So, we often see candidates talk about how their faith influences
their views. Most people in this country are Christian, and many people
talk about their faith as a bedrock of their overall worldview,
including their political views. Their political views organically rise
from their from their overall epistemology. That being said, I’d like to
talk a bit about how atheism influences my views. And let’s be honest,
it does. My transition to left wing politics coincides pretty well with
my shift from Christianity to atheism.
Nihilism is real
Yes. I’m essentially a nihilist all things considered. Nothing we do, in the grand scheme of things, matters. There is no deity, at least none we can detect (I’m an AGNOSTIC atheist, or a “weak atheist”), and we’re really just blobs existing on this rock, circling a fireball, in infinitesimal point in this universe. All moralities are subjective, as are all purposes. There is no meaning of life, except what meaning we give it. All that matters is really, us. There is no grand cosmic meaning or purpose. You’re just here. My views are kind of similar to Camus in discussing the concept of the absurd.
This does not mean nothing is important
We are here. We are important. Our lives, our perspectives, our experiences matter. They might not have some grand objective meaning, but they can be very meaningful to us. This includes morality. The answer to there being no objective morality isn’t running around as a serial rapist because who’s stopping us, it’s that all morality is there…for us. Morality exists to make our lives better. That’s all it is. We leave this crazy darwinian “state of nature” for better lives that exist in states and communities. And these things exist…for our sake. None of this exists for the glory of a deity, it’s for our own betterment. To make our lives better, safer, more prosperous, more free, etc. It’s all about us.
Regardless, things are subjective and open to change
Almost nothing should be set in stone as an unchanging truth of the world. The social structures that exist? They exist for us. This does not mean they’re the best way of doing things, and relying on tradition just means one is afraid of change. While this is a healthy skepticism to have to an extent, it also can be harmful and hold societies back. We should not be afraid to change or improve things as long as we do our research first and try to anticipate the changes that we make.
The only thing objective about morality is its consequences
Take your fingers and pinch yourself. Do you feel that? That’s pain. Pain is not necessarily subjective in the sense that we can debate its existence. It does exist, and odds are you find it unpleasant. Morality should generally try to avoid causing pain, and should seek to eliminate pain and death. It should also focus on the opposite, making life pleasurable for us. As such, I’m ultimately fairly utilitarian. This doesn’t mean I don’t borrow from other theories at times, but in doing so, I do so to accomplish utilitarian goals.
State action should only be used in response to a problem or to make our experiences better
The way I see it, if your actions aren’t causing any problems or hurting people, you should be free to do them. This makes me fairly socially libertarian. On economic issues, things are a lot more muddled and complex, and generally believe left wing approaches tend to produce the best conclusions. Generally speaking though, people should be left to do their own thing unless there is some benefit to intervening and making life better.
We are all alone, no one is there to help us but us
The world is an unfair place. But just because, as a lot of people like to parrot, “life isn’t fair”, doesn’t mean we should make it unfair. It is up to us, human beings, to make our lives more fair. I don’t just mean this in an individual pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality, I mean this in a collective “if we all pull together, this problem can be solved” mentality. Morality exists for us, let’s use it to solve our problems and make our world a better place to live in.
Most purposes are subjective
I kind of covered this above, but I want to address a very specific point here. A lot of people assume that people have a purpose. They tend to make their work their life. We tend to see work as a “calling”, which is very religious in approach. Even liberals do this, with Clinton talking about “living up to one’s God given potential.” There is no god given potential. There’s just you. There is no calling to work. There’s just work to be done to make our life experiences better. You are not your job, your job isn’t your life. Jobs only exist to make your life better. The purpose of life isn’t to work. I keep bringing this up because it’s really something that’s radically against our current work culture and this needs to change.
Reject extremes, focus on balance
Look. I dislike extremism. I rip on communists and libertarians frequently. Both groups tend to focus on these extremes that sound nice on paper but are horrifying. Look, there is good and bad in a lot of philosophies. Sometimes some have a lot more good in them than bad, and sometimes some have a lot more bad than good, but all should be judged on their merits to make life better. I think extreme individualism and extreme collectivism for example, both lead to terrifying dystopias. Even my own ideas I only take to the extent they’re feasible. Hence why in that post about work ethic I recognized some work ethic is good while rejecting our hardcore dedication to it. I’m not an extremist, even in ideas I tend to advocate and adopt. There needs to be limits to all ideas’ applicability. The best systems are a blend of various different philosophies that come together and focus on their strengths while ignoring their weaknesses.
Remain skeptical of authority
Authority exists for us. It should be accountable to us. It should be questioned. There should be strong systems of checks and balances to keep it in balance. You want a government powerful enough to fix the issues, but not one that can defy and enslave the people.
Our current system does a lot of things right, but is far from perfect
Look. The United States, western democracies, capitalism, they do a lot of things right, but are also very very far from perfect. We have serious systemic issues we need to fix, and I believe our system is hijacked by rich and powerful interests who use their power and economic might to coerce and enslave others. We need a strong left wing movement in this country, not a communist one, but a progressive one, to take this power back, use it for our own betterment, implement reforms that make our lives better, and ensure it never gets in the hands of a select few again. We need money out of politics. We need serious electoral reform. We need serious economic reform like the ones I’ve mentioned on this blog time and time again. As it exists, we have all this potential as a nation, but I feel like we’re becoming a dystopia where the rich control everything and use their power to indoctrinate everyone else and turn them into good little wage slaves. It’s kinda like the same old feudalism, etc., except so subtle few people recognize it. So much is so alienated from where I think it should be. This needs to change.
We need a society of critical thinkers
What I think we need more than anything is a society of people capable of critical thinking, researching and coming to their own conclusions, and basing their views on reason and evidence. We have too many people who are not capable of thinking seriously about the issues we face in a productive way, and whose views are very foreign from what I proposed here. They follow life scripts. They follow religions that tell them what to do and not to question them. They follow propaganda that tells us exactly what we’re doing is good and don’t even think about reading all those other thinkers out there. They’re just rabble rousers who wanna take us down a bad path, blah blah blah. Look, obedience to authority is great for children, but adults should be able to think about things and debate to much higher standards. We need people who are capable of finding
the truth, whatever it may be. We lack this in our society.
Conclusion: It’s in our hands
Totally unintentional rip off of Jill Stein’s campaign slogan, but it is. The world is in our hands, the future is in our hands. We have the ability to change things and make them better. And if we want to live in a better world, we should try to make them better. We shouldn’t be deterred by things like conservatism, as defined by a knee jerk opposition to change, or tradition, or “how things are” or what some authority says, etc. We need to debate the issues and think about them critically, basing our views on merits and reason and evidence, and moving in the direction of what we think would be the best world to live in. Yes, life is unfair, but let’s make it better for all of us.
Nihilism is real
Yes. I’m essentially a nihilist all things considered. Nothing we do, in the grand scheme of things, matters. There is no deity, at least none we can detect (I’m an AGNOSTIC atheist, or a “weak atheist”), and we’re really just blobs existing on this rock, circling a fireball, in infinitesimal point in this universe. All moralities are subjective, as are all purposes. There is no meaning of life, except what meaning we give it. All that matters is really, us. There is no grand cosmic meaning or purpose. You’re just here. My views are kind of similar to Camus in discussing the concept of the absurd.
This does not mean nothing is important
We are here. We are important. Our lives, our perspectives, our experiences matter. They might not have some grand objective meaning, but they can be very meaningful to us. This includes morality. The answer to there being no objective morality isn’t running around as a serial rapist because who’s stopping us, it’s that all morality is there…for us. Morality exists to make our lives better. That’s all it is. We leave this crazy darwinian “state of nature” for better lives that exist in states and communities. And these things exist…for our sake. None of this exists for the glory of a deity, it’s for our own betterment. To make our lives better, safer, more prosperous, more free, etc. It’s all about us.
Regardless, things are subjective and open to change
Almost nothing should be set in stone as an unchanging truth of the world. The social structures that exist? They exist for us. This does not mean they’re the best way of doing things, and relying on tradition just means one is afraid of change. While this is a healthy skepticism to have to an extent, it also can be harmful and hold societies back. We should not be afraid to change or improve things as long as we do our research first and try to anticipate the changes that we make.
The only thing objective about morality is its consequences
Take your fingers and pinch yourself. Do you feel that? That’s pain. Pain is not necessarily subjective in the sense that we can debate its existence. It does exist, and odds are you find it unpleasant. Morality should generally try to avoid causing pain, and should seek to eliminate pain and death. It should also focus on the opposite, making life pleasurable for us. As such, I’m ultimately fairly utilitarian. This doesn’t mean I don’t borrow from other theories at times, but in doing so, I do so to accomplish utilitarian goals.
State action should only be used in response to a problem or to make our experiences better
The way I see it, if your actions aren’t causing any problems or hurting people, you should be free to do them. This makes me fairly socially libertarian. On economic issues, things are a lot more muddled and complex, and generally believe left wing approaches tend to produce the best conclusions. Generally speaking though, people should be left to do their own thing unless there is some benefit to intervening and making life better.
We are all alone, no one is there to help us but us
The world is an unfair place. But just because, as a lot of people like to parrot, “life isn’t fair”, doesn’t mean we should make it unfair. It is up to us, human beings, to make our lives more fair. I don’t just mean this in an individual pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality, I mean this in a collective “if we all pull together, this problem can be solved” mentality. Morality exists for us, let’s use it to solve our problems and make our world a better place to live in.
Most purposes are subjective
I kind of covered this above, but I want to address a very specific point here. A lot of people assume that people have a purpose. They tend to make their work their life. We tend to see work as a “calling”, which is very religious in approach. Even liberals do this, with Clinton talking about “living up to one’s God given potential.” There is no god given potential. There’s just you. There is no calling to work. There’s just work to be done to make our life experiences better. You are not your job, your job isn’t your life. Jobs only exist to make your life better. The purpose of life isn’t to work. I keep bringing this up because it’s really something that’s radically against our current work culture and this needs to change.
Reject extremes, focus on balance
Look. I dislike extremism. I rip on communists and libertarians frequently. Both groups tend to focus on these extremes that sound nice on paper but are horrifying. Look, there is good and bad in a lot of philosophies. Sometimes some have a lot more good in them than bad, and sometimes some have a lot more bad than good, but all should be judged on their merits to make life better. I think extreme individualism and extreme collectivism for example, both lead to terrifying dystopias. Even my own ideas I only take to the extent they’re feasible. Hence why in that post about work ethic I recognized some work ethic is good while rejecting our hardcore dedication to it. I’m not an extremist, even in ideas I tend to advocate and adopt. There needs to be limits to all ideas’ applicability. The best systems are a blend of various different philosophies that come together and focus on their strengths while ignoring their weaknesses.
Remain skeptical of authority
Authority exists for us. It should be accountable to us. It should be questioned. There should be strong systems of checks and balances to keep it in balance. You want a government powerful enough to fix the issues, but not one that can defy and enslave the people.
Our current system does a lot of things right, but is far from perfect
Look. The United States, western democracies, capitalism, they do a lot of things right, but are also very very far from perfect. We have serious systemic issues we need to fix, and I believe our system is hijacked by rich and powerful interests who use their power and economic might to coerce and enslave others. We need a strong left wing movement in this country, not a communist one, but a progressive one, to take this power back, use it for our own betterment, implement reforms that make our lives better, and ensure it never gets in the hands of a select few again. We need money out of politics. We need serious electoral reform. We need serious economic reform like the ones I’ve mentioned on this blog time and time again. As it exists, we have all this potential as a nation, but I feel like we’re becoming a dystopia where the rich control everything and use their power to indoctrinate everyone else and turn them into good little wage slaves. It’s kinda like the same old feudalism, etc., except so subtle few people recognize it. So much is so alienated from where I think it should be. This needs to change.
We need a society of critical thinkers
What I think we need more than anything is a society of people capable of critical thinking, researching and coming to their own conclusions, and basing their views on reason and evidence. We have too many people who are not capable of thinking seriously about the issues we face in a productive way, and whose views are very foreign from what I proposed here. They follow life scripts. They follow religions that tell them what to do and not to question them. They follow propaganda that tells us exactly what we’re doing is good and don’t even think about reading all those other thinkers out there. They’re just rabble rousers who wanna take us down a bad path, blah blah blah. Look, obedience to authority is great for children, but adults should be able to think about things and debate to much higher standards. We need people who are capable of finding
the truth, whatever it may be. We lack this in our society.
Conclusion: It’s in our hands
Totally unintentional rip off of Jill Stein’s campaign slogan, but it is. The world is in our hands, the future is in our hands. We have the ability to change things and make them better. And if we want to live in a better world, we should try to make them better. We shouldn’t be deterred by things like conservatism, as defined by a knee jerk opposition to change, or tradition, or “how things are” or what some authority says, etc. We need to debate the issues and think about them critically, basing our views on merits and reason and evidence, and moving in the direction of what we think would be the best world to live in. Yes, life is unfair, but let’s make it better for all of us.
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