Letter about Humanism, Libertarianism and Capitalism

_______, First let me address the distinction between man and the other animals. Before I address the point directly, an important preliminary is that I do not believe that it is currently, in human history, reasonable to assume that there exists some non-physical element to the human experience. We have powerful, compelling and explanatory models which explain why we find ourselves existing and they are purely physical (in the sense that they arise from rules about the universe which we understand and are not intelligent in themselves or "supernatural"). True, we cannot yet (and perhaps never will be able to) explain the origin of the universe before our physical laws begin to look more or less as they do now, but we can say conclusively and with little doubt that a human, and a human mind, is a (very complex) electromagnetic phenomenon. There is not a single piece of credible evidence that anything more than physical phenomena are needed to explain the existence our minds.

There is not a single piece of credible evidence that anything more than physical phenomena are needed to explain the existence our minds.

This may seem to introduce a gap between us in terms of our conception of the universe, but some very great Christian Theologians very nearly agree with me on this point: essentially all Christian denominations that I know of (excluding¹ Mormonism) believe that a Dog, a creature exhibiting many of the same qualities of consciousness as a man, has no soul and is, therefore, purely a creature of matter. The theologian admits that conscious-resembling phenomenon can and do exist in the absence of a prime animus such as the soul. In any case, I am afraid that as unsatisfying as it seems philosophically, we cannot reasonably assert that the soul exists. It seems this way to me, at any rate and I believe that I am right. That out of the way, its obvious² that we can't expect nature to furnish us with a clear demarcation between the human and the non-human world. It might be nice but it is hardly requisite from a natural perspective. We must be satisfied with ad-hoc and possibly flexible definitions of humanity. It is a great moral responsibility but the universe appears to have no other authority capable of making the decision. That said, I think there is a clear difference between man and animal which manifests itself most obviously in language. As a matter of fact, mankind is the only creature on earth capable of producing in its utterances as context-free grammar. Other lifeforms which communicate uniformly produce a grammar which we can think of in general terms as one order of sophistication below our own. The primary feature lacking in this lower grammar is recursive structure. From this point of view, at the very least, we can assert that mankind is a new kind of life form, roughly as different from lower forms of life as multicellular organisms are from single celled ones. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The important distinguishing feature of mankind is that our minds exist in no small part outside of our bodies. Witness something even as simple as this message - certainly I could not conceive of the entire sequence of words at once. My biological brain is, after all, only marginally more sophisticated than that of a chimpanzee. But, through the miracle of symbolic conception, I can "offload" large amounts of information onto more stable media, and structure that information on a much higher level of sophistication than I could do with the biological elements of my mind alone. A novel is a fantastic example. It is literally a single idea, far too large for a single brain to hold all at once, which never the less belongs to the author.

A novel is a fantastic example. It is literally a single idea, far too large for a single brain to hold all at once, which never the less belongs to the author.

A novel is an extension of the mind with technology. Mathematics is an extension of the mind with technology. Any human participating in tasks of even marginal complexity does a substantial amount of his or her "thinking" outside of his or her body: on paper, with computers, with language. Consciousness, with a human, is a phenomenon which seeps out of the confines of cranium. It spreads out in space, it leaks into other minds, it persists after the death of the physical body which produced it. This gives me confidence in declaring that mankind is indeed a new thing and a great one. At least in this corner of the universe, there is nothing like us at all. The expanded mind of a human is a fantastic thing. Now onto capitalism. You first assert that Capitalism, by rewarding work and discipline, asserts the value of human abilities. I admit that this is true, and it is part of the reason I think capitalism is a good worth regulating. But the value of a human is *not* the same as the value of his or her abilities. Imagine if Jesus had said "I came here to save the able, the brilliant and the aggressive, whose success marks them as worth something." He said, in fact, the opposite. He came to save the weakest, least productive, most downtrodden members of society. He did this because He recognized the fundamentally valuable nature of the human mind, irrespective of the productivity of that mind by the standards of society. If capitalism truly brought out the Objective best in humans, the story would be different - but it just as frequently brings out the worst: avarice, lust, gluttony - capitalism actively encourages all of these things. Arguably, the economic system we have at this very moment would collapse in their absence. Advertising consistently encourages over consumptions with images of status and sex and is ultimately completely unconcerned with the flourishing of the average person. Capitalism punishes the corporate entity that attempts to see mankind as anything other than units of capital. This is evil in no uncertain terms and it should be controlled by the people - who have the right to exercise power in defense of the sacredness of mankind. You have wisely pointed out that the best system is not one which rigidly tries to force mankind into behaving in particular ways, but one in which people are culturally bent towards positive behaviors. In this area, the religious are far ahead of the secularists, who so love their hard won individuality that they fear inculturation of any kind. In this I differ from most atheists. I believe that it is our duty as people who believe in values to create institutions which "grow" and nurture humans into the kinds of people who do not need a government to force them to behave in a moral way. The flaw of libertarianism is that it assumes humans pop into the world as fully formed, richly rational entities. This is, unfortunately, not the case. We need to recognize our responsibility to children and adults with juvenile minds and push them in the right direction.

The flaw of libertarianism is that it assumes humans pop into the world as fully formed, richly rational entities. This is, unfortunately, not the case.

I have many sympathies with libertarianism and with Dr Paul, but after much consideration, I have come to believe that the government can, under limitation and careful watch, be more than a mere preventer of the bad - it can be an encourager of the good and it can do so by regulating not men themselves but those institutions men have created which lead to moral grotesques, like giant corporations, prosperity preachers, so on and so forth. I am glad that I did not damage our friendship with my rude rhetoric. I should point out that in terms of global capitalism, I am a very wealthy person indeed. Not any sort of aristocrat, certainly, but many people on earth have neither the leisure nor the environment to which I owe any sophistication I might have.

¹ ... for obvious and not obvious reasons. ² ...from my perspective - as should be obvious throughout, so I will drop the qualifications from here.

-V