Choosing

 William James, whose contributions to the fields of psychology and philosophy resulted in the first American versions of both, found himself in a discussion (debate) with William Clifford concerning the ethics of belief. Clifford argued that it’s unethical to believe without sufficient evidence. James argued that sometimes the sorts of choices we must make necessitate believing despite lack of evidence. A classic example is marriage: people marry without the evidence to support their belief that this person is the one for them. Our high divorce rates suggest 50% or more are mistaken in their belief and yet sufficient evidence isn’t available, “sufficient” being defined by Clifford as something closer to “irrefutable,” not simply “good enough.” No one really knows what the marriage will hold, how the persons involved with change, what’s being concealed. James writes that such a decision necessitates a leap of faith, believing without sufficient evidence that this person will keep all the marriage vows until death parts them, and that to decide to get married, despite lack of evidence for belief, isn’t immoral. James concludes that we need be pragmatic about some things, find a workable solution, do the best we can despite lack of knowledge. 

These two Williams live in my head, rent-free, but they get to stay because without James, I’d be paralyzed about a lot of choices I need to make. Evidence about the future is sparse, to say the least. I keep Clifford around because James can be taken too far, a kind of slippery slope where sloppy excuses and rationalizations make everything permissible. For James, the number of choices that are what he terms “forced live options” justifying a pragmatic leap of faith are far and few between. Yet, in the hands of some people becomes sufficient reason to believe anything they want to believe, which both James and Clifford disapprove. Both James and Clifford take seriously evidence, deliberation, ethics, and the limits of knowledge, a rigor I appreciate. 

This morning I’m feeling rather glum about choices. I’ll start with this tidbit concerning the manifesto I published a few posts ago. The plastics thing: I’m a plant-based eater. As such, I have tofu at least once a week (there’s this General Tso's tofu meal that’s out of this world). Tofu comes in plastic. I have not seen an alternative and I don’t think I can make my own. The two package options are:

The option on the bottom has less plastic than the other, so the workable solution here seems to be choosing the lesser of two evils. But—and it’s a big but, as they say—the deeper question is this: is tofu a necessity or a want? Clearly, I can live without tofu. Also clear, I want it. Do I want to let myself off the hook on this one thing, the luxury of tofu (don’t laugh)? I have a laundry list of justifications including that spiral logic often used against vegans that something dies so we can eat (the combine in a field kills hundreds of rodents in the process of harvesting the oat crop, for example), so the choice is (a false one, I think) to either kill or die. I think that’s a silly argument because some dietary choices do, in fact, cause more harm than others. On the plastic front, at some point even the bulk bin choices I make probably come in one large plastic bag from the warehouse, but irrefutably the better option is to buy bulk and eliminate the individual plastic packaging at least. Better still, for me, to consider the want vs need equation, and to factor that without rationalization into the ethics around whatever action I’m considering. I keep saying “it should be easier to be good,” but wanting to make a good choice and do the right thing remains a very difficult endeavor. I understand why many people just put the whole show on autopilot and let convenience and desire dictate what they do. 

This morning, on the heels of Super Tuesday, my glumness about choosing is palpable. The stage is set for Biden v Trump 2.0. As someone who usually votes, I’m not happy with the options, though one for me represents at least the kind of civility I want in politics and approximates the kind of personal moral standards I would like public leaders to have. The other choice is a non-starter for me, is a phenomenon I do not understand, and represents a debasement of all things respectable and decent, compassionate, and humane. Yet should they (and we) all survive the next seven months voters will make a choice at the polls. The options stink, though I’m not even going to pretend it’s a hard choice to make, given the two options. 

Yet I also must think about the deeper choices involved here. I could also get involved politically, right? I could work for change, start a movement, or run for office. There are lots of countries out there, maybe I should go to one of them. Portugal seems to be having a boom in permaculture and off-grid living. Maybe I should set sail around the world or trek off into the Yukon. Maybe I’ll just accept what happens on the national stage as not really affecting my daily life or my local community, resting on a kind of privilege I have by not being an immigrant or Black or poor or living in a country that’s at war. Maybe the best I can do is to keep loving my fellow planet-dwellers, stay compassionate, resist the tide of hatred, vitriol, and destructive behaviors. What I’m confronting by posing these possibilities to myself is the belief that I’m powerless to do anything, that I don’t have any options beyond the two. By engaging in this imaginative exercise, I empower myself and forge alternatives, choosing to be otherwise and resisting the false dichotomy.

Emerson wrote an essay on politics that felt timeless when I re-read it a few weeks ago. In the wrap-up he observed, “The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.” I have thought on that statement a great deal in my attention walks. Love is deemed too subjective, too personal, fit for the private realm but not something we can make law in the public realm where it’s all we can do to keep people from acting on their baser instincts and totally destroying one another, or so goes the view of human nature as thoroughly corrupt, fallen due to inheriting original sin, etc., and therefore always tending toward Thomas Hobbes’ view that without social organization life for us will be poor, nasty, brutish and short. And so we live by law and by skirting the law and doing the bare minimum the law requires. Murder is against the law, but the law doesn’t prevent my thinking hateful thoughts. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want more laws. I want government to get out the culture war business altogether. I stand with Thoreau who wrote in his essay Civil Disobedience, “that government is best which governs least.” I’d like to see people, not government programs, taking care of each other.  

No, I don’t want more laws or more government, I want more love. I think love has not been made the basis of a State, not because it’s too weak, but because it’s too difficult, too demanding. Love requires sacrifice and unselfishness. Love is easy (easier?) when it’s for friends or one’s own kids or partner or people who think or look like oneself, but terribly difficult when the someone who needs love is judged undeserving or selfish or stinky or strange. Love is about insisting on our fundamental shared life together (all things, humans, other animals, the planet) and a resolve to seek that shared goodness and value and beauty and well-being. Love is rigorous, tenacious, creative; love is exhausting, demanding, and daunting. 

I don’t like the options that I woke to this morning. In fact, before I started writing, I felt despair, such is my disbelief (or wanting not to believe) and abhorrence about the whole political situation. I don't know how it's all going to shake out, and frankly, I don't even want to indulge my ability to postulate any number of catastrophic scenarios, all which feel plausible and possible and horrible. Emerson and nature have taught me much these past months, so I refuse the false choices presented to me, seeing them for what they are, weak, unimaginative, and absurd, unfit for the kind of being I am. I may feel like giving in to despair, but I need to do better than that.

So, I've come to this small but potentially revolutionary act: when I do my choosing, I’m going to choose love.