Food for Thought

I have been re-reading pieces of one of my favorite books, and I came back across a passage that really resonated with something that I have been thinking about lately. I think that this one paragraph is really talking about the biggest problem that we face in the world today, and maybe have always faced:

Faith in life's inherent worthwhileness and sanctity is needed to counteract the cynicism that sneers at life and mocks at the very notion of holiness. Against such a cheapening of life's values no social idealism that does not reckon with the cosmos as divine is an adequate remedy. How can a social idealist ask men to deny themselves immediate satisfactions for the sake of future good that they may never see in their lifetime, when he leaves them without any definite conviction that the universe will fulfill the hopes that have inspired their sacrifice, or is even able to fulfill them? If human life does not yield some cosmic meaning, is it not the course of wisdom to pursue a policy of "Eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die?"

- Mordecai Kaplan, The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion.

Obviously, the discussion here comes from a religious point of view, but let's put the religion aside for a second and talk about the problem Kaplan describes. Namely, how do we motivate people to care about a future that they will never live to see? This is the fundamental question underlying our problems with the environment, corporate corruption, social security, and the list goes on. It is clear to see that we are raping the earth today at the expense of future generations. Framed correctly, many, if not all, major problems in the world can be viewed in light of this question.

I think that there are two potential answers to this question, and that the answers are not mutually exclusive. I will start with the one that I feel that I have more of a stake in. I think one answer is to attempt to find some way to economically reward (punish) people in the short term for actions that will provide benefits (cause harm) in the long term. "Pricing in" environmental externalities would be one example, but not necessarily a good one. The big question is, in my mind, how do we do this? Is it possible? I don't know. I don't know how to economically incentivize a CEO to make a decision that will make his company better off after he is dead, at the expense of maximizing profit in the short term. Or, i guess i should say that i don't know how to align short term profit with long term profit. That is the real question, how do we make short term profit and long term profit the same thing? I think that if we can do that, we will really change the world, and I am going to try to figure it out, or at least a little piece of it.

The other answer is Kaplan's answer, which I will quote at the end of this post. Kaplan's answer, is to teach people to make decisions based on faith that our actions have meaning, and that the world has meaning beyond "eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die." In other words, instead of figuring out an economic system that rewards doing the right thing (i.e. what i wrote above), figure out how to get people to do the right thing, even when it is not in their economic best interest. To him, and to me, this is the role of religion in our lives. I think that these two solutions go hand in hand and can both be pursued at the same time, but I think that I can make more of an impact on the economic side of things.

I hesitate to write about religion, but I am going to take the plunge and write a couple of related questions and thoughts.

If we accept this as the role of religion, one question I have is, does other-worldly religion help or hurt people in making the right decision? This is a tough question. I guess I should preface my thoughts on it with the disclaimer that I do not believe in Heaven and Hell, or in the afterlife in general. Or, more accurately, I just believe that the afterlife is irrelevant. With that said, there are both good and bad things to be said about those who focus on the afterlife. On the one hand, the afterlife does give people some incentive to think about right or wrong, because they are worried about making decisions that will get them into heaven or keep them out of hell, even when those decisions may not be in their economic best interest in this life.
The heaven/hell concept is also pretty easy for poor, downtrodden, uneducated people to understand and buy into.

On the other hand, the concept of the afterlife inherently makes this life less meaningful. If this life is temporary and miserable compared to eternal salvation, who cares what state the world is in when you die? If we think about it historically, the afterlife is the part of religion that was created as the opiate of the masses. The afterlife concept comes from the fact that in the middle ages, people felt so powerless in this life. They had no hope on earth, so they created a utopia in heaven where they could still have hope. I would prefer that people believe that such a utopia is possible on this earth. Also, the concept of the afterlife cheapens the value of doing the right thing. Instead of understanding that showing kindness to others is its own reward, people only see showing kindness to others as a path to eternal salvation. In the end, people are losing out because their salvation is right in front of them, not in the afterlife. I guess I have just shown my personal belief, but other people may disagree.

I only bring this up to say that the religious answer to the question of "How can a social idealist ask men to deny themselves immediate satisfactions for the sake of future good that they may never see in their lifetime?" does not require belief in heaven or hell, or any religious dogma in particular. All that it requires is for people to believe that their actions have meaning, and that life has value. This is basically what Kaplan says in the quote below. This belief is what he labels as God, or the god concept, but you can label it anything you like, as long as you believe it.

So, I have written a lot here, and I will leave you at last with the next paragraph of Kaplan's book, and hope that people interpret it correctly without having read the rest of the book. I would be happy to answer any questions or discuss this further if anyone actually read this far and is interested.


From Kaplan:

Belief in God as here conceived can function in our day exactly as the belief in God has always functioned; it can function as an affirmation that life has value. It implies, as the God idea has always implied, a certain assumption with regard to the nature of reality, the assumption that reality is so constituted as to endorse and guarantee the realization in man of that which is of greatest value to him. If we believe that assumption to be true, for, as has been said, it is an assumption that is not susceptible of proof, we have faith in God. No metaphysical speculation beyond this fundamental assumption that reality assures both the emergence and the realization of human ideals is necessary for religious life.

...and so begins the Year of Responsibility

So, this post is where I lay out the Year of Responsibility, which I feel like couldn't have arrived at a better time. First, however, I would like to follow up with one important lesson from the Year of Discipline that I left out of my last post. I think I am going to write a lot tonight.

Possibly the most important thing that I learned last year was how important it is to love myself. I have always really struggled with it, and this year I finally learned to love myself. This is important, because I realized that if I don't love me, how can anyone else possibly love me? I am sure I could write a lot about this, but I will just point out one offshoot of this idea, and leave the rest for everyone else to figure out on their own.

The one thing that I will point out is how this concept seeps its way into even small things in life. For example, eating a slice of pizza will taste good. In the short term, it will satisfy some carnal pleasure, and maybe bring me a moment of happiness. However, slice by slice, that pizza will make me feel worse about myself in the long run. Each time I eat a piece, i will be a little bit disappointed in myself, because I won't be the healthy, disciplined person that I want to be. Each time, I will be someone that is less of what I love about myself. I am not saying that I should NEVER eat pizza, nobody loves a boring anal hardass either. All I'm saying, is that little things which you might not realize affect your self-image do affect it, and that in the long run these things will add up to have a big impact on your happiness and fulfillment.

Ok, on to the Year of Responsibility. I may follow up another time with some big picture motivations for why I want to do these things this year, but for now, here are some specific goals that I have for myself this year:

- Do at least one community service project a month. (I am hopefully kicking this off tomorrow by volunteering at the food bank with my Mom's boyfriend)

- Celebrate Shabbat on Friday night at least once a month, by either having shabbat dinner and lighting the candles and staying in, or going to services, or both.

- Donate a minimum of 5% of my income to charity, with a goal of 10%.

- Manage my finances better. This will involve tracking all of my transactions in financial software such as Quicken, and possibly setting a budget too.

- Really sit down and do a GTD-style weekly review. This may start out as once a month and build up to weekly.

- Write in this blog at least once a month (I am going to start out right after this with another post tonight).

- Each month, write to one person that I care about but haven't kept in touch with when I meant to.

- Put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher, instead of the sink.

- In general, make less of a mess to begin with instead of making a big mess, cleaning it up, and making another big mess.

Finally, a couple of holdovers from the year of discipline:
- Take my vitamins every day.
- Floss every day.

Ok, I may develop more as I go along, but I think this is a pretty good list for now. It may seem like a lot of resolutions, but I really think I can fit all of these in, and that I will feel really good about them when I do them.