Working Manifesto

Our everyday lives are structured by rules that we usually take for granted. We think of these rules as unchanging, self-evident and necessary, but in truth we know that they flow from social, cultural, and historical sources. When we honestly admit their origins, the appearance of necessity is put into question and the underlying contingency is brought to light.

As we illuminate the nature of such constraints, we create a space in which new ideas may evolve liberated from the architecture of arbitrary rules. This emancipation, however, does not proceed haphazardly. The merit of political, ethical, and religious perspectives will be exchanged in the market place of ideas with reason and evidence as our currency. No views shall be silenced, but neither shall all opinions be considered equal.

If this endeavor was about mere ideas, then our task would be far less urgent, a trivial intellectual exercise. Yet, ideas are not confined to the ivory tower. Indeed, they govern the world in which we live. The future of our lives and our world are inextricably linked to how we think about them. If we realize the radical possibilities concealed beneath the surface of our everyday lives, we will discover not only new ways to think, but new ways to live.

Rock on Sister!

I cannot bring it down less than 857 words. Chop up as you please, lovers.

Rock on sister!
I see her across from me in the library, like a butterfly in the midst of a swarm of bees. She is wearing a beautiful long sea blue skirt that might have been bought at Loose Lucy’s, her hair in a blue bandana, wonderfully matching her indigo slippers. At once I find myself awed, where otherwise I would not have been, at a mere expression of self. Quickly after the shock of her beauty wares off, a compelling urge to speak to her comes to me – the same sort of urge one gets when they are physically attracted to a stranger. And as anyone awed by the beauty of a stranger, I felt that time is of the essence. There is only a small window in which I can approach this beautiful female, and I must act fast. As I conjure the ridiculous excuse I am about to use to speak to her, I realize that it is not her aesthetics, nor her style that I am attracted to, merely her difference.
In my travels I have noticed beautiful idiosyncrasies in people’s ‘style’. Neither culture nor the belittling glares of the old quelled these expressions. From eclectic fabric taste to hair styles and colors these New Yorkers, Bristolians, Amestramers, and Berlinians to name a few dressed exactly how THEY would dress. What attracted me was their ‘flipping off’ of homogeneity, their statement: ‘this is how I want to look,’ and the courage they display in expressing it. At first I was attracted aesthetically, that is until I realized their freedom.
And here I was, in the library, drooling over a person simply for a difference that was honestly not that ‘marginal’. It was her strategic position, in the midst of a swarm of orange and purple bees that made her the beautiful goddess I saw her as. And so I give the bees a chance. I look for a shred of beauty that goes beyond the physical, a sign of carefree self expression and I find none. The only difference was that a few bees belonged to social organizations as was advertized on their uniforms, segregating bee from bee, an illusory effect that did not escape my quick eye. And I wonder, what makes a person abjectly conform to a certain mode of expression that quells their true emotions?
I am aware that every experience creates a sensory path in my brain, and when faced with an interaction that begs my reaction, my understanding of the situation deliberates with my memories, and I act in a manner so fundamentally personal that even I cannot explain. My experiences have shaped my reality, and therefore push me to express myself in the only way I can. This is not a personal phenomenon of mine; we all operate in the same way. Since what shapes you is a collection of personal experiences that can never be mimicked, your choices ought to be different than that of others. One would not be expressing otherwise; to say the least they would be conforming.
If one wants to conform, and knowingly follows a path of impersonal expression, then who am I to criticize? I do not, this message is not for the beautiful conforming bee that is at peace with her conformity; it is for the bee that would love to wear bright leggings under a dark miniskirt, or the bee that would have an electro-mullet if not for the scrutiny of others. This message in essence is sister, rock on and be free. Do not be influenced by the meaningless opinions of others, distinguish and express yourself, for before long the need for bread will force you to conform. I want to notice you, marvel at your expression, and fall in love with your choices. Realize what it is that you truly feel to be and be it, for the uniqueness of yourself expression will undoubtedly be beautiful. And what to you is more beautiful than your own self, expressed unquestioned and accepted at it is?
Why drown yourself in sea of similar faces, unnoticed and mistaken for millions of your bee comrades? Why limit yourself to a uniform that says nothing about you but your uniformity? Where are the punks, gutter punks, the ravers, the hipsters, the hippies, the scenesters, the camouflaged, the trench coaters, the pierced up, the tattooed, the slick backs, the break-dancers, the goths, the parkourers, and the eccentrics of Clemson? Why are they so far out and in between that they stand out like a sore thumb in this atmosphere of homogeneity? If you have not discovered your uniqueness then search for it, it will be the greatest discovery you’ve ever made. If you have decided that a uniformed bee is what you feel to be, then by all means be it. Just make sure you are true to yourself, that your choice to conform is rationally deliberated. To the beautiful heroine of my story, the butterfly of my world I say: rock on sister. And to the bee that is at peace with herself I also say rock on sister.

EDIT: People, Our Perceptions, and Objects

Our interactions with people are the most important part of living. Spanning the gamut from love to hatred, almost every emotion we have must be directed towards a social interaction. Indeed, I could imagine arguing for the position that all of our identity is composed in relation to our interactions with other identities. The mechanics of this process seem very natural and obvious. Upon further investigation, however, it seems that the mechanisms involve dramatic and disconcerting perceptive elements that have far reaching effects towards social and personal norms. In other words, the way we see other people has an effect on how we interact with them.

Consider the words printed on this paper. You do not realize that every word you read is a combination of letters and punctuation. You simply recognize series of symbols that you have been trained to ascribe meaning to. The mental process by which you are creating an integrated and coherent meaning are the same for almost everything else. When you see a car,you do not, at first, recognize the wheels, door handles, or taillights. What you're brain recognizes is “that's a car”. It takes no consideration of the objects that add up to the perceived mental translation.

It seems that, in our initial interactions with other people, we do the exact opposite. When we see another person we do not consider them as an integral object. To elaborate, the human body is a complete object and, like any other object, it is made up of different parts. But unlike other objects (the car, for example), we do not recognize the entirety of the body as the perceived mental realization at the expense of the details, we instead realize the details at the expense of the entirety. We 'objectify' the parts in lieu of the whole.

This is easily pointed out in regards to sexual assessment. We don't asses the sexual attractiveness of someone as a complete body-object. We instead focus on details and aspects; any part that appeals to our sexuality. This occurs very often between people. Clearly, the species must reproduce. Even so, sexual objectification is just one specific instance of this issue.

So far, I've been mainly concerned with perceptive issues concerning “passer-by” interactions. The issue that I have brought up, although subtle, is important to the way in which we integrate people's bodies together with their over-all identities. Recognizing a friend, for example, has a much deeper perceptive impact than recognizing a foreign identity whom you don't know personally. In the former case, we recognize a person much like a word or a sentence. We don't consider the details of their face, we simply see, "a friend". So it seems that we move on from initially breaking apart people's bodies to fully accepting the integrity of their bodies and recognize their bodies as having an ascribed meaning: their identity.

Some problems can begin right at this point. We may equate the objectified body to the person's identity. There are instances when we never move beyond the aspects of a persons body, even when we begin to know their personal identities. We assume that they ARE the object we are focusing on. In these cases it is clear that we have marginalized both the body and the identity; two united conceptions that pivot on a single fulcrum of perception. In other words, we will fail to perceive both the entire body and the entire identity. Examples of this include sexism and racism.

Finally, we move to the most pervasive of these problems; objectifying the identity. It maybe that, for the most part, we keep our minds open to other bodies. But there is still the danger of objectification even after one has arrived at the point of recognition. In these cases, we limit our perceptions of others into a functional criteria that pivots on our own identity. Examples of this most notably include the specialization of the term 'friend'(classmate, work-friend, teammate). Whenever you limit someone to a boundary, you cease to accept their integrity, their wholeness.

Consider your own relationships. Keep your mind open to what I have mentioned.

The Myth of UHC Inefficiency

Public or single payer health insurance is cheaper and more efficient than private options. That isn't something you'll ever hear its opponents admit, but it's the truth. Our current health insurance system is a bloated monstrosity. Not only would almost any systemic reform be superior, but the most economically sound of our choices involve the private industry the least. It's not as if America is covering new ground here - we don't have to guess what universal health care would look like. We can look at literally any other country in the first world and examine the systems they use, since we'd be the last developed country to implement universal healthcare.

As it turns out the American insurance system is a disaster compared to almost any other country's. Not only do we fail to insure about 43 million Americans, but we spend TWICE as much to do so. If we examine Organisation for Economic Co-Operation & Development (the OECD is essentially a international club for first world countries) data we can see that per-capita we manage to spend around $6,300 compared to an average of around $3000. Not only that, but about half of our spending is public, government cost. If you'll just let it sink in for a moment, realize that means the government is ALREADY SPENDING as much as "ultra-socialized" countries like France or Germany, in addition to private insurance and out of pocket expenses. Yet, spending about half as much as we do they manage to extend coverage to all their citizens.

You might have heard that the costs of health-care are rising and it's true, even worldwide. However, one single nation manages to stand out with the fastest increasing costs and you're living in it. Our health spending is increasing 51% faster than our GDP's growth. Somehow everyone but the most progressive Democrats in Congress stand up and spew drivel about how expensive and inefficient a government run system would be, when Medicare runs at 3-4% overhead (administrative costs and profit) versus private insurance's average of 25-30%.

What's going on is that there are several factors that incentive and drive care and insurance prices higher, while simultaneously encouraging the status quo. Co-pay, deductibles and generally high prices encourage poorer patients to avoid care for as long as possible. So instead of preventative care and early diagnosis we can get a full blown emergency procedure later, like a nice $30,000 heart bypass operation that could have been prevented by cholesterol medication and dieting.

Our current system also interferes with the ability of workers to change jobs, crucial to the operation of a free market. Since your health insurance is tied to your employment, this also may mean that you can't afford to quit and search the job market, locking you in your current position. Competition is also stifled, since most people are stuck using whatever insurance their employer provides.

Meanwhile, healthy free-market profit motive means that it's in the insurance company's best interest to not pay out if they can help it and charge high prices for everyone else. Since serious medical procedures are disastrously expensive, very few people are willingly able to forgo insurance, and are therefore obliged to pay the company's price. Very sick people are also very expensive and thus unprofitable people, so they aren't allowed to join the insurance risk pool (usually due to pre-existing conditions) or are forcibly revoked from their policy (via. rescission). Unfortunately for us, the ideal health insurance corporation is one that only insures healthy people. This is nice for the bottom line, but not actually useful for treating illness.

Other countries manage to avoid all this and provide healthcare efficiently to all their citizens using a few basic methods no matter what particular system they're using. First, the introduction of a public option forces private companies to compete with a system not motivated by profit, which means they have to drive down their overhead costs or go bankrupt. The government's public system can also achieve cheaper prices through collective bargaining. Their UHC system insures so many people that medical providers can't afford not to sell to them, which means the government can name their price. This is exactly how Wal-Mart offers low prices in America. In addition, a large universal program by definition covers everyone which means risk is spread amongst the broadest possible amount of people. Since a universal system can't dump sick people from the program it also has a very good incentive to provide preventative care.

I can't see our current system as anything other than a failure of the private option. Perhaps it's time we join the rest of the civilized world in realizing that for-profit insurance has long outlived its usefulness.

In Voldemort We Trust

The term, “militant atheist” is not uncommon these days. Nearly any atheist who claims to be offended by a religious reference gets the title “militant atheist.” The question is often asked, “Why would atheists be offended by something they don’t believe in?” That is a question I would like to address. To do so I ask the reader to imagine a hypothetical world.

In this world the people in power are not Christians. Instead they are hardcore Harry Potter fans. Fans so hardcore they believe the books are in fact true. You may think there is no reason to believe the Harry Potter books are true. You do however agree with the Harry Potter fans’ economic and social policies. so you let their differences in personal beliefs slide.

After being in power for decades the Harry Potter fans decide the nation needs a new motto. The motto they pick is, “In Voldemort We Trust.” They also decided to print, “In Voldemort We Trust” on all the nations’ money and to change the pledge of allegiance so that it mentions Voldemort. They aren’t really legislating their beliefs on you, you are still free and likely to think that Voldemort is not real, but at the same time you may question these actions.

Perhaps you look through the books in search of a better understanding of this Voldermort. From your reading Voldemort appears to be the bad guy, hardly worthy of praise. What’s more, the Voldemort character actively oppresses non-magic folks and you’re most definitely a non-magic folk. While it’s unlikely the Harry Potter fans will start implementing Voldemort policies, they have embraced it. You may not believe in Voldemort, but you have every reason to be offended.

We atheist have also read the books. We know John 3:18, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.” It does not matter if we don’t believe the Bible is true. When our government supports a belief that says we will be condemned to be tortured forever, we have every reason to be offended. Being offended by that is the natural reaction. The reason most of us non-believers put up with community, churches, and government embracing a belief that openly threatens us with punishments of unparalleled scale is because we have grown accustomed to the threat. The mere fact that we have become used to people directly or indirectly telling us we are going to suffer forever is something I find very appalling.

I am not asking for the pledge, money, or national motto to be changed. Instead I’m just asking the reader to realize, Christianity is a religion that by most interpretations is openly hostile towards atheists. Atheists in turn have every reason and right to be offended. It doesn’t matter if we don’t believe in your God. If you are worshipping a God that you believe allows atheists to be tortured forever simply for the crime of not being able to believe in him, then we have no choice, but to find your beliefs offensive. Is that really so militant?

A modest Question

In my studies at Clemson University I have encountered many different thoughts, opinions, belief systems, but recently I have had one particular life view thrown in my face at various times as the end all correct answer to life and everything. This view is Libertarianism, or more appropriately some form of Objectivist/Libertarian hodge podge that has individuals quoting Thomas Jefferson, Ayn Rand, and Ron Paul as if they were an omnipotent metaphysical beings gift to humanity. But while this view may or may not have merit in its claim, the thing I find troubling is the lack of moral foundation that it brings into the argument against other political and belief structures. In my experience, when I ask libertarians to defend the basis of Justice and Natural Law, a rigorous defense of these foundational ideological premises is never offered. This essay is intended to both put these Ideas in question, and invite well argued answers from those who would defend them.

An underlying tenet of libertarian belief structures is the belief in a natural law following human actions. Whether it comes in the form of free market economic relationships or in terms of natural moral law, libertarians seem to trust that at the core of the human condition, some form of moral and natural law exists. However, the troubling thing for me is that this law is never defended. The most common defense of natural law comes from God, but many libertarians on campus reject this claim so this goes out the door. Absent god, where does this claim come from? Yes, I agree that there are laws of motion and physical and chemical rules of the physical world, but where do these laws on human morality and relationships exist? John Gray, the British philosopher and social thinker, argues that in fact these laws governing social relationships and morality and nothing more than the work of human labor. And absent a notion of God, secular humanists in this case rely on a magical mystical thing called Reason, which is tends to function as a catch phrase, while failing to provide a transcendent moral foundation. Now, whether Gray is correct in this analysis can be argued, but the larger point he makes is valid. Where does this reason, this natural law come from? Do we have a magical dust inside ourselves as humans that compels us to correct moral decisions? Or rather is it that humans together through their labor have decided that certain moral rules and decisions are the best for them and operate as such? Maybe the moral law to not kill, steal, or harm is in fact just a decision that humans have made that makes sense to them and thus decide it is a moral law and not a natural law instead. So, Libertarians, I ask you, where do your natural laws exist?

Secondly, the issue of moral luck comes into play. Libertarians seem to want to claim that the hard work that any individual does is the process of his labor and his labor alone so therefore what he earns and gains is justly his. And this argument seems to be valid and make sense. Where I am troubled is the seemingly lack of consideration for the idea of Moral Luck. This idea that was first discussed by Bernard Williams and expounded upon by Thomas Nagel essentially argues that we have no control over the parents we are born to, how we are raised, what schools we attend as a child, what decisions are made for us, and many other things. Because of this, individuals start their lives on vastly different playing fields. Noting this, how then does the libertarian justify the claim that what is earned is fairly theirs because they are the ones who earned it? Can one easily deny that if one were to switch circumstances with a person that each person's life outcome would be greatly affected by the switched environments? Making the claim that what I labor for is therefore mine is a good enough claim if the premise is that we all had same opportunity, but if there is no opportunity is it the same? Now, I agree that ability and hard work should be rewarded, but this economic crisis has shown that people with neither were being rewarded and still are just because of the moral luck that came of them with their situation they were born into. Would it not make more sense to try to even the playing field to start with to reward hard work instead of luck? Libertarians, I urge you to ask, if I was born in the slums of India, would I even have a slim chance to get a college education?

These two issues of natural rights and moral luck are two that are glazed over too quickly by the libertarians on campus today and I urge that a dialogue be started to start questioning and understanding these views and really testing their validity.

People, Our Perception, and Objects.

By [Pseudonym] = Rick.

Our interactions with people are the most important part of living. Spanning the gamut from love to hatred, almost every emotion we have must be directed towards a social interaction. Indeed, I could imagine arguing for the position that all of our identity is composed in relation to our interactions with other identities. The mechanics of this process seem very natural and obvious. Upon further investigation, however, it seems that the mechanisms involve dramatic and disconcerting perceptive elements that have far reaching effects towards social and personal norms. In other words, the way we see other people has an effect on how we interact with them.

Consider the words printed on this paper. You do not realize that every word you read is a combination of letters and punctuation. You simply recognize series of symbols that you have been trained to ascribe meaning to. The mental process by which you are creating an integrated and coherent meaning are the same for almost everything else. When you see a car,you do not, at first, recognize the wheels, door handles, or taillights. What you're brain recognizes is “that's a car”. It takes no consideration of the objects that add up to the perceived mental translation.

It seems that, in our initial interactions with other people, we do the exact opposite. When we see another person (approaching us on the street, displayed on television, anytime really) we do not consider them as an integral object. Let me try to explain further. The human body is a complete object and, like any other object, it is made up of different parts; arms, legs, stomach, head, hair, organs, skin, ect. But unlike other objects (the car, for example), we do not recognize the entirety of the body as the perceived mental realization at the expense of the details, we instead realize the details at the expense of the entirety. We 'objectify' the parts in lieu of the whole.

This is easily pointed out in regards to sexual assessment. We don't asses the sexual attractiveness of someone as a complete body-object. We instead focus on details and aspects; 'boobs', 'stomach', 'ass', 'hair', 'smile', or any other part that appeals to our sexuality. This occurs very often between people, clearly the species must reproduce. Even so, I think sexual objectification is just one specific instance of this issue.

I have made a pretty impenetrable and abstract argument out of something obvious and natural, so I feel like I should now back off a bit. So far, I've been mainly concerned with perceptive issues concerning “passer-by” interactions. I admit that interactions with people are far more complicated and intricate than I have made it out to be. That being said, the issue that I have brought up, although subtle, is important to the way in which we integrate people's bodies together with their over-all identities. I realize that recognizing a friend, for example, has a much deeper perceptive impact than recognizing a foreign identity whom you don't know personally. In the former case, we recognize a person much like a word or a sentence. We move on from initially breaking apart people's bodies to fully accepting the integrity of their bodies and recognize their bodies as having an ascribed meaning: their identity.

The problems begin when we equate the objectified body to the person's identity. What I mean is that there are instances when we never move beyond the aspects of a persons body, even when we begin to know their personal identities. We assume that they are the object we are focusing on. In these cases, we will have missed both the entire body and the entire identity. Examples of this include the extremes of sexism and racism, but there are also times we do this that seem far less harmless, and yet are just as dehumanizing. There is no instance when it would be advisable or virtuous to consider another person as an object, even if it is an object that is a part of their autonomous identity.

I'll leave you with the details. Consider you're own interactions with others, keeping your attention open to the possibilities I have mentioned. Further more, don't limit you're observations to the way in which you treat people you don't know. Look at how you treat you're friends and general acquaintances as well. There is the danger of our minds enacting the same mechanisms to people's identities as we do to their bodies: breaking them up into manageable objects.

[pseudonym] want you to write with questions and comments: [Email]