When did you choose to be monogamous?

I have been asked by a number of people over the years why I am polyamorous. It can be in the form of when I chose to be polyamorous, how long I have actively become polyamorous, how does that work given jealousy, and so forth. But I think that such questions might be misisng the larger question.

When do people choose to be monogamous?

Have most monogamous couples had a discussion about exclusivity when they reached a certain point in their relationship? I highly doubt that many couples have had the mono/poly discussion at all, actually. I would love to hear anecdotes to the contrary, as real statistical data is likely to be severely lacking.

Even those couples who might dabble in swinging, swapping with other couples, or even eventually became polyamorous probably never had such a conversation. Most people are ignorant, rather than intimated or uninterested in non-monogamy, especially polyamory

But in a strict sense monogamous people are choosing to live that lifestyle, even if it is an uninformed choice. The authenticity of the choice is not overwhelming because in most cases alternative options are not realistically considered even if they are understood to be actual options. It’s hard to make an informed decision when you know almost nothing about it; even most of my friends and family know next to nothing about how polyamory works.

The fact is that monogamy is the cultural default, and is rarely realistically questioned. This is why the polyamorous community is so small, the swinger community is often anonymous and often secretive, and even affairs are kept quiet; they are a blemish on the fantastical ideal of monogamy.

Having been monogamous in my life, I have a perspective where my choice to try and maintain a polyamorous lifestyle is informed. And for the few monogamous people who are well aware of polyamory and have discussed the issue with their partner, their choice is authentic and informed as well as mine is, but they are rare.

The vast majority of our culture seems to be monogamous by default, rather than by authentic choice. Until the idea gains more mainstream attention and understanding starts to spread (if this ever happens), this ignorance shall be the norm.

Two Philadelphia atheist events this weekend

For those of you in the Philadelphia area, I have a couple of events you may be interested in. They are both affiliated with the Freethought Society, which is run by my friend Margaret Downey, and I will be attending one of both of them.

The first is the Human Tree of Knowledge in West Chester on Saturday December 3rd at 3:00 PM. The reason it will be a human tree rather than a real one is because the presence of a real tree has been blocked by the city of West Chester, as has been covered recently over at Hemant’s place. I was there for at least two of the real trees before this form of protest was necessary, as I have worked with Margaret Downey and the FTS for many years.

If you are interested in following news or in networking with people involved, there is also a facebook group. I will be there on Saturday and will almost certainly do dinner afterwords. After that I may grab a point at the Iron Hill Brewery since I love their Pig Iron Porter so much.

The second event is the following day, Sunday December 4th, and is in Philadelphia. More specifically it is at the Ethical Society at Rittenhouse Square. Here is an image of the flier, copies of which may appear there in the next couple of days.

I am not yet sure if I will attend this event. I’m not big on holiday rituals, but it may be a good time to catch up with local people of reason.

If you will be in the Philadelphia and/or West Chester area this coming weekend, make a point to attend or pass along the information to others who may be interested.

Holiday warfare

Ugh, I really get annoyed by this time of year. I’m referring to the time after Thanksgiving and right up until the New Year’s celebrations. You know, the last month of Fall, when winter descends upon us, the days get shortest, and for some reason people do a lot of shopping? You know…Christmas time. Oh, do I mean the holidays? Yeah, whatever.

I get annoyed by the consumerism, the obligatory gift-giving that commences at the culmination of the season, and the false expectation of joy that permeates it all. Yeah, I know, hum bug or someshit.

And now on top of it is the ideas of a war on Christmas. You know, the cultural conversation about “holidays” rather than “Christmas.” The privileged status of the Christian/secular Christmas becomes annoying to those of us who don’t like the tattered remains of the religious holiday (which is ultimately pagan anyway) nor the secular outgrowth of that tradition. Many people, like myself (and my acquaintance Tom Flynn), just feel that the day or so holiday should not be stretched into a month.

But, then there are the parties. Parties where people drink more eggnog than they should. Parties where you get to sometimes see another side of your co-workers than you do the rest of the year. Parties where friends and family who live far away some times come around. Parties with cookies, candy, warm drinks and various levels of tacky holiday decorations which are both colorful, lively, and (at least to me) hideous. It’s like the best and worst aspects of our culture become magnified.

No, I think that is precisely it. Our culture begins to express itself more loudly and the imperfections and relative awesomeness becomes pronounced. It’s like all the things that bubble under the surface become overt, taking life and becoming part of the common conversation. Where differences and intimacies are usually subdued in the name of pragmatism and rote behavior, something about this time of year trips up the conventionality of every day life and both exposes our differences via the culture wars and allows us to act more warmly towards each other. Perhaps its the opening up to each other which exposes those differences. Either way, it is what happens.

Of course, there are still people who quietly endure under the threat of this exposure. Men and women, boys and girls, who sit at dinner with family and quietly disbelieve in the grace or sermon being recited. Polite smiles despite sitting a few feet from a family member, co-worker, or religious leader who is hated, feared, or perhaps merely tolerated. There are emotions of desperation which come closer to the surface, felt more severely due to the presence of people and rituals which cause false intimacy and bring together the people who you usually do not associate with.

But for many others it becomes a time to enumerate, elucidate, and explore the differences, disagreements, and values which either adhere or rip apart our society. It becomes a time to expose the privilege of religious majority, to become closer to those with whom we share values and history, and to quite literally gather for warmth created by both said intimacy and the friction of those differences.

It is a powderkeg of our culture, bring closer to the surface all of our various interactions with each other. It exposes the cracks in our culture or, for some, heals some of those cracks. It is a strange brew on inauthentic pretending and rubbing together of wounds and scabs which leads to a meta-level authenticity which is so rare in our culture.

It is a thing worth more study.

I sort of like this time of year.

Polyamory and Thanksgiving awkwardness (avoided in the name of humor))

So yesterday, while visiting my mom for Thanksgiving, something amusing happened. After dinner, while sitting around and watching some TV and whatnot I got up to get my phone which was charging in the kitchen. By some irrelevant idiosyncrasy of social interaction it came to me to give reason for my getting up, and I said that I had to check my phone for text messages from my girlfriend. This brought some degree of mirth to a guest with whom I was barely acquainted, and she made some comment about how funny I am.

Because, you know, my fiance was right next to me. I’m obviously making some joke about my girlfriend which only exists for the sake of such jokes. I couldn’t actually, like in real life, have a girlfriend and a fiance as well. And even if I was that kind of douche bag, I would not make such an announcement with my doting fiance so close by, as that would be inhuman. What kind of monster am I?

And this is a phenomenon I have noticed for many years among the normals. There are these jokes about girlfriends, flirting between couples, and so forth which exists at the surface of monogamous life. Especially if some drinks are being served, there is a hilarity about these comments.

But only when it’s a joke.

I did not correct her in her mistake that I was joking. I did not say “Actually, I really am texting my girlfriend. In fact she is my fiance’s girlfriend as well.” This is because not only was I so amused by the moment that I didn’t really think about it, but by the time it occurred that some consciousness-raising would be possible, the moment had passed. And so it passed as a mere joke, to be forgotten.

But had I done so, I imagine that it would have dropped with some weight on the room. Yes, my mo knows about Gina, but she does not exactly advertise my uncommon lifestyle to the world.

So what is it about this levity of non-monogamy in the normal world while its reality is so often threatening, strange, and jealousy-inducing? Why do normal monogamous people find it so funny to joke about straying but find it so, well, scary in reality?

I’m sorry to say, I don’t have any solid answers to this question right now. I think that it is sufficient to make the observation and allow it to sit on my mind for a little while. Perhaps I’ll some up with something brilliant this weekend.

Or, I’m just to lazy to compose such brilliance right now. Whatever works for you, my dear reader.

Morality as an applied science

Quick note: My blogging activity has been very light lately because I have just started working again. I am going to dedicate some more time to writing so that I can have at least a couple of posts a week, and hopefully more. One the positive side, my posts may become shorter (you’re welcome)

—

There continues to be conversations about the relationship between science and morality in the blogosphere (here’s some from yesterday), which is no surprise since it overlaps issues such as scientism, religion, and skepticism generally. These topics are all hot tamales, at least on my google reader.

Moral philosophy can bee thought of as an application of scientifically discovered facts to a problem in social dynamics. In a sense, it is a bit like a computer programming problem in that we know what kind of program we want to create (a harmonious society with minimal ill-treatment of its citizens), but we need to figure out how to achieve this goal with the software and hardware we have. The hardware and software are (loosely) ourselves, and the program we want to write involves coming up with a way to order social relationships in a way which benefits people while preventing their harm if possible.

And what is morality? Is it the study of how humans (or other sentient beings) interact in groups, or is it the study of the how those humans should act in groups given some given desires and goals? With morality the desires are given (they are the facts of our psyches), and the goals are at least defined even if not universally shared. It is the logistics of how to achieve those goals which are where science comes in.

Is this puzzle one for the scientific method, or more generally one for empirical research? That depend son how we are defining ‘science’ here. If it is meant merely are a set of tools towards pure research, where the empirical methodology we use is utilized in order to discover laws or support hypotheses towards some theory, then no. If it is meant as a more general application of reason and the scientific method, then yes. As I have written recently, I think that the term ‘science’ in terms of these philosophical questions (such as the issue of science v. religion) should make way for ‘skepticism’ instead.

Moral philosophy is not science in the same way that physics is a science. There is science where we know the road (method) but not the goal (like physics), and then there is science where we know the goal (some achievement, technological or otherwise) but not the path by which to get there. Morality is an example the latter; we know what we want to accomplish, but we need more information and analysis before we know how to get there. Morality is an applied science.

When we are talking about doing the science of morality, we are not talking about designing a set of experiments to discover the underlying laws of morality as we would with physics. But morality is a field where we have real, physical things about which we have questions and goals. We will use reason, empiricism, etc in doing moral philosophy but most importantly doing moral philosophy will compel the need for further empirical research, some of which might be physics. It will mostly be neuroscience.

So, to deny that morality is a scientific project only makes sense if we are to define science so narrowly as to limit it to pure research, rather than the larger skeptical project of discovering what is true or how to achieve things via naturalistic means. This is why I prefer to use ‘skepticism’ in place of science in so many conversations such as this, because so many people conflate ‘science’ with pure research. I think that is the source of much of the disagreement concerning this issue.

For people such as Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne, etc, ‘science’ seems to stand for that larger skeptical project. The best approach to any topic (including morality) is this skeptical method often referred to as ‘scientism’ by so many commentators, and confused with some kind of neo-positivism by others. That’s why morality is a skeptical project; it is by these empirical and logical methods that we can get real answers to meaningful questions asked.

For morality, the question asked is something like “how should we behave socially in order to allow people to maintain personal and social well being?” This goal of well being (or whatever term you prefer) is not the thing we are trying to determine or justify, it is the project of moral philosophy from the start. If we were not assuming, axiomatically, the values of well being, happiness, or whatever term we prefer, we would not be talking about morality at all, but something else. And what other method besides the empirical ones of science could we use to find out how to answer this question?

We are not using science to determine what morality is or should be, we are using it to find the best ways to solve the philosophical problem we are already aware of. That’s why this is not about the is-ought “fallacy.” We are not saying that these are the facts, and so we should do this. We are saying that here is the place we want to be, so how do we get there?

Much like how we are not using science to find or justify our desires for truth when we use it to determine what is true generally, we are not using science to discover or justify our desire for a moral society by trying to discover the best means to attain such a thing. If you don’t take that goal as axiomatic, then you don’t care about doing moral philosophy. Similarly, if you don’t care about the truth, you don’t do science.

We skeptical and scientistic moral philosophers take what the hard sciences give us through their pure research methods and apply it to this problem of creating a better society in which to live. That, to me, is applied science.

Truth and honesty as indicators of respectibility

It has been asked of me, more than several times over the years, why I care so much about what people believe. Why can’t I just live and let live. Well, I do. It’s just that I don’t think that living and letting live necessarily involves not asking why people live the ways they do. I’m not stopping anyone from living by wondering why they live the way they do.

I have said it many times, but the truth is important to me. This is not to say I assume that all my beliefs are true, only that I try to believe things for good reasons. I try to have evidence, or at least good reason, for accepting ideas as true. So, if I do believe something I do think it’s true, but realize that I might be wrong and so I maintain an open mind about that possibility. This necessitates listening to criticism, going out of my way to challenge ideas (both mine and others’) in the face of dissenting opinions.

This skepticism of mine is part of my life project to be honest, open, and direct with the people around me. It is a value of mine to live authentically, which for me means that I don’t hide who I am to people, try not to allow self-delusion to survive within myself, and be open about my strengths and my faults. I challenge others because I challenge myself.

One implication of this is that I don’t want cognitive dissonance to exist within my mind, and don’t happily tolerate it in others. I don’t want to have ideas which are in methodological or philosophical opposition to one another, and I am sensitive to it in others. Cognitive coherence is a goal at which I will inevitably fail, but I strive for it nonetheless because to do otherwise is to capitulate to intellectual and emotional weakness.

Another implication is that I do not respect the idea that an opinion or view “works for me” as being sufficient to accept it as true. I actually care what is really true, not merely what coheres with my desires. This attitude is essential for a healthy skepticism. The desire to apply skeptical methodology to all facets of reality (sometimes referred to as “scientism”) is a value of mine, and I think it should be a value for everyone.

And this is why meeting someone who has little inclination towards this skepticism, who believes things which are not supported by evidence and do not care to challenge them, raises flags for me. It is, in fact, reason for me not to trust them.

Now, wait (you may be saying). How does being non-skeptical about things make a person untrustworthy?

Well, it does not make them completely untrustworthy. It would not necessarily mean that I could not trust them to watch my bag while I run into the bathroom or have them feed my cats while I’m out of town. No, it merely means that I will have trouble accepting some claims they make. It makes me trust them less intellectually.

They have already demonstrated that they are capable of being comfortable with cognitive dissonance, or at least in holding beliefs uncritically. They have demonstrated that they have less interest in holding true beliefs than holding comfortable ones. So if they were to claim some knowledge, opinion, etc I would be in my skeptical rights in having some issue with their trustworthiness.

This, of course, does not mean they are wrong. People with all sorts of strange ideas can be right about other things. It means that I would be more willing to demand argument or evidence for their claims, since they have already compromised their credibility in my eyes.

It also makes it harder to actually respect them, as people. It makes it less likely I will want to become closer to them personally. In potential romantic partners, unskeptical attitudes and beliefs are a turn off, for example. Beliefs in astrology, psychic powers, homeopathy, wicca, or even some aspects of yoga are indicators that a person may not be a new best friend or romantic partner.

Such beliefs are indicators that while we may get along well enough socially or in light conversation, our goals in life are incompatible. As a result, there is only so close I am willing to get because the attitude they take to the truth makes them vulnerable to deception. They have not exercised critical thinking to themselves or the world, and it seems likely that they may not know themselves well enough emotionally and/or intellectually and therefore are more likely to subject themselves, and thus people they are involved with, to undesirable situations.

This is not to say that people who believe these things cannot be educated or better informed, only that until they are willing to critically challenge such things they will occupy a place in my head of lesser reverence.

So, call be judgmental, elitist, and arrogant if you like. But I will judge unsupported ideas as flawed, consider demanding higher intellectual standards as preferable, and do not think that pride in these standards to be unwarranted. I am judgmental (so are you, so is everyone. I am just honest about it). I am elitist, and I don’t care if it offends your sensibilities. But arrogant? Well, I don’t think my ideas of self-importance, based upon my standards, are unwarranted. I think they help to make me a better person.

I’m honest, I care about what is true, and I hold myself up to high standards. If you don’t care about these things, then I likely don’t respect you. Live with it.

I’ve decided to become a Mormon

…for Halloween.

More specifically, I am going to be one of those door-knocking missionaries. You know what I’m talking about; white shirt, tie, name tag, some sort of bag, and literature to leave behind. Except I don’t have an proper name tag, the kind with my name and some LDS cred. So, I had to make one.

A few years ago I had been working with Margaret Downey on some project on another (likely a tabling event, but I don’t remember), and she gave participants some badges, and I have had mine ever since. I actually have a whole collection of such badges, from various conventions over the years, and never expected to have them come in handy. But today as I was thinking about putting together my costume for a Halloween party tonight, and since I have decided to go for the magic underwear angle (no, I’m not wearing that), I glanced over to the door-knob from which such badges hang from their lanyards and a smile crept along the side of my face.

I have a background in art. I actually attended a summer art class at Moore College of Art after my 8th grade year, due to winning an art competition at the school I attended (Friends Select, if you care) which landed me a scholarship for a summer program, primarily for painting. So, when it comes to having to use artistic talents, I have something from which to draw.

But, having only white paper, no printer, and various pens, markers, etc around, I was left with a problem since I would need a badge with white lettering on a black background. I knew what I had to do, but it was just going to take some patience.

To start, I had to measure the size of the paper, map out the lettering plan on a grid (penciled in lightly), based upon an image of a real missionary ID badge which I had googled and left on my primary computer screen. Then, once the letters were penciled, I very carefully traced the outside of the letters with a black pen, then filled in the rest of the background with two sharpies. The results, among the tolls used, are to the left.

After that, it was a simple matter of sliding the paper in the plastic holder, covering the phrase “Proud to be an Atheist in America” but leaving the name above it in place. The result can be seen to the right.

But that could not be all! Why? Well, every time I have seen those missionaries I have seen them carrying some sort of bag, backpack or messenger bag usually. And I have a messenger bag. Except it has the Dawkins scarlet ‘A’ on it, and that is no bag a Mormon missionary would carry, now is it?

So, I googled Mormon images, found a simple picture of the angel Moroni blowing his horn, and taped a piece of white paper to the screen to trace it (the juxtaposition of technology and Luddite technique does tickle me a bit). Then I filled it in with the same markers and, after doing so, I used some clear packing tape to affix the paper over the ‘A’ on my bag and, well, voila!

That, with my copy of the Book of Mormon in hand, allows me to transform into Mormon missionary man!

And with it all put together, it all looks like this. So, happy Halloween everyone.

Mere atheism

I’ve been having a long conversation in the comments of another wordpress blogger recently. I was perusing the religion section of wordpress and ran across this post. The comments are where it gets interesting. If you are interested in such conversations, I urge you to take a look. Much of the following will reference that discussion, although you will be able to follow without reading it).

During the conversation, which touches on skepticism and the definition of ‘atheist,’ the blogger jackhudson said that “there is no such thing as a ‘mere atheist’,” and I was forced to agree. Actually, I quite enthusiastically agreed, as I had never made such a claim that such a creature existed (see the comments there for the details, if you like). But I immediately liked the term and it gave me a little insight into the nature of our disagreement. It also reminded me of a discussion within the atheist community some time back.

Remember that now infamous PZ post about “dictionary atheists” with which many atheists, including myself disagreed? Well, I do believe that the definition of “atheist” is still merely the lack of belief in any gods, but I also agree with PZ’s larger point which, ironically, is basically the point that jackhudson is making in the comments I have made reference to in this post. Ironic because the post is about PZ Myers being wrong about something. Well, it’s a little ironic.

In other words, PZ Myers was right to say that we, as atheists, are not atheists because we lack a belief in gods. At the time he wrote that post, I disagreed by arguing, as did many pothers, that being an atheist was nothing more than this lack of belief in gods. But as I came to understand it, PZ had a larger view in mind, one which jackhudson is also making; none of us are merely lacking belief in gods. We have other things we do believe in and those things inform our worldview and tell us about how we are atheists.

Even if the definition of atheism is, in fact, the lack of belief in any gods we are so much more than that. It’s a nuanced point, and I think worthy of further exploration.

Finding your inner atheist

People come to find that they are atheists in a number of ways. As they do so, they carry all sorts of beliefs, assumptions, and worldviews (all of which may change, of course). But an essential moment for people who consider their beliefs is when they first realize that they no longer (or never did) believe in a god.

Some of these just of shrug their shoulders and go on with their life. Others experience a great emotional relief, anxiety, or even anger upon realizing this. I imagine that some people even repress this and go on as if they do still believe. The reaction is dependent upon many personal factors which are relevant to a person’s worldview, but are not really relevant to the term ‘atheist’ per se. That is, if they accept that title as part of their identity, that title merely tells others what they do not believe (gods), but nothing about what they do believe in.

Other labels and titles can do that, in most cases. Sometimes new labels have to be invented. But no information about what one believes can be gleaned, necessarily, from “I’m an atheist” by itself.

So, I think that PZ’s objection is more about the existence of “mere atheists” rather than “dictionary atheists” (although I’m sure he is still annoyed with people reminding everyone of this definition, as his post indicates). Having heard him talk about this issue a few times however, I don’t think he disagrees that atheism, per se, is merely this “dictionary” use, only that this lack of belief does not tell you anything anything about what is important.

And while I think it is still important to clarify one’s philosophical opinion (I am a philosophically-minded person, after all), I think that PZ is largely correct. I will continue to explain the definition when the clarification is warranted, but I think that this is becoming a secondary consideration for me. It is a bit of a transition I have been noticing for a little while; a bit of atheist maturing, perhaps.

At this point, my concern is to not argue what the definition of atheism is so much as to answer the question that Matt Dillahunty has become known to ask (What do you believe, and why do you believe it?) for my own skeptical views. That is, I am more interested in explaining my views rather than labeling them and having arguemnts which are purely about those labels.

It is true that I don’t believe in any gods. It is still true that to claim that no gods exist is beyond my epistemic powers. It is also true that in some cases (like with the Christian god) I do believe that ‘God’ is not real. But I think the fundamental point is to show that a skeptical position is where to start, and that I simply do not see reason to believe in people’s religious ideas.

My motivation for all of this is not derived from being an atheist, but rather from being a skeptic who cares about having beliefs which are true. My being an atheist is not my motivation for writing this blog, being active in godless communities, etc. My motivation is what I do believe.

I do believe that the truth matters. I do believe it’s important to want to have reasons for what we believe. I do believe that skepticism is the best methodology for finding what is true. I do believe that having a good level of certainty about truth is possible. I do believe that people can educate themselves towards freeing themselves from delusions of all kinds, including faith. I do believe that the efforts of the skeptical community are helping our culture move away from religious commitments, even if more slowly than many of us would like.

So no, I’m not a mere atheist, and I don’t think any person is. To be a person is to have beliefs, even if only tentatively, and nobody is defined by a simple lack of a belief.

But I still believe that identifying openly as a person who does lack that belief, in this cultural context, is important for the ongoing cultural conversation. I do think there will be a time when identifying as an atheist will no longer have a use (it will still be true, but only useful in the way that identifying as an a-Santa-ist is now).

We are not there yet.

A debate about polyamory and monogamy

I was directed to an interesting conversation on Facebook today. It is in two parts.

If you just refuse to read it, essentially it is a conversation between two people (“Jaime” and “Kelly”) about monogamy and “permanent promiscuity,” but the term polyamory is used in the conversation as well.

There are many points I find incomplete, flawed, etc on both sides (although I agree with the polyamory-advocate “Jaime” much more, obviously), but I will not bother with in-depth analysis.

What I do want to comment on is that “Kelly” comes across as saying that promiscuity, or polyamory, is too hard for most people and so to ask it of people is asking too much. This comes across to me as apologizing for human weakness.

It sounds to me like a person saying “being a good person is too hard, and you can’t expect people to do it.” Or, perhaps more to the point; “doing the work involved to become more emotionally mature, honest, and less fearful about my insecurities is too hard.”

I don’t have much sympathy for this. It is merely excusing laziness, fear, and mediocrity at best.

As I like to say, if you are happy, then great. But if it might be possible to be happier with some effort, what is stopping you besides fear and insecurity?

October 21st 2011 is the end! (for real, this time!)

So, remember several months back there was this whole big thing about the world ending on May 21st, 2011? I mean, there were billboards, people on the street handing out pamphlets ( I still have a copy around somewhere), and lots of media talk about it. In fact, I wrote about it here.

And then the date passed. Explanations were rationalized, and the world moved on. You see, a judgment occurred, but it was “an invisible judgement day”. The end of the world was still coming, it was just happening later…really. So when is that date again?

Oh right, it’s tomorrow.

That’s right folks, the world really is ending on October 21st, 2011! For real this time. I mean, Harold Camping can’t be wrong 3 times, right? Oh, that’s right…he made a similar prediction back in the ’90’s.

Well, in case this ends up being my last post ever (assuming I don’t post some attempt to repent as I see Jesus descending on a could or whatever), I hope you have all enjoyed the show.

But I am betting that life will go on tomorrow as usual.

[edit]

I love this image!