danrogger.com

My name is Dan Rogger and this is my blog (you can find out more about me at my About me page of my main web site). It aims to present my beliefs on how to live contemporary life in a philosophical way (or how I have tried to confront some of the challenges I face on an everyday basis). Every other week I aim to write a short piece on a topic of note from the weeks gone by.

The below are letters to my generation. They are, I hope, a collection of notes that explore the idea of a social philosophy - a philosophy anchored in the idea that society is the fundamental unit of philosophical analysis. Please send your thoughts and replies to drogger@worldbank.org.

Postings (in reverse chronological order)

But I struggle to see inside you; to see the dignity I feel should be accorded to us all.
I cannot see the music that joins us in harmony.

My view of you is dominated by my perception of your ego;
By your own willingness to look back at me with the eyes of love I wish for.

I see your good actions and those actions are like notes in a song.
But I cannot see the tune.

Why do I struggle so much with what I would ask you give me?
Why do I have to fight to see it even in those I love? Even in those who have proven their dignity.

Is it because, being our greatest test, dignity is the least visible of all our attributes?
Because in seeing it we see a version of God.

Is it because I only see it when you are stretched the most?
And when you are no longer stretched I forget you are the same person.

Or simply because we do not practice it? That we do not listen for that tune?
That in our striving to search for our own dignity we lose sight of how to see it all around us.

Alex was normally normal. She dressed like the other kids; laughed like the other kids; and she always made sure she liked what the other kids liked.

Other kids, like Ben. Ben dressed like the other kids; laughed like the other kids; and didn't like different.

Different was weird. It was scary. Who knows what different might do. So Ben liked Alex. She was normal.

And when Alex and Ben found a treasure chest, they both knew what to do. Turn the key!

The key was gold and shiny, and the box so very much like the treasure boxes they had seen in movies. You turned the key - the box opened - it had gold and silver inside. They were going to be rich!

But when Ben turned the key, nothing happened. He turned it again. He must've been turning it wrong. So Alex turned it. She turned it the other way. Ben tried again. Hmm. There must be something wrong with this treasure box.

Alex and Ben sat next to the treasure box. What was wrong with this treasure box? Is it broken? It looked like a normal treasure box, but it wasn't working.

"I can't believe we found a broken treasure box," said Ben as he tried the key again and again. "Maybe Chris knows what to do," said Alex, "Maybe we should call Chris?"

Chris was normally normal. He thought that to open treasure chests you just have to turn the key. You see he dressed like the other kids; laughed liked the other kids; and importantly, thought like the other kids. He was, you know, normal.

But Chris wasn't around. And his advice - to just keep turning the key - wouldn't have been helpful anyway.

After a while, Alex realised that she and Ben were not alone. Joshua was standing close to them watching the box, the key, and them turning the key. Joshua was wondering why they were turning the key so much.

Alex whispered to Ben - "he's here", emphasizing the 'he'. They both looked up at Joshua who was standing over there.

Joshua was different. He dressed differently to the other kids; he laughed differently to the other kids; and he never made sure he liked what the other kids liked. He liked what he liked.

Alex and Ben didn't smile at Joshua. They didn't wave to him to come over. They didn't ask him how to open the box. What would he know about opening treasure boxes when he was so different? They just looked back at the treasure box and that shiny gold key.

Well in fact it was because he was so different that meant he might know something they didn't. It was because he was so different that he saw the carvings on the box that looked like two great arms wrapped around it. It was because he was so different that he saw things, well, differently.

Ben was getting frustrated. He hit the top of the box. "Open!" he shouted. Joshua didn't like to see the box being hit, but was scared of Ben because of the way that he ignored him and didn't smile at him - not just now but all the time. "Open!" shouted Ben. The box was not going to open like that.

"Let's go and get something sharp to try and open the box." Alex told Ben. They walked off to find some tools.

Joshua watched Alex and Ben walk off, and they had looked at him but hadn't said anything. Joshua knew about these boxes. Or at least he'd read about them. They always had keys - but just to distract those who didn't know how to open them.

Joshua walked up to the box, and looked up to where Alex and Ben had gone. They had gone. He put his arms around the box and gave it a big hug. He heard a click. 'Click'. The top of the box swung open. The way you opened these boxes was different to normal.

Later on, Jane, who liked different and liked Joshua, found him staring into the box. She walked over to see what was in the box. "Oh Joshua," Jane said, "it's beautiful!"

For my 40th birthday, I asked my society to reflect on their beliefs and express them to me. Through a book of these reflections that my wife Caitlin made for me and discussions with many of those same people, I held those thoughts close for the past year. I found them challenging and persuasive, distant and familiar, at the individual levels and taken as a group. Here is the brief response I'm sending them as this year closes:

How do we make sense of the immensity of our shared reality when it is both granular to the touch and ephemeral to grasp? Like a cloud that is at once there and impossible to hold. My answer has been that the practical essence of God is made in our interaction; both the interaction of society that happens inside of us, as well as that which happens externally. As such, the world makes most sense when we model it through the lens of society rather than that of the individual. For me the world is most coherent when understood through `social philosophy'.

Analogous logic to this thinking drives my fierce belief in liberalism; the philosophy that has individual human dignity at its heart, but pushes us to emphasize the quality of interaction within the boundaries of rights that it defines.

What do these two pillars of my beliefs mean for how I act in the world? Liberalism highlights that no individual should be subservient to another, while social philosophy reminds us that we are defined by others. And as such a tension between definition and subservience, between interaction and independence, is the defining feature of the struggle we face as actors in this world. Without the recognition of this tension, both sides of it suffer; without the cultivation of this tension, both sides whither.

Our interdependence is best served by public service. That public service can be as simple as the courtesy we show others on the street, and as complex as creating a lab whose primary mission is to improve the quality of government executives across the world. It encompasses every contribution to the public good in between. Identifying how we can serve that beautiful but ungraspable mist between us and the other at every level is our route to practically expressing God on Earth. I cannot recommend anything more fully than making commitments to public service.

Perhaps a greater priority today than ever before in my lifetime is the need to console and inspire those who believe in our joint humanity and the liberalism that best releases it. We must remind each other through our mist that we are right to believe in the higher sense of ourselves as the organising principle of our lives. And then we should inspire others to join in those beliefs. History shows us that such thinking is the future, but that it must be fought for if it is to come sooner rather than later. We have come so far, and have so far to go.

I have so often been inspired by that in you that is a reflection of the above beliefs. Let us echo on through history at the smallest levels, and any above that we can. Let us be pioneers of a modern vision of liberalism and as people invested in each other as investments in the bigger sense of the self. You changed me this year. Keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on ...

At this midpoint of my life, I have constructed an answer to my philosophical questions. It begins with the tension at the heart of knowledge of what form and structure to give competing ideas, and finds a social philosophy most coherent a response to that tension. In turn, social philosophy drives a commitment to public service at all levels of my life, from my family and friends, through my neighbourhood. It shapes my conception of the self and of the nature of knowledge. But any coherent answer must have a position on what it might mean if it is wrong.

At the heart of the way I have constructed my answer is the idea of being wrong. (These ideas link to so many of the posts below, I will not link to individual instances.) I start with the notion that any conception of thought must have structures and constraints, and as such may be judged to have components that are `wrong' in any standard sense of the word by some `meta-framework' that lies above these competing frameworks. Such thinking can be repeated with meta-frameworks judged by their own meta-meta-frameworks. My understanding of the world is that tradeoffs in these conceptions of thought should drive our appreciation of their value. In other words, how my philosophies deal with being wrong is a critical part of their value.

And yet the everyday lived experience of philosophy is that being wrong under some frameworks feels very different to being wrong under others. The bounded nature of knowledge implies that there may exist conceptions of thought that make even the most expansive framework in my understanding incomplete or incoherent. There may be `unknown unknown' realms of thought and these may invalidate that thinking within the bounds of my conception of knowledge. Imagine a theorist first being introduced to the concepts of empiricism. As such, it would seem that any philosophy that is able to hold up in a realisation of its boundaries must take a coherent position on that which it cannot conceive.

It must be that the boundedness of a framework does not invalidate thought within that which is conceived of. If this were not so, and since it is a general principle would be true of any subset of the conception of knowledge, only in a totality of conceptions of knowledge could be seen as coherent. Since the totality of conceptions include those that are not dependant on other conceptions of knowledge (or are dependant in a bounded way), then there are subsets of such that are coherent without full knowledge. It is in fact these conceptions that can be conceived without an appreciation of the totality of conceptions, and thus must be those that we conceive in our bounded knowledge. Coherent knowledge within their boundedness is a feature of our appreciation of them.

Since other conceptions of knowledge must interact with them for us to be concerned about the vulnerability of our knowledge to what is not known, there must be elements of our bounded knowledge that are reflections of elements of that which is unknown. As such, our investigations within the conceptions of knowledge we perceive are the best preparations for confronting that which we do not, even if extending of our boundaries invalidates our current investigations.

However complete we believe our conception of knowledge, we must strive to extend our understanding to that which we do not know. Though this striving must be balanced with the investigations in our current conceptions. Since the above principles mean that we do worthwhile work in exploring our current conceptions, how should we weight our tradeoffs between these two ends? In a social philosophy framework, the question becomes how should we as a social being organize our response to these two ends? Society should have a portfolio of investigations, and so individuals should value investigation of areas that are not societies focus. We should go to those investigations with an understanding of the broad features of our societies' answers, such that we can understand where we have new knowledge. And there is greater value in new conceptions of knowledge that interact with central elements of societies' answers.

To use an analogy I have used before, it is like we are choosing the path ahead. As the fog lifts on one set of paths, we can assess the value of each path. As the fog lifts further, we see that the paths we have been investigating are dependants of a fork in the road we would in fact not take given what we now see of the other set of paths. Our insights into assessing the paths we saw initially are the best preparation for the fog lifting further, and assessing those paths independently was valid when they were all that could be seen. As the fog lifts, our investigations would surely invest more in those paths that lead in the direction that we believe is truthful, while questioning whether the new paths are a greater truth.

On a practical level, the bounded nature of our conception of knowledge and of what it is to be wrong makes the search for how we are wrong in ways yet unknown to us an important part of philosophical investigation. But that we are bounded in our conception of knowledge does not make investigation within those bounds without value. Seekers investigating us being wrong are generating value in a comparable way to those who confirm that we are right within our current conception of being right.

There is a finite capacity for finding out what truth may be. So how should we structure our life's investigations? Simply the time it takes to orchestrate an experiment, a search, means many alternative experiments are unobserved ... consumption of measurement, the physicality of investigation makes full knowledge impossible. Physics is an infinitely repeated structure. Society is an infinity of distinct structures.

Is there a word for a person who selects the finest bike shares from those offered at a dock? A sommelier of CaBis? A 'cabilier'? Someone who can detect, from the look of the frame or the smell of the seat, what the quality of the ride offered by this particular vehicle will be?

For almost a decade, I have approached docking stations with an intense eye, looking for signs of wear and tear that might indicate the experience of my ride on this or that bike. What I was looking for was the fastest, easiest ride to get myself to my destination with the least resistance. It is fascinating how varied the rides I have had on Capital Bikeshares have been. On some you can ride without hands, speeding down the Mall feeling like you're flying. On others, the clack of the chain as it repeatedly slips not only becomes the music of your ride, but a reminder of your vulnerability as your seat slowly slides down into the seat tube.

This morning I rode CaBi 78564, a bike that inspired this blog post. Its bright down tube shone in the early morning light and there was something about its handlebars that seemed to me to say 'recently upgraded'. From what I could see it was my best chance of those on offer. The lights on the console flashed as CaBi contemplated whether I was worthy of a bike this morning. Then the green light of approval that has almost always given me a tiny thrill of acceptance in the world. Off we went.

It turns out that 78564 is a relaxed personality, who does not believe in speed. However hard I tried, 78564's message was that we should take things easy and enjoy the beautiful Fall foliage. Riders on what seemed like older CaBi's sped past me with ease. I repeatedly tried to turn the shifter to ensure it was at maximum.

However, as we gently travelled the winding streets of DC, I realised that this bike's peculiarities were in fact showing me a perspective on the world. Take it in. Stop racing past it. Enjoy the ride. Given that it took me a third longer this morning to get to work than it usually does, I had time to really enjoy the city.

And so, I reasoned further, had each CaBi been trying to show me its own particular perspective on DC and the world at large. Each bikeshare, with its own particular way of importing an experience of the world, brings to us what we lack in so many other areas of life: a rather random exposure to different states of reality. If it was your bike, you would make it fit your preferred view of the world. But its a CaBi, and you are going to experience the world on its terms.

As another person on an even more decrepit looking bikeshare peddled past me at higher speed for what seemed like far less effort, it pushed me to reflect on what it must be like to have your strength fade. To be putting in as much effort as you always had, but see yourself slowing down. To feel the strength of the human body taken away.

My ride home was on a stallion of a CaBi. The music was good, the sun bright and the Fall colors fantastic. It was pure joy. But the comparison to this morning's ride made it all the richer. It was like I had been set free again.

I am now on my 1278th ride and have travelled 2,649 miles on Capitol Bikeshares. My hope is that sometime early next year I will have ridden a bikeshare as far as Google Maps says it is from DC to LA. But this morning I realised that I had been missing a trick. I never thought of that journey as one filled with encounters with characters as varied and eclectic as the CaBi community provides. The crouchy old war horse that rode me to Georgetown. The spirited romantic that took me to the Arboretum. And then there are the stolen CaBis. What must it be like to ride them? What lessons could I learn from such renegades?

Now I see the randomness of my CaBi rides a bit like Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales', with each bike a personality along the way. And with each personality offering a different life lesson, my new morning routine will be to try to understand what this particular CaBi is trying to teach me about life. I was always surprised at how adulthood is less philosophical than I expected it to be. But I've been ignoring the lessons right under my bottom. The CaBi's random features are a lens into the world that is an intimate part of my daily life.

Though I will still look for the bike that makes me feel like I’m flying, I look forward to meeting whatever personality is in store for me tomorrow morning and beyond. I will now try to listen harder for the lessons he or she is trying to impart.

At the heart of the philosophical approach outlined throughout this blog is the idea that features of my society matter for my broader understanding of the world. Thus, as a defining feature of the individuals in that society, their philosophical approaches are a defining feature of the society that defines me. Thus, knowing myself is understanding the philosophies of the individuals in my society.

In the year leading up to my fortieth, I asked perhaps a hundred members of my society (friends and colleagues) to describe their philosophical approach. Over the week of my fortieth, I sent the following e-mail to others who I had not had the opportunity to talk to until then.

This week I turned 40 (yay) ... For my birthday, Caitlin has been compiling a book of entries from my friends and family about their philosophical approaches to life. I'd love you to be involved. Unsure of whether you've been asked, I'm simply bcc'ing you and including Caitlin so if you're interested you can send her a contribution.

At the same time, I appreciate you might not feel comfortable sharing these most intimate of thoughts. Please don't feel any pressure to contribute.

Either way, if you are still thinking about your life's philosophy, then in the next couple of weeks can I ask you to mark my 40th by stopping and reflecting on your wider purpose for an hour or two? And don’t feel that you need to communicate to me what your thinking is nor that you did it. But I appreciate you, part of my close society, taking that time.

The below blog post summarises some of the questions I have been asking at this point in my life, that in some way summarises my philosophical approach at this juncture.

My reflections around my upcoming birthday have been partly that my life has been filled with wealth. I have been gifted the opportunity of health, diverse experience and myriad and constant consumption. Such constancy of opportunity has always been a boon to me as well as sowed the seeds of a discomfort I have longed to better understand. It feels that such a discomfort is in a long tradition of unease with wealth that many individuals have expressed.

What is it about wealth that induces me to be concerned? In the terms I conceive it here, wealth is an increase in the ability to determine one's experience of the world. This could increase the breadth of experience and thus knowledge of society. It enables me to take advantage of opportunities to forge a more truthful life, and reach out to and echo through a greater network of my society.

And yet by choosing my own path, I am electing to strengthen my definition by some parts of my society, and weakening my definition by others. As such, I am isolating myself away from my original self, as defined by the original society that defined me. This makes me someone new, defined by the new social environment in which I inhabit. How does that new conception seem 'untruthful' to the old conception? Or to a broader conception that one could argue has meaning to my new self?

By choosing a path that isolates the individual from the fullest sense of their original society, they could be understood to be less defined by their original society. In the extreme, suppose that only a single aspect of one's original society drives your choices, and your future selves become increasingly defined by that single aspect. The end of that process is to no longer be defined by society but a single element of it, which as I have written before means that you lose relevance. If you are not defined by society, which is always relational, then in any framework of social philosophy you no longer exist as a philosophically relevant. Total freedom is in fact philosophical annihilation.

Let us take a concrete example. Man's relationship to Nature has been both fully defining and vulnerable. Fully defining in the sense that originally, man was dominated by its definition by Nature. Vulnerable in the sense that this left man at the whim of Nature's brutality. The general trend has been for man to work towards gaining dominion of this relationship, and over Nature as a whole. Such an effort extended man's capacity for philosophical reflection and understanding. At the same time, it drove a wedge between an individual's social constraints and defining features of what made them up. As such, they were freer of their original constraints, and thus less philosophically relevant. We no longer represented the world in our broadest sense of being defined. Rather, we experienced and are defined by a partial version of ourselves.

Such an argument can be applied to any aspect of our original selves. Anything that wealth endows us with the ability to isolate ourselves from is beset by the tension that doing so makes us defined by a subset of our society, and thus a subset of our true selves. That may be truthful, but comes at a cost of one part of our society choosing to eliminate another from our social definition. Without proper awareness of that cost, we are in danger of getting the balance of loss wrong, and isolating ourselves in an untruthful way.

One should, it seems, use the freedom that accompanies wealth to become more defined by society in a way that balances the truths of our multiple selves. The Nature example given above links to a question I was asked about my fortieth. How vulnerable to Nature have I allowed myself to be? (Not very.) And how does that relate to my appreciation of where much of who I am originally came from? (It seems important to open myself up to a better understanding of that definition.)

All this is part of my thinking around the 'question at forty' as to how one chooses one's society, and whether those choices are truthful. Wealth feels as though it has the disadvantage of limiting our philosophical selves, perhaps even if we are cognisant of its effects.

My overwhelming feeling about my life as I reach 40, is gratitude. Gratitude for the gift of life itself, the health I have almost always been blessed with, the richness of the people, places and ideas that I have been surrounded with, and the extraordinary every day that it is to be a lightly encumbered human.

My gratitude seems to start on a physical and economic basis. That I got to live at all is incredible, with almost every life I've witnessed revelling in life itself. That I got to live in this epoch, when we are yet to destroy the world but have showered its citizens with the gifts of earth's riches. And that of the 200 billion people or so that have ever lived, I was gifted a place in society that is characterized by never-before seen wealth.

And then that perspective is topped with the experience of love. Being loved by parents and a sister, by a wife and children, by friends and a wider family. Being part of communities, sometimes with tensions of inclusion and exclusion, but grappling with what it is to be part of a whole range of societies. Inclusion, rather than exclusion, was my normal if I am honest with myself. And this inclusion came with pleasure and power and peace.

My greatest gift, though it feels spoilt to say those words, is that I found a perspective and what I call a commitment, to Truth. Whether a luxury or achievement, it has allowed me to feel grounded and driven, in flow while being defined. This too is a gift, and the spark in my clod.

I have been bullied, as a child and an adult. I have felt anguish, from inside my home and with the world as a whole. I have feared for my life and made stupid mistakes. And yet all these are footnotes to my wider life to date. For my society gifted me a life approximating paradise. Mainly free of the fears and frustrations of most of life. I am grateful in a way I cannot express. That is a feeling and not an idea.

Simply writing this last paragraph scares me. How does one respond to such a bountiful life? How did I come to receive such extraordinary gifts without experiencing the ferocity of their definition? Why should I dare to consume them when they are not of my creation? I am in paradise but unsure of my place there. I am greatly blessed and searching. And that uncertainty and searching is all part of the gift I have received. I prize the doubt.

Thank you. Thank you to my society near and far for it all. I yearn to be able to write my gratitude with sufficient force that it reflects what I want to say. I cannot. Thank you.

As part of my upcoming fortieth birthday, I have been thinking about the questions that are at the heart of my philosophy, and those I am centering my reflections around as I come up to the end of this decade. These questions are presented below, and take the `if-then' form so to directly acknowledge the conditionality of their relevance. They contain a huge range of ambiguities, words that take a specific meaning to me, and so on. But they are a summary of my beliefs to date.

How wonderful it is to have children ... and how all encompassing. I am afraid that I have decided to stop this blog for the foreseeable future. Balancing life with children with the time needed to write this blog, however short, each week, is not something I feel capable of doing.

You act as though your journey was that of a river,
Bending the world to your passage.
But you are not the river, and so cannot pass.
You are society and are embedded in those waters.
You are a ripple on the river and must flow on.
Telling yourself your history is the creek that you have carved;
Limits your world to the physical borders you inhabit.
But your ripple is a moment in the river that carries on,
Ever changed by your existence.

It’s amazing stuff. No cup that’s ever existed has juice quite like it. And everyone else does to.

It’s a messy business. Everyday, whatever you do, your juice is spilling out of your cup all over the place!

If you go talk to a friend, you spill you juice. When you share a hug, or a story, or get upset, you juice is getting everywhere.

You’ve no top you see. You’re always going to spill whether you want to or not. And some of your juice ... well; it ends up in other cups.

Yup! It’s not that bad. How do you think your cup got filled up in the first place? Other people - like your Mum and Dad, Uncle Whatshecalled, and everyone in your life - spilt juice into your cup to help make who you are. To make the juice we call you.

And guess what? You can taste pretty great! That’s when you’re kind, or loving, or funny.

Of course, you are constantly spilling juice into other cups yourself. That means there is you flavoured Mum juice. You flavoured Uncle Whatshecalled juice. The more you spill into someone’s cup, the more you flavoured they are.

So what’s your flavour? It depends. You juice kind of tastes different on one side of your cup and the other.

When you are kind, the delicious part of you juice spills. When you’re not, you juice tastes bad. Its flavour makes other juices worse. If you cheat someone, your juice spills out of the side of your cup that is dirty and unwashed. Now that is yuck! And so the juice that spills makes others juice worse.

Let me say that again. If you are kind, the you flavour is great, and makes others juice even better.

So as people in your life walk around, they are going to taste different depending on how you, and everyone else treats them.

So now who are ‘you’? There’s you juice everywhere! You’ve spilt it all over your life!

What’s currently in your cup is a mix of so many other juices. And I suppose you are in so many other cups.

A fine symbol for social philosophy is the jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of the jigsaw is different, either in the sense of what is painted upon it, or in the sense of where it fits and thus relates to the rest of the jigsaw. Whilst we treat each piece as a separate entity, it only makes sense as part of the wider whole. We conceptualise a jigsaw piece not as a relevant concept in its own right, but as making sense only as part of a wider whole. Similarly, we could think of the pieces of the puzzle being made of the same underlying components, but made unique by its place in the puzzle.

Reversing this logic, social philosophy does not diminish the value of the individual in the same way that changing a single piece in a jigsaw dramatically alters the completeness of the puzzle or the message it conveys. Each piece of the jigsaw puzzle is valuable to the whole. Changing a single piece in a jigsaw can transform the meaning of a puzzle in the same way that a change in a single individual can transform Truth within society. For example, when one person in society realises some truth about nature and can communicate that to her wider social community.

The puzzle analogy links to the discussion on why we should strive. We work at a puzzle to make it fit in the same way that we build society towards Truth. Our ambition is to produce a puzzle that is true to its underlying form. In the same way, we should strive to build a truthful society. And it is in the production of that society (that in the case of social philosophy is a constantly evolving object) that we find our meaning.

I saw a man steal an altar cross.
He wrapped it in cloth and fled.
I followed him closely and swapped the cross,
For a single loaf of bread.

I returned to the church with haste.
I met the priest at the door.
He received the cross with relief,
And lay it upon the floor.

He carefully unbound the cloth,
With a care as if it were gold.
And placed the cross back on the altar,
Whilst the cloth he continued to hold.

You returned this item to me,
With its value far increased.
For this cloth I never valued,
With it we covered the deceased.

But now it is a possession,
More important than any I know.
Our friend has bestowed upon it,
The greatest Truth a man can sow.

I did not understand and asked him,
Why do celebrate this sheet?
Is it not just a cover,
For Jesus final earthly seat?

The cross is just a symbol,
Something to which we relate.
But when bandaged by this fabric,
It became like an offering plate.

For the fabric is now like Truth itself,
It is the link between us and God.
If the cross is a symbol of another,
The sheet is the connecting rod.

To the touch it feels like lightning,
It makes real what I am striving for.
It is a graceful physical representation,
Of the most divine non-physical law.

The same could be said of the bread,
That you gave to save the cross.
Without such retribution,
Your trade would have been the greatest loss.

For God is born in our interactions,
In the selves and not the self.
The Truth that you have shown today,
Cannot be placed back upon a shelf.

There is no greater symbol of God,
Than to give him a rebirth.
And sit with him and listen,
As he bakes bread upon his hearth.

There was nothing. There was not even emptiness. For emptiness would have been something of worth.

At some moment a spark arose from that nothingness and burned. It burned brightly. It was, for that moment, a speck of light and warmth. A crackle of righteous difference that ebbed from the golden thread.

Then again there was nothing. And from then on nothing reigned. There was not even an echo of that light. It had gone.

That spark did not have to come into existence. But it did. For a moment it shone.

That spark imbued the nothingness with a meaning. It transformed the past and enriched the future. Though it was immediately forgotten, it was light. And that light had meaning worthy of creation.

I am feeling emptier in my heart for a country I love and confused as to who the British are. As a self-identified technocrat, living abroad with an American wife and working for a global-facing organisation, the Britain I love and have most identified with is the global-facing, pan-European heart that throbs in London. The decision to leave the EU has drawn my country away from that part of its identity, and thus reduced my capacity to identify with that part of Britain. A part of me, perhaps the part of being British that I loved most, is now a relic of history.

As my sister told me this morning, when she heard the news she cried, not for her, but for my eight-month-old nephew Charlie. The reaction of my mother was typically British; that we shouldn’t worry and that we’d work things out somehow. But my sister was fearful of what is lost for Charlie. My mother, sister and I were fortunate to have been brought up in a UK of the 1960’s to 2000’s. It was a UK that was bursting with life, looking out for the role it could play in the world stage. It was that UK in which I, and even my mother (begrudgingly) would have identified solidly as a European. And that was a choice. We chose to think of ourselves as European. Charlie will have a harder time of doing so. Though we, as his family, will do our best to make him outward looking, his country has decided to be that much more inward looking and parochial. So for Charlie, the national narrative he will be immersed in will be a fundamentally poorer one than that of the last few generations.

Of course, someone like me thinks that Britain has been at its best when it mixed it’s traditional self with the rest of the world. It was at its best when it fought for Europe in both World Wars. It was at its best when it moulded the European Union from within. It was at its best when it was working closely with other countries, however frustrating that process might be. It was at its best when it understood that its traditions had origins across the world, woven together and nurtured off the north coast of Europe.

For working in the big bureaucracy many of us do, we all know how frustrating it can be to build a joint future with other partners. It seems so much easier to go it alone and have the flexibility of independence. But being alone means being forgotten. Every initiative I have ever been involved with that takes the easier, more isolated, path, has eventually died and been forgotten. That is the path my countrymen, or just over half of them, decided on yesterday. It is a path that substantially diminishes the contributions of thousands of men and women who spent their lives trying to build a better Britain within Europe. By doing so, we lose the legacies of some of the greatest Britains of the last few decades. We punish ourselves not just today, but yesterday as well as tomorrow. It is perhaps the greatest self-inflicted wound a country has enacted on itself in recent history.

And that is exactly how it feels. As though we have had an allergy that we did not treat. There was nothing wrong, but because we did not engage properly with those who voted for Brexit, parts of our society began to attack the whole. We did not know how to treat the allergy as it became more aggressive. Some people took advantage of our weakness and stimulated its effects further. But at its root was an inability to govern an increasingly polarized electorate. There is simply too little understanding of how to manage both Brexiters and people like myself within one nation.

We could say the same about liberals in the US and supporters of Trump. Or the French political elite and supporters of the National Front. As society moves towards a bipolar world, we have to identify a way that we can more effectively manage such large differences of opinion. Implicit in this is a potentially dangerous idea that my opinion is more valid than others. But managing the ‘anti-intellectual’ tendencies that Brexit, Trump or the National Front ride on is something I am happy to stake a claim in.

The referendum was further reaching, and thus more damaging, than a single election however. Being a part of the EU was a constraint on our policy making. That was its point. It was built to guide member states away from isolationism. That the Conservative party chose to put that constraint at risk was a mistake. That we no longer have that constraint makes the future of the UK a worse one than it would otherwise have been. We will now choose a more isolationist Prime Minister, we are likely to lose Scotland in another referendum, and our relationship with Northern Ireland is at stake. This will leave the UK’s median politician, let alone its median voter, a far less globally-oriented, forward-thinking individual. And they will not be constrained by the rigors of the EU.

In sum, this currently feels like the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I have had a very comfortable life, so that is not saying very much. It also sounds melodramatic. As my mum said, I shouldn’t take these things so seriously. But that ignores the counterfactual, something that will quickly be forgotten or said to be impossible to identify. That counterfactual is less about economics – British people will be OK – but rather about identity and who they want to be. This vote showed that half of Britain wants to be a small, inward looking, tend your own garden, kind of place. I suppose that’s fine, but for me it wastes a huge opportunity. For whatever historical or other reasons, Britain has spent the last few decades being a positive force in all kinds of aspects of global life. Yesterday it decided it would rather diminish its capacity to take on that role. That makes me very sad. Not angry like my sister, but very sad. The place that I loved to call home changed yesterday into a place I am not as comfortable being part of. I needn’t have moved to the US to feel isolated from Britain. My countrymen have done that job for me.

There is a silver-lining to every cloud. It will become apparent in the years to come. But I very much doubt it will ever make up for the shadow that cloud has cast over my increasingly small island. That is how I feel.

For all that we are, we are.
Reflections of our past glories,
And our shames.
For we are one and all.
United in our Kingdom.

I wandered naked through the forest,
Having shed the fabrics of my suppression.
I had left those who had hemmed me in,
To relieve me of my depression.

My sanctuary was my loneliness,
I had found space to be truly free.
Free of foreign influence,
That made me who I didn't want to be.

The shadows rippled as a breeze came up,
It pointed me to a glade.
I wandered to its openness,
And stepped out of the darkness of the shade.

There before me stood a mirror,
Of the like I'd never seen.
It was a product of pure nature,
As it had always been.

Finally, I could see myself,
My soul has been unfurled.
And know what was in my heart,
Without the poisons of my world.

But the mirror was broken; empty.
My presence was not there.
It was not my mirror; empty,
My true self it did not bear.

So I shall go on searching,
For the mirror that reflects my soul.
I am not a scavenger,
But free from the begging bowl.

The Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery has a wonderful exhibition on at the moment with exhibits relating to the Gentlemen Artists of the Ming Dynasty. It was wonderful to see how closely the philosophy of these gentlemen poets echoed social philosophy. One example is Wu Kuan's poem, `Hearing Cockcrow',

Screech, screech, crickets sing at night
Cock-a-doodle-doo, roosters sing at dawn
Sharply I came to a profound realization
The two things are calling to each other
Vast and vague, down from the beginning
Since the start the greater half is gone
All of us in life have our ups and downs
Every age has periods of order and chaos
We live our lives here somewhere in between
For which one truly can only heave a sigh
In my heart I hope I have earned no shame
Aside from that, what else really matters

Social philosophy dictates that the self is carried along within many other persons. We influence and define others, and thereby embed some part of ourselves in them. People thus give life to our wider selves by transforming interaction into being.

In the same way that we carry with us those persons who have defined us, we also carry with us other aspects of the world that have defined us. In the same way that we provide life for those who have defined us, we provide life for the rest of the world that has helped define us.

Whilst a rock is inanimate in itself, those interactions with it that define us lead us to bring that rock to life, and carry it with us in who we are. We are heavily defined by the natural world around us, from our physical limits to the sustenance we are provided. Each of these interactions defines us in some way, leaving a trace on our selves that we carry with us in our further interactions with society.

This has several immediate implications. First, Nature is a fundamental part of our selves. It has defined our physical and social selves, and we carry the rocks, plants and animals of past generations with us in who we are.

Second, our treatment of Nature is reflected back to us by our being defined by its character. As Nature changes, it interacts with its past selves as embedded in human society. It’s current self may have a weaker grip on our selves than its past selves. However, our contemporary interactions with Nature ensure we continue to be forged by its character and the changes we make to that character.

Third, our wider self is embedded in our treatment of and interactions with Nature. When social philosophy nudges us to tend to our wider self, it is a statement that is as much about Nature as it is about other people.

Fourth, if we are defined by Nature, and make philosophical choices, then these are partly determined by Nature’s influence. Thus, Nature is involved in the philosophical choices we make, and is thus a philosophical actor, at least in its interactions with us. Together we make philosophical choices. So Nature is my partner in my philosophical search. Tending to Nature is tending to my philosophical search, and therefore to the core of who I am.

How should one identify one’s value? In a private sector setting one might believe that the profit one makes is an indicator of one’s value. There might be some objective, non-relative means of deciding what a ‘worthy’ level of profitability is. In endeavours where such a market signal is not available, one must rely on other signals of one’s worth. Again, there may be some non-relative indicator for which magnitude can be argued to be approximate to value.

These indicators could be argued to be more or less ‘worthy’ in philosophical terms. Perhaps an indicator that approximated value by how violent you were could be said in most settings to be less worthy. An indicator that approximated value by how happy you made other people might be said to be more worthy.

A clear criticism of this is the social context in which these indicators are embedded. A gang member whose violence is simply to prove her ability to generate fear in others could be argued to have little worth. However, a soldier may also be violent so to generate fear in others, but towards the end of reducing the aggregate amount of violence in society. If everyone (including the gang member) feared one person’s violence, this might lead to a far lower level of total violence in society. The soldier’s capacity for violence may then be argued to be worthy. The soldier could benchmark her value against her violence in a philosophically valid way that the gang member could not.

There seems to be interplay between societal value and an individual’s local society. Value seems to be an inherently social concept. ‘Being valued’ or ‘having value’ implies that there is something beyond yourself (in a physical or social philosophy sense) that benchmarks your value. In the violence example above, how ‘bad’ violence is seems connected to the society at large. The value propositions would change dramatically if we moved from perpetrating violence on real people to characters in a computer game. This implies that your value varies from one social setting to another.

I think that is false. If one takes value to be dependent on society, one faces the challenge of choosing which society to benchmark oneself against. Given the infinite number of societies one can be a part of, the choice of values will also be infinite. Unlike in determining one’s Truth, where one must balance across multiple social frameworks to understand truthful action, in the concept of value we demand a single number. This requires a single unifying means of judging value across societies and frameworks.

What constant can be claimed to be of value in all societies? What feature of all individuals would allow us to benchmark their value given the myriad ways in which they can be seen? Their commitment to Truth. The most salient assumption of my social philosophy is that I assume that there is a Truth. This is at the centre of a society and at the centre of overlapping societies. I have talked in the past about a ‘hierarchy of truths’. However, I assume that the notion of Truth runs through all societies. Corresponding to this is my relationship to it, and the link to my value. That there is a single truth may be of no consequence if I do not relate to it. However, I define my value by the single concern of committing to the truthful act in whatever set of societies I am in. That unified commitment, related to the unified notion that there is a single truth in the societies I inhabit, is at the core of my value proposition. The more closely I commit to acting in truth, the more valuable I am.

This proposition is at the core of the tension laid out at the centre of my philosophy, that a philosophical framework must both be anchored in a base assumption and flexible enough to balance the infinity of possible frameworks one can use to view the world.

This notion of commitment to truth as the measure of value does not imply that action will be the same across societies. Far from it. It is truthful to respond to the social conditions of a particular society. Thus whilst the commitment is the same, the implication differs. Two people may be of the same value but take very different actions. The gang member’s choice set may be substantially smaller than the soldier who represents the state. She must then take the truthful action within that set. It is the commitment to taking truthful action that defines the relative value of the gang member and the soldier, and not the action. Once committed to Truth, the gang member and the soldier would likely take different actions with regards violence.

On Choosing a Career
14th January 2016

My discussions with friends, and my observations of others, regarding their choice of career is typically anchored in the individual. The choice is conceptualized around what would make the individual happiest, or at least happy, that would teach the individual or bring them skills that might serve them in the future.

Rarely, if ever, do I hear individuals thinking about how to spend their professional life based on what society might need from them. I do not hear the question, "However uncomfortable or difficult a path may be, what is the path that truth would have me take given the current and likely future state of society?" Such discussions might be made up of how to balance the competing needs of different formulations of society; whether the paths demanded of the individual across formulations were competing or complementary; and so on.

That I hear so little of this sort of introspection may be my social circle and the media I consume. But it may also be that it is not widely undertaken. If so, perhaps it is an argument that society-based decision making is a bad way to organize ones life. For example, perhaps the individual simply never has sufficient information about the rest of society to make efficient society-based choices about their life. The best one can do is simply live a life responding to the information you have on your own constraints and desires.

But the benefits, even to the individual, of making society-based decisions about their career path seem apparent to me. In the lens of the individual you may foresee three paths ahead all of which are informed by your current experience, skills and constraints. By taking a society-wide view of what your life should aim to achieve, you may look across the chasm along which you walk to see a place that you might truthfully contribute to. Getting there requires you to build a bridge over the ravine of your current self. This will be more challenging and uncertain than any of the three paths you see for yourself looking through an individual-focussed lens. But a society-focussed view of the world expands the range of possibilities for what you should be doing.

Suppose there is a likely chance that after some time your future self will reflect on the path you have taken and ask how it has contributed to society. Having focussed on a lens centred around the individual constrains your journey, and you may find yourself at a constrained optimum. In contrast, taking the society-wide view from the start means that your existing constraints and interests do not limit your journey. Your future self can then look back at the bridge you built to overcome your current self. You are no longer defined by your history, but merely constrained by it as you build towards the greatest contribution you could make. Your future self will see a global optimum in your contribution rather than a constrained one.

There is a chance society will shift away from your perception of what it needed, that you make a mistake in what you think society requires, and that you will make no progress towards the more challenging goal. But thinking hard about the tradeoff between the future based on the individual-lens and the social one seems a worthy introduction to any career planning effort.

I have skimmed the waters of Lake Atitlan and swum the ponds of Hampstead Heath.

I recently let my frustration get the better of me at work. I was annoyed at a colleague working on a project I supervise, and let this be known in a meeting. We have talked it through, I apologised, and I think we have reconciled. However, in this reconciliation, he told me my greatest weakness was my arrogance.

In a social philosophy, it is quite plausible that one would conceive one's personal society as `better' than another. The physical and other constraints to society being fully smooth (see On Lumpiness) create islands of society that would underlie such a claim. However, I struggle with the notion that such proximate islands are so distinct (my colleague and I could be said in many ways to be very alike and I regard him as a good friend). For me, our selves are wrapped up together much more closely than almost any other society I inhabit. It was in fact that I felt his actions reflected poorly on our joint society that got me frustrated. So to come across as so detached was sad, as it is quite the opposite of how I feel. Our joint self, which is equally valuable in him and me, was at the centre of the dispute.

However, society is lumpy, and we do live on islands. I should always be aware and respectful of the fact that another may better understand our joint self in a way I do not. In fact, due to the lumpiness of society, this is a certainty. What was my right to be angry at another part of myself when I may not have appreciated the full features of that self? To know the island you inhabit requires others to help you map it out. Understanding that should make me hesitate the next time I feel frustrated at something I can never fully know, my wider self.

You would reduce the experience of your society to a single breath,
And then weep at the loneliness of your existence.

Like a pyramid that looks to the sky, unaware of its base,
You'd absent yourself from that which underpins you.

Yet your society sees you as a stream.
It debates your present as it connects to their past and hails you as their future.

Bathe in these waters and watch your reflection shimmer in the light.
You are the ripples in that stream.

Turn to your crowd, and listen to them tell you that the point of introspection is to realise its futility.
Your soul is a mirror to your society.

Clamber down the steps of the pyramid, and look at the foundations of your soul.
Be both mason and stone.

Sing the Anthem of Humanity as you ripple through the stream.
Sing with the choir that is your society.

On Thirty Four People Who Most Define Me
1st November 2015

As part of my thirtieth birthday, I thought about and wrote to the thirty people I believed most defined me. As documented below, these ranged from my family, through teachers, to random acquaintances I met for a couple of hours. Who defines you is a key point of reflection for anyone who believes in social philosophy.

As part of my upcoming 34th birthday, I have thought back over whether this list has changed. Why might one expect it to change or otherwise? On the side of change, as I have moved country, expanded my family, and graduated from my PhD, my society has changed significantly. As someone who believes in social philosophy, it seems quite plausible that as my society has changed, so have I. Thus looking back over my history, some members of my past may now have less relevance for who I am today and other individuals have greater relevance. Similarly, with such a range of life changes, some individuals that have come in to my life may have changed me so significantly that they enter into the list at the expense of others.

In contrast, society seems sticky across place and time. Empirically it seems to organically generate constraints around a specific individual that fix her at some island in the sea of broader society. We change far less than we could. Even as I have moved continents, I am still very much a product of my history, and look to reinforce that by creating a society here that I feel comfortable and fit with. This precludes mixing with people particularly different from where I was at 30. The merits or otherwise of this is for discussion another time (though it relates to my blog On Home), but such stability seems to be something that happens to many people I know.

My reality seems to be somewhere between continuity and change. As I look through the list I wrote four years ago, I still see all of those individuals as especially pertinent for who I am today, but I would argue that the most relevant list is now a little longer. Perhaps as we grow and change, we become more complex and thus the appropriate length of list of those who 'most' define us lengthens. For example, the fact that I am now a father adds a layer to my identity and personality that simply did not exist when I was 30. Joshua certainly plays a significant role in defining who I am today, but it does not feel at the cost of who I was previously. He has changed my priorities and everyday activities as well as the way I see myself. But I don't feel that I have lost part of my former self. Rather, it is wrapped in a new layer of my current society. My society has gotten a little bigger.

Adding to that list would be my new boss. She has carved out a part of the World Bank that is a wonderful fit for what I want to do with my life. Her efforts over the last decade to create the unit of the Research Department that she has meant that I could move to it after my PhD. Without those efforts, I would be a different person, with different priorities.

In the last year, my sister-in-law has married my now brother-in-law. This discrete event has changed my conception of my family, but it isn't enough to substantively define me. However, the way that my sister- and brother-in-law have changed each other, and been an example to Caitlin and I in how to manage a relationship, means that my brother-in-law likely deserves a place. If he had been a different person, I believe I would be to.

When writing my list at 30, I felt that the degree of influence of individuals in my life beyond the list of 30 dropped substantially relative to those on the list. Once again, coincidentally my age seems an appropriate number of individuals to say define me on this day. So there is one more spot. At least one of my colleagues seems like someone who is currently and likely to continue to be so influential in the way I see my work, that they are changing who I am substantially. Their knowledge of the subjects I am interested in is better than anyone I have yet met, and so I gain another important teacher. (Teachers seemed an important part of my original list.) This final addition points to an unknown future. Whilst they have had a significant enough impact on me to warrant a spot on my new list, their legacy in me is fragile, and whether their influence is sustained will depend on the events of the next few years. To what extent can I predict the long term importance of those I believe are defining me today without knowing the challenges of tomorrow?

26th November 2015 follow up

I have talked to a few people about the exercise of identifying those people who most define me. I recently talked to someone whose list would have included few teachers or perhaps even family. His list would have been filled, he thinks, by friends. As I have noted, my list had only a single friend in it. Thus, it makes me even more fascinated to hear from others on who their 30, 34, or however many would be. As a quantitative researcher, I would love to have a data set of many people's choices, and look at what determines who is in your set. Just one more element to a quantitative philosophy.

Discussion: If you attempt an analysis of yourself like that here, please do get in touch and let me know the results!

Sometimes, despite being part of a warm and loving family, and working at an organisation that cares about the same things I do, I feel quite lonely. I believe it is at those times when I focus on the specifics of my beliefs that I feel most distinct from other people. When I focus on the broad features of my thinking, it is copacetic with those around me.

In social philosophy, we are defined by our society, and society is lumpy. Thus, logically there will always be some distance between ourselves and others. Given this, loneliness is an integral part of society. This was quite remarkable to me when I realised it, as it seems counter-intuitive. Flowing from logic that has been expressed elsewhere in this blog, for society to exist it must be lumpy. If we are defined by that lumpiness, we will be distinct from other parts of ourselves and of other parts of our society. Thus, at some level of inspection, we are fundamentally different from others, or other parts of our society. For society to exist, it must be true that there are distinct parts of society that differ, causing one to be alone in some part of one's introspection.

In fact, the feeling of loneliness is the moment at which we realise those aspects of ourselves that make it so that society exists. The question is then what the response to loneliness should be as a society. It is certainly true that some parts of my societies have allowed loneliness to dominate in an untruthful way. In the UK, I am always pained by the loneliness that many of my countrywomen and men feel. At the same time, given that loneliness allows us to sketch out those features of ourselves that define our society, it does not seem truthful to never spend time in that aloneness.

On Modelling Society
15th September 2015

What would a formal model of society look like? Understanding the nature of our societies and the societies we could have, but do not, experience requires an answer to this question. From a philosophical perspective, what characteristics define a society and what are the tensions between these characteristics?

The basic assumption of social philosophy is that society is the fundamental unit of philosophical analysis. Thus, any model of society must be made up of sub-societies, as this is the basic philosophical entity. Models of social philosophy therefore have a set of two or more societies as their basis. The model is then a characterisation of the relationship between those base societies. The societies we choose as our basic units could, of course, be thought of as having sub-societies, but implicit in the thinking just laid out is that we must choose a notion of society to act as the base unit in a particular model. (An example of doing this is focussing on the physical person, who in social philosophy is a society in themselves, but we frequently treat them as the philosophical unit of interest.)

Thus, a first choice in our modelling of society using social philosophy is to choose what societies should be the basic units of analysis (such as the physical person). This could be relative to a 'level of aggregation', such as a person or a household in a traditional framework. Aggregation is a term that would have to be defined in the framework of analysis that corresponded to the unit of society. (Note that there is nothing that stops us modelling society below the level of the physical person.) It could be symmetric, where all societies chosen are argued to have some common level of aggregation or defining characteristic, or it could be asymmetric.

This line of thinking pushes us to appreciate that since all societies could be broken down continuously to sub-societies, any analysis will always be one of multiple frameworks that can be imposed on the underlying 'sea' of society. The value of any single framework of analysis (that argues for a particular set of societies to be our basic units) should thus be weighed up against the insights of the other frameworks of analysis. Thus, a natural complement to any particular claim of a base unit of analysis is to understand its analytical appeal. For example, using the physical person as the fundamental unit of analysis might be argued to be of interest given the physical boundary to society it represents, but then what that physical boundary constrains in terms of society must be defended. A base unit of society will always have do to be defined for social philosophy (as argued in this blog post, all social philosophy analysis imposes a notion of 'lumpiness'). However, it will only be fully understood as a framework when it is compared to the other notions of base societies that could have been chosen.

Having chosen base units for a model, the modelling framework must then outline how the basic social units are considered with reference to one another. The nature of those comparisons is the second fundamental choice in the modelling of society using social philosophy. That they can be considered within the same framework, as components of the same meta-society (a society that contains other societies), is the fundamental assumption of social philosophy. Unless they can relate units within the same society, the basic assumption will not be met. Thus, any consideration valid within social philosophy is one that is complete, allowing for consideration between each basic unit. Otherwise, those parts that cannot be considered within the social framework are socially irrelevant, and thus philosophically irrelevant.

Whatever consideration is used to relate basic units, it must differentiate between them. If this is not the case, all units are judged the same, and we return to a single entity without social character that is no longer society. Modelling red and blue societies differentiated only by their colour must be done with a framework that differentiates based on colour. Importantly, it does not have to be based on connections. We only require that societies can be considered within the same framework. They do not have to interact and change each others nature. They can change the measure by which we understand them.

On Home
30th August 2015

My transition to living in the US has not been the smoothest. It has been the biggest culture shock of my life, despite having lived in India, Nigeria, and elsewhere in the developing world. Perhaps this was because I expected it to be similar to the UK. It may also be because for the first time in my life, it is not clear that I will ever go home.

But where is my home? What do I mean by that, and as importantly, what should I mean by that? Is home not a concept for me to choose?

My initial response from a social philosophy perspective is that home is not where you reside, but where you fit. As society defines you, it makes a place for you in the wider social fabric. You define others and they define you, creating a mutually reinforcing structure for your place in your society. It is perhaps not the place that you are happiest, but the place where your social assumptions are most closely echoed in other peoples, or the wider society.

Walking to our house in Washington one afternoon, I became emotional as I sung to Joshua ‘we’re almost home’. ‘I’m not’, I thought. This isn’t where I fit. My wife’s response was that she felt something similar when she moved to the UK for me, initially finding it a difficult place to live. Over time, she was defined by British society, and found it an increasingly happy place to live. Her new residence became increasingly like home as she was defined by its society.

Being displaced also gave her a different sense of home. It was no longer a fixed location, but where Joshua and I are. We are so important to her definition that she best fits wherever we are. I felt something akin to this over my transition to the US. It brought home to me how how important my wife and son are to my new world.

However, I couldn’t say I still don’t see the UK as home. Recently returning, I stood on a street corner watching people pass, and simply felt like a jigsaw piece that had been clicked into place. The faces, the discussions, and the pace of life, all rang true with a significant part of me.

But there was something uncomfortable about it all as well. People seemed to be homogenous in a way I had never seen before. I clicked into this puzzle because it was made of the same cloth that I am, but it was a single sheet of cloth made of similar threads. Spending time in a new society that was redefining me provided perspective on my old home. It was comfortable, but had me sitting with those closest to me in form.

Does this matter? Should we live with the closest reflections of our own self? Social philosophy would have contrasting perspectives on this. It would argue that society shapes us to make us fit, so we can more easily live our particular life. Our truth is social, so having a more homogenous society might make debate more focussed on our set of social constraints. (A more homogenous society may not imply a more homogenous truth, but it likely means that debate on our common constraints are more relevant to each individual.) It is also where we have most joint understanding, and information on other’s societies.

Social philosophy would also argue that variation is fundamental to our understanding of Truth. By being taken outside of our society, and by being redefined there, we are given an opportunity to appreciate the boundaries of ourselves better than we would otherwise have been. We are forced to appreciate a new set of social constraints, and the truthful responses to these constraints. We are confronted by the challenges of other’s in our new society, and their responses. ‘By being redefined there’ is important, as if we successfully resist our new society’s constraints we are not truthfully responding to our new society, nor giving ourselves the possibility to truly appreciate truth there.

At the overlap of two society’s truths arises a truth that transcends either society. Social philosophy argues the importance of understanding this hierarchy of Truth. By making ones home elsewhere, we can appreciate this overlap perhaps more clearly than if we stay within a society in which we are defined.

This logic brings up the possibility that it is truthful to make your home outside of your society. The question I am confronted with is therefore, where is it truthful to make my home? The answer is surely where one can undertake the most truthful action. This might be in one’s original society, where a person has the most information, the greatest appreciation of other’s constraints, and a legacy. It might be elsewhere, where the mixing of societies brings out some higher truth. Perhaps there is some optimal balance, where one tends to ones roots, whilst allowing yourself to grow where the sun is brightest.

For me, this thinking has soothed my transition to the US. I do believe it is truthful to be doing the work I am. But it confronts me with a challenge - to understand the new society I am living in, and it’s relationship to that I have left behind. Choosing where to make your home is half the battle. The other half is to appreciate its truth, and to grow in that appreciation.

As a researcher, my basic response to my work is to question it. How much do I really know about the topics I explore? What evidence exists that there is an appropriate action to take? However, working in Washington DC, I meet a lot of people who are very confident that their way of seeing the world is correct. There is a real sense here that people are confident they know what they are doing and feel they should just be given the money to get on with it. I met a lady today who told me 'I don't evaluate things, I actually do them'. Others have said similar things to me, and when I ask them how they know what to do they tell me something along the lines of, 'Oh, I know'.

As someone interested in social philosophy, it is not the individual's confidence that is intriguing, but the general culture of confidence that pervades Washington's society. Very few people here seem to have many questions about what they should be doing, but rather confidently go about their jobs with faith that they are right.

My interaction with the doer this morning made me think about which societies could be characterised as having a questioning approach to life. Are their countries that are known for questioning? My own people, the British, are generally quite liberal, and don't question each other's ways of doing things, and are frequently quite content in the boundaries of their castles. There are certainly questioners within our society, but I could not say that the British as a whole questioned their fundamental assumptions on a regular basis. I struggle to think of any nation who are known for their questioning approach.

I then wondered if there was a profession who could be said to be questioning? The most religious people in society think a lot about how to act, but they do not question the fundamental tenants of their religion. The majority of religious people commit to an institutional religion, and must therefore limit the degree to which they question their fundamental assumptions. Perhaps academics have the strongest claim to being society's questioners, but modern academia is dominated by subject boundaries, restricting truly free questioning of a subject's assumptions.

I really couldn't think of any society, be it a nation or profession, that I could characterise as questioning. The world seems dominated by a general lack of demand for questioning. This is not to say everyone thinks, as the doer does, that they are right. Rather, the lack of questioning may also imply that people think it does not matter that much if they are right or wrong. Though this is all speculation, the lack of discussion in society about our fundamental assumptions would imply something in these sentiments.

Social philosophy provides two ways to think about this. First, it provides a reason to continuously question ones life. Since an individual is determined by their society, changes that are far outside the individual's own action space can have significant impacts on their truthful course of action. With any changes in society over time, the nature of individual and societal Truth may shift. One needs to question whether one's actions continue to be truthful as society changes around them. Suppose a society needed one great magician. If there was no such person, it would be truthful for an individual to train for that position. However, once such a person existed, or a glut of suitably qualified candidates existed, this would significantly weaken the need for any other person to become a magician. Introspective questioning would allow each of us to ensure we continue to take truthful actions in the face of a changing society. But since our society has imperfect information, we should also question publicly, to ensure that we share information about our actions with others who may inform us about their truthful content. By announcing I am to train to become a magician, others can relate to me the dynamics of the magical labour market that I may not otherwise have been aware of.

Second, social philosophy, taking society as the fundamental unit of analysis, may claim that society does the thinking and places us all on a truthful path. There is little questioning in individual lives because society does the requisite questioning and generates the appropriate social pressures to move people towards a more truthful course of action. This would require the assumption that society's natural equilibrium state is Truth, and without reasoned guidance, it directs itself towards that state. One might go so far as stating that individual questioning might derail that course, since it would be based on incomplete information, or incomplete reasoning. For example, if society is experimenting with individual lives (trying out different ways at getting at Truth), then any incomplete reasoning at the individual level that alters individual actions disrupts society's experimental analysis.

My response to this is that such an assumption is both hugely morally demanding and logistically impractical. It is morally demanding in that it tasks us to act only on impulse, with all the associated consequences. Our awareness of the possibility of society's guiding forces implies that we should set up systems to think and coordinate truthfully at the societal level. We should try to do as well as society, hoping that the dynamics of our collaborative efforts are of a similar quality to that of society's own thinking. Giving in to the idea that society is thinking and questioning for us should thus be benchmarked against these joint efforts. It seems morally demanding to decide that these efforts should be discarded. And it is impractical because it is not clear what societal impulses we should give in to. Society frequently gives us competing impluses to respond to, and it is our moral compass honed by questioning that charts our course between these. Without a clear understanding of how we should respond to which impluses, giving in to a higher social force seems impractical.

Thus, with individual questioning a morally defensible position, I hope I can portray and support a more questioning society in my life. I would, however, be very keen to hear others thoughts on who one might characterise as a questioning society, and how much a plane ticket there costs.

Social philosophy is based on the notion of analysing philosophical issues embedded within a society. However, there are no prior restrictions on what the nature of society should be. In particular, society could be organised such that the collection of information about a phenomenon, its communication, or the experience of it could be common across members of the society (figure 1). Whatever external stimulus arrived at a society, the experience and information of that stimulus would be immediately shared by all. At the opposite extreme would be a society in which, though member's experienced phenomena in a shared world, they could not interact; they could not share experience or the information gained (figure 2). As individuals or persons, we would be 'islands' in society, unable to communicate or jointly consider our philosophical states.

All other versions of society could be characterised as 'lumpy' (figure 3). These are societies in which individuals experience and consume some part of the world alone, and share other parts with their wider society. The degree of sharing would be characterised by the mechanisms, physical and social, that society had for sharing experience and information.

The first step in understanding the nature of the society we are in is to note that each individual is formed, and represents, their society. Thinking of individuals as units of society themselves is defeated by the basic assumption of social philosophy, that the basic unit of philosophical insight is society. Rather, individuals are combinations of the society that formed them (as argued as nauseam below). Thus, social philosophy rules out the islands theory by noting that we must be formed from society (and ignoring for now the notion of subsets of society). A more general perspective along the same lines is that once a part of society can no longer be jointly considered with its parent, it is no longer philosophically relevant to the parent, and is automatically excluded by the basic assumption.

The second step is to note that if society were fully common, such that all members experienced it and understood it equally, there would be no variation in society. If society did not vary, then its constituent parts would be undifferentiable, and it could no longer be understood in a framework of social philosophy. (At the extreme of all societies breaking down into a single entity, they lose their social character, and thus are no longer society.)

Thus, these statements combined are an argument for all societies within a social philosophy to be lumpy. It must be that to some extent society is the glue between individuals who experience the world or collect information on it differentially to their neighbours. Though we are all summaries of societies ourselves, there are gaps between those societies in a social philosophy.

Empirically, this feels intuitively correct. It is physically and socially unlikely that man fully shares his individual experience of the world with his wider society. Physically we experience place and time, and typically believe that all philosophical entities in a society cannot share the same place and time. Social constraints and other mechanisms that guide our action seem prevalent in our experience of the world.

Understanding lumpiness as a philosophical state requires us to understand the nature of informational and experiential flows, the mechanisms of these flows and an investigation into whether we can change them. Is it possible, or more importantly, philosophically truthful, to change the nature of the glue that holds us together, moving to a stronger sharing of our experiences and information? The benefits of such strengthening would include greater understanding of wider society, and thus a closer appreciation of Truth. The costs are that we reduce the heterogeneity in our society's form. As we are increasingly defined by the same experiences and information, we increasingly become more alike the rest of our society. That reduction in diversity may in fact push us further from appreciating Truth.

Thus, social philosophy's basic structure guides us to investigate the optimal balance between embracing the union with our wider society and restricting ourselves to some local world that only we experience and understand. In the hugely diverse world in which we find ourselves, such a balance is personal whilst being routed in the wider social good of identifying Truth.

At the top of one of the columns that surrounds the Library of Congress Reading room (lefthand picture), where I regularly work, is the following quote (righthand picture):

It is from Lord Alfred Tennyson's `In Memoriam, Epilogue' (see blog post below on Ulysses). The poem questions the meaning of man's existence, and his relationship to God. A prevailing theme of the poem is the purity of God, something which man will never truly understand. There is an implication in the above quote, as well as the larger poem, of the universality of God, and man's distance from that universality.

I was reflecting on this quote this week, and what it implied for the nature of God. The question naturally arose as to what social philosophy implies for the Nature of God. The contrast between these two is the focus of this blog post.

Tennyson's quote and poem are highly representative of the classic vision of God. He is omnipotent and everlasting, having been the cause of creation and the only survivor of it. His nature is fully detached from the actions of humanity, and our actions do not affect it.

Social philosophy takes a very distinct view of the Nature of God. Respecting the fundamental assumption of social philosophy, without society God does not exist in anything but abstract form. He only exists in the sense of being the Truth at the centre of those societies that could exist. Once society is formed, He is immediately present in that society in the form of Truth. God is the personification of Truth. Thus, society is the physical birth of God. Without it, He exists, but does not breath.

This is a critical difference between social philosophy and the traditional view of God. Social philosophy would argue that God's nature is fundamentally tied to the nature of society. In each society, he has a distinct nature. Since Truth differs depending on the nature of the society, so does God's character. Individual truthful action increases the truthful nature of a society, and thus extends God's presence in that society. To be clear, our truthful action gives birth to a greater, more present God. It is not that we are a pure product of God, but that our joint existence is intimately intertwined. Our natures are shaped by the extent of Truth in society, and our truthful action extends the extent of God in our society. When we act in Truth, we make him more prevalent for our society.

A practical example is how our health is a function of the actions of huge numbers of other people in our society, from those who vaccinated their children so disease could not easily spread, through the doctors and nurses that treat us when we are ill, to those who drive safely to keep us safe on the roads. How healthy we are is the product of a vast network of decisions made by other people. Each truthful action extends God's presence in our lives by making our society safer and healthier. In the traditional view of God, one prayers to God to heal the sick. This God is external to society and acting upon it. In social philosophy, we pray to the God that permeates all truthful action in society, and that arises from our actions. He is the lifeblood of a truthful society, and fully connected with and dependent on it.

An important corollary of this line of thinking is that there is a topology of God throughout society. He is not equally present because of truthful action not being felt equally everywhere. He is more present in some lives than in others. As actors in society, we must therefore make choices over how we act and how we help shape and build society to spread God's presence to the greatest number in our society. It is surely a moral issue that the poorest in society, faced by more restrictive challenges, do not feel the presence of God as freely as those with the greatest capabilities. Unlike in traditional views of God, it is up to society to extend the greatest God to all its members.

This thinking does not alter some classical characteristics of God. He is still a force greater than the individual, since society is lumpy and no individual or sub-society contains all of society. Given this, we cannot comprehend his totality, and will never fully understand his total self. At the intersection of all societies is a version of God that could be said to be at the intersection of all humanity, and this may be a view of God that is believed to have a special place in our relationship to Truth. However, this intersection is still fundamentally determined by the characteristics of the societies of which it is made up. Society is thus crucial to both who we are and the God that is a reflection of our best selves.

The short story below on death stops short of discussing the implications of social philosophy for identity's relationship to death. As one builds a life, and an identity of achievement or output, a common refrain is to look back unsatisfied with how many things one hoped to achieve that one didn't. However, a social philosophy points to several flaws in this reasoning. They are all based around the idea that it is society that leaves the legacy, and not the individual.

Firstly, if truthful action is probabilistic, in the sense that there is some probability less than one that a constant set of actions will lead to the intended outcome, then it can be truthful to try but not to achieve. Such a problem may require multiple lives to be lived towards the eventual achievement of the intended outcome. The life that achieves the outcome is no more truthful in its actions than those lives that were lived in the same way but not chosen by Nature to achieve the outcome.

Related to this, there may be problems that require society to experiment with different ways of approaching that problem so to find the solution. This is distinct from the above in that it is truthful to undertake different actions from those who have tried before, and given that no set of actions is ex-ante known to be more likely to achieve the intended outcome than any other, each set of different actions is equally truthful. The lack of achievement is not a sign of failure for the individual, but rather an expression of society experimenting with different sets of actions.

This reasoning abstracts from the many nuances we must confront in our decisions on which actions to take. What if existing evidence indicates that one set of actions may be slightly more likely to achieve our desired outcome than another? Will everyone now follow this path, at the cost of all others? Such limited diversification is untruthful in many cases. The point I am making is that focussing on the truthful content of a single individuals' achievements does not capture the fact that it is society living through them. It is society's many failures and eventual success that is truthful. Everyone who is part of society's great experiments with Truth therefore share equally in its glory, independent of what outcomes arose from their actions.

How is death related to this thinking? Without death, there would always be the opportunity that the individual could change their legacy in society. Death provides a platform on which to reflect on the legacy of the individual. This is not a faulty task if that individual's place in their society is sufficiently appreciated.

However, misunderstanding the nature of legacy as a product of individual actions and outputs may tempt us away from Truth. This is true in terms of both truthful reporting and action. If one believes that our lives are discrete, as we near death we are tempted to retell our past in a way that secures the most promising legacy. We attempt a telling of our lives that rationalises our diminishing future options. This constrains our action. We are constrained in taking the truthful action, because we value those actions that rationalise the lives we have lived. If, instead, we realised that we are part of a broader society through which legacy persists, no retelling would be necessary, as each of our actions would live beyond our lives through the echoes of our actions in society. Thus, our aim would be to take the most truthful action at any point, like any other moment in our lives. The approach of death would not change that.

I have long said that 'Truth can be stemmed from a blade of grass'. Such a task, however, is Herculean. Why? A

In social philosophy, actors are clumps of society bounded away from the rest of society in ways that make them independent. A key boundary is the ability to fully comprehend the state of the world beyond themselves. This is a direct corollary of the fact that our understanding is bounded. As such, no single actor can comprehend the reality of the society in which they exist. If truth is a function of reality, no single actor can comprehend any form of truth. This is inclusive of their own. It is only society as an entity that has sufficient information about its reality to comprehend truth. Even then, it cannot comprehend truth in its fullness given the limits to identifying variation that its own boundaries impose.

I do not talk enough about how broadly I believe philosophy and the wider contemplative world fits into the framework of social philosophy. Most of the world's thinkers seem to me to be social philosophers, whether they knew it/know it or not. I wanted to give one example here that has recently touched me.

I have been thinking a lot about the poem 'Ulysses' by Lord Alfred Tennyson (I think it's to do with me getting old). It jumps out at me how frequently the poem refers to how society has forged Ulysses. In line 18, he directly states, "I am a part of all that I have met".

The point of this post is to say how social philosophy is widespread, and those like I who want to better understand it can learn from this work. Tennyson brings forth a fascinating point when Ulysses claims that he will 'rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!' Is it true that to truly be the best of oneself, one has to return to the societies in which one's greatest self was forged? What becomes of those of us who are forged in battle but have to build a life in peace?

And yet, this post is not arguing that we should passively consume the social philosophy of the wider world. Taking social philosophy to its limit allows us to actively assess the consistency of other work. For example, I feel that social philosophy would hint that Ulysses was wrong 'not to yield' and not to stay at home and build a better world for his people. It might argue that the truthful action is not to search for the societies of the past, where Truth was clearer, but to battle at home to find Truth in that place. Is Ulysses simply too old to change to undertake the truthful path? That's not the tension at the heart of the poem, and it doesn't seem to be Ulysses key concern.

To question this poem is difficult for me, as it brings me so much to think about. I do wonder, however, what a fully developed philosophy of society would say to this poem, and to the many other fragments of social philosophy scattered across the world.

Letters to My Generation | 24th May 2015 to 17th June 2023

Postings (in reverse chronological order)