Predicting the Zeitgeist

[Sophus]

As Richard Dawkins mentioned in The God Delusion the Zeitgeist (spirit (or morals) of our time) are constantly changing. For example: Abraham Lincoln, a rather radically liberal man for his time, was also, unfortunately, a racist:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.

It makes me wonder what we ourselves could be morally opposed to today that might would seem unthinkable in a future society. Homosexuality comes to mind. But there is a liberal movement in many areas of the world allow rights to that group. So it's a work in progress... inevitable too, I think.

So what beliefs could we, in our time, hold that might becoming grotesque in being outdated. I can only think that it may be our privileges that we allow religion and superstition to get away with.

Thoughts?

[AlP]

I think about this too. Off the top of my head... Attitudes toward killing animals for food or research could change considerably. Using tobacco products is on the way out. Sexuality is becoming more and more liberal. Religion is the US might follow the trend seen in some European countries like Norway and France.

[Miss Anthrope]

I'm kind of half-joking, of course, but: The perpetuation of our species.

[AlP]

I'm kind of half-joking, of course, but: The perpetuation of our species.

Is this a warning that we might stop being concerned with the perpetuation of our species or some hope that we might start? =)

[Miss Anthrope]

Well, I was kind of jokingly insinuating that humanity, as a whole, might one day consider it barbaric to perpetuate a species with such a horrible track record on so many different levels. I say I'm half joking because 1) I doubt that will ever happen (plus, if humanity actually took ethics to that level then it's not unlikely that at that point we'd actually be capable of having a world that is perfectly fit for children to live in anyway) and 2) I'm not an "anti-propogation" zealot.

But I do find it frustrating that almost nobody ever wants to discuss reasons that,just maybe, having children isn't the most wonderful act of benevolence and selflessness that so many people make it out to be (because, quite frankly, there's nothing selfless about it, quite the opposite). The suggestion that it might be unethical to perpetuate the human race is possibly more universally rejected than the suggestion that there isn't a god.

[AlP]

Population is declining in some European countries. It's an interesting idea that someday people might just stop having children. I predict that I will never intentionally have children and I'm sure there are a minority of others.

[Miss Anthrope]

Population is declining in some European countries. It's an interesting idea that someday people might just stop having children. I predict that I will never intentionally have children and I'm sure there are a minority of others.

Ditto, I'm part of that minority. I wouldn't say I'm positive, but at this point I'm not really planning on it.

Yeah, I remember reading a couple years ago that there was a big drop in pregnancy numbers in Italy.

[Sophus]

Hmm.... you know that is possible. We've evolved to have instincts to reproduce - but not necessarily to reproduce for the sake of reproduction!

[Miss Anthrope]

Hmm.... you know that is possible. We've evolved to have instincts to reproduce - but not necessarily to reproduce for the sake of reproduction!

Nice to see a parent who doesn't see it all in black & white; very refreshing.

I think there are some selfless elements to being a parent (everything can be kind of a "mix"; when i give a gift, even if I don't expect anything in return, I'm still getting some satisfaction, and, perhaps not consiously, expect that the recipient of the gift will remember that kindness, i.e. I will expect kindness from that person in the future, even if I'm not thinking like that). But for the most part it is a selfish (not necessarily with a negative connotation) act. I mean, at the biological/instinctual level, selfish is ALL that it is.

I never attempt to make people feel bad for having children (and why would I, I have nothing against it), I just hate when people try to make me feel bad/useless for not having children. I have a friend who, during his peak of parental superiority, said that if I don't have children I'm useless to the human race. Doesn't make any sense; take two people, one who has a couple of kids but doesn't do anything particularly useful for humanity, and one who doens't have kids but discovers a cure for cancer. No one in his right mind is going to say that the latter example was useless to humanity simply becasue he never produced offspring.

As for the "honor thy mother and father" thing: I've often thought about that whole attitude, and never really got it. I don't think I'd be able to enforce that kind of thinking on my children for very long, like they "owe" me something. The gift of life isn't something that is asked for by its recipients.

As a side note, there was actually a manga series/anime film, "Appleseed", which kind of dealt with the phasing out of the human race; basically, perfected androids were going to be used to replace humans.

[Sophus]

Nice to see a parent who doesn't see it all in black & white; very refreshing.

I think there are some selfless elements to being a parent (everything can be kind of a "mix"; when i give a gift, even if I don't expect anything in return, I'm still getting some satisfaction, and, perhaps not consciously, expect that the recipient of the gift will remember that kindness, i.e. I will expect kindness from that person in the future, even if I'm not thinking like that). But for the most part it is a selfish (not necessarily with a negative connotation) act. I mean, at the biological/instinctual level, selfish is ALL that it is.

I agree - there's no such thing as complete altruism. I'm reminded of Ayn Rand's Anthem. Selfishness makes all other virtues possible. Including love.

I never attempt to make people feel bad for having children (and why would I, I have nothing against it), I just hate when people try to make me feel bad/useless for not having children. I have a friend who, during his peak of parental superiority, said that if I don't have children I'm useless to the human race. Doesn't make any sense; take two people, one who has a couple of kids but doesn't do anything particularly useful for humanity, and one who doens't have kids but discovers a cure for cancer. No one in his right mind is going to say that the latter example was useless to humanity simply becasue he never produced offspring.

What a bizarre thing for someone to say. Although not if he were religious. The Bible basically says man has two purposes:

A) To glorify god
B) To reproduce

I wonder what he thinks should be done with infertile people or homosexuals. lol

[Miss Anthrope]

What a bizarre thing for someone to say. Although not if he were religious. The Bible basically says man has two purposes:

A) To glorify god
B) To reproduce

I wonder what he thinks should be done with infertile people or homosexuals. lol.

[Seshat]

Well, I was kind of jokingly insinuating that humanity, as a whole, might one day consider it barbaric to perpetuate a species with such a horrible track record on so many different levels.

But we also have an amazing track record on many different levels. It's easy to focus on the negative aspects of humanity because, quite frankly, we don't get a hell of a lot else fed to us in the media. "Hard news" is violence, corruption and destruction, whereas stories about people being good to each other, the environment and other creatures are considered human interest fluff pieces that they tack on around the edges of the "real" news. As much as we're capable of great evil, we're capable of great good, but you'd never know it by watching the news.

The suggestion that it might be unethical to perpetuate the human race is possibly more universally rejected than the suggestion that there isn't a god.

This idea looks at humans only as consumers of resources, whereas I believe the human mind is one of the most valuable resources on the planet. It's true that we create problems for ourselves, our environment and other species but we also strive to solve those problems, and I think we've done a decent job of it--not perfect, but pretty damn good. On the cultural front, the human mind has taken us from socially acceptable indifference to the pain and suffering of beings outside our own social circles and species to a society that, as a whole, finds such indifference morally repugnant. On the technological front, human life span and standard of living has increased exponentially, to the point that we're now able to look at expanding out into space as a viable solution to some of the problems that come with humans as consumers of resources.

But back to the original question about predicting the zeitgeist:

Sexuality is becoming more and more liberal.

I'd like to see sexuality, especially female sexuality, liberated from being shameful, dirty and bad. I think in the past castrating women's sexuality served two cultural purposes--keeping them under control of the patriarchy (a woman who sells sex doesn't need to depend for her financial survival on a husband) and channeling the care of offspring into an economic unit, the family with man as provider and protector, that would help their survival in the era when death in childbirth and childhood mortality were high and women and children needed protection from invading men. Those cultural factors are now obsolete. Female sexuality is not as frowned upon as it once was, at least not in our society, but sexual women still suffer socially (having to worry about her reputation if she's openly sexual or admits to a large number of partners), and in other societies they're still being murdered and mutilated for it. We're already working on the emancipation of female creativity and intellect. I'd like to see her sexuality come next. And I bet a lot of guys would too

[AlP]

Hi Seshat. Interesting post. You could say hello on the Introductions page =). I am encouraged by your sense of value. It seems personal =). And for sure I would like to see sexual liberation for women. And still to an extent men. We aren't quite there yet.

[Seshat]

Hi Seshat. You could say hello on the Introductions page =).

Just did. Guess I did things backward.  :bananacolor:  

[Miss Anthrope]

Well, I was kind of jokingly insinuating that humanity, as a whole, might one day consider it barbaric to perpetuate a species with such a horrible track record on so many different levels.

But we also have an amazing track record on many different levels. It's easy to focus on the negative aspects of humanity because, quite frankly, we don't get a hell of a lot else fed to us in the media. "Hard news" is violence, corruption and destruction, whereas stories about people being good to each other, the environment and other creatures are considered human interest fluff pieces that they tack on around the edges of the "real" news. As much as we're capable of great evil, we're capable of great good, but you'd never know it by watching the news..

I'm not rebuking the positive points, but even still I think the bad outweighs the good. For instance, I remember reading once that for every child that is well off, 100 children are lacking adequate nutrition, education, medical care, etc, and in some convoluted way this is the way it has to be for the former group to have it so good. By 2050, current projections place the global population at 9.5 billion, and it is believed that roughly half of those people will not have their needs met. To connect his with your views on sexuality, lots more sex would mean increased population. I'm not saying women and men shouldn't be sexually liberated, and of course there are plenty of ways to prevent/deal with unwanted pregnancies, but even still, lots and lots of sex is still going to result in more babies. Could you imagine if some of these third world countries, where many people are not so sexually liberated, suddenly had a huge rise in promiscuous sex? Considering that in many of these countries the views on abortion skew towards conservative, the population boom could be insane. Sexual liberation is fine, but only in countries where the results can be controlled/dealt with.

Also, people are generally only as good as conditions allow them to be. I don't really think humans are good or bad, but we're animals, animals intelligent enough to see ourselves in the abstract.

The suggestion that it might be unethical to perpetuate the human race is possibly more universally rejected than the suggestion that there isn't a god.

This idea looks at humans only as consumers of resources, whereas I believe the human mind is one of the most valuable resources on the planet. It's true that we create problems for ourselves, our environment and other species but we also strive to solve those problems, and I think we've done a decent job of it--not perfect, but pretty damn good. On the cultural front, the human mind has taken us from socially acceptable indifference to the pain and suffering of beings outside our own social circles and species to a society that, as a whole, finds such indifference morally repugnant. On the technological front, human life span and standard of living has increased exponentially, to the point that we're now able to look at expanding out into space as a viable solution to some of the problems that come with humans as consumers of resources.

That actually wasn't what I was suggesting. The human mind is only the most valubale resource on the planet to humans.  Humans have contributed NOTHING to the planet. At best, we use our minds to fix problems we've already made on the planet, as you alluded to. If we hadn't been here in the first place nature would be unadulterated. Even when we say we "care" about the planet, what we're really saying is we acknowledge that we're quite dependent on it and its other inhabitants (i.e., bees, fish, etc). But even if we somehow obliterated life on this planet, including ourselves, the planet would still go on, "resetting" itself and most likely housing life once again. So, my postulation that perpetuating our species might be unethical has nothing to do with the rest of the planet, but pertains to us, the humans. To look at in the extreme, one argument would be that life inevitably comes with some level of suffering, and since there is no decided upon "grand objective" (assuming there is no god, no afterlife, and that the human race is fundamentally "pointless"), then having a child can only be seen as a selfish act, a way to satisfy those primitive animal instincts and pass on genes. Let's look at an abstract conversation (bear in mind that this is just an extreme thought experiment, and does not really reflect my personal views; in other words, I'm not trying to guilt trip parents):

"Life is full of suffering and the risk of even more suffering."
"I know."
"So why would you force this reality upon an innocent creature who had no say in the matter?"
a)"I just wanted a kid."
b)"To do my part to contribute to the human race." (taking the risk, no matter what the consequences, for the good of humanity; cognitive dissonance, since that same parent would not, say, offer his child as a test subject to create life saving vaccines, or give up his child's college fund to potentially help many third world children)
c)"Well, I didn't want a kid, it was an accident" (50 percent of children are "accidents", and that's just based on parents who told the truth, so a more realistic number would probably be about 70-80 percent; the point being: the majority of children are not planned, thus there is no major objective.)

Also, to be a humane parent requires a lot of lying about life's darker truths. Sometimes I think about having to do this, and it bothers me a lot, because it's an ethical lose-lose. Do I really want to bring a child into a world that I have to lie about so he/she doesn't become clinically depressed?

So, without leaning completely towards the "dark side", perpetuating the human race also perpetuates varying degrees of unethical behavior. This could be seen as "necessary evil", but only if we see the human future as necessary. Since humans will not be around forever, I don't really think it matters, in the universal sense, how long we'll be around; this is similar to the way I view individual life, I don't think it really matters if I live to be 40 or 140.