To paraphrase the last post, an abstracted statistical notion derived from an equally abstracted and arbitrary "whole" data set cannot reasonably be applied to specific and particular persons. Galton's "normal," when applied to fragile humans, is ripe for the creation of social pariahs. In the hands of less than perfect persons, it becomes a social truncheon. Tangible enough to sting, but vague enough to allow liberal use. The power of "normal" isn't who it includes, it is who it excludes, which, when applied to everything, is precisely all of us.
One of Galton's great concerns was the improvement of the human race. As such, he was the father of "eugenics," another word he invented. In 1970, I.I. Gottesman, an American Eugenics Society director defined eugenics thusly:"the essence of eugenics is the replacement of 'natural' selection by conscious, premeditated, or artificial selection in the hope of speeding up the evolution of 'desirable' characteristics and the elimination of undesirable ones."1
During Galton's heyday—think just either side of 1900, when the world was awash with the glassy eyed optimism of Modernity—the debate at the Sociological Society of Great Britain wasn't whether one should pursue eugenics, it was how one should go about pursuing eugenics.2
Galton was a proponent of selective breeding. Let's call it an additive approach. He viewed charity to the poor as an unnatural impingement on natural selection. He thought money would be better spent on "encouraging the useful classes in the community to contribute more than their proportion to the next generation."3 As he saw it, the useful classes had too few children and the un-useful had far too many. If production of useful progeny could be stepped up and surpass that of un-useful progeny, the nation would move, statistically speaking, in the direction of usefulness. This stellar thinking overflowed the well head of Galton's work in human intelligence. Galton's idea of intelligence and his notion of usefulness seem near synonymous.
Counter to Galton's additive eugenic approach is a decidedly reductive approach. It was espoused by H.G. Wells, he being the author of "The Time Machine" and "War of the Worlds." From a eugenics debate published in the American Journal of Sociology, 1904, Wells speaks:
"I believe that now and always the conscious selection of the best for reproduction will be impossible; that to propose it is to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what individuality implies. The way of nature has always been to slay the hindmost, and there is still no other way, unless we can prevent those who would become the hindmost being born. It is in the sterilization of failures, and not in the selection of successes for breeding, that the possibility of an improvement of the human stock lies."3
For reasons we now begin to see, the term "eugenics" is, in the present day, somewhat vilified. Indeed, Hitler, in the pages of Mein Kempf, attributes Galton and various eugenic scientists as the inspiration for the final solution.
This is what I find interesting. Here we stand at the blessed pinnacle of The Present and still we believe this stuff. Certainly not the unpalatable "intolorant" forms of eugenics. We, on this side of the Holocaust and with 20/20 vision of the past, stand agape at equal parts pomposity and naivete found in the Eugenics touting would be do gooders. We are all so over ourselves and that whole Modernity thang.
Yet we are saturated in silent ideas promulgated at the last turn of the century: i.e. that it is somehow useful, in and of itself, to talk about people as numbers. Further, and more importantly—and much more saturated into our psyche—because we feel we can talk about people as numbers we are quite comfortable with a concept at the heart of both our culture and Galton's dreams; that is, moral discourse has no place in civic discourse.
Galton states, "The character depends largely on the proportion between qualities, whose balance may be much influenced by education. We must therefore leave morals as far as possible out of the discussion, not entangling ourselves with the almost hopeless difficulties they raise as to whether a character as a whole is good or bad. Moreover, the goodness or badness of character is not absolute, but relative to the current form of civilization."4
Ah, yes. What what. Much too difficult to sort out the hoary problem of what constitutes good character. Let's just say it is what I say it is on the basis that I am me. Sorry about that, all you poor and whatnot. For the good of Queen and country and all that.
Yet Galton offers a list of, as he saw it, objective and "desirable" qualities to be promoted: "health, energy, ability, manliness, and courteous disposition" His dismissal of unimportant "morals" and profferment of objectively "desirable" civic qualities is a moral action. He may feel able, however thinly, to talk about each quality using only numbers and is therefore in no need of morals. However, one cannot talk about what to talk about using only numbers. Discussions of what we value as persons, as cultures, as nations, is an inescapably moral discussion.
Explication of a parallel concern seems in order. To paraphrase the overall jist of Janice Gross Stein in "The Cult of Efficiency": One puts 3 eggs into a process and out the other end one produces a cake. If one can find a way to put 2 eggs into the process and still get a cake that is just as good, one has created a more efficient cake making process. The predator lying in wait, which continually bites us in our civic ass, is that "just as good as" is a value statement, which means it is implicitly of moral concern. If we don't talk about what constitutes "just as good as" and only talk about efficiency in term of numbers we are no longer dealing with human concerns, and are thus operating as a cult. A cult of efficiency.
We can't use numbers to talk about value statements. Value statements speak to our humanness, our moral, and, if you will, spiritual dimension as persons. Normal was always offered to me as a human trait. It isn't, it is a numerical trait. I choose to not be defined by numbers. I'm still not normal.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Thursday, April 06, 2006
I'm Not Normal
I am not normal. I am not normal because I am not numbers. In its original and properly contained context, the word "normal" originally described a statistical phenomenon. But because we, of the twenty first century, are saturated in numbers, it seems quite natural to us that a word used to describe numerical groupings of things should be used to describe individual specific things. Yes, to us "normal" seems to have been around since the creation of the universe. However, the word "normal" along with the idea of "normal" was invented 1877 by one Sir Francis Galton.
Galton was an eminent scientist of his day noted for his wide ranging interests. He was the first to posit meteorologic anticyclonic action and was the first person to utilize the questionaire. By statistically tracking inheritance he became the father of "biometric" genetics. He was also the first to statistically map human intelligence—or at least his version of human intelligence—and found what we now call a classic bell curve. It is the bell curve from whence Galton arrived at the idea of "normal," likely deriving the word from the Latin "norma," which refers to a carpenter's square.
In Galton's terms "normal" referred to the statistical majority who lay within the pronounced peak of a bell curve. If one's intelligence lay within the major part of the bell curve one was "normal." Normal was desirable. On either end of the "normal" curve one found statistically small samples of morons and geniuses respectively. To Galton's mind the term normal was understood as a statistical descriptor. It described a naturally occurring phenomenon in genetic distribution as pertains to Galton's definition of intelligence.
By Galton's own definition, either end of the curve would be populated by over-desirable and under-desirable people, both violations of the "norm." His whole purpose in tracking intelligence was borne of a desire to move civilization—read England—toward ever greater intelligence. He seems fatally inured to the idea that persons are inviolably indisposed to being socially outside of anything. He had made pariahs of even the positive "desirable" side of his curve, defined and codified as "not like most of us." He seems also to have missed, amongst all his detached objective observations, that "desirable" is an implicitly value laden term. More on that later.
If intelligence were the only sphere of human existence, we could map Galton's curve, say who's normal and who isnt' and be done with it. But, human existence is much richer than Galton and his contemporaries might have imagined. Fortunately for us, standing stridently this side of modernism, the idea of reducing humanity to simplistic intellect seems naive and gauche. Unfortunately for us, Galton's simplistic notion of "normal" grew like fungal mold in the petri dish of Modernity: "Everything is measurable. Everything is controllable. Everything is numbers. Yay! Modernity!" This fungal mold of normal has been spread as liberally as butter over every nook and cranny of our being. It has spilled its larder and smeared itself everywhere. Not only that, it has wiggled free of its statistical connotations and has somehow wriggled itself into our lexicon as an individual and particular attribute. We have come to think I can be normal. You can be normal. But no such thing exists! Normal is a statistical amalgam. Normal is Kierkegaard's Untruthful Crowd. It is No One.
Here's the rub—so well lubricated by normal we scarcely feel it—we all, in some sphere of human existence, feel outside normal. If the idea of normal is applied to everything, then we all are, in something, not normal.
Therein lies the fallacy; normal intrinsically only applies to the interrelationship of a large number of individuals viewed as an arbitrary whole. It is a statistical term and as such it cannot be applied to an individual as a characteristic. Yet in our current context we repeatedly and pervasively apply normal in precisely this way. And therein lies the fearsome power of normal. We all fear, individually, that we are not, individually, normal; even though, in truth, we cannot be "individually" "normal," the two terms are antithetical.
Normality has become a crippling disease, and it is a disease borne of falacy. Thus, I choose not to be defined by an affable English gentleman of the late 19th century. Rather I choose to be defined by The Creator, chosen as His child.
Galton was an eminent scientist of his day noted for his wide ranging interests. He was the first to posit meteorologic anticyclonic action and was the first person to utilize the questionaire. By statistically tracking inheritance he became the father of "biometric" genetics. He was also the first to statistically map human intelligence—or at least his version of human intelligence—and found what we now call a classic bell curve. It is the bell curve from whence Galton arrived at the idea of "normal," likely deriving the word from the Latin "norma," which refers to a carpenter's square.
In Galton's terms "normal" referred to the statistical majority who lay within the pronounced peak of a bell curve. If one's intelligence lay within the major part of the bell curve one was "normal." Normal was desirable. On either end of the "normal" curve one found statistically small samples of morons and geniuses respectively. To Galton's mind the term normal was understood as a statistical descriptor. It described a naturally occurring phenomenon in genetic distribution as pertains to Galton's definition of intelligence.
By Galton's own definition, either end of the curve would be populated by over-desirable and under-desirable people, both violations of the "norm." His whole purpose in tracking intelligence was borne of a desire to move civilization—read England—toward ever greater intelligence. He seems fatally inured to the idea that persons are inviolably indisposed to being socially outside of anything. He had made pariahs of even the positive "desirable" side of his curve, defined and codified as "not like most of us." He seems also to have missed, amongst all his detached objective observations, that "desirable" is an implicitly value laden term. More on that later.
If intelligence were the only sphere of human existence, we could map Galton's curve, say who's normal and who isnt' and be done with it. But, human existence is much richer than Galton and his contemporaries might have imagined. Fortunately for us, standing stridently this side of modernism, the idea of reducing humanity to simplistic intellect seems naive and gauche. Unfortunately for us, Galton's simplistic notion of "normal" grew like fungal mold in the petri dish of Modernity: "Everything is measurable. Everything is controllable. Everything is numbers. Yay! Modernity!" This fungal mold of normal has been spread as liberally as butter over every nook and cranny of our being. It has spilled its larder and smeared itself everywhere. Not only that, it has wiggled free of its statistical connotations and has somehow wriggled itself into our lexicon as an individual and particular attribute. We have come to think I can be normal. You can be normal. But no such thing exists! Normal is a statistical amalgam. Normal is Kierkegaard's Untruthful Crowd. It is No One.
Here's the rub—so well lubricated by normal we scarcely feel it—we all, in some sphere of human existence, feel outside normal. If the idea of normal is applied to everything, then we all are, in something, not normal.
Therein lies the fallacy; normal intrinsically only applies to the interrelationship of a large number of individuals viewed as an arbitrary whole. It is a statistical term and as such it cannot be applied to an individual as a characteristic. Yet in our current context we repeatedly and pervasively apply normal in precisely this way. And therein lies the fearsome power of normal. We all fear, individually, that we are not, individually, normal; even though, in truth, we cannot be "individually" "normal," the two terms are antithetical.
Normality has become a crippling disease, and it is a disease borne of falacy. Thus, I choose not to be defined by an affable English gentleman of the late 19th century. Rather I choose to be defined by The Creator, chosen as His child.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Oops
I really should pay more attention. I've already posted the last post. But, I changed a couple of things and it's better, so I'll leave it. Maybe the accidental repetition means something?
Ellul as fatalist?
I posted this elsewhere already, but it seemed like a good follow up. I am becoming more and more convinced of the foolishness of our cleverness if it isn't proceeded by an acknowledgment of God. Acknowledgment can be as simple as recognizing presence. Ancient and simple disciplines lead toward a fluid automatic recognition of God's presence.
========================================
"The stream of political, military, and social necessity is so overpowering that superhuman strength is required to struggle against it. No asceticism or exercise of human power can overcome it—only the holiness that comes from God. And although the power is given to overcome it, there is no way of escaping it."
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.
Some have called Ellul a fatalist. On the basis of the above statement we cannot call Ellul fatalist. There is a way to overcome; "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of Ellul's statement. 1. If it seems impossible, it must be. 2.Therefore, Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one. 3. Therefore Ellul must be fatalist.
We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.
Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling.
Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's already active moving, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.
To use these good things properly their use must follow God's already active moving in here and now. To follow God's moving here and now we must have some idea of, well, where he's moving. To have some idea of where he is moving we must lay down our busy cleverness long enough to sense his moving. Then we must follow and we must stay close.
An intimate loving relationship with our Creator must be in place before we engage in our own clever creative acts. A sense of his moving must be in place before we use our tools and techniques. It's our relationship to him and a sense of his already moving here and now that places our creative capacity in its proper context.
Now we arrive at the most difficult thing for those of us in a highly technological and self sufficient milieux; we must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us be in relationship with God. We must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us stay close to God's moving.
How do we stay close to God's moving? We stay close through ancient Christian disciplines: prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fast, feast, celebration and worship. It is that simple and that difficult.
Our tools and techniques can't come fist. Simple ancient Christian disciplines come first. If our tools and techniques can come first then our own cleverness comes first; and if our cleverness comes first we don't need God,
So here's my question, what if our practice of simple Christian disciplines has become so complicated that we need our cleverness to navigate our practice of simple disciplines? Hasn't our cleverness preempted the orienting purpose of our simple disciplines? Isn't that part of the reason we think Ellul is a fatalist?
========================================
"The stream of political, military, and social necessity is so overpowering that superhuman strength is required to struggle against it. No asceticism or exercise of human power can overcome it—only the holiness that comes from God. And although the power is given to overcome it, there is no way of escaping it."
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.
Some have called Ellul a fatalist. On the basis of the above statement we cannot call Ellul fatalist. There is a way to overcome; "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of Ellul's statement. 1. If it seems impossible, it must be. 2.Therefore, Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one. 3. Therefore Ellul must be fatalist.
We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.
Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling.
Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's already active moving, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.
To use these good things properly their use must follow God's already active moving in here and now. To follow God's moving here and now we must have some idea of, well, where he's moving. To have some idea of where he is moving we must lay down our busy cleverness long enough to sense his moving. Then we must follow and we must stay close.
An intimate loving relationship with our Creator must be in place before we engage in our own clever creative acts. A sense of his moving must be in place before we use our tools and techniques. It's our relationship to him and a sense of his already moving here and now that places our creative capacity in its proper context.
Now we arrive at the most difficult thing for those of us in a highly technological and self sufficient milieux; we must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us be in relationship with God. We must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us stay close to God's moving.
How do we stay close to God's moving? We stay close through ancient Christian disciplines: prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fast, feast, celebration and worship. It is that simple and that difficult.
Our tools and techniques can't come fist. Simple ancient Christian disciplines come first. If our tools and techniques can come first then our own cleverness comes first; and if our cleverness comes first we don't need God,
So here's my question, what if our practice of simple Christian disciplines has become so complicated that we need our cleverness to navigate our practice of simple disciplines? Hasn't our cleverness preempted the orienting purpose of our simple disciplines? Isn't that part of the reason we think Ellul is a fatalist?
A Way Forward?
We should be concerned about social injustice. We should be concerned about technological progress and its impact on the environment, on morality, on ethics. We should be concerned about the impact our cities, the suburbs and media are having on our health, head and hearts. But it isn't enough to expose.
In light of our concerns we should also be finding a new way forward, even if it is tentative, stumbling in the dark. What good is exposing injustice if we don't find justice. What good is diagnosing a chronically ill heart if we don't also find something to make it healthy.
Is it possible to stumble in the dark wisely?
In light of our concerns we should also be finding a new way forward, even if it is tentative, stumbling in the dark. What good is exposing injustice if we don't find justice. What good is diagnosing a chronically ill heart if we don't also find something to make it healthy.
Is it possible to stumble in the dark wisely?
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Why I'm afraid of intelligent design.
I imagine this will happen a lot.
EASY BLUDGEON:
I heard this great song. You have to hear it. Have you listened to it yet? It's great. Have you listened to it yet? Look, in the second verse there's this recapitulation of the theme established in the first line. It's awesome. Have you listened to it yet? Okay, I know Nickleback seems to make sense to you right now, but you have to listen to this song. Friends don't let friends listen to Nickleback. Seriously. Okay, here's an example, the diatonic scale establishes beauty and rhythm, right? Well, let's just say they do, trust me. In this song the diatonic is offset with a subtle embrace of a chromatic undertone, and when both resolve, they resolve a third apart! Do you see? A third apart! You must see how important it is! Have you listened to it yet? It's so obvious! But how can you possibly say any song is more logically plausible than this one? I'm really worried about you. No, I do listen to the song. No, I don't just talk about it. Yes, a song is more than just logical. It's just that I'm so frustrated, this is so obvious. Have you listened to it yet? Look, have I told you about the resonant frequencies of the second verse. If you look at it in terms of hertz, following the concert pitch with A1 at 440Hz, you can't see it because it's based on scientific pitch with A1 at 430.54Hz. But, if you look at it in terms of resonant frequencies you can see the correlation of previously established motifs as plain as the nose on your face. The resonant frequencies prove how great this song is, any idiot can see it. What? No! I didn't mean you were an idiot. Obviously I care about you a great deal, so much so that I want to share this song with you. It means so much to me. I just wish you'd see it. Where are you going? Oh. Well—call me.
I imagine this will happen a lot less.
COMMUNAL THEOLOGY INTENDED FOR THE COMMUNITY OF GOD
My friend and I, both love this new song we heard. We were talking to some other people who also love it, and they are musicologists. They were telling us about some fascinating resonant frequencies in the song. It was pretty cool stuff. We all had a much deeper understanding of something we already love.
EASY BLUDGEON:
I heard this great song. You have to hear it. Have you listened to it yet? It's great. Have you listened to it yet? Look, in the second verse there's this recapitulation of the theme established in the first line. It's awesome. Have you listened to it yet? Okay, I know Nickleback seems to make sense to you right now, but you have to listen to this song. Friends don't let friends listen to Nickleback. Seriously. Okay, here's an example, the diatonic scale establishes beauty and rhythm, right? Well, let's just say they do, trust me. In this song the diatonic is offset with a subtle embrace of a chromatic undertone, and when both resolve, they resolve a third apart! Do you see? A third apart! You must see how important it is! Have you listened to it yet? It's so obvious! But how can you possibly say any song is more logically plausible than this one? I'm really worried about you. No, I do listen to the song. No, I don't just talk about it. Yes, a song is more than just logical. It's just that I'm so frustrated, this is so obvious. Have you listened to it yet? Look, have I told you about the resonant frequencies of the second verse. If you look at it in terms of hertz, following the concert pitch with A1 at 440Hz, you can't see it because it's based on scientific pitch with A1 at 430.54Hz. But, if you look at it in terms of resonant frequencies you can see the correlation of previously established motifs as plain as the nose on your face. The resonant frequencies prove how great this song is, any idiot can see it. What? No! I didn't mean you were an idiot. Obviously I care about you a great deal, so much so that I want to share this song with you. It means so much to me. I just wish you'd see it. Where are you going? Oh. Well—call me.
I imagine this will happen a lot less.
COMMUNAL THEOLOGY INTENDED FOR THE COMMUNITY OF GOD
My friend and I, both love this new song we heard. We were talking to some other people who also love it, and they are musicologists. They were telling us about some fascinating resonant frequencies in the song. It was pretty cool stuff. We all had a much deeper understanding of something we already love.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Ancient Simplicity
"The stream of political, military, and social necessity is so overpowering that superhuman strength is required to struggle against it. No ascetisism or excercise of human power can overcome it— only the holiness that comes from God. And although the power is given to overcome it, there is no way of escaping it."
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.
We cannot call Ellul fatalist. He has made a statement and on the basis of this statement we cannot call him fatalist. There is a way to overcome, that is, "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of his statement. If it seems impossible, it must be. Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one, therefore he must be fatalist. We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.
Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling. Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's direction, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.
To use these good things properly we must have some idea of God's direction. To have some idea of His direction we must be close to Him. But, how do we draw close to Him? We draw close to Him through ancient Christian disciplines: Prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fasting, feasting, celebrating, worshiping. We cannot look to our tools and techniques to figure out what God is up to. If we could , we wouldn't need Him, and one thing is sure, we desperately need Him.
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.
We cannot call Ellul fatalist. He has made a statement and on the basis of this statement we cannot call him fatalist. There is a way to overcome, that is, "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of his statement. If it seems impossible, it must be. Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one, therefore he must be fatalist. We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.
Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling. Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's direction, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.
To use these good things properly we must have some idea of God's direction. To have some idea of His direction we must be close to Him. But, how do we draw close to Him? We draw close to Him through ancient Christian disciplines: Prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fasting, feasting, celebrating, worshiping. We cannot look to our tools and techniques to figure out what God is up to. If we could , we wouldn't need Him, and one thing is sure, we desperately need Him.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
