Blinding me with Science

I was recently raked over the coals by Katherine Ramsland for comparing dactyloscopy to phrenology and spectral evidence. In my own defense, I was not making a literal comparison, only citing examples from history where generally accepted practices were later found to be unreliable. This was in response to a phrase I thought I read in her article--that the underlying assumption of dactyloscopy, that no two persons have identical fingerprints, has never been proven, and as such, is an urban myth. Certainly the forensic study of dactyloscopy is scientific, and the points of comparison between two fingerprints can be trusted in a court of law. My point was somehow lost in this exchange--which was, that jurors mostly do not have the wherewithal to independently verify the assertions of scientists on the stand, that they must trust those conclusions on faith. Faith that the scientist is telling the truth and that his or her method is sound. I don't think that prosecutors can as jurors to take scientific evidence on faith. They MUST educate jurors in the science, or risk them disregarding the evidence as irrelevant.

It's like the legal term "beyond a reasonable doubt." What exactly does that mean? And how does it differ from "a preponderance of the evidence" or "clear and convincing evidence?"

I'm speaking here only as a layperson. Katherine Ramsland, with her scientific/forensic background would never be picked to be on a jury. I have a jury summons laying on my desk as I write this. These are questions that matter.

The Other - Thomas Tryon

So, this entry follows on the heels of the previous entry, as I further hone my thinking about psychological doubling, and the doppelganger. One non-fiction project I've had on the far back burner for some years (along with an encyclopedia of Seattle murder) is a biography of Thomas Tryon, the author of The Other. What makes Tryon's life interesting is his metamorphosis from a leading man film star with rugged good looks into a literary lion. In that transformation I feel a resonance within my own life (though I was never so handsome nor famous as Mr. Tryon). The forsaking of acting for an altogether more secluded, isolated form of creative endeavor. I'm indebted to my dear friend David Dollase for confronting me with this truth ("I think acting is a creative outlet for you."). With regard to Tryon, his switch, or drift, or course correction, as it were, may have come as the result of a species of artistic post-traumatic stress disorder after working with the dictatorial German director Otto Preminger. It took him seven more years to complete the transition, but perhaps the seeds of the change were planted during this horrific experience.

When actors must expose themselves to the most dubious manipulations in the bad-director's handbook, they have very little power in the matter. They can only hope that their directors are human beings. People like Christian Bale, for example, regarding his recent on-set tantrum, can be forgiven their temperament because that's the only way they have of maintaining a sense of personal power in this relationship. Bale was powerless to walk away from this commitment. He would have been ruined financially. But nothing in his contract prevents a temperamental outburst. I'm so happy I'm out of it...

Anyway, back to Tryon. It seems clear to me that The Other is a classic example of the doppelganger/doubling trope in American literature.

Doppelganger

Websters defines "doppelganger" as "a ghostly counterpart of a living person." Different from a ghost because the individual is still alive. The doppelganger is a psychic double or distinct separate entity from the individual. This metaphor has been used throughout literature and is deeply ingrained in the psyche of Western Civilization. The astrological sign of Gemini comes to mind. Also the sign Pisces, with its twin inverted individuals. The god Janus, the god with two faces, one looking forward, the other back. Popular culture is repleat with intances of "evil twins." The novels and stories of Joyce Carol Oates and the films of David Lynch explore this theme tirelessly.

Dr. Robert J. Lifton, in his book The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Pyschology of Genocide suggests that psychological doubling was the means by which such individuals as Josef Mengele (to name only the most infamous) were psychologically capable of being loving family men on the one hand, and ruthless mass murderers on the other.

In Dr. Lifton's view, the psyche doubles. This process is distinct from splitting, the effect of which is usually dissociation. The result is that the split personality is numb or catatonic. On the other hand, the psychological double experiences no loss of efficiency.

Says Dr. Lifton:

Doubling is part of the universal potential for what William James called the “divided self”: that is, for opposing tendencies in the self. James quoted the nineteenth-century French writer Alphonse Daudet’s despairing cry "Homo duplex, homo duplex!” in noting his “horrible duality” — as, in the face of his brother Henri’s death, Daudet’s “first self wept” while his “second self” sat back and somewhat mockingly staged the scene for an imagined theatrical performance.9 To James and Daudet, the potential for doubling is part of being human, and the process is likely to take place in extremity, in relation to death.

I have experienced this phenomenon when performing on stage, also watching myself perform from the audience. George C. Scott, the actor, also reported having this experience (as well as many other performers). Dr. Lifton's theory though, is that psychological doubling occurs under duress. The duress is the ego's rejection of the moral depravity of mass murder on the scale of Auschwitz. Thus the ego "doubles" or allows a separate and distinct personality to emerge that has no moral scruples.

Dr. Lipton states that for the Nazi doctors, the turning away from their previous code of ethics and moral equalibrium was a kind of psychological stress fracture. Their individuality had been pummeled into submission by the fuhrerprinzip. The Nazi hierarchy was entrenched and intractable. It allowed for no deviation, no dissent, and no disagreement. The alternative to utter submission to the will of the fuhrer was death. So yes, the psychological doubling of the Nazi doctors was in effect a Faustian bargain, which allowed them to survive as participants and organizers of the horror of the concentration camps and in particular the medical "treatments" and experimental procedures they imposed. That the resulting holocaust was so extreme is testament to the very nature of the SS Nazi "cult" they were all desperately trying to function within, coupling intense fear of death or reprisal with a desire to please one's superiors. None of this emancipates one from ethical responsibility, of course.

New Home

Welcome to the new home of Furor Scribendi at Blogger. I attempted to merge my AOL Journal with my Blogger account which I set up back in 2005, but I could only import into a new blog, rather than merge with an existing blog, and this is it. You are in the right place for info about Mike Hacker's doings. For more specific details about Mike Hacker's writing, please visit my other blog, White Space. This blog is more for politics, philosophy and issues of personal interest, whereas White Space is geared specifically toward writing.

So please kick back and take a look through the archives. Lots of comments on lots of different issues. Make yourselves t'home.

Islam Again

I read this in today's Post Intelligencer.  This is not my prose, but I wanted to preserve it because I agree with it completely, I find it an extremely cogent and intelligent take on certain PC theories about the Religion of Peace.

Posted by thezorg at 8/14/08 9:18 a.m.

ajd_ind wrote, "Here in the U.S., however, the bigger threat to our democracy is Christian fundamentalism, particularly with people like Ken Hutcherson and Scott Lively and groups like the Watchmen on the Walls.

Americans need to stop being such weenies about criticizing fundamentalist Christian beliefs, particularly those that give perpetuate sexism and homophobia."

I can't agree with the points in either paragraph. Some Christian fundamentalist groups certainly advocate laws, policies and values that many of us consider opposed to constitutional values (though I don't know of any Christian groups that oppose democracy). Most of the issues raised by the likes of Hutcherson don't involve threats to democracy, they are threats to equality, equal protection and the like.

But those groups, while vocal, are more than balanced by other groups - many of which are also Christian, and others hail from other religions and from secular life. I don't consider the fact that zealous religiots are participating in our local and national debates over these questions to be a threat to democracy. To the contrary, I consider it to be the very embodiment of democracy and free speech.

As to Americans being weenies about Christian fundamentalists, you obviously have a very different experience on that point than I do. I see aggressive, vigorous challenges to Christianity on a regular basis. I'm talking about discussion between people, on-line discussions, op-eds, editorials, newspaper articles - it's not only not hard to find numerous examples of those things, it's nearly impossible to avoid them.

And that, too, represents the embodiment of American democracy and free speech. Groups advocating contrary and diametrically opposed views can go at it hammer and tongs, leaving everyone to make up their own minds in the end.

The fact that Islamic and Christian fundamentalism tend to share zealous close mindedness and advocacy of oppressive policies is of no concern to me. I have no problem with people who disagree with me, even if they disagree very strongly and we consider one another to be agents of our respective satans.

To me, it is vastly more important that Islamic fundamentalism accpets and in its more extreme forms actively encourages acts of horrific violence and terrorism. It advocates what we refer to as "vigilantism", the slaughter of anyone who dares say or do anything that they oppose. That is wholly antithetical to democracy, cripples free speech and destroys open debate.

Fundamentalist Christians don't accept or actively encourage those acts. There are certainly some folks like Eric Rudolph who are exceptions, but I not agree with those who argue that those exceptions somehow represent all Christians, or even fundamentalist Christians. They're the exception, not the rule. There are no more Christian violent psychos than there are non-Christians violent psychos (and probably fewer).

It is common in these debates to point to the history of Christianity, particularly the crusades and the inquisitions (there was more than one of each). And that's a valid comparison, although usually the argument misses the mark.

I believe that contemporary Islam is where Christianity was about 400 years ago, vis a vis social/political development. Christianity did go through periods where it inflicted terrible oppression and abuses on populaces. But Christianity grew out of that - slowly and over a long time, and not without internal and external upheaval. For a long time, Christians also slaughtered those they considered "heretics", burned "heretical" books, and forced people to convert or submit to horrible torture - for the good of their own souls. But today, apart from small groups we disparagingly refer to as cults, no Christian group endorses or advocates those practices.

That's what I think we're seeing within Islam today. But unlike Christian evolution, Old Islam is coming into direct conflict with a developed western world that has moved far beyond them socially and politically. There is a powerful backlash within Islam against what they view as "heresy" and the sins of the west. Mainstream Islam is confused, which is why we don't see clearer or louder opposition. Most Muslims are caught between a rock and a hard place without clear guidance from their religion. As for New Islam (those trying to take Islam faster into the future), its proponents tend to get killed as heretics by the Old Islam fanatics.

So long as the fanatics can continue their vendetta against anyone they don't like, New Islam will struggle to gain a hold.

So bottom line, I don't see any real comparison between Christian and Islamic fundamentalism today.

 

The Holy Lie

My good friend Steve today blogged about Grand Theft Auto IV and the Holy Lie.  To recap the irony: many will oppose this game based on their perception that it promotes violence and antisocial behavior.  Yet the empirical data doesn't support that notion.  So the arbiters of moral rectitude will lie in order to promote their agenda.  It used to be that the Devil could "quote scripture to his purpose."  But now that the church has abrogated or has been deposed of the mantle of the determiner of reality, the Devil quotes data to the same purpose.  What will please old Scratch more--the idea that there are some hormone-driven youngsters out there virtually carousing, drinking, stealing, etc., or their moral guardians' lies?  Won't old horny-head salivate at the prospect of having a group of the righteous headed for the circle of hell that incinerates hypocrites?

I'd much rather stick a self-righteous theocrat with my pitchfork than a pimply faced kid.  But that's just me.

If only it were that simple!  The problem is not with the kids or the videogames or with the Devil, for that matter.  The problem is the nature of belief.  For 2000 years Western Civilization has relied on scripture as the final say in what's real and what's moral.  But those attitudes have changed decidedly in the last 200 years.  As a result, the purveyors of "correct standards of behavior" have changed their tactics.  They now rely upon the bible AND the scientific method.  It used to be that they could scold bad behavior simply stating that it was anti-Christian.  Now, they have to have data to support their position because they know that science is the only thing that anyone pays any attention to.  The subtext being: Isn't it interesting how science supports biblical standards.  (Except for evolution, of course). 

The problem is that they approach data without any understanding of science--they view data as though IT WERE SCRIPTURE.  I.E., the data is a matter of belief and faith, *not of proof or disproof.*  The data supports them because they *believe* it supports them.  There is no truth other than the truth of personal perception based on biblical principles.  Objective truth simply doesn't exist.  Therefore, they can't be said to be LYING, because they don't believe the alternative to be true.  Anything that does not support their personal perception of biblical principles is a lie.  Thus the worst that they can be accused of is willful self-delusion.  Not exactly the same as lying. 

While it sounds like I might be defending these hypocrites, I realize that I fall prey to the same willful delusion by relying on science too much in daily life.  While science might be helpful in some circumstances to daily living, it has less relevance than the bible.  I'm not a researcher.  I cannot independently verify the data, I have to have faith that it is true!  I must choose to believe it.  While experts will tell me that such and such is supported by the data, I either have to accept that at face value or say, "show me the proof."  Graphs and charts are totally abstract.  You can't see the objective truth unless you understand the statistical principles underpinning them.  Again, you have to accept on faith.

In many respects it is just this problem of science/belief/faith that has caused Global Warming to be such a divisive area of science for so long.  Science has theorized that it is happening for decades.  But Science is not equipped to tell us what the moral response to the data should be.  Thus we are left to flounder. 

While it may be bad for you to play Grand Theft Auto, it isn't science's place to say so.  Many of the same blue noses pointed to Doom and Quake and the Littleton, CO massacre. 

In that respect we return to our old adversary, the devil.  It used to be that if someone went out and shot someone "the devil made him do it!"  That was quantifiable evil.  Nowadays, because of psychology, we have to figure out the psychpathology that made him do it.  Except for a small handful of researchers, psychopathology is a scientific stand-in for the devil.  But where is the truth?  And more importantly, where is the truth that matters to daily life?

Psychotic Tendencies

Saw a very disturbing thing this morning on the way to work:  a naked woman sitting in the middle of the road.  I had just turned the corner.  Traffic had slowed but I couldn’t see why until I turned the corner.  She looked like she was in her mid-20’s to mid-30s—difficult to gauge.  When I saw her, I immediately thought that she was injured, that she’d been hit.  But then she got to her feet.  She looked like a character out of the Ring or the Grudge, with her snarled hair hanging down over her gaunt, pallid face.  As she got up I could see that she was naked from the waist down.  Next thought: has she been raped?  As  she crossed the street in front of me, she began to take off her t-shirt and it became apparent that she was psycho. 

 

After those initial shocks, my attention widened to take in my surroundings.  Plenty of other people were observing the situation and at least one had her cell phone out, so I stopped reaching for mine.  And I drove on.  I was scared that if I got out of my vehicle to try to help, the raw madness would coalesce into projection and she might take out her demented misery on me.  So I drove on.

 

But then I felt absolutely horrible about myself.  Obviously, I’m one of those people who can observe carnage without doing anything about it.  While this quality may make me a good writer, it makes me a terrible Christian. 

 

If this were an isolated situation, I might feel better about myself, but it’s happened more than once.  (Not with psychotics, but with drunks). 

 

I remember once when I was first moved to Seattle and saw someone lying insensate in the park near my apartment and when I returned an hour later and saw him in the same posture, I did call 911.  Turned out he was just a derelict passed out.  But I didn’t know if he was dead or not.  So I called.  When it turned out he was just a passed out drunk I felt like a fool.  Maybe that experience caused a callous to form over my naïve heart.  Life in the big city (especially one with as many homeless as ours) has challenges.  One of the quips about Minnesota that I remember fondly is: “40 below keeps the riff-raff out.”  Words of wisdom—words of wisdom.  Minneapolis didn’t have the homelessness that Seattle has.  (However, I don’t know if that’s still true).

 

Obviously, my mind doesn’t work quickly enough to respond.  I live in too much fear.  I fear altering my routine, even to the point of stopping to get out of the car to assess the situation.  I live in a fantasy world of stories and ideas, to the point that, when confronted by grim reality it takes inordinate mental concentration to respond in a meaningful way.  My response to this situation wasn’t meaningful.  I didn’t do anything to ameliorate it. 

 

So, here’s the philosophical point I’m left with:  I didn’t do anything.  In the Bible story, I was one of the many whopassed bybefore the Good Samaritan stopped to help.  It isn’t that I don’t have a desire to help—I do, but the fear, the weird, disconnected, free-floating fear that I’m going to call “city fear” keeps me isolated and unresponsive.

 

It’s a primal state, a strange, subhuman state, and I don’t know what the answer is, except that if one other person had been in the car with me—this series of events would have been completely different.  Isolation is as much a part of the problem as moral deficiency.  Both for me—and the poor madwoman, I dare say.