Why I Celebrate Halloween

It has come to my attention that many here at this college which I must attend do not celebrate Halloween. At all. (Some churches might through a "Harvest Fair" or "Fall Carnival" instead, but never once does the term "Halloween" come up--except perhaps as a subtitle for the above, reading "Halloween Substitute.") I find this to be a grievous error, or at least a you-don't-know-what-you're-missing-out-on sort of mistake. (My roommate informed me earlier today that he'd not been trick-or-treating. Ever.) So I here propose to examine Halloween and some motives for celebrating it or ignoring it, with particular emphasis on my own views (because, after all, I went to the trouble of writing this thing; all the other opinion posts you read will be similar in that anyways, you know).

Halloween is viewed in many different lights, which are primarily powered by the religious worldviews of those examining it. To Druids, pagans, and other similar religions, Halloween (or All Hallow's Eve, or the Night of All Spirits, or whatever one might call it) is a night for especial ritual, contemplation, and other such deeply personal religious behavior, due to the oft-held belief that spirits, natural forces, or what have you are out and accessible in greater measure than on other ordinary fall nights. I can respect that, even though it is not my own belief.
The Catholics, on the other hand, call it All Saints' Day, and use it as a particular commemoration of the panolply of beatified individuals they love to pray to. (It seems a bit polytheistic to me, but I suppose having a veritable Swiss Army knife of erstwhile peoples could ideally come in handy.) Various ceremonies honor the memories of the ponderous qauntity of sainted Catholics, and little children vie for certain roles in the inevitable parade of little ones dressed up (mostly against their will) to resemble these faith-filled individuals of yesteryear.
Many Christians, not caring much for the idea of saints as viewed by the Catholics nor for pagan ritual (they view it as satanic, after all, and that would never do), tend to try to steer their children away from the more easily-captivating portions of the event (especially the more cavity-producing ones, if they at all can), and make it something enjoyable but not in the ways "those heathens" might go about it. Those who give their children more liberty (or have had it wrested from them by the long process of spoiling) might allow their progeny the chance to go trick-or-treating--though sometimes with the proviso that the catchphrase isn't "trick-or-treat" (which sounds so very malicious) but rather "Happy Halloween" (which is innocuous and has a comparable ring to it). The more conservative types, wanting to discourage the holiday altogether, might merely turn off the porchlight and ignore the merry costumed little ones accosting their front doors.
And in between lie the people whose religious beliefs (or lack thereof) don't touch the issue of Halloween much--and so they choose merely by whether or not it appeals to them. I'd envy them if I weren't so similar, but then I've taken the liberty of tying up various ideals into my opinion of the holiday, so it's a bit more complex than merely whether or not I enjoy it or not.

I agree that Halloween has some satanic overtones. Does that condemn the night for any of those who might--heaven forbid--enjoy festivities upon it? I'd say not. I also agree that cavities are bad enough as it is amongst the youth of our nation. Does that make it sensible to bottle up my house and wait for the little fingers jabbing my door bell button to give up and go to the jolly elderly couple next door? Again, I'd say not. (I'd be most likely to turn off the lights, but answer the door if someone rings. Just as sort of a pre-screening or something.)
Yet Halloween is also more to me than happy families taking the wee folk for a round of candy on the neighbors. And it's nothing to do with the drunken parties that people hold, either. To me, Halloween represents individuality, a recognition of the masks we wear, and a time to throw caution to the winds as we ponder ourselves. The costumes we choose are both a statement of our ability to choose and a reflection of the tendency of any given person to hide his or her true nature behind a sanitized facsimile, to ensure good impressions. The candy we give out represents, to me, good will. It symbolizes our standing behind our future generations, and a wish to them that they might be happy. And the mystical standing of the night suggests to me that we should search ourselves with feverish abandon, learning what we can on this metaphysically-connotated eventide of our own puzzling selves. The holiday (some cringe at this term, as they'd never think to honor this with the title of "holy day") is a symbol, really--but aren't they all? Easter is a symbol of Christ's resurrection (or springtime, if you're not a fan of JC), Christmas a symbol of His birth (or season's cheer and goodwill, some might say). Thanksgiving is a symbol of our coming to this fruitful land, and the Fourth of July the lives lost to ensure the freedoms our country is supposed to represent (though whether or not it still does is up for debate). Symbols are what we choose to make of them, and so on Halloween I prefer to make of it something that actually holds meaning to me. I like to use it to embrace the slightly wilder side of myself, even if only for a night, because in the end it's still a part of me. I use it to remind myself of ideals I hold dear--choice, freedom, individuality, good will, hope--and refuse to let its meaning be defined for myself solely by what others have said about it.
That being said, I also enjoy an excuse to go about in a costume and not have to worry about being seen as a weirdo for it. Go figure.

--Me

Plumbing Deep Ecology

Scattered about the world one will find small pockets of those whom most of the rest of us look at with a certain degree of disdain. These people, self-proclaimed "tree-hugging animal-saving dirt-worshippers" (or so, at least, proclaim their bumper stickers), make a much bigger deal out of the rest of the organisms on this planet than most of the rest of us, and seem to enjoy doing it, too. In fact, the area in which I am in tends to have a higher proportion of them than probably most of the rest of the country. But is there really all that much wrong with them? Let's take a look at deep ecology--a philosophy common among such folk.

Deep ecology is what happens when you take conservation and biology and all those lovely natural sciences and apply them to ethics. In short, it holds the preservation of nature (and no, that doesn't just mean because "humans are animals, too") is the ultimate ethical principle, and that all other ethical tactics are far less relevant (if at all). Instead of being centered on humans and their dealings, like most ethical principles, deep ecology takes something more like a science and makes it a philosophy (a reverse of the usual methodology of philosophies becoming sciences as we understand them more entirely). However, if it had no downfalls, hippies would be ruling the planet, no? (Pardon the slur--it simply sounded amusing.) As an ethical standard, it's fairly harsh (just like nature tends to be--survival of the fittest tends to be the goal out in the wild, after all), and takes away all that lovely anthropocentrism that's a natural part of our daily diet. Hard to grasp effectively, really, because it would logically follow that killing off most of the humans on the planet would be ethical due to the freeing up of natural resources that would occur thereafter.
I wish not to delve so...deeply into this topic. Rather, I'd like to address the fervent environmentalism that deep ecologists (and others) hold. (That may mean you. You know who you are.) The species and resources of this planet are here, I hold, for us to be stewards of. We have an obligation to use these things in a proper manner, but the way we should be handling things probably lies somewhere in between the realm of what we're doing now and the radical burning of logging companies--a practice that, thankfully, has diminished notably of late. We humans are here to stay. "Not for long you won't, if you keep up using Mother Earth like you are now!" they say. Quite possibly so. But this whole place is going to be coming apart soon anyway--courtesy of a little thing called entropy. Inevitable, really. What we *should* be doing, though, is trying to enjoy it while still getting as much mileage as we can out of it. Greenhouse gas control should certainly be more strict--there are indications that it's already screwing up the weather something fierce. Smog? We've far too much of it already. I'd love it if we cut down on it. Forests? Sure, they're great. But toilet paper's gotta come from somewhere. Some trees are going to have to come down once and again. Clear-cutting is bad, I agree, but we must be remembering that we are still going to be using these things. We can certainly be more responsible in doing so, but the key is to be moderate. Radically environmentalist bits make people less inclined to believe the whole conservationist message. By trying to make a point, many demonstrators are overdoing it in a way that is causing far more harm to the cause than good.
As one author I once read put it, we need to save the environment--for man. Cutting off our nose to spite our face won't help us, but perhaps if we restricted the intake of our mouths a bit (extending the metaphor, if you will), we might make a difference. Simply be careful to avoid stomping extra hard on people's tootsies with those Birkenstocks.

Underuseful Utilitarianism

As mentioned in class, utilitarianism is increasingly common these days, and with it comes an unsettling social trend resulting from the inevitable twists society imposes on (typically more) well-meaning social concepts. Utilitarianism, as the name suggests (if nothing more than that), is the practice of finding the most "useful" actions to perform. Designed to be deeply objective, utilitarianism is based on an unusual system known as the "calculus of felicity" to calculate what actions create the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. (This, in turn, is the method of determining the "useful" actions--they're those actions that render the most prolific and widespread happiness.) In short, if it makes lots o' people real happy and doesn't make as many people as dramatically sad (as opposed to the depth of happiness to those positively affected), it's good.
While there's nothing at all wrong with making people happy--we're not here to despise every moment of existence, after all--strict utilitarianism("Benthamite", after its original proponent Jeremy Bentham) only considers the costs of happiness to other people. No other costs, including solely environmental ones, are factored in, and people certainly aren't omniscient, making it hard to accurately forecast how the people of the future will be affected in their felicity by the chain of events loosed by an action that seemed good when it was made. But, perhaps most importantly, it values the loss of happiness by all people as more or less equal. If you make, say, 3000 people really happy by changing something that ruins or kills 20 people, utilitarianism bids you do it without a second thought.
Implications? Certainly. While one foreseeable application of this is the war in Iraq, I won't touch but lightly on such a dramatically dividing topic. Instead, I'd like to focus on its application to our society. Our social structure isn't as much like a melting pot as it is like a bucket of Lego blocks. We're all posessing of different colors, sizes, and capabilities, and we don't simply meld together, but we can be assembled in ways that do (and don't) work. Our tendency, however, is to bring together all the blocks of any given group and team up against the others in some kind of deluded self-preservation instinct. Then, we count our own respective group(s) to be of more worth when calculating felicity than all other groups, making it nearly impossible for other groups to have much of a determination in whether or not our decision may affect them in a negative manner (and perhaps more profoundly so). Only when the negative effects reach unconscionable levels do we decide that perhaps something should be done. Take, for example, the civil rights movement. It only took us how long to get there? Yet we deemed our felicity as whites to be of more value than the felicity of the thousands of African-Americans who had virtually no felicity at all under our oppressive control. Now, I'm not your typical bleeding heart about the whole matter, but I'm still rather appalled that it could take us--supposedly the "enlightened" ones, after all--so long to catch on. But did we learn anything from it? I can't say that we have. While each group nowadays has less power to wield over any other, we still wage little fights with what capabilities still left to us. It's a vicious, self-potentiating cycle that will not help society better itself directly--only when things get appalling will we again realize that dramatic action needs to be taken by greater numbers of people than just those who noticed well beforehand.

Aesthetic Ethics

Our talks on ethics in the recent past have been interesting, though not all that necessarily enlightening. So much of this class is about learning the whos and whats of philosophy that we rarely get down to actually applying it in a discussion-based setting. All we have are these blogs, which perhaps no one reads and scarcer few even care about.

I'm guessing you're here because you at least want to hear my thoughts on ethics, even if you don't actually care about them. Alright--you shall be rewarded for that much, at any rate.
We all look at ethics with a curious disdain. It's that set of morals and behavior that everyone wishes they had, but that no one truly has (as much as they might say or behave to the opposite). Yet we spend so much time in pursuit of it--even for those of us who aren't religious. We learned about "divine command" ethics in class this week, which is one of the oldest sets of ethical standards--holding that a deity (or multiple, depending on your religion and/or culture) has laid down the way people should behave, and as such, we are compelled to obey by the supernatural force commanded by said deity(ies). Simple, yes, though also prone to gray areas. But even atheists and agnostics strive to hold to at least some kind of ethical boundaries. And who defines those? They do, naturally--who else? Oh wait--society might. So these individuals, unwilling to surrender their will to a deity of any sort, are likely to bend to society simply because society says so? Iffy.
Ethics these days is a curious blend of doctrines. Most people wouldn't argue that the law provides for suing someone who accidentally harmed you, but would it necessarily be ethical? One could argue that it would depend on the circumstances, but one could also hold that the standards are absolute in dictating that the person who harmed you has an ethical (and usually legal) responsibility to recompense you, so perhaps you are ensuring the flow of ethics by suing them.
I was once enrolled in an etiquette class (against my will). Loaded with stiff formality, it wasn't necessarily the most pleasant of classes (did you know that if your host misuses a piece of silverware, you're supposed to do the same?). Yet at the core of it all resonated a curious statement, quoted from the Etiquetress herself, Miss Manners (aka Judith Martin): "Etiquette, at its simplest, asks you to do the kindest and most sincere thing you can to all the people around you. This is usually what you would like them to do if you were in their place." (I'm paraphrasing here--it's been years, and I can't remember the exact terminology, but indulge me that.) Now etiquette sounds almost like the Golden Rule, which in turn could easily be termed the ultimate ethical standard (from a divine command viewpoint, no less--wasn't Jesus the deliverer of that statement?) Etiquette, however, as practiced, is just as much about impressing your host as it is about being kind and sincere. Could it be that ethics and etiquette, as happening today, are merely to give the aesthetic impression of goodness and virtue, attempting to make others think we're better than we really are? If one has no one to be ethical for besides their own self, what is the point? Wouldn't it often be more conducive (as Thrasymachus so delicately put it) to live for one's own self, ethical standards aside, to ensure the most profitable outcome?
At the core of it all, everyone has to have a reason to be ethical. Otherwise, they're simply fulfilling a goal which has no core, no meaning. It's an exercise in futility, and a curious one at that. But self isn't a good reason--so what are many of these people living (at least somewhat) ethically for?

And, as is so common in philosophy, the answer may not be what matters. The questions are what really count. (However, it would be lying--and thus unethical--to say that I do not wish to know. I welcome peoples' opinion on this matter, who have no major reason for their ethical behavior--or, alternatively, who believe they have an unusual one.)

Choice and Freedom

Our studies in thought, choice, freedom, determinism, and other matters that govern the actions we make (regardless of their existence or nonexistence) provide some decidedly thought-provoking (determining?) ideas. Now let me have my little soapbox upon which to proclaim my thoughts, and proclaim them I shall.

Thank you. That's much better. As I was saying, all this talk of determinism and indeterminism is rather moot. (Had I said that yet? Hmm...it looks as though not. Well, I was thinking about it, so it's all the same to me...do follow along now, hmm?) While perhaps it sounds rather existentialist of me, what matters is that you make the proper force of will, regardless of whether or not your actions are determined to be the way they are. In doing so, you will be genuine in your actions, instead of simply letting life carry you along willy-nilly, with no regard as to your desires. (I personally hold that we aren't determined, so therefore having will behind your actions means you are both choosing them to occur that way and you are responsible for their execution. But some would argue otherwise.)
Freedom, then, is an extension of our own ability to cause our will to happen (regardless of whether or not it was determined already to happen that way). Someone I know once defined magic as "causing change in the environment in conformity to one's will"--presumably through will and will alone. This would make freedom a "magical" thing. Very nice. So why don't we make some magic in our lives? Choose to be free; bend your will in the direction it should go, and make some change happen in the world.

Along the lines of existentialism--I find it to be quite harmonious with many of my pre-existing beliefs. It often gives voice to quiet thoughts in my heart I had scarcely noticed before. The notion of inauthenticity is particularly intriguing to me--defined by Sartre, inauthenticity (or, "bad faith", a term which is too ambiguous if you ask me) is the practice of only being-in-the-midst-of-the-world instead of being-in-the-world. I can see your confused looks now...it's definition time.
Being-in-the-midst-of-the-world is the lowest level of choice functionality available to ordinary, sane individuals. It's simply being present here, but not necessarily being involved. Being-in-the-world, however, is when you actually "get in to" the roles you have assigned yourself (in a world which you have also defined the meaning of). It's when you go and do as you believe you ought to be doing, instead of simply sitting here amidst the hustle and bustle and hoping nothing bad comes of it. Inauthenticity arises when a person has found his or her personal being-in-the-world but remains in or reverts to simply being-in-the-midst-of-the-world. Portrayed as just generally not cool by Sartre &co., inauthenticity is when you fail to do like Army tells you--when you don't "be all you can be". It makes sense, in a way...every living person has potential (and some dead ones, too, in a weird sort of way), and when they opt for merely being-in-the-midst-of-the-world, some of that potential goes to waste. By being-in-the-world, they are contributing actively and doing all they can.

Random, and sort of rambling? Yes. Yet I felt that I needed to expel those thoughts before they did something overly drastic. Comment if you dare.

Determined to be Undetermined

Determinism is one of those curious catch-22-esque systems that seems more believable (though not necessarily more reasonable) when you don't believe in it. How, you say? It works something like this: you argue that a system being proposed to be universal does not apply to you. The proponent responds by telling you that that's what you're supposed to think--that everyone has been confused/persuaded/fooled into thinking that they're not part of the system. That the proverbial wool has been pulled over the eyes of society at large, if you will. You then realize that perhaps, yes, you have been fooled. Angered slightly by the very idea at being fooled, you then must either launch a salvo of objective arguments at the idea in defense of your own standpoint (and hope that your counterpart doesn't have countermeasures), put up a wall of forced apathy, or watch as your own belief crumbles away under the force of the other's superior concept. The second of those options happens most often these days--people care not to think about new ideas that are at odds with their own. But the point still stands--the very idea that you might be being fooled by your own will causes people to begin to doubt their own standpoints.

As I typically do in entries such as this, for the benefit of those of you just joining us, I shall now define the topic at hand. Determinism is the concept that all of our actions are caused by outside forces/occurrences, as well as certain forces within ourselves. In short, we have no control over our actions, as they are determined by outside causes (which, in turn, we cannot control). "But wait!" you say. "How can that be so? I choose to do things all the time!" Determinists, especially those of the "soft" grouping, argue that while you may believe your actions were your choice, both the action and your perceived "choice" were determined by other things. Sorry, but thanks for playing.
The inherent concept that must stand in order for determinism to function is that of causality--that one event does not occur unless a previous event and/or series of particular events occur first, forcing or enabling it to happen. This is, in turn, one of the main attack points for those who are more vigorously opposed to determinism. Causality must be proven, and if even one deviation takes place, the causal argument is markedly weakened--and with it, determinism. (This is where indeterminists jump in, brandishing the Heisenberg uncertainty principle like a small boy with a toy sword after devouring a high-sugar, artifically-colored comestible. But that is a can of kippered snacks for another time entirely.)

Curiously enough, Christianity, a major proponent of choosing to do the right thing, is not entirely unconducive to determinism. Pointing to the omniscience and omnipotence of God, determistic Christians will argue something along the following lines: "If God knows everything that's going to happen, and He has all the power in the world to change it, He has decided that things will happen a certain way whether we want it to or not. Therefore, we are all determined by His omniscience, omnipotence, and will to do whatever He wants to happen." This is a tenet of Calvinism and other sects, typically referred to as predestination. Just as forceful, yet, are those who argued that God created us with free will, and thus even though he knows what will happen (or whatever could happen given all the circumstances taking place--which he also knows--and can choose whether to intervene or not at any given time), our choices are still our own. This issue divides people every which-way, even within the same sect, but these people typically don't experience the deep schisms that other disagreements could cause.

And myself? I don't really buy it. Yes, I know, I could be amongst the dissenting ignorants, but I don't really think that I have no choice in what I do. I think too much, and thoughts don't really need much of a provocation. There's too much being proposed by determinists that can't really be proven...that said, I still think that things in the world may influence my decisions--but they don't outright determine them, leaving me no say in the matter. And so, one could say I am determined to not be.

Existentialism and a Dane Named Soren

Philosophers have always tried to make things we take for granted into things we actually have to apply brain power to in order to make sense out of them. Now, while it may not sound this way from the previous sentence, I approve of these measures. We, as a society, don't think about things nearly enough. But the majority of people don't really appreciate accomplishments of that ilk, so it can be quite a breath of fresh air when a philosopher attempts a different tack.
Soren Kierkegaard, a man who seems more intriguing every time I read about him, was a Dane who attempted to de-think-ify the philosophy of religion. Living for only 41 years in the 19th century, Soren (who actually had one of those curious "o"s with a slash through them, in that delightfully Scandinavian fashion) proposed that religion was defined by its practicers--not its tenets. Read on.

In 1843, a book known as "Fear and Trembling," by one Johannes de Silentio, found its way onto the market. History tells us that Johannes wasn't the writer's real name; rather, a certain Soren Kierkegaard had his hands soiled with its ink. Regardless, Soren (excuse me--de Silentio) had written a book that explained a curious new method of examining religion. Instead of requiring an established church to define everything in clear, 12-point font for all of its followers, he held that religion was rather put together by each individual person. He claimed that you had to take "leaps of faith" for your religion, because trying to make objective arguments in support of your beliefs was not only difficult but also almost always fruitless. He used the situation of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac to form the conclusion that your religion (and thus, any deity of your religion) only has as much power as you assign them, and that as such most sermons become insipid "lemonade-twaddle" (a term which I practically erupt in giggles every time I hear it) due to their impersonality. Each individual had to make his or her own judgments regarding his/her religion, because no other person--in the form of preaching, evangelism, or what have you, could tell the other what simply was and wasn't. (This would eliminate the leaps of faith, and thus the important part of religion.) The only effective/permissible form of sharing would be the subjective bits--the "I felt" and "I believe" parts, as they come from a personal perspective.

Kierkegaard's perspective wins him many critics and admirers alike. Some Christians love him--because it makes their religion bullet-proof by those who seek to disprove God--and others hate him--because it takes out all those nice rational proofs of God's existence that took them so long to make up. Atheists, seeking to persuade others that there is no God, can become irritated at him for taking away their ammunition to persuade theists that they're wrong, but they can at least take comfort in the relative sanctuary that his philosophy provides for them as well. In short, Kierkegaard's philosophy takes all the people trying to poke holes in other people's religions, and segregates them with those nice little elastic partitions--like the ones that are ubiquitous at airport ticket counters--so they can talk to each other about their wonderful personal experiences but remain out of poking range. Kierkegaard does away with "you're wrong" and replaces it with "I believe differently"--a conciliatory motion, perhaps, but not one that many of the more vocally religious people would be wont to pick up.

It should be noted, at this point, that Kierkegaard's perspective has a touch of paradox in it. By saying that people define their own religion by their own emphases and faith, he's suggesting a different perspective for them to take. He's going against his own philosophy by trying to tell other people about it. Think about that for a moment--if religion is truly individual, why is he telling everyone else what to do? It becomes almost comedic at this point, but one could explain this by having him say that it's what he *believes*--a subjective experience. Then he's simply sharing, which becomes permissible under his existentialist view of religion. But it's still entertaining while it lasts.