Philosopher Stephen Hicks nails it here.
Douglas Murray reckons that "the absurdity of the West" is that:
We want everybody to have religious freedom, except ourselves.
We want to praise every tradition, apart from our own.
And we want to promote every belief system apart from the one that got us here.
This is madness."
Except he doesn't fully explain the madness. He doesn't point to its cause. Hicks does. Hicks points out that the reason we got here — to the point that Murray can bewail the madness — is the self-destructive morality that remains at the heart of western culture.
Truly, it is absurd.
Yet ... reflect upon that moral tradition within the West that has urged us to SACRIFICE SELFLESSLY FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS, ESPECIALLY WEAKER OTHERS.
Take those words seriously and you get part of the causal explanation for the absurdity.
It is a moral battle, and much of the West has internalised a self-destructive morality. [Emphasis in the original.]
He's right, you know.
It's the ethic of self-sacrifice that underpins the phoney idea that all cultures are equal, except this one.
It's that ethic of altruism that needs to be abandoned.
11 comments:
> Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone
> All centuries but this, and every country but his own
Gilbert and Sullivan were right ... although I think their lyrics describe a more innocent version of this phenomenon.
It's a fair point but I wonder how Hicks explains that it's only really becoming self-destructive now, in ways beyond even what WWI and other wars did to the West?
Are you kidding? The philosophical foundations of both those wars, not to mention the calls to arms — and the statist systems responsible for and exploiting them — were wholly rooted in self-sacrifice!
I'm sure sure Prof Hicks will have his own answer, of course, but I'm almost certain he'd pint you to an essay on that by Ayn Rand: 'The Roots of War.'
Essay link here: https://courses.aynrand.org/works/the-roots-of-war
I read and saw what I've seen before from Rand and company - wars arise from men desiring to initiate the use of force against other men, at the level of tribe, nation or other collective.
What I didn't see in that essay was any mention, let alone argument, that it derives from self-sacrifice, even though once the war is started self-sacrifice on behalf of the collective is certainly demanded.
Incidentally my Dad was a WWII vet and although he had sacrificed a lot he didn't put it in those terms. But he understood, as did all his mates, that self-sacrifice - or at least the willingness to do so - was required in order to defeat those who had initiated the use of force.
Or perhaps, if we wish to continue to hammer away at altruism, we could look at the "sacrifice" of thousands of Royal Navy sailors in destroying the Atlantic slave trade. I'm sure those men did not think in those terms; they were in the Navy and they followed orders. But our modern society look back and say that it was a sacrifice by British society - and it was, but I don't see that it damns the notion of altruism, or self-sacrifice for that matter. And with slavery we are once again talking of what is required to end a system of force applied to other men.
And to return to my first comment; none of the above destroyed British or Western culture; even with the damage of war they continued to believe in themselves. But what Murray is describing surely will destroy us and I don't think tying it all back to the philosophies of altruism and self-sacrifice is a sufficient explanation.
What it ties back to is a loss of belief and confidence in ourselves and our Western societies and I would certainly like Prof Hicks to have addressed that.
A bad idea takes root in marginal cases, where it might seem to have some justification. Men were encouraged during the wars of the 20th century to sacrifice their comfort and maybe even their lives, and many answered that call - but on the basis that their culture and society that brought them into existence was under threat, and they’d get kudos for defending it. No wonder young men full of testosterone answered the call for something they believed in, even if it was framed in incorrect (sacrificial) terms.
Over time though the full expression of that flawed concept (sacrific ) reached its logical and potentially more disastrous conclusion. Today we’re not only asked to sacrifice ourselves for a superior culture, but to sacrifice our superior culture for an inferior one.
@Tom, you say "What I didn't see in that essay was any mention, let alone argument, that [war] derives from self-sacrifice." Your normally careful reading has failed you here, since it seems you''ve missed the whole point of that essay/lecture. Just these few snippets, for example, will show you that there is at least a few mentions — and very pointed ones — of self-sacrifice, and the nature of those who collect that sacrifice:
"It is obvious that the ideological root of statism (or collectivism) is the tribal premise of primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases to whatever it deems to be its own “good.” Unable to conceive of any social principles, save the rule of brute force, they believed that the tribe’s wishes are limited only by its physical power and that other tribes are its natural prey, to be conquered, looted, enslaved, or annihilated. The history of all primitive peoples is a succession of tribal wars and intertribal slaughter. That this savage ideology now rules nations armed with nuclear weapons, should give pause to anyone concerned with mankind’s survival.
"Statism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war."
"Men who are free to produce, have no incentive to loot; they have nothing to gain from war and a great deal to lose. Ideologically, the principle of individual rights does not permit a man to seek his own livelihood at the point of a gun, inside or outside his country. Economically, wars cost money; in a free economy, where wealth is privately owned, the costs of war come out of the income of private citizens — there is no overblown public treasury to hide that fact — and a citizen cannot hope to recoup his own financial losses (such as taxes or business dislocations or property destruction) by winning the war. Thus his own economic interests are on the side of peace.
In a statist economy, where wealth is “publicly owned,” a citizen has no economic interests to protect by preserving peace — he is only a drop in the common bucket — while war gives him the (fallacious) hope of larger handouts from his masters. Ideologically, he is trained to regard men as sacrificial animals; he is one himself; he can have no concept of why foreigners should not be sacrificed on the same public altar for the benefit of the same state."
"If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged “good” can justify it — there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations."
@Mark: Indeed, conflicting moral principles will eventually see one win out over the other. The moral principle of individualism, rediscovered by the Enlightenment (which underpinned the war against slavery that Tom mentions above), was always in conflict with the principle of self-sacrifice (i.e., altruism). One was always going to win out.
So over time, the call to arms to sacrifice yourself to defend Enlightenment values and Enlightenment culture morphed slowly into the call to sacrifice your values, and your culture. In a culture valuing self-sacrifice, this is the 'principled' thing to do.
In the end then, it can be seen that the value of self-sacrifice is inherently anti-values.
t owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases to whatever it deems to be its own “good.
I didn't read that as arguing that all this, including wars, is caused by individuals making the choice or even expressing a desire to self-sacrifice, but as their society deciding that they can be sacrificed. Perhaps some have always willingly gone along with that - the "greater good" and so forth - but the majority went along with it under threat of having force initiated against them.
You’re entirely correct Peter. Consider what I’m about to say not as disagreement, but as a different way of framing it in a way that might convince those who disagree with us, given the ambiguity in common parlance about what ‘sacrifice’ means.
To most decent people it simply means doing something that’s difficult or uncomfortable in the short term, to achieve something good in the long term. By that definition I practice ‘sacrifice’ almost every day. I get up most mornings and do a hard and uncomfortable workout, often followed by a cold shower. Not because I value suffering per se, but because I know that short term suffering will bring me benefits in the longer term in terms of energy, mood, and general health and efficacy. Probably in life expectancy too. As they say, ‘no pain, no gain’.
By common definition that’s a form of sacrifice. Just as young men going off to war to defend their country is a form of sacrifice. They’re doing something that’s usually against their immediate short term interests and may even result in their death, yet they’re drawn towards it because it gives them a sense of purpose that is necessary for them to value life in the first place.
I’d posit that is generally fine when we have a proper hierarchy of values. We can value our own self interest first and foremost above any collective, yet also recognise that if we don’t answer the call to do what’s right consistent with what we believe in, we’re going to feel like absolute shit the rests of our lives. It’s better to risk our lives, and if we survive feel good for it; rather than chicken out and feel like a cowardly shit afterwards.
By our definition what I describe is not ‘sacrifice’, because we’re forgoing a lower value for the sake of a higher value. But it’s not how most people understand it. Therefore an alternative way of saying the same thing more simply, is that if you’re going to make a sacrifice, make sure the thing you’re forgoing is less valuable than the thing you’re gaining - recognising that long term gain only comes from short term pain.
By our definition what I describe is not ‘sacrifice’, because we’re forgoing a lower value for the sake of a higher value.
I think that last is a damned good definition of how to make decisions.
I don't mean to further the nostalgia but I thought this last might fit another part of my Dad's WWII story. He was a cop in Auckland just before the war and around late 1939 he decided to quit and join the Army, which he did in Jan/Feb 1940.
The "old" (40's) and gruff desk sergeant heard of this and took Dad and a couple of young officers out for some beers after their shift had finished (likely noon) to try and persuade them that it was all shit and they should stay here. He was passionate about this and they discovered only then that he was WWI vet.
But he failed in his argument with all three young men. Dad in particular had read Main Kampf ("painful bloody read" was his description to me decades later), and was convinced that Hitler was following that plan. The old sergeant would have none of it, saying that he'd heard the same shite about the Kaiser when he was their age.
At closing time the headed back to the Police station, all a little drunk, and were mortified when their tough old sergeant burst into tears at the back entrance, sitting on the steps sobbing. Dad told me that It was at that moment that began to sense what he really might be in for.
Didn't change his mind though, nor the other two officers.
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