Rational Philosophy

On Stanley Fish’s views on the humanties, and congress’s obsession with baseball.

Stanely Fish has this to say about whether studying the humanties can change us for the better: “Do the humanities ennoble? And for that matter, is it the business of the humanities, or of any other area of academic study, to save us? The answer in both cases, I think, is no.” Fish argues that the humanities serve no purpose whatsoever, but that this is OK, since “an activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good.”

To which feel moved to give a short rebuttal (”bullshit”) but feel a sense of duty to respond with something longer and more thoughtful. Back to that in a minute.

The other matter that has me scratching my head again today is all the fuss in congress over baseball drug use. Perhaps this is one of those cultural or political gaps that comes from being born and raised elsewhere, but why on earth does the government feel it should spend taxpayers’ money investigating drug use in baseball? Roger Clemens has been desperately defending himself against the allegations in the recent report. And he should be held accountable if he’s sullied the name of baseball, but by the government?

How does this relate to Stanley Fish and his misapprehension of the value of the humanities? Well, you can find echoes of Kafka and Beckett and Heller in the congress’s pursuit of the baseball players abuses, just as you can find echoes of Kafka and Vonnegut and, yes, Heller again in the Bush administration’s press to invade Iraq and chronic abuse of human rights.

Over the weekend I saw “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Granted not a film of any great artistic merit, although effectively done, but it helps illustrate the point. I came out of the theater with a renewed sense of urgency about the value and hidden dangers of the political process, with a new sense of outrage at the current administration’s deliberate mishandling of the current war and manhandling of our rights. Could I have reached the same sense of outrage without the movie? Sure, but that’s not the point.

The humanities, along with news media, word of mouth, personal observation, government and independent reports, etc., give us a picture of the world we live in. In some cases, the humanities give us a picture that we couldn’t get in any other way (because it’s purely imaginitive or impressionistic or surreal). I would pose the reverse question to Fish. If humanities don’t serve a purpose, why do they exist?

We strive to create art because we want to represent something — an emotion, an impression, an urge, a feeling – that seems important to us. Art is the tangible manifestation of our humanity. Without art we have no tangible manifestation of our humanity. Some can live in such a world, perhaps, but most of us cannot.

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Putting into perspective a report that illegal drug use in the UK army is on the rise, the UK’s Ministry of Defense points out that ”Positive rates in the army over the past four years average around 0.77 percent, compared with more than 7 percent in civilian workplace drug testing programs in Britain.”

Barak Obama has admitted drug use as a young man, risking voter backlash, but doubtless winning support for his honesty — a rare thing in politics.

Then we have the baseball steroid report, and Marion Jones stripped of her Olympic medals. (As a side note, if she weren’t broke Marion Jones would be paying back her winnings — I haven’t seen anything about baseball players returning earnings…)

In making this connection between recreational drug use and the use of drugs in recreational activity, I’m not immediately sure whether a connection exists.

Still another way, of course, that we use drugs, is to help us get better or feel better when we’re sick. (Like the antibiotics I’ve been taking for my pneumonia.)

If a philosophical connection exists it must derive from the idea that an external substance taken into the body to cause some response can be deemed unnatural and therefore suspect.

To the list of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, amphetamines, LSD, ecstasy, opium, steroids, stimulants, antibiotics, antihistamine, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, etc. we would then have to add tobacco, coffee, tea, and alcohol.

Society makes a further distinction by labeling some drugs illegal, whether they be recreational drugs, or performance enhancing drugs. But if we take legality out of the equation for a moment, and think about the spectrum of drugs from first principles, how would we begin to determine whether some drugs were OK and others not OK?

Surely alcohol is to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from marijuana, heroin, amphetamines and cocaine if we consider the risks and affects of its consumption? And tobacco has a less profound effect on one’s state of mind, but really does a number on your long term health.

I’m not necessarily arguing that illegal drugs should be legalized, but instead that there’s a good deal of emotion involved in our perspective on drugs rather than sound, rational thought.

The vilification of drug-takers in sport centers on the unfair advantage that the drug-taker has over the none drug-taker. This is indeed a rational perspective. The none drug-taker presumably has chosen to avoid drugs (one imagines he can get them if he wants them). His choice is rational — the drugs he’s avoiding aren’t condoned and are perhaps illegal, and may even be detrimental to his health. His rivals achieve higher levels of performance just because they take the drugs, without declaring their advantage. He’s not a sucker; his rivals are cheats.

Nevertheless, the way society regards performance enhancing drugs depends on the rules and principles that society adopts.

But there are two things, as far as I can see, that can be intrinsically wrong with recreational drugs:

1. That they can be detrimental to a person’s health. For this reason, society should strive to educate people about the dangers of drugs and provide adequate treatment for drug users.

2. That they can cause people to harm or endanger others. The drunk driver, the cocaine-hyped killer, etc. It’s reasonable for society to protect itself from those who abuse and endanger. But the degree of protection must be weighed against the risk and against the loss of liberty for those who can behave responsibly.

(In case you can’t read the cartoon text, it says: “Jerry doesn’t do drugs anymore. He says he gets the same effect just standing up really fast these days.”)