The cultural case for moral relativism, a.k.a Sci-Fi geek-fest time

Earlier I posted my argument in defense of moral relativism. At the time, I was lacking in a strong example to illustrate my point. Tonight, I found one.

For those of you who don’t watch Babylon 5, I suggest you go check out this website and this website for background on the episode “Believers”.

The episode is essentially presenting a Cold Equations scenario. Cold Equations was an episode of the Twilight Zone which was described by J. Michael Straczynski in one of the links above as follows:

There is a wonderful short story, which we adapted for Twilight Zone, called “The Cold Equations,” where a small shuttle is going from point A to point B. There is enough fuel for the shuttle, and one pilot, and no more. The ship is bringing medicine to save 500 colonists. A young girl has stowed away on the ship to see her brother. She’s discovered. If the pilot does nothing, the ship won’t arrive, and he and the girl will die, and the colonists will die. If he sacrifices himself, she won’t be able/won’t know how to guide the ship to its destination. The only way out is to ask her to enter the airlock so he can space her and continue the mission. And that’s what happens. You can’t argue with math.

The episode, similarly, handles the theme of impossible choices. In the episode, a young alien boy is brought to MedLab with a serious condition curable by a relatively simple operation. He belongs, however, to a religion that believes that any puncture of the chest cavity will result in the loss of the soul. Dr. Steven Franklin, a moral objectivist in the grand tradition of many fictional doctors, is firm in his belief that life is a higher concern than any other, and petitions Commander Sinclair to issue an order to operate against the parents’ wishes. After some pretty serious soul-searching, Sinclair decides that he cannot allow Franklin to violate the parents’ wishes. “Who are we,” he asks, “to decide whose beliefs are right?”

Franklin disobeys Sinclair’s order and saves the boy’s life, only to arrive moments to late to stop the boy’s parents from killing the boy, who they now see as a soulless abomination. Ironically, the Wikipedia article has its analysis all wrong – Straczynski discusses the episode’s meaning in the second link above, and has very different things to say. According to him, the point of the episode is much the same as “Cold Equations” – sometimes there is no right or wrong. Sometimes right or wrong is defined by your point of view, and the only “correct” decision is to allow others to govern their own fate as they see fit, whether or not it conflicts with your beliefs.

Franklin shines in this episode as a character that the viewers cannot help but sympathize with: after all, we all want desperately to believe that saving the boy’s life is the right decision. The sheer horror Franklin experiences when he learns of the boy’s ultimate fate is gut-wrenching to watch and mirrors the reaction any of us would have in a similar circumstance. Even worse, however, is his realization that his actions have forced the boy’s parents to commit an act far more abhorrent to his belief system than if he had allowing the boy to die.

For all our differing cultures, languages, and backgrounds, all humans do share some things in common; what will it be like when we’re faced with beings whose code of beliefs is so alien to us that we can no longer see the echo of our own values in their decisions? Will we have the courage to let them decide their own fate, or will we, like Franklin, be forced to learn the hard way that the indiscriminate application of our values has consequences we cannot possibly foresee?

Wave of… Nostalgia?

Loath as I am to quite the bible at you, even I have to recognize the significant impact it’s had on the culture that raised me. There’s a quote in I Corinthians 13.11:

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

I found this quote echoing in my mind today as I sifted through the years of accumulated files, papers, and odds and ends in my closet. I’ve probably cleaned parts of my room dozens of times over the years, but the last two crusades against clutter have been particularly effective. These last two times, I found myself realizing that many things that used to be quite important to me are now either forgotten or not worth hanging onto. This growing cynicism acts as a sort of filter for the clutter that is retained, and with every subsequent tightening of the standards my past seems to condense a little bit more. Those of you who know me know that my memory is pretty bad; well, the more I get rid of the less I inevitably remember about life before the present.

In some ways, I welcome this outcome.  The effect it has is oddly appropriate for my personal journey in the past couple of years, and far too obvious an analogy to the tidying and organizing I’ve been doing. I can’t say I disapprove – we all know I love things to be nice and orderly. A part of me, however, really misses the old class notes I’m getting rid of, and truly mourns the loss not only of the opportunities High School and College presented to me but also the old me that failed to take advantage of those opportunities.

It doesn’t take much reading through my old notes and musings to get a pretty frightening picture of where I’ve come from. Doing so in the past few weeks, I’ve begun to feel that, as a kid, I engaged in a lot of rather Williams-esque escapism in the form of toys, comics, and video games long past the time when my friends had dropped those hobbies. Of course, I still haven’t really kicked the habit, so clearly part of me still loves the shelter those outlets provide. Not to mention that it’s hard to turn down a good story, no matter what form it takes.

As more and more of that past disappears, though, I’m realizing that it’s getting easier to let go of. I carted several years’ worth of Wizard Magazine out to the recycling bins today; you should have seen how hard I fought to keep those just a few years ago. That’s not the worst of it: last time I was here, I sold half my books.

Am I putting away childish things and finally growing up? Or am I simply moving to new, equally-childish pursuits? What if I don’t like who I’m becoming?

Top Five Reasons Not to Drink at Home

Since coming home, it’s become readily apparent that Cappy’s advice was right: “Enjoy senior week while you can, because once you graduate it’s called alcoholism.”

I was thrilled when I discovered that Tim’s brewing beer full time in his house, but it’s thrown into sharp relief the rather unsettling fact that I no longer have quite the excuse I did to drink as much as I do.

It’s a sad fact indeed.

In fact, after careful study I have come up with the top five reasons why drinking at home is, in fact, a terrible idea:

1. The unsettling incident from two nights ago that involved the automatic ice dispenser on my fridge; a cup that was, in fact, upside down; and the subsequent large quantity of water which somehow wound up on my room’s carpet (even after I managed to fill the cup).
2. The large, wooden chicken in the middle of the quickest route from the bathroom and the kitchen to my room which is nigh invisible in the dark.
3. The horrifying discovery that all forms of pain medication are STILL kept in my parents’ medicine cabinet.
4. The fact that I actually have to get home once I’m drunk, and that this effort involves cars. Which I don’t have.
5. The awkward reality of explaining to my parents just what the hell happened last night.

I have GOT to stop drinking in my friends’ basements…

Moral Relativism

I went to see Prince Caspian tonight.

The movie, in my opinion, is definitely worth a watch. As expected, the Christian themes are out in force, but I feel like the movie has a lot to say about choice, pride, and all the usual feel-good American values, that it’s valuable entirely apart from that.

My room-mate did not agree. An hour later, I’ve learned something new about my room-mate – that he’s a moral objectivist – and had another of those discussions that I just know I’m going to miss after college.

(more…)

One more thing…

Oh, and can we talk about women for a second?

Totally apart from the sheer mess that is one of my best friends’ relationship with his “ex” who’s currently abroad (who he talks to for HOURS a day – and don’t deny it, you know it’s true!), which stresses me out by proxy, it seems I spend all my time these days trying to figure out just what the hell is up with the woman and I. You know the one – the one I debated talking to about a month ago. Things are coming to an end, and we’re on the same see-saw we’ve been on since day one. You know, the one she probably doesn’t realize we’re on.

I might have sort of told her off last week.

(more…)

Oops, I seem to have disappeared!

I guess I’ll never really get used to blogging. Short list of changes since my last post:

1. My computer is better than fine. Turns out the wireless card driver was glitching.
2. I’m a year older.
3. I’m out like $800 on the geekiest (and best) weekend ever. No questions, please – even *I* have secrets. I’m debating reviewing some of my new acquisitions on the blog
4. I’ve been through the last class of my college career. I’m now struggling to muster the energy to care about finals…
5. Both my best friends are back on the horse. I’m not yet… Guess that’s what senior week is for!

I always kinda thought there’d be some great fanfare when college ended. Like some sort of marching band, or crack in the sky or something. I guess I should have expected that Georgetown would have a little bit too much dignity to make a big deal out of it. Of course, my last class WAS Advanced International Business, and it’s not like I haven’t spent the whole semester in that class checking my e-mail, updating my blog, and generally doing anything but paying attention to the professor. He gave a speech… And not one that really made sense. Oh well – that’s Georgetown for you.

My friends took me out for dinner/drinking on Friday to celebrate my birthday a little late. I had a fever going in, but I couldn’t tell by a few hours in and I had a lot of fun. Found a great place in Adams Morgan called The Blaguard. They have, I shit you not, shuffleboard. Which we suck at… But the Guinness was $6 a pint, and that more than made up for it. There’s also the close proximity of Amsterdam Falafel Shop for convenient drunk-munchies. We also managed to hit Wingos on the way back. I’d feel bad, except I’m up to running three miles a day these days.

I also got my grilling in for the weekend. Found around 4 and a half pounds of ground beef in the freezer that made for an excellent few hours of grilling (which I did instead of working on my paper on Organizational Change and Mountain Carvings). I think I’m declaring open-season on all food in the house on Wednesday. Maybe then my house-mates will finally eat some of the shit that’s been sitting around since September. Oh – and I saw Iron Man. God DAMN that movie was awesome.

I can’t believe it’s all over in a week.

Joining the pack…

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost a year now. It was originally written when I was living in Japan, and it was meant to go down a different road… Oddly, it seems to have come back into relevance, so I’m editing it to fit my desired theme and running with it:

If there’s one thing you notice when you first hit Japan, it’s that you stand out like a sore thumb. In this case, I’m not refering to the fact that I’m a 6′4″ anglo-european guy and was living in a country populated by predominantly 5′6″ asian people, but rather to the fact that I didn’t have a cell phone. Don’t get me wrong – I knew life without my cellphone would be bad. But this was seriously like having an arm cut off. Or possibly like discovering that all Santa’s left you for Christmas is a lump of coal and some socks (that’re really from Aunt Polly – but let’s face it, as a kid you don’t know what came from where). It’s that bad. So within the first week, I was off to Ikebukuro with a friend to get my very own 携帯電話. That’s cell phone for those of you who don’t speak the lingo. This happened again when I got back from Japan, too. In Japan, at least, many of my friends didn’t have cell phones either. In the US, I was the only one out of contact.

I recently rediscovered this unpleasant situation during the minor crisis I had with my laptop. I got it back Wednesday and was informed – to my utter horror – that “nothing is wrong with it”. That’s the kiss of death with troubleshooting computer problems, in layman’s terms it translates to “We have no idea what’s wrong, but we’re glad it’s not our problem anymore!” Fortunately, I’m a tech-savvy person and was able to fix the problem. Backed up a lot of my stuff, too – just in case. For one evening, though, I stared long and hard into the abyss and pondered the implications of an immediate future without my laptop. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

(more…)

Computer trouble…

I hate the words “computer trouble”. Even reading it, there’s this negative image of computers that pops up in my mind. Of course, I’m a little biased – I spend 6+ hours a day around my computer.

Which is why I’ve been so AWOL recently… I got back from Kenyon College last Monday and, to my horror, found that my computer wouldn’t boot. After a few attempts to fix the problem myself (I reseated the RAM – made sense given the error…), I finally took it to the business school’s tech center to have it repaired. They gave me a loaner, so I’ve been able to do work, but it’s been so long that I’d forgotten what it’s like to use a computer other than my own. It’s kind of disturbing not having all my bookmarks, all my preferences, my favorite programs. I actually found out where that virus last year came from when I tried to install my alarm clock on this computer – turns out it’s bundled with a downloader trojan.

Still no word on what’s wrong with my baby, but I’m getting kind of worried. In the mean time, my USB keys have been fully updated with the usual suite of programs. If only they had a WordpressPortable plugin suite…

Thoughts on Beginnings and Ends

When I first created this blog (a year ago this week!), I was facing a pretty hefty beginning. I was leaving my native country for the first time to live abroad in a (not so) strange land and, lured by the apparent fame of travel and personal bloggers whose every spare thought is deemed credible by their legions of readers, I had high hopes for chronicling every detail of it.

As much as my time abroad was definitely a beginning, it was also an end. While the actual experience of studying abroad was far from the life-changing experience it’s touted to be (hence the lack of deep, insightful posts while there?), the time I spent there and the time I spent building up to that experience did change me. I began to spend slightly less time online, preferring to talk to people in “real life” instead; I began focusing more on “getting out there” and “experiencing my environment”; and most important of all, I made the decision to be more honest and open with the people around me.

I thought about that decision tonight as I waved goodbye and yelled after her, “Call me if you’re back early on Sunday!” She yelled back that she would as she crossed the street and entered campus proper. The girl in question and I have been friends since day one – the first day of freshman year. There was a time when we saw each other almost every day. Lately, though, with a plethora of excuses like “increased workload”, “job hunting” and “hectic schedules”, we’ve found it harder and harder to make the time. This sort of dodging defines our relationship – or at least my side of it. There have been times when I hoped we might become more than just friends, and times when I knew things would never work out if we were.

(more…)

Aids and Gay Rights – ooh, I’m getting political!

Tim appears to have been too lazy to post this gem, which is arguably the creepiest “children’s book” I’ve ever seen besides the one I posted earlier.

I’m particularly angry at this book because it appears to be a book that exists entirely to serve the “nurture” end of the “why are some people attracted to the same sex?” argument. Seriously – are they trying to indoctrinate young children now? Oh – that attraction you’re feeling? Yeah, you’re just not right in the head. Go see a therapist and get some drugs; they’ll fix you right up!

Seriously people, this is not the solution. Shouldn’t we be trying to teach our children to be more open-minded rather than closed-minded? Sometimes I feel like the government should just take all children at birth and raise them in a government-sponsored institute. I mean, sure – we’d never be able to create a government responsible enough to raise them without bias, but the idea of ridding the world of prejudice once and for all seems wonderfully tempting.

I don’t really know enough about the issue to be able to say that attraction to the same sex is definitively an issue of nature OR nurture, but I do know that what the friends I have who are gay feel is real enough and that those of us who aren’t gay have no right belittling their feelings because it doesn’t fit our narrow conception of correct gender roles. Teaching children that it’s “all nature” or “all nurture” is not the way to go – kids should be taught to examine the facts and view these things with an open mind (My how Post-Modern of me!)… Of course, I’m not really sure if that’s even possible. It seems natural to believe that you need to teach kids SOMETHING for sure so they have a frame of reference… If you must teach something, then, doesn’t the more open and accepting idea seem the better one to teach?

Just to end the night on the same note it started on, here’s an interesting pro-safe sex (really anti-AIDS) commercial I found on Stage6. Fair warning, this commercial is NSFW.

Booya – Safe Sex

If anyone wants to see it full sized, the original can be found here.

Oddly, the ending makes this commercial seem to be promoting abstinence as the best option, but the commercial doesn’t really show any consequences of pre-marital sex (other than it being boring or just not the right “fit”), and the ending just really seems to flow as a natural consequences of having found the right fit at last… It’s kinda hard to tell what they’re trying to say, actually, except for the final frame’s blatant “fight aides” message.