Saturday, December 19, 2015

An Argument against Social Darwinism




Social Darwinism is a theory which equates human social organization with natural selection. “Survival of the fittest” is the mantra of social Darwinism which is a justification of social stratification, and exploitation of the weak by the powerful. Many rich and powerful people these days, believe wholeheartedly in it as can be seen in the documentary by Jamie Johnson called “Born Rich.” Many wealthy people believe in social Darwinism to such an extent that they feel justified in exploiting those who are weaker and feel that all forms of greed are “good” regardless of who suffers. Many con artists have justified defrauding others by pointing out that its always been a world where the strongest have survived. Using the natural world as a philosophical foundation that underlies their belief that they are doing the right thing by being greedy, selfish and ultimately sociopathic people have, started wars, gotten unfair laws passed, and basically have used all their mental capacity to accumulate wealth and power at the expense of everyone else. Social Darwinism combined with scientific materialism (which is a form of nihilism in my opinion), is a deadly brew for our species and our planet.

One of the main proponents of social Darwinism was Ayan Rand. Arguably she was a simplistic social philosopher and a social Darwinist to her core. She did her best to use scientific materialism which she coined objectivism, and the notion that greed is good, to nullify any natural morality her acolytes had. Many of her followers trained themselves to negate any natural feelings of empathy or compassion because, according to her, those emotions are a source of weakness in a world ruled by the law of “survival of the strongest.” Ayan Rand herself had a very sad childhood in Russia where her middle class family had lost two businesses to the Bolshevik revolution. Her hatred of collectivism blossomed into a general hatred of humanity according to twobiographies. Here is a great article from Slate.com which summarizes the sad story of her life and the underpinnings of her philosophy.

According to these biographies she viewed sociopaths as heroes. This can clearly be seen in her diary entry about the serial killer in the early 1930's named William Edward Hickman, whom she labeled a “genuinely beautiful soul” . She saw his lack of morality as a sign of ultimate strength and thus noble, despite his tendency to kidnap, kill and dismember little girls. He was caught and executed. Her only lament of his fate was that he “was not strong enough.”

Many of the worlds most powerful people believe in the notion that only the strongest survive and so therefore only the strongest deserve to win in the game of life. They believe that morality is a human construct which weighs down the movers and shakers of the world, who, if they pursue their own greedy motivations as far as possible, will raise up society with their capitalist ventures. They believe that greed is good, and compassion, generosity, and a sense of obligation to a greater good is weakness. Social Darwinism seems to be a convenient mental view or belief system which negates morality and justifies harming others simply because “might makes right.”

Is social Darwinism true? As a theory does it hold up to scrutiny? Does the notion that the natural world works through the law of survival of the fittest really conform to the actual evidence. I would say it doesn't. If a lion runs after a herd of gazelles, they only kill the ones who are not going fast enough. So, in order to survive you only have to run just fast enough to escape, you don't have to be the fastest gazelle in the bunch. If a lion is chasing a herd of gazelles, does the lion kill all of the gazelles except the strongest individual? No, the lion only kills the slowest. If all were killed except the strongest individuals then that species would most likely go extinct due to lack of genetic diversity.

Its been shown time and again that when a species is reduced to a small enough number whereby their genetic diversity becomes too limited, then that species is usually doomed after only a few generations. For example, even though they had survived when 95% of their fellow tigers didn't, their offspring down the road have succumb to more illness and genetic defects because of the lack of genetic diversity due to in breeding. Siberian tigers are an example of a species where only the strongest survived and because of that they will likely may become extinct due to lack of genetic diversity.

So, in a situation where a Lion catches the slowest gazelle and all the rest escape then the majority of gazelles will live another day and reproduce regardless of whether they are the strongest or not. Because most of the gazelles survive, genetic diversity is maintained and the resiliency of the community to illness and disease is preserved. Mother nature doesn't want just the strongest to survive, she wants as many as possible to survive so that diversity and vitality is preserved and thus equilibrium is maintained. Mother Earth strives for harmony in ecosystems and this is achieved through balance. If a new species of animal were to evolve or be planted here on Earth which were as strong and dangerous of a species as anything the imagination could dream up, then wouldn't it just wipe out its own food supply and eventually parish itself? Given that the natural world stays in balance through a process where generally only the weakest die, how can one claim that only the strongest deserve to survive? Many wealthy and powerful people feel justified in harming others because they have convinced themselves that they are chosen by nature to win and only the winners count in a world where survival of the fittest is supposedly the rule of nature.

However it doesn't take much contemplation to realize that its not a world like that. Instead of being a world which is governed by the rule of “survival of the fittest” its actually a world governed by the natural law of survival of the just fit enough. It may not seem like a big distinction, but it is. In a world where the law of survival is to be just fit enough, most of the community can still exist and interact and live their lives as a part of a greater whole. The interconnectedness of the species in an ecosystem is dependent on each population to be not too big and not too small. The balance is maintained by the natural law of survival of the just fit enough not the erroneous notion of survival of the fittest. Whenever a situation arises in nature where only the strongest of a species survive, then that species is likely doomed. This is not opinion, this is observable fact.

This pattern holds true for human economies as well. Capitalism, for example works best when there is a lot of competition, or in other words, a good diversity of businesses makes for a robust and vital economy which benefits everyone, not just the “winners.” The weakest businesses may fail but the majority survive, grow and adapt to changes. However, because of the fundamental structure of capitalism where money is used to make more money, eventually the largest businesses prevail and force the others to get bought out or fail. Eventually a few large businesses cause the failure of all other smaller ones by mergers and often unfair business practices. Once a monopoly is established , that sector of the economy becomes more and more exploitative of the population and eventually saps consumers to the point where they become too poor to buy the very goods that the monopoly produces. The system will eventually fail when survival of the fittest is the rule. Band-aids such as expansion of consumer debt can stave off the inevitable by loaning back some of the money taken from the consumers so they can continue to consume, but eventually the populace can no longer afford all the debt and interest and can no longer continue buying those goods. Eventually the system collapses. This has happened many times throughout history. A business that becomes too strong will eventually fail for the very reason that a species which becomes too strong, fails. Survival of the fittest eventually causes the system to become unbalanced and it collapses. Being too strong is just as bad for a species, and a business as being too weak. This is why in ecosystems you will not usually see a native species that is out of balance with the rest of the ecosystem because it is too strong. There are many examples of invasive species that are too strong for the non native ecosystem they were placed in and eventually because they were too strong they cause the ecosystem to become unbalanced. Because those species also depend on that ecosystem they themselves often fail. This is why survival of the just strong enough is a viable foundation for an ecosystem while survival of the strongest is not.

So social Darwinism is a fundamentally flawed theory which does not really work in the long run because it destroys diversity, and balance and eventually causes systemic collapse. Many wealthy and powerful people cling to social Darwinism because it allows them to feel they are doing the right thing when in fact they are not. They see basic human traits such as compassion, empathy, generosity and they see social conventions of morality and ethics as nothing more than weaknesses. This erroneous belief that greed is good, leads them to do many heinous acts, such as starting needless wars, or torturing those who oppose them. Social Darwinism is as fundamentally false as the notion of the divine right of kings.

So if greed isn't really good after all and I think its fair to say that spiritual masters of all times agree that it isn't, does this mean that compassion, generosity, loyalty, ethics and morality are not weaknesses? Yes! In fact compassion, generosity, ethics, loyalty, and morality are very likely ancient survival traits and here's how. During times when food, and resources were scarce, or when dangers were prevalent many animals evolved to band together in groups. This proved to be a powerful survival strategy. A pack of wolves is much more likely to survive than a single wolf. Humans are social creatures not by chance, but because that is what worked. Our ability to communicate and share ideas would not have come into play if we had not evolved the survival strategy of banding together in groups. Those traits that increased group cohesiveness were the traits needed for survival for most of the time that humans have been on Earth. Those who exhibited ruthless greed and had no compassion or sense of morality were most likely banished from the tribe or killed. Being ostracized from the group put them at a serious disadvantage in a hostile world, not to mention the fact that they would have been much less likely to reproduce. Those who exhibited loyalty, generosity, compassion, and morality were respected and protected by the group. This is true even today. This is why most people have the capacity to feel compassion, and why most people have a default tendency to do whats right, especially when their actions are being observed by others. The reason why sociopaths only comprise approximately 5% of the population is likely because those traits were actually a weakness and individuals who had those traits were weeded out of the gene pool. Their lack of compassion, loyalty, ethics and morality in actuality made them the weakest of their group and likely got them killed young because of it.

In the past, sociopathic traits were actually an evolutionary weakness but today is that still true? Today the community of humans has become so large that sociopaths are rarely ostracized or killed, and because they can retain a certain degree of anonymity they can predate on other humans for quite some time before being arrested, and put in jail. Does this mean being a cold hearted predator is a strength now? In the long run it isn't. For instance, a contractor who cheats and fools people may make more money than their ethical competitors but in the long run they will ruin their own reputation and will have to move to a different city or state. Martin Schkreli who famously raised the price of several life saving drugs to astronomical levels after acquiring their patents was recently put in jail because he made no pretense about his lack of compassion or ethics.   He is facing decades in jail for fraud and will be universally reviled for a long time to come. Did ruthlessness and a lack of morality serve him well? In the short run, perhaps, but in the long run, it didn't.

On a larger scale, a fascist government may seem strong to some, but eventually the world rises up against them an wipes them out. Its clear that both on an individual level as well as a collective level a lack of compassion, morality and ethics is not a strength after all. Ayn Rand was completely wrong, and given that she died alone and miserable its seems clear that even she was not served by her own philosophy.


So even from a purely selfish point of view, having compassion for others, being generous and kind to others, living by a high moral standard are all signs of our strength as a human and not our weakness.  

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Mindfulness Practice



I just found a really easy and straightforward practice that you can do to develop more mindfulness. 

Mindfulness is awareness. Awareness which can be tuned in to our life at any time. When we practice being mindful, we are actually filling our mind with what is really going on right now. For instance we can be mindful of an ant walking across our kitchen floor. We can get on our knees and really look at this small being. We may have all sorts of judgements about the ant being on our kitchen floor; we may hate that ant because it represents the “chaos” of nature infiltrating our well controlled environment. We may see that ant and jump to the conclusion that we must regain control of our life and to do so requires that we kill it because that ant will bring his colleagues into our house and surely cause our world to collapse. But if we don't really believe the ultimate truthfulness of our conclusions and judgements about that ant, and we just look without wanting anything to be different, then we are moving toward the pure awareness which underlies our judgmental awareness. This underlying awareness is the source of all beauty and it is our connection to our real life. The one that's happening while we are busy keeping everything under our control. If we see the ant as a unique experience just like the whirling plastic bag in the movie American Beauty, then we will see the sacredness of that ant.

Meditating is a great way to condition your mind so that it can see the underlying beauty of life, but it has its pitfalls. One such pitfall is that its easy to feel as though we are failing whenever we find ourselves thinking. We may not realize that the noticing of a thought is the gap between thoughts and when we notice that we are thinking, (before we scold ourselves for thinking), we are falling into the state of mindfulness. The ego hates this state so it wants to fill the gap with self admonishment, or even just the label “thinking” which implies that we were doing something that we shouldn't have. Noticing can be just pure awareness if we also notice the thoughts that come up after we noticed the first thought. When you lay your head on your soft pillow at the end of a long day, do you say, “pillow” ? Probably not, you probably just experience the bliss at least for a few moments anyway. This is the gap.

So, I have a mindfulness practice to offer, and I have to say it seems to be a good one for developing mindfulness because you can tell right away when your awareness has drifted away. Here's how you do it.


The next time your dish strainer or dishwasher is full, instead of putting the dishes away as fast as you can, try putting them away without making any noise, or as little noise as possible. In order to do this, you have to really pay attention to every little movement and you have to go slow. If you find yourself getting annoyed and frustrated then you can stop and feel that feeling state out of curiosity. You can contemplate what it is that is so annoying about the practice as well. As you practice this, you will see that in order to take each spoon out of the silverware cage, you have to have an almost intense amount of awareness. Just picking up and putting a spoon down on the table without noise requires that you are really paying attention to what you are doing. Just like looking at the ant with intense curiosity, you can notice every little nuance of spoon and you can notice how that spoon is resting on the fork underneath it. When you aren't paying attention then the spoon, fork, bowl will make a noise. It may make a noise anyway, but its not about getting it right, its about moving your awareness into the state of mindfulness. Whenever I do this practice, I have a great time because its kind of like a game as well as a great doorway into mindfulness. If its not fun then maybe you are taking the whole practice too seriously. There is no prize for getting it right, except that you will be living more fully and have access to the true beauty and wisdom of this world.       

Friday, September 11, 2015

A Few Tips for Virgins Who Don't Want to Be



OK... here's a few tips for virgins who don't want to be virgins for their whole life. If you are offended by references to sexuality then why are you reading this? 

1. If you are a male, go to Nevada. Prostitution is legal there. This takes the foot in mouth problem out of the equation and all you have to do is fork over the cash and put on a condom.  If you feel really bad about yourself and have a lot of anxiety around flirting, or courting, then maybe you should just go pay for sex once and have that experience and then you might not have to worry about it as much. Eventually, you will probably want to find someone who you can have a real relationship with, but if your anxiety around not ever having sex is making you all tongue tied and you can't feel at peace enough to even carry on a conversation with a woman, then you might want to get the sex thing out of the way by just paying for it.  Be safe and legal about it though. 

2. If you are a woman, then just try asking.  Believe it or not, if a guy is single, and is offered no strings attached sex, they will probably say yes, if you ask discretely. If they say no, then just know, that nobody in the world is attractive to everybody, besides, he might be gay, or she might not be. If you really want to have sex then just try asking. If you want intimacy, then that's something else entirely. Making love is an expression of the intimacy that has to be there in the first place if you want sex to be intimate. That means you have to get close to someone as a friend and eventually, maybe a lover. There are strings attached at that point, and it can be a problem to just ask, but if you think your friendship is strong enough to survive that jolt, then try it. It could expand a friendship into a relationship. They may feel the same and are hoping to have sex with you and are too afraid to ask, or don't know how to ask.  

3. The most important thing to remember and remind yourself of, is that your worth as a human being is measured in countless ways, and most of the time we are the only ones doing the measuring. Instead of saying to ourselves under our breath, "No one in the world will ever love Me." after a rejection, try saying, "Maybe they are still recovering from a difficult breakup?" There are countless reasons why one person rejects another as a sexual partner or encounter. Its really hard to know what is going on in other people's heads. So if we have to find an explanation, why not choose to believe in something which is not self destructive? Besides, why would we want to be with someone who can't see our inner beauty? You probably can't see everyone's inner beauty, but you can probably see some people's inner beauty, so why would it be any different for anyone else. There are people out there who can see your inner beauty. When you meet them, you will probably be able to tell right away.

4.  Its so easy to take rejection personally, but there really isn't much that's personal about it.  There are a million reasons why someone says no.  If you have ever heard of the Kinsey Reports you will know that everyone has their own level of sexual drive. If a person with almost no sexual drive isn't sexually attracted to us, then why should we be surprised? It doesn't mean that we aren't any good as a person, it just means that we didn't ask the right person. If the reason you are not getting out into the world is because you are afraid of being rejected, then your fear is creating your reality. If you did get out into the world and take chances, then sooner or later you would meet someone you have a spark with. You can't win if you don't play. Your fear of rejection is a much larger obstacle then what you look like, or how clever you are, or how tall you are, or how fit you are. There are many beautiful, clever people who never meet anyone because they are afraid of rejection. Face your fears and you will overcome them.

5. Sex is not a big deal. It sure seems like a big deal before you have ever had it, but its really not. Ask anyone who has been married for a few years. What is a big deal, is the relationship. Learn how to be good at relationships, and you will save yourself a lot of headaches and heartaches in the future when you finally do find yourself in a relationship. Learn from other's mistakes and successes; be observant and curious (but not too judgmental) about other's relationships.  

6. Learn to get into the habit of thinking positively about yourself. If you are looking for love to finally feel good about yourself, then good luck. How you feel about yourself comes from within and you will never be able to be OK with yourself forever by just relying on a lover's love.  I've known many who had loving lovers but still thought of themselves as "shit".  Our daily internal dialog is what sets the tone, and if you learn to observe your thoughts you may notice what you are habitually saying to yourself. Is your internal dialog self critical? A self critical internal dialog will eventually lead you to feeling really bad about yourself.  You can change that over time.  In fact, self confidence is the main thing that makes you attractive to others, not looks. Self confidence comes from believing in yourself as a basically good person, someone who is worthy of love.  Every day we come to negative conclusions about ourselves that are just not true, or at least can not be known with certainty.   In other words, we beat ourselves up. Try getting into the habit of being positive. Make a mental list before you go to sleep at night. List the things you liked about the day, list the accomplishments you may have made. List the things you will do in the future that will be great. Or make a list of the traits you have that serve as evidence you really are basically good and lovable; maybe not perfect, but deep down good. Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Nobody ever is. Learn to love yourself, because most other people will not be able to love you if you haven't learned to love yourself first.  If you learn deep down that you are lovable, and basically good, then it won't matter if you meet the right person because you will be comfortable with being alone. When you are comfortable in your own skin then when you do meet someone you have a spark with you will be much more likely to be able to form a healthy, happy relationship with them that is based on mutual respect and love and not one based on insecurity and fear. 

Learning to challenge and see through your self doubt is the biggest task we all face as human beings.  When you overcome your self doubt, and self loathing, you will be at peace whether you are still a virgin or not.     

Sunday, March 1, 2015

On Being a Bodhisattva





What does it mean to be a Bodhisattva? Does it mean you have to be a super human with super-powers who flies in the moment someone is in distress and you fix the day with your superior skillful means? Is it about being someone great?  Is being a Bodhisattva a goal of personal achievement where you start by helping others when they clearly need it, and over time become better and better at helping until you are like the Bodhisattvas of the past?

I would say.... no. This is not what it means to be a Bodhisattva.  In fact this is the trap that our ego sets to prevent us from being helpful to others. Egos are so clever at turning altruism into paths toward personal greatness.  When I first took the Bodhisattva vow, I thought that it was about helping others.  It is in a way, but not from the perspective of  a selfish personal agenda no matter how subtle that agenda is. In fact, what I found is that trying to be helpful to others from the perspective of becoming great never works.  In the past when I tried to help others I didn't usually realize that I was really motivated largely by selfishness, and not by any real care for the person I was "trying" to help.  Whenever I tried to help, it would almost always backfire in some way.  The "help" would turn out to either separate them from me or  make the situation worse for them.

A good example of this kind of egoic negative consequence born out of good intentions is the temperance movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  Many temperance activists thought they were saving society from the scourge of alcohol by working hard at making it illegal. The end result was arguably much worse for society.  It didn't really stop people from drinking alcohol, instead it caused a huge black market to develop which was fertile ground for organized crime to gain a real foothold in our country. Organized crime syndicates didn't go away after prohibition was repealed, they only grew into other black markets such as prostitution, racketeering, money laundering, as well as having many other corruptive influences on society. I think its fair to say that their good intentions backfired and actually made the world worse than it had been.

Once I realized that the ego was hijacking my attempts at being more helpful I really stopped trying to be helpful for fear that I would do more harm than good.  I think a lot of people who take the Boddhisattva vow fall into this same hole.  It is very crippling to realize that even when you want to help, there is a good chance that you will create more harm in the long run if you try.  Its easy to lose faith in your ability to be truly helpful and its easy to come to the conclusion that you need to be fully enlightened before you can be truly helpful to others.  Then and only then, we tell ourselves, will we have the wisdom and skillful means to be truly helpful.

Luckily, I didn't fully believe in that line of thinking. I still thought, that there must be a way to be truly helpful to others even before my ego went away.  I'm glad to say that I did find a way. Its so simple that its very easy to miss.  I've found through my observations that in order to be truly helpful to others you have to truly care about them first.  I found that if you really really care about someone then you really don't even need to do anything to be helpful. Just the act of really caring about them is often helpful in and of itself. If you truly care about someone then I believe its pretty darn hard to screw it up, because your ego is out of the picture.  When you truly care about someone and they need help, its usually pretty obvious what needs to be done, and its usually pretty easy to do it.  People sense when you really care about them, and so the process of "helping" them becomes more of a process of solving a problem with them rather than for them.  When you really care about someone, its really easy to give them things they need. The gifts really mean a lot to them too, because its not done out of pity its done out of friendship and maybe even love.  Pity is a form of being superior to others and that is just ego trying to make you into someone you are not.  No one is superior to anyone else in the same way that apples are not superior to oranges.

So, if you want to become a better Bodhisattva the path is very simple and very clear, but not necessarily very easy.  You have to recognize the strategies and habits the ego uses to separate you from other. You have to realize that you are as equally important as the other no matter what differences in ability or status there may be between you.  You have to realize that every living entity is sacred and dynamic and everyone is a one of a kind masterpiece in their own unique way.

You have to be able to recognize when you are judging someone and remember at that moment that any reasons you may have to judge them are only from a narrow finite perspective and not from the broader truth that it is not up to us to decide whether someone else is worthy of our help, or if they "deserve" to be helped. The only thing we can truly know about someone else is that they are a manifestation of the one big life that we are all apart of and are born out of.  The universe is so vast and time in both directions is so infinite that how can we say with any certainty that this person is "good" and that person is "bad"?  If we have all had many lives as so many Buddhas have said, then how can we judge?  They are who they are right now, but that doesn't mean they will be that way forever.

According to Karma theory we all have the tendencies that we do because of the habits developed in the past.  Since we are always changing, isn't it totally fallacious to assume that just because someone is a jerk today that they will always be that way?  We have most likely seen in ourselves the wide range of persons we can be depending on what the circumstances are in the moment.  We can be a saint and a sinner all in the same day. We can be stupid in some ways and really smart in others. We can have a big heart at times and almost no heart at others.  If these things are true of ourselves, then why wouldn't it be true of others too? How can we judge?

If you want to become a useful person in this world and truly accomplish something that will last and reverberate throughout time, then learn to love others unconditionally.  Learn to see their beauty, and we all have that beauty at our core no matter what heinous crimes or misdeeds we may have done.  Look for that beauty instead of looking for perfection. There is no perfection because perfection is always an oversimplification of life. The beauty of life shines in us all equally because as Eckhart Tolle says, we don't have a life, we are life.

If you can't see the beauty in another person, then contemplate what mental habit you are using to separate and elevate yourself above them, and question the validity of that belief.  If we can see the beauty in another just as their mother or father did when they were born, then we will have a heart of love for them, and they will sense it.  It will be incredibly healing for them and probably for you too.  I've found that usually the hardest heart has a soft core just underneath.  Look for that rather than convincing yourself that they are bad to the core.  Learning how to love unconditionally is the true work of a Bodhissatva and when one can master that, they will be truly helpful to all.