch of pissy children who can't envision anything beyond their own needs.

But none of these communities seem big enough—yet, at least—to really form the whole value-system-pillar thing.

My husband and I have channeled all that into the astronomy club. It's not a Trojan Horse organization for secularism (at least one member is an ordained minister) but it fills the social & do-gooder hole in life in a pro-science and rational way.

My husband did attend a Meetup mixer intended to bridge divides between atheists and some Protestant group but he reported back that the attempts at dialogue only demonstrated how wide the gap really is on stuff like abortion and capital punishment.

[queenlua]

the astronomy club sounds really fab from what you say about it :)

i'm planning to get more involved with the local audubon chapter next year and maybe that'll give me something similar.

ETA: actually now that i'm thinking about it, i just remembered another community like this. one of my cousins is in, like, this running club in one of the carolinas, and it's kind of incredible the camaraderie the group has. they run every weekend and grab coffee afterwards, but besides that nothing much unites them—some run casually, some are long-distance, some are marathoners, the members range from doctors to high school coaches to minimally-employed bums to whatever else, age twenty up to sixties—but they're all super-warm towards each other. and they do simple-yet-important shit for each other, like giving each other rides to the airport or helping out with last-minute emergency babysitting or whatever. i met a bunch of them when a lot of them were in boston for the marathon, and they were so kind & polite & energetic & such that i was just super-glad my cousin had a group like them.

i'll have to ponder this more, because that group was doing something Super Right.

[mark_asphodel]

Until non-church groups can provide the sort of social support network that churches can in the US they are not going to be able to compete. Given the lack of a social safety net in the US, the fact is a lot of people depend on churches to help with everything from child care to bringing over casseroles when someone gets too sick to cook to organizing holiday and charity events. Our neighborhood association uses a local church as its home base for meetings and events. One of our rival astronomy clubs uses a Lutheran church as its venue for their annual Expo. It's a powerful incentive to stay in the network even for people who've lost enough faith to be apathetic/dissatisfied but not enough to be actively repelled (and risk cutting off all that).

Secular groups have to offer something more than a monthly bitch session or they will never be able to provide the role of doing good in the lives of people who need a playgroup for the kids and a hot meal when they can't make one for themselves.

I mean, shit, Hezbollah offers critical social services to people. They're not serving up ideology in a vacuum, either.

I went to that French-Canadian holiday thing at a Catholic church two weeks ago. It was organized through Meetup historical society that I've been in for a while. There was a major backlash in the Meetup over the fact that we were going to a church for a Mass as an event, and the organizers had to basically give everyone a Francophone Culture 101 lesson explaining why the Church was so essential to the French-speaking community identity. Again, I don't believe that god exists and I generally feel about Christianity like tumblr feels about yt ppl, but I was able to look at the event, say "Oh that sounds neat," sit through the bilingual mass, admire the architecture, browse the parish newsletter, and think it was a very nice event that should happen again next year. I felt damn embarrassed by the people who threw a fit.

[hilow]

Wish I had a like button for this post because i don't have much to say about it but it was an interesting and even kind of a fun read.

I agree with a lot of what Mark's saying tho, esp in the end of her comment. I get that people are angry in general because like...everything has failed them. I mean I think it's really childish how everyone's always pointing fingers at everyone else. Oh the Baby Boomers are gross, oh the Millenials are gross. What the fuck ever. What good does that even do? But tons of people spend a lot of time talking about What People Have Done instead of just acknowledging that there is a problem and working to come up with ways to make things better.

[mark_asphodel]

instead of just acknowledging that there is a problem and working to come up with ways to make things better.

Someone on my dash whom I've followed for years and quite respect argued last week that the appropriate end goal of the current civil rights crisis (BLM and such) would be for white allies to aid in arming all black and brown people, throw away the pretense that non-violence actually defeats injustice, and "John Brown that shit" into a new civil war against white supremacy.

To appropriate a phrase from one of tumblr's darlings, "What's good?"

[queenlua]

glad you liked it :)

[ellerean]

*ears perk* Did someone say religion in the workplace?

I feel like I'm one of those people others can't figure out, because I'm not only a church-going, Bible-reading Christian but also queer. When I first started this job, my [very openly gay] co-worker asked if I was okay working with him, and I was taken aback. Not only because he was good enough to ask, but because there are people who aren't okay with it. (My response was, "Well, uh, I've... had a girlfriend, so.")

Maybe I only went out with her so I can use that response? As a kind of proof that "I'm not like those other Christians?" But yeah, we get defensive, because there's this [wholly incorrect] stereotype of what Christians are like, just like there's that "I'm not like other girls" nonsense. (None of us are like other girls. There are no girls.)

This was such a small fragment of your post, but I was very obviously going to latch onto it.

[queenlua]

it occurs to me that you are both christian and work in the heart of a giant big fat liberal city!

out of curiosity, do you find most people at your workplace are areligious/apathetic/atheist/whatever, or something different?

(i'm curious to what extent the general areligiousness of my workplaces is due to being in big liberal cities vs the fact that software/engineering types seem, anecdotally, to lean less religious than most populations.)

[ellerean]

It largely depends on the company, though maybe that's obvious. I feel like Workman is maybe half and half, between religious and non-religious folk? But for the most part everyone is a heathen hahaha

Apathetic is a good general term for it. I don't think I know many straight-out atheists. Most people I've spoken to about it are of the "oh, sure, I believe in God" sort without being particularly "religious." (Which is a good start, I guess?)

[queenlua]

makes sense. i mean, statistically, i think some huge majority of americans believe in some notion of God, but there's a difference between the general religious apathy i've seen in big cities vs the thing in smaller towns where going to church regularly was just kind of this social thing that everyone did and you assumed everyone else did, which is interesting.

[amielleon]

More links for your pile: just happened to be reading this today and thought of you.

[queenlua]

that's a great essay, thanks for sharing.

[lassarina]

this is a thing that speaks to my heart, because I identify myself as Pagan and religious, and also an ethical and liberal person, and I find myself floating a lot because I just find Tumblr and its breed of SJ so goddamn exhausting I can't deal with it because there is no reality in it, and I find liberal academia so snobby, but I can't with the hardcore religious conservatism (I spent Thanksgiving dinner being lectured enthusiastically on the AWESOMENESS of the creation museum and praying for wine that didn't appear until the lecturers had left) and I just

it's complicated

why do people keep trying to reduce it to simplicity? there really aren't good simple answers. Even something like "be kind" is like - but does that mean self-harm in the name of kindness to others? how can I value myself as an individual if that's the case, which is another tenet of that system? this isn't easy, and in general I hate that people really want it to be starkly delineated when it's not (and I would even argue there isn't ANY "right" answer, just answers that are better or worse for different factions in any given situation. I broadly believe that certain things are wrong, but everything's got shadows, and I'm sure there are situations where a blanket prohibition is wrong. Do I know what they are? no. Is it a convenient shortcut to say that X is always wrong? Yeah. Do most people not understand that it's a convenient shortcut rather than an absolute? in my experience oh holy fuck yes.)

...I have no idea if this comment makes sense, oh god, I'm so exhausted right now. I'm sorry if I've said something terrible.

[queenlua]

(aside: i have actually been to the creationism museum! uh, fun fact, if you go there with Science Dad, even if you're planning to be polite and non-disruptive, seeing all the Non-Science in the place will remind you of Actual Science, and then both of you will be excitedly chattering about some super-cool Actual Science involving the big bang or stem cells or whatever that was reported in Nature recently, and you will get very Judging Looks from everyone else in the museum before you both remember where you are and shut up. a+ experience would talk about science with dad again also uh i guess there was an unfactual museum or something we were in idk)

/massive aside

your comment made sense and is not terrible <3 i'm glad my thoughts resonated and such~

i find absolute morality is so... boring. (i have been playing with expanding my use of that word lately, "boring," because it turns out that there are things that aren't obviously wrong, but so dull/staid that it makes me start to wonder what utility they have in the general case. anyway, i think absolute morality sort of falls into that—or rather, "stealing is bad" or w/e seems well and good for teaching small children how to not be little shits, but, "what are the sorts of things a good person does?" seems harder to pin down to a set of dos/don'ts, is situational, and way more interesting for me to think about lately. i don't want to know some Objectively Right Answer for an exact moral dilemma, with circumstances and such that are obnoxiously precise and specific to my own situation; i want to think about what i think a Good Person looks like and the actions i can take on a daily basis to become more like that Good Person. or w/e. i think i'm restating some of what i said up there but yeah idk morality's interesting to think about, end parenthetical, if you ever have any more thoughts on this train i would gladly read a blag from your fine self on 'em or whatnot~)

[lassarina]

Ahahaha that sounds like the best way to do that museum. The people I spent Thanksgiving with - well, let's just say, husband's family is very kind but also Extremely Midwestern Christian and I felt very very fish out of water with my liberal leftie Pagan sensibilities. XD (Fortunately, father-in-law gave me wine later.)

I want to think about what I think a Good Person looks like and the actions I can take on a daily basis to become more like that Good Person yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

I am currently not brain enough (due to illness) to make words on this, but I shall cogitate and see if I can put anything together.

[kradeelav]

coming to this years later after stumbling on it in a tumblr like is. fascinating. and quietly something. i'm glad i did.

(your gramps sounds cool. have an eerily similar story about mine wrt medicine and him also happy to barter or straight up do it for free for impoverished folks. rare men, both of them.)

[queenlua]

<3