Does Jamie Whyte give philosophy a bad name?

Jamie Whyte is the new leader of the Act political party in New Zealand (actually, his leadership starts in two days).

Before this, he completed a PhD in Philosophy at Cambridge University, and was a temporary lecturer there for three years.  Apparently, his area of speciality is the nature of truth and belief, and he has written books exposing the bad reasoning of politicians (a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, it seems to me).

On the one hand, I am very happy that a philosophically trained person is entering politics.  It can only be a good thing that critical thinking and reasoning is encouraged amongst politicians.

On the other hand, Whyte’s own views are not normal, by the standards of either the general public or academic philosophy.

What worries me is that the general public will think that since he is a philosopher, then all philosophers must have these sorts of weird ideas.  It may make it even harder to educate the general public about the nature of philosophy.

Maybe I will turn out to be wrong on this.  I hope I turn out to be wrong on this.  But three things suggest I won’t be wrong:

Firstly, the mainstream news articles I read (eg here) all emphasise that his background is philosophy.  Yet, when other politicians with doctorates are mentioned, we are never informed about their academic specialities (Nick Smith, PhD on landslides; Russel Norman, PhD on the Alliance political party).

Secondly, opposition politicians are jumping on to this idea of attaching philosophy to craziness.  Judith Collins criticises Whyte by saying that he is speaking as a philosopher and not as a parent.  (Well, I try to always speak as both a philosopher and a parent, and I think philosophy is going wrong if it opposes parenting.)  When Smith or Norman say silly things, we then don’t claim that Engineering or Political Studies are opposed to parenting.

And thirdly, Whyte himself is not helping things.  He has got some extreme views.  The media has currently latched on to his suggestion that the state should allow incestuous marriage between consenting adults.  Hmmm, yeah, yawn.

I am more concerned that his economic views are far to the right, and he is a follower of Hayek.  People might start to think that philosophical thinking leads to free market thinking.  That would indeed be a tragedy, of the highest order.  Most of us who think philosophically are led in precisely the other direction.

The right side

This is another in my series of out-in-public-in-China posts [blog entry lost].

Chinese drive on the right side of the road.  Which is the wrong side.  That is, they don’t drive on the left side. Which is the right side.  Got it?

This takes a bit of getting used to.  But all things considered, it is a very minor difference.  One bigger difference is that in China, cars go on the footpath while pedestrians go on the road.

Well, okay, that is not completely true.  But the general rule of street life in China is this:  Do whatever you want that is easiest for yourself.  Don’t consider the needs of strangers.

If you can internalise that rule, then you will understand all of street life and survive on the Chinese streets.

So, to apply this rule.  If the footpath is too nice, then vehicles will use it.  If the footpath is too bad, then pedestrians will use the road.

Some examples:

This footpath is too nice.

 Motorbikes use it as a motorbike lane.  As you are walking along it, you will hear horns beeping behind you.  You are expected to jump to the side of the footpath to let the motorbikes zoom past.

(Actually, the reason the motorbikes use the footpath and not the road is that there is a tunnel under the motorway a little further along.  The tunnel has a vehicle lane, but with a barrier so that only bikes can fit through.  But there is no ramp over the curb at the tunnel entrance, so motorbikes cannot get up there.  Instead, the motorbikes use a ramp at this end of the footpath and then drive along the footpath to get to the tunnel.  Don’t ask me why the road engineers never put in a ramp at the tunnel entrance.)

This footpath is not nice enough.

It was constructed about a year or so ago, at the West Gate entrance of Sun Yat-sen University (we watched them doing it).  But the engineers didn’t think to connect it with the main road footpath.  A little further inside the university, the footpath is very uneven.  And there are trees planted in the middle of it.  And there are no ramps there at all.  So us locals tend to walk on the road when going in and out at the West Gate.  (Did you notice the post right on top of the markings for the visually impaired?  It is also exactly in the way for pushchairs, etc, using the ramp.  But at least it stops the motorbikes.)

As for bike lanes, they make excellent car parks.  As do footpaths, when they are wide enough.  And in China, cars park on the curve of intersections.  So, if you are a pedestrian and actually do want to use the footpath, there is a good chance that you won’t even be able to get on to it (especially if you are pushing a pushchair).

How about buses at bus stops?  Buses stop about a metre away from the curb.  Why?  Because that is the bike lane, between the footpath and the bus stop.  Before stepping down off the bus, look both ways.  There may be bikes zooming by (from either direction), centimetres from the bus doors.  And if you are struggling to carry your pushchair down the steps of the bus, don't expect bike riders to slow down to let you down.  In fact, they will abuse you if you dare to make them slow down.

Enjoy your stroll.

Who are you?

I’ve just finished reading Edward Bellamy’s Miss Ludington’s Sister.  I highly recommend it.

I also highly recommend it as a P4C schooling book.  At about 88 pages long, it would be a quick read for any teenager.  And there is plenty in it for thought-provoking discussion starters.  (In fact, all of Bellamy’s books are excellent P4C stories.  He has that ability to tease out an interesting question and turn it into a story.)

The first, and central, theme is that of personal identity.  Identity, in general, is the question of what makes some object one and the same thing throughout time.  Suppose I look up into the sky and see a cloud.  It moves with the wind, changes shape, maybe splits in two, maybe combines with some other cloud.  In what sense can we be still talking about the very same cloud after it has completed all of these transformations?

The same thing might be asked of some human-made object.  Recently, our water heater stopped working.  After a few days without hot showers, the repairmen came and fixed it.  Basically, they needed to take out all of the innards of the box, and put in completely new parts.  Suppose next time we have a problem with it, the box needs replacing.  Then, is our water heater the very same one as the one that we bought and installed initially?  Or is it a different one?  If it is the same one, what makes it the same one?

Bellamy’s book asks this question of people.  He wonders how we can say that the child is one and the same person as the old person.  They are so different in character, and made of entirely different material.  One of his characters in the book writes in a letter:

“You know that men speak of human beings, taken singly, as individuals. It is taken for granted in the common speech that the individual is the unit of humanity, not to be subdivided. That is, indeed, what the etymology of the word means. Nevertheless, the slightest reflection will cause any one to see that this assumption is a most mistaken one. The individual is no more the unit of humanity than is the tribe or family; but, like them, is a collective noun, and stands for a number of distinct persons, related one to another in a particular way, and having certain features of resemblance. The persons composing a family are related both collaterally and by succession or descent, while the persons composing an individual are related by succession only. They are called infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, maturity, age, and dotage.

“These persons are very unlike one another. Striking physical, mental, and moral differences exist between them. Infancy and childhood are incomprehensible to manhood, and manhood not less so to them. The youth looks forward with disgust to the old age which is to follow him, and the old man has far more in common with other old men, his own contemporaries, than with the youth who preceded him. How frequently do we see the youth vicious and depraved, and the man who follows him upright and virtuous, hating iniquity! How often, on the other hand, is a pure and innocent girlhood succeeded by a dissolute and shameless womanhood! In many cases age looks back upon youth with inexpressible longing and tenderness, and quite as often with shame and remorse; but in all cases with the same consciousness of profound contrast, and of a great gulf fixed between.

“If the series of persons which constitutes an individual could by any magic be brought together and these persons confronted with one another, in how many cases would the result be mutual misunderstanding, disgust, and even animosity? Suppose, for instance, that Saul, the persecutor of the disciples of Jesus, who held the garments of them that stoned Stephen, should be confronted with his later self, Paul the apostle, would there not be reason to anticipate a stormy interview? For there is no more ground to suppose that Saul would be converted to Paul's view than the reverse. Each was fully persuaded in his own mind as to what he did.

“But for the fact that each one of the persons who together constitute an individual is well off the field before his successor comes upon it, we should not infrequently see the man collaring his own youth, handing him over to the authorities, and prefering charges against him as a rascally fellow.

“Not by any means are the successive persons of an individual always thus out of harmony with one another. In many, perhaps in a majority, of cases, the same general principles and ideals are recognized by the man which were adopted by the boy, and as much sympathy exists between them as is possible in view of the different aspects which the world necessarily presents to youth and age. In such cases, no doubt, could the series of persons constituting the individual be brought together, a scene of inexpressibly tender and intimate communion would ensue.

“But, though no magic may bring back our past selves to earth, may we not hope to meet them hereafter in some other world? Nay, must we not expect so to meet them if we believe in the immortality of human souls? For if our past selves, who were dead before we were alive, had no souls, then why suppose our present selves have any? Childhood, youth, and manhood are the sweetest, the fairest, the noblest, the strongest of the persons who together constitute an individual. Are they soulless? Do they go down in darkness to oblivion while immortality is reserved for the withered soul of age? If we must believe that there is but one soul to all the persons of an individual it would be easier to believe that it belongs to youth or manhood, and that age is soulless. For if youth, strong-winged and ardent, full of fire and power, perish, leaving nothing behind save a few traces in the memory, how shall the flickering spirit of age have strength to survive the blast of death?

“The individual, in its career of seventy years, has not one body, but many, each wholly new. It is a commonplace of physiology that there is not a particle in the body to-day that was in it a few years ago. Shall we say that none of these bodies has a soul except the last, merely because the last decays more suddenly than the others?

“Or is it maintained that, although there is such utter diversity—physical, mental, moral—between infancy and manhood, youth and age, nevertheless, there is a certain essence common to them all, and persisting unchanged through them all, and that this is the soul of the individual? But such an essence as should be the same in the babe and the man, the youth and the dotard, could be nothing more than a colourless abstraction, without distinctive qualities of any kind—a mere principle of life like the fabled jelly protoplasm. Such a fancy reduces the hope of immortality to an absurdity.

“No! no! It is not any such grotesque or fragmentary immortality that God has given us. The Creator does not administer the universe on so niggardly a plan. Either there is no immortality for us which is intelligible or satisfying, or childhood, youth, manhood, age, and all the other persons who make up an individual, live for ever, and one day will meet and be together in God's eternal present; and when the several souls of an individual are in harmony no doubt He will perfect their felicity by joining them with a tie that shall be incomparably more tender and intimate than any earthly union ever dreamed of, constituting a life one yet manifold—a harp of many strings, not struck successively as here on earth, but blending in rich accord.”

This is certainly an interesting question posed to those who believe in the existence of an immortal soul.

A second theme in the book is an ethical one.  And while it is not dealt with directly, it is certainly implied by the twist in the story.  Without giving anything away, there is a question in the story about whether it is better to be happy but deceived, or be not so happy but have the truth.

Happy reading.

Does anyone want a cat …

… or two or three?

Because we have just acquired another one.

Friday evening, as I was heading to the supermarket, I met a kitten in the middle of the street.  I said meow, he said meow.  You know how it is.

Anyway, one thing led to another, and he is now living with us.  (We have fenced off an area in the bathroom for him, while he is in quarantine.)

X-rays at the vet yesterday showed that he has got a broken leg, which the vet says will take about a month to heal.  The broken leg makes him limp a bit (which is why we decided to take him home with us).

When we found him, he was very dirty and skinny, but he had a red Chinese-style knotted string around his neck.  So we guess he must be an abandoned (or lost) pet.

We will put up posters, and advertise around.  Hopefully his previous family will want him back.  Or if not, any other family is welcome to take him.

Any other family is welcome to take either Maggie or Kitty, too.  It would be wonderful if we could find caring homes for them, before we move to New Zealand in September.

By the way, his name is Mickey.  Mulan named him this morning.  She said he needs an “M” name.

Yingde (英德)

On the way to Yingde, we saw five nose to tail car crashes.  On the way home, we saw four more.  (There may have been more, but we slept both ways.)

This was just a short, two-day holiday with a few of Mama’s friends and their families.  We left Sunday morning, travelling the 150 km in a friend’s car, and returned Monday night.

According to Wikipedia, Yingde, which is situated on the northern tributary of the Pearl River, is most famous for its tea and rocks.  But we didn’t go there for either.  For Mulan and Miya (and me, too), the three highlights of the trip were the hot pools, the boat ride and the climb up the local mountain.  For Mama, the highlight was the midnight girls’ time in the hotel room, without men or children.

In my time in China, I have never seen so many car crashes.  But I think this was the first time I have travelled on the roads during the Chinese holiday rush (usually I hide away at home).  And let’s just say that many of the drivers were completely crazy.  It reminded me of a racing car game.  Lanes were ignored, and, at 80 km/h, drivers would hang about a metre behind the car in front, waiting for a gap to zip between and past.  Apparently, no one had heard of the two-second rule.  I was surprised that there weren’t more crashes around us.  And I was pleasantly surprised that we all got home in one piece.

The hotel area that we stayed at, which was still so new that we could smell the paint, had been set up as a middle-class southern Chinese holiday spot.  In contrast to our recent Kaiping holiday, everything was for Chinese, rather than international, tastes.  Our hotel room had concrete floors and wooden furniture.  Dishes at the restaurant were almost all meaty; there was no provision for vegetarians.  There was also no pasta or bread, and for some of our four meals they said they had no tofu either.  I subsisted mainly on scrambled eggs, green veggies and white rice.  Their breakfast menu was even more limited and all I could have was sweet buns.

Our hotel was built alongside a train line.  The first thing Mulan said when she woke in the morning was that she was woken nine times during the night by trains passing.

But I mostly say this just as observation, not complaint.  Even though the place was not to our taste, we were not so princessy that we couldn’t handle it!  It was still an enjoyable holiday.

After lunch, we had a little look at a rusty old museum steam train engine.  I am not sure why it was there, but I was told that a tree out the front of the hotel area had been planted by the person who designed the first Chinese-built railway line (the one from Beijing to the Great Wall at Badaling).

In the evening, we had our one-hour boat ride up and down the river.  It was rather odd that the several boats used were all luxurious cabin cruiser motorboats.  The insides were fitted out with two posh-looking bedrooms and a living/dining/kitchen area.  Not really suitable for masses of tourists.  So, us tourists either sat up top or on the front deck.  The girls loved the speed of the boat, with the wind in their hair.  The scenery was beautiful, too.

The next morning, after a late breakfast, we went for a walk to the other side of the railway tracks.  And it really was the other side of the tracks.  The photo shows the locals’ living style compared with the touristy hotel across the other side.

The locals’ homes were built tight up against a mountain.  We had heard that there was a path leading up the mountain, so we (us four, plus one dad and two boys) thought it might be fun to climb up.  We had a go, and got maybe 20 metres up, scrabbling in the dust on hands and knees.  The girls were keen to keep going, but they really needed someone behind each of them to catch them if they slipped.  Mama didn’t feel confident, so we came back down again, slip sliding often on bottoms.

A couple of local men helped the girls down the final couple of metres.  Mama asked them if they used the path, and how often.  They replied that they use it all the time, every day.  Mama asked them how they get up, so one of them showed us.  He simple walked up and down again as if it was a staircase.  He didn’t use his hands at all.  We were all just silly, useless city-folk in comparison.

I carefully watched where he put his feet, so when Mama pushed me to try it, too, I was also able to walk up without using my hands.  But I still came back down using my hands.  I wasn’t that confident to step without checking first.  As I explained to Mulan on the way back to our hotel, a big part of climbing is technique and knowledge, not strength.  If you know where to step and hold, it can be very easy.

After lunch, we left our hotel and headed to the hot spring pools.  Our two hours there was the best part of the holiday, for the girls.  Several hot pools, of varying size and heat, dotted a hillside, overlooking fields and in amongst trees.  Rocks were used to shape the sides of the pools, and the whole place felt very natural and comfortable.  It wasn’t very crowded, either.  The notable feature of the area was the cave-pools—a couple of pools built inside a natural cave.  (We couldn’t take cameras into the area, but our cave-pools looked a little like the one here.)  Midway through our hot-pool hopping, we had a swim in the cool swimming pool (the Chinglish sign called it a “swimming fool”).  It was a shock to the system initially, but once in it was very comfortable.

Towards the end of our time there, we tried the fish pool.  This pool had little grey fish that darted around and nibbled the skin on our feet.  Mama and I tried it, and it felt very tickly, but the girls didn’t like the idea of fish eating us.  They refused to put their feet in, and wanted Mama and me to quickly get out.  Before getting out, though, we noticed that my feet got far more attention from the fish than anyone else’s.  Maybe the fish enjoyed the different flavour of whitey feet!

We had to drag the girls out of the pools to meet up with everyone at the car just after 5 pm.  After another few hours on the road, once back home I needed a chamomile tea before bed.