Lo folks, I have been meaning to write something relating to the recent (well not that recent any more) European parliament election.
Fist of I want to say I deeply regret the rise of extremist parties on both sides of the political spectrum. especially the openly anti-semitic, islamophobic, homophobic and anti-zigenistic ones. What I, as a strong supporter of the European cooperation, regret almost as much is the rise of Euroscepticism. And even more what it has led to.
You see while the most extreme ideas mentioned above are certainly frightening, there aren't enough of any one of those groups to cause any real damage. However Euroscepticism is a prevailing thread through each and every one of these extremist parties and thus a much more powerful force inside the European parliament following the election. What is even more disturbing is the decision of several key leaders in Europe to appease the eurosceptics by taking a harder line on the European cooperation
The most important of these is of course the guy in the title, David Cameron, the prime minister of the united kingdoms.
David Cameron has decided that Jean Claude Juncker who represent the party-group that received the most votes in the election, EPP (European People's Party), is too federalist to become president of the European commission and has thus decided to work against him.
Now to understand the problem we need to understand the European Union. The peoples of Europe chose the European parliament, who are the main legislature and decision making body of the union.
"Taking in account the result of the election" the european council, which is made up of the heads of states of the member countries of the EU proposes a candidate for the job as president of the European commission (as well as some other positions, all at once). Before the treaty of Lisbon a unanimous decision had to be reached. But now a majority vote is enough to propose a candidate. The European parliament then votes to either accept or reject this proposal.
Why is it important? Well the European commission is the lawmaking body of the union, all that the parliament can do is to accept or decline to the proposals made by the commission, controlling the commission is thus controlling the direction Europe is going.
Considering the new clause of "Taking into account the result of the election", and earlier critisism that the process of deciding the president of the commission is a very opaque process, often settled in back-room deals, the five main party-groups of the european cooperation came together to try and reform the process for greater transparency. They thus elected each a representative that they would put forward and offer as a choice for president. That way a voter would know who they voted for depending on which party he voted on.
There is however nothing forcing the European council to chose these candidates, they can chose to take the result of the election into account by other means. And this is the idea that Cameron is trying to push. Truth is that Britain has always preferred weak leaders of the EU. And Cameron is again looking to install a puppet of the council (where Britain on account of being a powerful country has a lot of power).
The problem is that doing so is a step back, a step back towards an opaque process a step back towards backroom deals and games of shadow. A step back to the system that led to the saying "If you think a person might be president of the commission you can be certain they never will".
Now today David Cameron along the Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, the German Chanselor Angela Merkel and my own (Swedish) prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt is meet in Stockholm to discuss who will be the next president, behind closed doors (yet again). At least Reinfeldt is know to support Cameron's coup (despite going to the election on an EU friendly line, and supporting Juncker's proposed free trade agreement with the US). While Merkel probalby just want to keep Cameron from following up on his threat to leave the EU should Juncker be elected. They ow seek a candidate that the parliament can't afford to dismiss or who can gather enough support in the parliament regardless of the promise the party groups made not to support anyone but the candidates.
Truth is as some of the presidential candidates said during the live debate, if they disregard the will of the European people this time, they will have a very hard time to get people to vote in the next European election. Also stepping back from the idea of transparency that the candidates represent at this point will deal a crippling blow towards the work for increased transparency in the Union. We can pretty much stop saying Europe is a democracy if they make this decision behind closed doors. And doing it to appease the British who are going to vote on leaving the union regardless of who gets chosen as the next president is ridiculous, if the British want to leave there is little we can do to stop them but David Cameron is fishing for support in the waters of UKIP voters, UKIP who went to the election with the idea that they want European cooperation dismantled entirely.
So I ask the European council, please affirm the party-groups interpretation of the process, please stand up for transperacy. Please don't let the British ruin the European Union for the rest of us. Please end the game of shadows and take European politics into the light.
I don't like Juncker either but he's not worth sacrificing the possibility for greater transparency in the European Union to stop.
P.S. the name of the article is of course a reference to Cameron's fellow Britt, Sherlock Holmes and the Movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. The main difference is that Sherlock Holmes seek to unravel the game of shadows while Cameron seek to maintain it.
måndag 9 juni 2014
fredag 6 juni 2014
Take Back The Flag!
This is a call to arms! Or rather a
call to words, or perhaps pictures.
You see today is the Swedish national day, and Sweden as so many other countries out there is plagued by nationalistic right wing extremism, which in turn is besieged by left wing extremists. Hate versus hate. And so hate breeds hate. People get profiled either as any of these three groups, Foreigners, racists or violent anti racists.
I say it's a trend we need to break and thus I offer this call to pictures. The idea as a campaign against hate in all it's forms we shall reclaim the old patriotic symbols not as symbols of superiority of us and inferiority of others but as what they should be, sources of pride, in the best sense of the word. The foremost of these symbols is the flag. So let the flag be the icon of what we try to do, Let's take back the flag from the extremists, not as an act of hate but as restoring it to what it should never have ceased to be.
You see today is the Swedish national day, and Sweden as so many other countries out there is plagued by nationalistic right wing extremism, which in turn is besieged by left wing extremists. Hate versus hate. And so hate breeds hate. People get profiled either as any of these three groups, Foreigners, racists or violent anti racists.
I say it's a trend we need to break and thus I offer this call to pictures. The idea as a campaign against hate in all it's forms we shall reclaim the old patriotic symbols not as symbols of superiority of us and inferiority of others but as what they should be, sources of pride, in the best sense of the word. The foremost of these symbols is the flag. So let the flag be the icon of what we try to do, Let's take back the flag from the extremists, not as an act of hate but as restoring it to what it should never have ceased to be.
Let it represent unity not division.
Let it represent hope not despair
Let it represent pride not guilt or
shame
Let it represent love not hate.
What I ask of you is that whoever you
are, wherever you are that you during your national day post a picture
on social media of your countries flag with the hashtag
#TakeBackTheFlag.
So here's the view from my window:
So here's the view from my window:
Let the flags parade here not opposed but united as equals for a more open and more understanding world.
Until next time folks!
fredag 23 maj 2014
The Trinity of Ethics
I
assume we are all familiar with the concept of the trinity, Th idea
that god is three yet somehow one. However this is NOT a bog entry on
religion. This is a blog entry on ethics.
You see ethics just like the bible claims that god does also comes in three varieties (actually it's more but then my entire analogy breaks down so bear with me).
These three are:
You see ethics just like the bible claims that god does also comes in three varieties (actually it's more but then my entire analogy breaks down so bear with me).
These three are:
Duty ethics, also often
called moral absolutism. It says that an action has an inherent moral
or ethical value, proponents of this version of ethics are Aristotle,
who gave us the golden rule ”One should treat others as one would
like others to treat oneself ”, Jesus, who was very fond of quoting
Aristotle’s golden rule and much later Immanuel Kant, who perfected
the golden rule to his categorical imperative ”Act only according
to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law without contradiction.”, which means act
only in such a manner that you'd see raised to common practice.
This philosophy of ethics have the problem that it doesn't take circumstances into account. It is also utterly to fascinated with the past. Other arguments against it is that people may want to see some very odd things raised to common practice.
Consequence ethics, as culminating in John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, often reduced to one of several statements such as “Greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people” Or least amount of suffering to the least amount of people. Also often quoted as “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (Thank you mister Spock). Whilst an open acknowledgement that we may not ever be able to find a perfect course of action that brings everyone happiness or spares everyone suffering (though cynical minds have suggested that the later can be accomplished by wiping out all life leaving nothing alive to suffer). Unfortunately the moment we stop trying to save everyone we make it morally acceptable to save no one.
Which leads us very smoothly to our last, and by far most controversial structure of ethics. The ethics of the ego. Since we cannot rid ourselves of the ego, that we at the most fundamental level are wired to be selfish, we should not try to. We should accept this and instead try to make as good a decision of what serves our self interest as one can. From this arises the idea of enlightened self-interest. That by helping others we in turn help ourselves in the long run. Or if not ourselves then our progeny or their progeny, or so on, that we by acting to the detriment of our own interests in the present actually serve to fulfil our primary genetic imperative,the highest form of self-interest. Which leads us back to where we started, while these three methods of arriving at a conclusion are vastly different from each other, they will often arrive at very similar conclusions. A follower of the idea of inseparable self-interest will tell you that our ideas of a ego separated morality is just an instinctual grasp of enlightened self-interest that evolution has given us. Thus it is perhaps a short cut to construct a categorical imperative or to consider the needs of the many allowing us to quicker make hard decisions without having the total or at least vast knowledge needed to argue ethics from the point of ego.
Subsequently the three are separate in theory but one in practice.
Now I mentioned earlier that there are actually more schools of thought here, two more actually, two that in some ways are subsets of two of the others, the first of these is the morality of intentions. It is very similar to the ethics of consequences, it however judges actions based on the intended consequences rather than the achived consequences. It is always to some extent part of the consequential ethics since we can only really judge the consequences of an action with hindsight (and even then it requires not overlooking aspects). But there's also the old maxim that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and while old maxims are often wrong (just ask the next guy) one could argue that Stalin and Hitler had the best of intentions (and yet they failed both from an egotistical and a utilitarian standpoint), so I guess there's something to it.
Who's the last guy then? The ethics of transcendence. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that there are no such universal truths that we have no such universally applying ethics that we must ourselves judge what we deem important, and do what we can accept having done to achieve those goals. He called it imposing ones will on the universe. And told us that life and the universe itself is will to power and nothing else. But he also tells us that others will be imposing their will on the universe and as such we must be mindful of the consequences that we incur by placing ourselves in the crosshair of others ability to impose their will upon the universe. One could see it as do what you argue that you must do and accept the consequences of your actions, if those consequences are to steep, then you don't do it. In a way this is a less tangible form of the morality of ego, it relinquishes the idea that there have to be inherent things that we all strive towards, because even if those things may have come naturally we are capable of setting ourselves above that too. What we evolved to be and what we are have long since separated. Nietzsche also warns us against accepting others maxims of morality as our own blindly. That's not to say there is no morality but that we must transcend the expectations of our society and forge our own personal code of ethics if we wish to become supermen and impose our will on the universe.
Nietzsche may seem impossible to combine with the earlier statement that the three are really one but again it all comes down to the question how you arrive at a conclusion. All neitzsche's philosophy says is that you should find the answers yourself, because an answer given to you by someone else is worthless, if you cannot argue why an action is good or bad then you're not making a decision of morality, and as such the action has no moral value, you can chose to cure cancer or end all war but if you don't understand why you are doing it, then you have no right to take responsibility for the action, you are merely a tool for the one who chose to impose his or her will upon you. And a decision to let someone else decide for you is always a bad thing. To many horrible things in the history of mankind have been done by people who were only following orders.
Of course perhaps that is me (and by association Nietzsche) imposing my will and moral code on you.
This philosophy of ethics have the problem that it doesn't take circumstances into account. It is also utterly to fascinated with the past. Other arguments against it is that people may want to see some very odd things raised to common practice.
Consequence ethics, as culminating in John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, often reduced to one of several statements such as “Greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people” Or least amount of suffering to the least amount of people. Also often quoted as “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (Thank you mister Spock). Whilst an open acknowledgement that we may not ever be able to find a perfect course of action that brings everyone happiness or spares everyone suffering (though cynical minds have suggested that the later can be accomplished by wiping out all life leaving nothing alive to suffer). Unfortunately the moment we stop trying to save everyone we make it morally acceptable to save no one.
Which leads us very smoothly to our last, and by far most controversial structure of ethics. The ethics of the ego. Since we cannot rid ourselves of the ego, that we at the most fundamental level are wired to be selfish, we should not try to. We should accept this and instead try to make as good a decision of what serves our self interest as one can. From this arises the idea of enlightened self-interest. That by helping others we in turn help ourselves in the long run. Or if not ourselves then our progeny or their progeny, or so on, that we by acting to the detriment of our own interests in the present actually serve to fulfil our primary genetic imperative,the highest form of self-interest. Which leads us back to where we started, while these three methods of arriving at a conclusion are vastly different from each other, they will often arrive at very similar conclusions. A follower of the idea of inseparable self-interest will tell you that our ideas of a ego separated morality is just an instinctual grasp of enlightened self-interest that evolution has given us. Thus it is perhaps a short cut to construct a categorical imperative or to consider the needs of the many allowing us to quicker make hard decisions without having the total or at least vast knowledge needed to argue ethics from the point of ego.
Subsequently the three are separate in theory but one in practice.
Now I mentioned earlier that there are actually more schools of thought here, two more actually, two that in some ways are subsets of two of the others, the first of these is the morality of intentions. It is very similar to the ethics of consequences, it however judges actions based on the intended consequences rather than the achived consequences. It is always to some extent part of the consequential ethics since we can only really judge the consequences of an action with hindsight (and even then it requires not overlooking aspects). But there's also the old maxim that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and while old maxims are often wrong (just ask the next guy) one could argue that Stalin and Hitler had the best of intentions (and yet they failed both from an egotistical and a utilitarian standpoint), so I guess there's something to it.
Who's the last guy then? The ethics of transcendence. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that there are no such universal truths that we have no such universally applying ethics that we must ourselves judge what we deem important, and do what we can accept having done to achieve those goals. He called it imposing ones will on the universe. And told us that life and the universe itself is will to power and nothing else. But he also tells us that others will be imposing their will on the universe and as such we must be mindful of the consequences that we incur by placing ourselves in the crosshair of others ability to impose their will upon the universe. One could see it as do what you argue that you must do and accept the consequences of your actions, if those consequences are to steep, then you don't do it. In a way this is a less tangible form of the morality of ego, it relinquishes the idea that there have to be inherent things that we all strive towards, because even if those things may have come naturally we are capable of setting ourselves above that too. What we evolved to be and what we are have long since separated. Nietzsche also warns us against accepting others maxims of morality as our own blindly. That's not to say there is no morality but that we must transcend the expectations of our society and forge our own personal code of ethics if we wish to become supermen and impose our will on the universe.
Nietzsche may seem impossible to combine with the earlier statement that the three are really one but again it all comes down to the question how you arrive at a conclusion. All neitzsche's philosophy says is that you should find the answers yourself, because an answer given to you by someone else is worthless, if you cannot argue why an action is good or bad then you're not making a decision of morality, and as such the action has no moral value, you can chose to cure cancer or end all war but if you don't understand why you are doing it, then you have no right to take responsibility for the action, you are merely a tool for the one who chose to impose his or her will upon you. And a decision to let someone else decide for you is always a bad thing. To many horrible things in the history of mankind have been done by people who were only following orders.
Of course perhaps that is me (and by association Nietzsche) imposing my will and moral code on you.
Turning on the light.
Hello folks!
My name is Fredrik Dunge, I've previously had a blog called 'Rationell Empirism' (rational empiricism) where I discussed philosphy politics and so on. I have however felt that I was severly limiting my readers because the blog was in swedish so I decided that it was time for the great silence for the old blog and the lights to finally be lit for my new lighthouse of enlightenment. The name was chosen becuase I'm a liberal, a scientific person (don't yet have the diploma to atually call myself a scientist but I'm getting there) and a beliver in enlightenment and logic.
So I'll kick this of with quoting a passage from the fanfic Harry Potter and the methods or rationality:
"Harry stared down at the can in his hand, the coldness settling into his blood. Charming, happy, generous with his favors to his friends, Draco wasn't a psychopath. That was the sad and awful part, knowing human psychology well enough to know that Draco wasn't a monster. There had been ten thousand societies over the history of the world where this conversation could have happened. No, the world would have been a very different place indeed, if it took an evil mutant to say what Draco had said. It was very simple, very human, it was the default if nothing else intervened. To Draco, his enemies weren't people.
And in the slowed time of this slowed country, here and now as in the darkness-before-dawn prior to the Age of Reason, the son of a sufficiently powerful noble would simply take for granted that he was above the law, at least when it came to some peasant girl. There were places in Muggle-land where it was still the same way, countries where that sort of nobility still existed and still thought like that, or even grimmer lands where it wasn't just the nobility. It was like that in every place and time that didn't descend directly from the Enlightenment. A line of descent, it seemed, which didn't quite include magical Britain, for all that there had been cross-cultural contamination of things like ring-pull drinks cans."
I feel it greatly relates to how I view the world, I recommend you read the fanfic, it really reads as an instruction manual to logic and scientific theory.
But now I have to shut down the lights of the old blog... until next time!
My name is Fredrik Dunge, I've previously had a blog called 'Rationell Empirism' (rational empiricism) where I discussed philosphy politics and so on. I have however felt that I was severly limiting my readers because the blog was in swedish so I decided that it was time for the great silence for the old blog and the lights to finally be lit for my new lighthouse of enlightenment. The name was chosen becuase I'm a liberal, a scientific person (don't yet have the diploma to atually call myself a scientist but I'm getting there) and a beliver in enlightenment and logic.
So I'll kick this of with quoting a passage from the fanfic Harry Potter and the methods or rationality:
"Harry stared down at the can in his hand, the coldness settling into his blood. Charming, happy, generous with his favors to his friends, Draco wasn't a psychopath. That was the sad and awful part, knowing human psychology well enough to know that Draco wasn't a monster. There had been ten thousand societies over the history of the world where this conversation could have happened. No, the world would have been a very different place indeed, if it took an evil mutant to say what Draco had said. It was very simple, very human, it was the default if nothing else intervened. To Draco, his enemies weren't people.
And in the slowed time of this slowed country, here and now as in the darkness-before-dawn prior to the Age of Reason, the son of a sufficiently powerful noble would simply take for granted that he was above the law, at least when it came to some peasant girl. There were places in Muggle-land where it was still the same way, countries where that sort of nobility still existed and still thought like that, or even grimmer lands where it wasn't just the nobility. It was like that in every place and time that didn't descend directly from the Enlightenment. A line of descent, it seemed, which didn't quite include magical Britain, for all that there had been cross-cultural contamination of things like ring-pull drinks cans."
I feel it greatly relates to how I view the world, I recommend you read the fanfic, it really reads as an instruction manual to logic and scientific theory.
But now I have to shut down the lights of the old blog... until next time!
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