The Philosophy/Religion of Boskeism

Causal Reductionism

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:35:28 PST

It's been almost 6 months, but I return.

I am looking for others who are willing to help me develop the writings of this "religion." Remember, I call it a religion because most of what is discussed here, especially the idea of Naturalism, are philosophical and nature and cannot be proven. Thus they have to be taken on faith.

On to the show:

Causal Reductionism

This one is so big to Boskeism that I don't know how I haven't touched upon this before.

Causal Reductionism is trying to pin one cause with being the reason something happened, though there are most likely other reasons.

An example of such a thing would be

Boskey's shirts don't fit anymore because they've all shrunk.

This of course disregards any expansion that Boskey has encountered in his upper body that would have contributed to such a thing.

I can't begin to describe just how lazy I think this is. Very rarely, if ever, is there a sole reason that something happened. So many variables just in the present contribute to either make or allow something to happen that to try to point to just one of them is almost always a futile task. Plus, to get to the point of believing in a sole cause, you have to invariably ignore everything that happened in order to get to that point. How many variables in the past could be changed in order to create a situation where whatever happened didn't?

Boskey's shirts don't fit anymore because they've all shrunk.

They shrank because Boskey put them in the dryer? He put them in the dryer because he taught himself to do laundry? He taught himself to do laundry because the laundry was magically cleaned for him?

They don't fit because his upper body expanded. Did it expand because he was eating too much? Because he was exercising his upper body? His body is programmed to put excess weight in his upper body?

You can always go deeper. Sometimes, for the sake of expediency and explanation, it might be easier to go with the cause that is responsible for over 90% of the action, but in order to truly understand, one must go deeper, almost down to the stimulus fed into a synthesizing body where multiple stimuli over time have been stored and then act and react based on the synthesis. That body can be anything that takes in and responds to stimuli. If you don't get down to those stimuli, understanding the true cause and how to predict repetition and nonrepetition will be difficult.

Ad hominem

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:04:56 PDT

Many of the posts going forward will be shorter, as I describe the various false means of arguing that you will often find politicians and Fox news use, and of course the exceptions associated with them.

Today we discuss the argument tactic ad hominem, which is among the top sins for a proponent of Boskeism. What is ad hominem? Ad hominem is when, rather than attacking the merits of a position, you attack the person.

Diane thinks Boskeism is a fraud.
Diane's opinion doesn't matter because she played "smear the queer*" when she was a child.

Anytime you go after the credibility of someone, rather than the argument itself, it's ad hominem.

Now, there are exceptions to this. Since everyone has an opinion, it is often a useful heuristic to evaluate the source of the information or argument. I'm not an astrophysicist, so if I start talking about string theory, then it is probably in your best interest to take what I say as anecdotal at best, and uninformed at worst, but in all cases, nothing that you would base a conclusion on.

Also, beware the contrapositive of this (which I'm sure has it's own name, but that escapes me at the moment). That would be like this.

Miss Healthypants is from Wisconsin
Therefore, Miss Healthypants understands the nuances of fine cheese.

Miss Healthypants could very well be a cheese connoisseur, but it would only be tangentally because of being from Wisconsin.

In sum, ad hominem should be avoided in any argument. You can use it to determine whether a source is credible in your own right, but it is not something to throw back at someone when debating.

Hypocrisy -- The ultimate sin

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:29:17 PDT

We've gone over the Canons of Boskeism

Naturalism -- We are just another organism on this planet, and free will is at best suspect
Agnostic -- The existence of one or many deities or superpowers is irrelevant
Social Animals -- Humans are pack animals and our instincts are derived from being such
Science -- Evidence is king
Interpretation -- Correlation is not the same thing as causality
Questioning -- Don't be afraid to explore to get to the heart of the matter
Theorize -- Come up with your own ideas as to why and test.
Occam's Razor -- The simplest explanation supported with the least postulates and most evidence is probably true
Relativity in Context -- Nothing is ever repeated, no two people experience the same thing
Relativity in Morality -- Right and wrong are always relative.

These are the guiding lights of Boskeism. However, what are the things that can pull you from the path?

Most of the sins are fallacious arguments, and eventually we will discuss most of them here. There is one sin (and I'm open to other labels for the "unboskeic" behaviors) that stands above all others. That is a sin of judgment. Namely, judging character based upon your own morality.

It is impossible to get away from judging people, events, ideas, etc. We're hardwired to do it, and the more we do it, the less we have to think about it before we actually do it. You can determine someone is a jerk because the label "jerk" denotes a person who acts in a certain way. What is not appropriate though is to say someone is a "good" or "bad" person (more the negative than the positive) because their actions do not stand up to your moral values. That person is not claiming your way is the right way. Rather, what is more important is whether that person is acting in the way THEY say is the right way. If a person believes everyone should go to church, but that person does not go to church, then it is appropriate to judge that person with a mark in the "bad" column.

Keep in mind though, Relativity in Morality. It is possible that someone is being hypocritical under duress.

****

I am still considering putting up 5-10 minute "sermons" here on the blog.

Questions from the Great Diane

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:20:53 PDT

Diane, who is kind enough to read this blog (or these writings, if you want to be archaic), submitted some questions following the 9th Canon (Relativity in Context). I would have answered them in the Comments section where she submitted them, but I can't see the question from the comment box.

And thank you to Diane for submitting the questions! I welcome her and anyone else to answer her questions or discuss my answers.

why is truth so difficult to find on just about any given topic,,, (me stating my opinion truth is difficult to find)especially the topic of religion that holds itself to be so holy and sacred, even if I can fully understand different view points, no one will ever be 100% right or 100% wrong... I also agree Zen could be the next level... why is reaching Zen so difficult (my opinion)?

The ultimate truth is so difficult to find because as humans, we don’t have the ability to completely reframe a moment in time exactly as it was. With each passing moment, the ability to get the ultimate truth about that moment passes. How someone looks back on that moment 10 seconds after it happens is different than what actually happened at that moment. I’m sitting here writing this with “Get up” playing on the radio and listening to two ladies through my door. These have a bearing on how I perceive what is happening around me, and how I am even thinking about this question. The difference might be imperceptible to me, but imperceptible differences add up.

As for the ultimate truth regarding religion, what are the answers you seek? Which of the religions is “true and correct”? What is the proper form of worship? Is it appropriate to say “I believe in God, but I don’t like organized relgion”?

Do you think an entire human population will ever reach Zen?

I’d like to say “yes, eventually the entire population will reach Zen” but I don’t believe that. When your main priority needs to be feeding yourself and what you trade in is hope, you don’t have time nor the inclination to find another way, and I understand that.

Also, why is our purpose in life not revealed to us or better yet what is the purpose of our life... veils, veils, and more veils... however, it might not be a veil at all if one believes there is no purpose... see,,, all a vicious cycle (my opinion)...

I might lose you with this one (not as in the ability to follow what I say, but rather you as a reader) but I don’t believe there is a purpose to life. That’s what I mean by the fact that people trade in hope. We are taught from the time we are young that value is tied to purpose, and that there is no value in and of itself. Those who do not work are thought of as less than those who do. Work ethic is better than lazy. That’s OK, as that is how we have decided to value materials and each other as a society in whole. However, at the core, we are still animals, so that would make the only purpose of any of us would be to breed, but that’s nature’s purpose for humans, not the purpose of life. The individual I don’t think has a purpose, which is what makes us free to be the inquisitive people that we can be.

Have you read anything by Deepak Chopra?

I have read some of Deepak’s writings on the Huffington Post. Deepak and I don’t see eye-to-eye, as Deepak firmly believes in the spiritual side of existence. I find the spiritual side of existence to be another manifestation of hope and faith. Now, this is a great thing for a great many people, and I wouldn’t dare to say that someone shouldn’t believe in this way. However, I do say that these ideas can keep someone from seeing beyond the box that this can create. The idea that God has a meaning for everything can be extremely limiting when looking at the world, because it’s a postulate that is based not on labeling, but rather on the characteristics given to that God.

Lastly, how do you think subatomic particles, or even smaller particles than that, play a role, if any, in all this?

I don’t know too much about subatomic particles, but making the assumption that they exist, then they too have an effect.

Canon #10: Relativity in Morality

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:28:07 PDT

I'd like to start this with the Judeo-Christian 10 Commandments, along with a little commentary

Thou shalt have no gods before me (but I can put other things above your teachings)
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image (though we do love our pictures of Jesus)
Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain (except when proclaiming what God thinks)
Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy (unless extra money can be made on such day)
Honor thy father and mother (unless they were abusive)
Thou shalt not kill (unless you kill in self-defense or in the name of God or country)
Thou shalt not commit adultery (which really just means marry them all, polygamy was not frowned upon when this was written)
Thou shalt not steal (unless what you are stealing is ideas, or what a government would call "intelligence")
Thou shalt not bear false witness (unless it will save lives)
Thou shalt not covet (except when it comes to comparing pay packets or creature comforts)

These are supposed to be THE TEN RULES that, according to some judges and all Jewish and Christian ministry, we are to use to guide our lives. Yet even these, which are viewed as absolutes, are in each case, relative. Heck, our current president gleefully killed more people in the name of government than any other Texas governor, while in that position. By choosing to not commute, he passively chose to kill them, no way around it.

There are no such things as absolute morals. Moral relativity is not a realist perspective, up there with "the teens are gonna have sex anyway, so let's prepare them." It is a required perspective. Moral absolutes are only required of other people, never ourselves. Think about it. No matter what it is you do, you have a reason for why the moral doesn't apply in this instance, or some nuance makes it such that the spirit is broken but perhaps not the letter. I'm no different.

But what does moral relativity really mean? It is very close to relativity in context, only with the application of judgments. We look at suicide bombers as if they are the most heinous people on the planet, because it is beyond our scope to think of anything as being worth blowing yourself up for. We have the most powerful military on the planet, and for the most part, Americans are successfully distracted enough by daily life as to not be concerned with whether the government should be rebelled against. Further, we Americans are much more comfortable with the unabomber/Timothy McVeigh manner of causing trouble by being miles away. We value our own lives above all, but not everyone does. The "terrorists", as we like to call them, value the mission over their own lives. They are truly no different than soldiers in the 17th and 18th century, who would just line up and fire at each other. However, we don't like what they do because they blow up "civilians". I can't disagree, but really, is it any worse than dropping a bomb from 35,000 feet? Or even better, dropping a bomb via remote control drone plane? Moral absolutes would say that the suicide bomber is worse, because the moral absolutist has found his euphemism... "collateral damage". We had a mission, and those people who died, those civilians, they were collateral damage. But it was strategic!!! No different! It's using what you got in a conflict.

If I am hungry and starving, is it OK to steal a loaf of bread? Moral absolutists will say no. The moral relativist says no, but I can see why it's happening.

Finally, someone who realizes the truth of moral relativity realizes that there is no good and evil. Do people we deem as "evil" really think like Skeletor in the He-Man cartoons, saying things like "this is a victory for the forces of evil!" HELL NO! Even Hitler, considered by most people to be one of the, if not the most evil people to walk the planet, did not believe he was evil. Hitler thought he was doing the right thing for the German people and for the world. Hitler was wrong, in my opinion and the opinion of most, but the idea that he was evil is based on our beliefs. If evil is based on beliefs, how can it be anything but morally relative? If evil is relative, then how can you be sure that any of the absolutes you believe in for human behavior are actually absolute?

Moral relativism in this context is not about altering your own beliefs about how humans should act. It's about realizing that maybe what works for you doesn't work for everyone else, and that in spite of what we've been taught, the only true moral absolute should be the freedom to leave a situation that doesn't comply with your personal morals, and that everything else really is relative.

Canon #9: Relativity in Context

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:53:01 PDT

Suppose you and I are having a conversation at a restaurant, sitting across from one another. We are experiencing completely different contexts.

Why? Well, I say something with an intended meaning. That intended meaning is irrelevant to how you perceive what I say. I say "aww, you know I love ya" in a friendly, joking tone. You perceive it as "uh oh, he said he loved me. Was he joking? Is he trying to hide his true feelings with the joking attitude? He's been buying me drinks. Is he trying to get me drunk?" or maybe a hot guy walked behind me when I said it, and you completely missed what I said, and therefore, you hear the tone and just giggle back.

There we were, sitting 3 feet from one another, facing each other, and we just had completely different experiences. How could this be?

This is why "relativity in context" is a canon. No two people experience the same situation in the same way, making this very close to the butterfly effect of chaos theory. Two people, even identical twins, growing up in the same environment will experience most of the same things, but all it takes is one difference to skew the perceptions of everything going forward.

Why does this matter though, Boskey? It matters because you have to get every perspective that was associated with a scenario if you are to determine what happened. It isn't enough to talk to one person, and might not be enough to talk to two. If you talk to one person about what happened, then you need to realize that you are going on that person's perception only, and that it is totally skewed. This precludes you from deriving an accurate theory as to what happened and what the effect is on those involved. Of course, if your purpose is comraderie or compassion, then you don't need anything else. If your purpose is diagnosing the situation, then this can't be enough.

The final part of this deals with what many people consider to be "right and wrong." Not the moral right and wrong, that's #10, but rather contextual right and wrong. How many times have you heard someone say "he was wrong to do that." Well, I'm here to tell you, it's rarely that cut and dried. A husband beats his wife. This is usually a no-brainer, but is it? Sure, a husband that hits his wife because he's having a bad day isn't going to gather much sympathy. However, what if the wife is attacking him? What if she is throwing stuff at him that is dangerous, like cutting boards? That's not as cut and dried. What if she cracked him over the head with a frying pan? Then you get into the whys of it all, which are never cut and dried. Again, remember Boskeism is about understanding. Asking questions like "why did he hit her?" is not a bad thing. Saying he did it because he saw mom do it is not a bad thing. It does not absolve him of accountability, but understanding what happened is very important. How can you prevent bad behavior if you don't understand how it came about? Just saying that it is a bad thing and he's evil does not solve anything, and actually makes the problem worse. Allowing yourself to live with these types of absolute context to a situation only leads to a closed mind.

Canon #8: Occam's Razor

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:53:09 PDT

From wikipedia:

Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to
the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. The
principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few
assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the
observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often
expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony" or "law of
succinctness"): "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", roughly
translated as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".

I firmly believe that this is an important part of putting information together into knowledge and eventually wisdom. Therefore, this is to be used when coming up with a proper theory or idea. It is a governing principle, in that it guides thinking back to what is sensible while being succinct. As Einstein said: "An explanation should be as simple as possible, but no more simple."

My belief in Occam's Razor is so deep that it almost defies explanation. Complicated ideas are fine, but if they can be replaced by an equally accurate simple idea (given of course, the postulates) then the simpler idea is the one everytime.

Of course, there are limits. "God did it", "Bad Karma for the Chinese", "God hates New Orleans", these all take the biggest assumption... that nothing could have been inadvertently done to change it. Deity-people will say that's the point, since this was the path, then it's God. Maybe they're right, but it flies in the face of logical thought, and violates the 2nd Canon. So while it is the simplest explanation, that massive assumption is in itself so encompassing and unproveable that using it goes against at the very least, Boskeism, and at most logical thought.

Boskeism is about thinking and understanding. Occam's Razor fits perfectly into it.

Canon #7: Theorize

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:18:19 PDT

So to this point, the first three canons deal with the postulates that govern the thinking (Naturalism, Agnostic, and Social Animals). The next three dealt with how to gather information (Science, Interpretation, and Questioning). The next two try to synthesize these, for what's the use of having these bases without using them?

The seventh canon is Theorize. Come up with an explanation. Why is the sky blue? Theorize on it, based on the postulates. Test your theory by collecting information and interpreting it appropriately. How does the information apply back to your theory? Was your theory that the sky could be whatever color you want, because you can color it with a crayon? Why not? Of course, you'll find out that there's no surface to the sky that you can lay the wax from the crayon down, but hey, you'll find that out.

Without theorizing, you aren't going to be able to achieve understanding. You've gathered up all the information, but without a theory to put it all together, how are you going to achieve any understanding of the information. Sometimes the theory is obvious, sometimes not. The man is staggering because he's drunk, might be extremely obvious. However, there will be times when you're wrong. He walked out of a bar and he's staggering. Based on that information, he's drunk. Upon further review, you may find out he was drinking iced tea but has a peanut allergy.

The key here is the ability to admit the last theory was wrong, and move on. Paraphrasing Teddy Roosevelt, the failure is in not having an idea, not having that idea be wrong. In fact, you have to be willing to be shown to be wrong. You'll never get to the right answer if you are afraid to be wrong.

Canon #6: Questioning

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:07:05 PDT

In order to fully appreciate the world around you, I think it's important to understand it. Understanding can send a person down so many different paths to explore that it should simply be a requirement of life. Yet, how do you obtain understanding? You question everything until you are satisfied that the understanding has been achieved. Further, realizing the only postulates in life are those that humans have created. That's why everything else is a theory, from gravity to relativity to evolution. Even the hypotenuse is a theorem, and not a postulate. Why? because humans didn't invent it as a base point.

So questioning is required in the Boskeic way. This is most important when looking at behaviors, but is not limited to behavior. Oh yes, and "easy" answers are not allowed. It isn't enough to say "because he was evil" as the answer to the question "why did Hitler want to exterminate Jews, gypsies, and other ethnicities?" unless you have a definition for evil. It isn't enough to say "because they hate America" for "why did they fly airplanes into the WTC Towers?" Well, why do they hate America?

I don't know if the story has been told that was purely factual. I know personally, I am incapable of telling such a story. Bias, the need to entertain with the story, and the desired outcome all conspire to ensure that a seemingly factual story is not actually so. There are always details that are left out. "I walked the dog today." OK, where did you walk the dog? Was the dog on a leash? Did you actually walk the dog, or were you running? Did you stop anywhere? What else did you do? All these extra details can explain how you hurt your back today as well.

Personally, I am a pyrophobe, a coprophobe, and in the strictest sense, a male homosexual-phobe (in no case are any of these debilitating but I can feel them). I have no idea where my fear of fire came from. My earliest memory was for getting in trouble for soiling my underwear and my mother frustratingly putting a diaper on me while someone was over (perhaps a lady by the name of Judy). I was bitten by a man who was trying to hit on me at a work function, which was the first of 5 different times in Seattle that I was hit on by men, which you combine with my core belief that sex = dominance and you see an uneasiness occurring around gay men. You can't get to these conclusions without continuing to question. I realized it wasn't enough that I had been hit on by men. After all, shouldn't that be a compliment? I had to dig deeper, until a satisfactory answer, was found, with minimal assumptions used to get there.

That is a key, minimal assumptions. The less you assume, the more you can trust your answer. That is why answers such as "that's how wanted it" fall apart.

Canon #5: Interpretation

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:59:19 PDT

The 5th Canon of Boskeism is about interpretation, and the dangers associated with it.

When dealing in the realm of science (defined of course as that which is observable), it is a straightforward mathematical process to determine correlation. What is not nearly as straightforward is interpreting the data to determine causality.

What do I mean? My favorite example is that of depression. There is a strong correlation between particular chemical imbalances and depression, and humans have been able to synthesize drugs to rebalance these chemicals such that ther person does not feel the depression (well, sort of). However, the result of this is to say that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. How can we say this with the certainty that we do? Is it just PR, in the vein of "I'm OK, You're OK"? or do we scientifically know this?

So, one must interpret what is really going on... what we do know and what we don't know.

We know that the feeling of depression is associated with a chemical imbalance.
We know that when the imbalance is "corrected", often the feeling of depression disappears.

That's the end of what we can glean from the information. We don't know what causes the chemical imbalance. Is it the stress of life that, in the past, we would have said causes the depression, that causes the brain to become chemically imbalanced, thereby we have only created chemical means of dealing with daily life, rather than fixing the symptom? That would make sense considering the profit motive of drug companies. However, that's just a statement of opinion without anything other than a logical train of thought to support it.

One must be very careful when interpreting. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion about the topic ("yes, I believe the chemical imbalance causes depression, and the stress of life doesn't cause the imbalance" for instance) and in fact, it is important in Boskeism to have opinions. It is just as important to realize that the opinions you get from interpreting life around you are based only on your train of thought and not nearly as based on concrete ideas as others assume their opinions often are based.

Bill Maher and the Catholics

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:49:50 PDT

It's one thing to believe that the religions around the world are wrong in their beliefs. It puts you in short company, with a generous 5% of the world believing there is a higher being. It's entirely another to consistently attack the religions as, in effect immoral cesspools.

That's what Bill Maher did again.

See, Bill loves attacking Islam. He likes to go on and on about how terrible Islam is and the way of life surrounding it. Of course, Bill is not going to like any culture where he can't stick it in and run, or looks down upon using mind-altering drugs, but those are the parts of Bill's culture that make him happy.

Now, he's going off on Catholicism too. Per Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times...

As for Maher, he called Catholicism "a child-abusing religious cult . . . the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia" and claimed that "if the pope, instead of a religious figure, was the CEO of a chain of nationwide day care centers who had thousands of employees who had been caught molesting children and then covering it up, he would have been in jail."

Organized pedophilia? Yes, I'm sure that the popes of the past 50 years had, as part of seminary, the class on how to molest children without anyone knowing. If the pope was the CEO of a chain of nationwide day care centers where children were molested then covering it up, he'd be in the exact same position, which is not in jail. If he were the president and he orchestrated a cover-up, he'd be in the exact same position, which is not in jail.

Per wikipedia (so take it how you'd like) .2% of priests have abused children. That would be 1 in 500. I would like to see that number compared against teachers, fathers, and mothers.

I'd also like to know how many of the 1 in 500 were abused themselves by any of the above or other, sought solace in the church for their abuse, and became priests, only to have the cycle repeat.

Why do I want to see that? Because to look at something Boskeically, you have to look for root causes.

First, is there a meaningful variance between the number of priests who have taken part in these acts and the general population of adults that have contact with children.
If there is a difference, then you have to look at "priestness." What boys and men are attracted to being a priest? Is there a common factor?
If there is no commonality among those that become priests, then what about being a priest leads to this? Is it the celibacy? Is it the position of power within the community?
Finally, the part that people don't want to talk about is, is the problem not the priests but our culture? Not every culture frowns upon religious leaders having relations with their followers. Reading the psychology writer in the Sun-Times Dr. Laura Berman, she once wrote an column about how other cultures have no problem with this type of activity (in fact, one tribe believes that a man must give fertility to the boys, if you know what I mean).

I am not defending the priests. There is a difference between understanding and defending. Bill Maher though, should know better than to make blanket statements like that, considering he has been accused of sexual harrassment in his time and readily cops to recreational drug use. Both are illegal in this country, so why is that behavior OK but not the behavior of the priests? The answer of course, is moral absolutism, which means that he believes he's the one that's right.

The only place where I cannot be censored

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:55:22 PDT

*SPECIAL NOTE... This post is inspired by the deletion of a comment I made towards other posters at the website linked below.Over on the blog we've linked, affectionately titled FIG EQUALS LAME following a post entitled "Engagement Party", with comments typical of shallow women, we had this:

Welcome to Club Married-we knew you'd join ;)

As if this "club" is some kind of an achievement. Whoa, look out! The sun finally shines on Fig's life! Doc has been lifted from the abyss! They found each other and are now getting married! Their lives are finally complete!I'm going to call "Bullshit" on this.There is no achievement in getting married, and even less achievement in getting engaged. Marriage is not an accomplishment on life's checklist. If it is, then perhaps a rethinking of one's priorities in life is in order. Are bagging a man or bagging a chick and causing them to go through the courts to get away really something you should be proud of, and wear like a badge of honor! WOO HOO, now they can't live without me getting half!Really, what are the reasons to get married/enter civil unions?

Children, sort of

Financial implications

You are a sucker for culture

1. Children. If you're a man and you want to have any say whatsoever in the raising of your children, then you have to get married. The courts are notorious for limiting the role of unmarried and divorced fathers in the lives of their children, except of course making sure responsible law-abiding adults pay the required cash for child support.

2. Financial implications. Are you living together? Are you paying all the bills but are not getting the benefit of using him/her as a deduction on your taxes? Do you need health insurance? Are you worried about what will happen to your estate when you die? These are a few of the financial reasons why marriage makes sense.

3. Sucker for culture. Are your parents married? Do you look around and only see happy couples when you see couples? Do shows like Friends make you just hope that the right couples get together? Do you want a permanent date? Does it makes you sad because you've bought into society telling you that you should have someone to be a couple with?

This is not to say that marriage is always a bad thing. But people do things for the wrong reasons all the time.

And I am not opposed to marriage. What I am opposed to is acting like marriage is something to strive for. Why do women need that reassurance? You're with someone twenty years, lived together for 15, and one day it's like "hey, we might as well get married." That makes sense. "I wanna be married by 25/30/35" is not a good reason. "We need to protect what we've built in case something happens to one of us" is a good reason. "Our friends/family/priest keep(s) bugging us about when are we getting married" is not a good reason. "I love you and I don't care if we get married" is actually a good reason.

But then again, for women, marriage can be like hunting. Men are not naturally monogamous (women aren't either, but that's a discussion for a different time), so being able to sucker a guy into committing to her through the law is a big deal. Heck, it's almost a sport for women to find rich and famous guys to marry.

Jeff and Doc, I'm happy that you're getting married, and this is not directed at you in any way. This is directed to those who take on a smug "I'm better than thou", acting as if marriage is something to be proud of. Sorry folks, it isn't. It's just a box on a survey or tax form. The day after your wedding, all that has changed are your legal rights. You've given some away. You've made it illegal to do things that were previously legal to you.

So what is the moral to the story?

If you want to get married, make sure it's for the right reasons. It cannot be about anything, other than wanting to meld your life with that person, because depending on how you value your rights, you could be giving away more than you are getting in return. If you're getting married because you're afraid of being alone, or feel like you're not a whole person without a husband or wife, think again. If he or she truly loves you, then it won't matter. If they are more interested in getting married than you, then run.

Eliot Spitzer

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:47:20 PDT

So a guy who was a "crusader" against illegal activities, including prostitution, had to admit he was involved in a prostitution ring.

The shock and horror of it is stunning. How could someone do this? What my progressive brethren refuse to acknowledge is the possibility that this had something to do with his relationship with his wife.

People look at this as "throwing it all alway" by Spitzer, as if the sex drive shuts down for anyone else on the planet when a man gets married. When presented with this, they will talk about the difference between word and deed. They will talk about how healthy it is to fantasize. They will talk about how there are no contributing factors EVER to illegal activity, except of course stealing to feed yourself, since only hunger and thirst are natural drives of organisms. Heck, why would humans be the same as EVERY OTHER ORGANISM ON THE PLANET, that has the drive to reproduce, manifested in mammalian males as sex drive?

Ahh, but if you follow Boskeism, you know to look at all this? It's not good enough to just condemn Spitzer and say "he's a bad man." That is intellectually disingenuous, like justifying invading a country to kill one person because he's evil.

I don't know Spitzer's background so I have no way of seeing what happened to him to drive this behavior. There are many possibilities though:

He was derided by girls while in the formative years. This could cause him to (if you believe that prostitution of this caliber is exploitation), use this to exert dominance over those same girls.
With his power as a well known governor in our 2nd most populous state, he broke free of his monogamist learnings, and was paying not for the sex, but the discretion. Let's face it, as governor of New York, he could find women willing to sleep with him and tell.
The possibility that drives liberals bananas. His wife could have a role in this. She very well could have been treating him how a 21st century woman treats a husband, as an equal partner rather than lord of the house. As Bob Franken said on the radio this morning, to suggest this is possible is to "go back to the 18th Century", but how much do you think the biology and instincts of a man have evolved in the last 5,000 years, let alone the last 2-300 years, particularly when there was no real way for the instinct of being the alpha male of the pack to die out? If you can't get your alpha maleness at home, you have to get it somewhere. Obviously being governor either isn't alpha male to Spitzer or provides him the outlet for what alpha males really expect. Ask any musician or actor.

Some people think that marriage changes the chemistry of the body, or that it suddenly changes the experiences of a person. They think one action can change it all. Not a chance. All it does is change the perceived consequences, not the triggers and drivers of the behavior. A perceived consequence holding back the desire to do the action, as behaviorists of any species will tell you, is no way to change behavior.

What were the positive reinforcements Spitzer got to "stay within" his marriage? What were the negative reinforcements he got when he possibly didn't? What were the negative reinforcements he got from his wife? How was he rewarded for doing as told?

*SIDENOTE*

Richard Roeper wrote a column today, saying that the call girls Spitzer used are the same (in the same line of work) as the $25 crackwhores.

I suppose this is true. However, we should then expand that out, without regard for Roeper's obvious claims of morality, since morality is relative.

The pharmacist is the same as the corner drug dealer (they both sell drugs)
Charley Trotter restaurants are the same as street vendors (they both sell food)
Hollywood actors are the same as grade schoolers in the Christmas pageant (they both act)
Richard Roeper and I are the same (we both write)
Metallica and Windows Wide are the same (they both sell music)
Lewis Black and John Iwanski are the same (they both sell comedy)
A ferarri and a 1983 Cavalier are the same (they're both cars)

This is not a discussion of legality, it's a discussion of morality. Roeper is conflating comma call-girls with crackwhores, as if the two are the same.

Canon #4: Science

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:56:04 PST

As a follower of Boskeism, one must have a belief that science is the way to true enlightenment.

How can science provide enlightenment? After all, she blinded ME with science!

Science provides enlightenment because science gets to the bottom of things. Science provides theories based on rational ideas and tests them.

Science is not afraid to change if evidence is to the contrary.

Science in its purest form, does not judge.

Not to sound redundant, but the basis of real science is evidence. Even though many of the canons of Boskeism are philosophical and not evidentiary, the belief in what science turns up is rock solid.

Now, one must use science with care. Science does its best to distinguish between correlation and causality, something that those who print snippets from science do not always distinguish.

Example:

People who drink red wine have less chance of stroke.

Typically, someone reads this and makes the assumption "if I start drinking red wine, then I will lower my chance of having a stroke."

That's not necessarily the case, based on this phrase. Do people who are likely to have a stroke averse to red wine, perhaps because their diet is balanced and elegant and happens to include red wine? Is it because people who prefer beer also prefer fried foods? A correlation is created, but not a causality. That is the challenge of someone who is interested in science for enlightenment and not justification.

What Passes for Political Satire in 2008 Israel

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:05:37 PST

Draw your own conclusions from this cartoon, which was published in the mainstream center-right Israeli newspaper, Ma'ariv, which has no English language website as far as I can tell.

Thank you to Philip Weiss for bringing this cartoon to light.

Clintons Love SSS

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:37:35 PST

More Synthetic Shock Syndrome (SSS) from the Clintons.

Shuster outraged the Clinton campaign by saying on the air that the campaign had "pimped out" the Clintons' daughter, when they had her place phone calls to party superdelegates on her mother's behalf.

So, what exactly would you call it when you have your more charismatic daughter call your supporters begging them to stay with you?

Further, it appears that if you criticize Hillary Clinton, you are automatically a sexist, and if you criticize her campaign, you are out of bounds. Tell me again how, based on the way she is running her campaign, you can say her presidency would be any different in terms of criticism and secrecy than the current one?

"I, at this point, can't envision a scenario where we would continue to engage in debates on that network," Wolfson added.

Yes, the right thing to do is freeze-out MSNBC. The most liberal of the news organizations is the one you want to irritate, so that when the time comes for coverage of the real presidential campaign, they do nothing to promote you.

Why is it everything that is said about Hillary is something that requires outrage? Sometimes Fox News is better. They don't ever back down.

Canon #3: Social Animals

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:56:47 PST

The third tenet of the Boskeic philosophy is that humans are social, or pack animals. Therefore, humans inherently always want to be part of some social structure. Further, it also means that humans are always trying to determine who the alphas are, inherently look first to a male as overall leader, there are separate alpha males and alpha females, and that humans inherently want to be the alpha. The result of this is the quest for power.

Sounds sexist, huh? Possibly, until you realize that its the result of males being physically superior to females in the natural state. However, the discussion of male/female is more one of, for lack of a better word, social class. If a society is one that does not engage in physical competition for the alpha male role, women can take the role, if they can compete on the same level as the men. In most societies, unless it's strictly forbidden, this can and will happen. However, if a woman is not directly competing with a man, he will find no competition with her.

Look around, and you see it going on everywhere. Men are always trying to one-up each other, even in story telling. They do not engage in this with women unless they see the woman as a challenger (not a challenge, a challenger).

The more you watch the interactions of humans around you (correcting for behavior modification), the more you see this happening.

Canon #2: Agnostic

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:57:05 PST

According to dictionary.com, the definition of agnostic is

a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essnetial nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience
a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study

This is, without a doubt, central to the belief system. How can someone, anyone, claim to know everything about a complicated topic? Even if you are at a baseball game, and you see the centerfielder drop a fly ball, you don't know the whole story. What caused him to drop the ball? Was it the lights? Was it his dinner? Was his mind on the girl he saw behind the dugout? We don't know. All we can do is speculate. Possibly, we can through the process of elimination, have a good guess, but really, it can't go much farther than that.

Agnostic gets to the heart of all issues. You take an issue as far as you can, and then say "I don't know why... but I have theories." You are acknowledging you cannot with certainty determine why, but you have ideas. The ideas, hopefully, are based on sound principles, but they remain theories because they cannot be proven other than circumstantially.

Canon #1: Naturalism

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:57:22 PST

Naturalism is the belief that free will is the equivalent of luck. what this means is that a person doesn't choose anything. Instead, a person does what he does solely based on his genetics and external forces. Even something as inane as calling heads or picking left or right is predetermined.

This is very difficult for humans to grasp, because in their eyes, it is an "out" for other people to skirt responsibility. What you notice, though, is that people rarely avoid the "chain of events" that leads to their own responsibility for their actions. Think about it. When you do something, no one is concerned about the circumstances behind your action. However, that same person will be the first person to say "yeah, I made that mistake, but I had a terrible night's sleep...". Nevertheless, responsibility is not averted. Blame might be, which can be treated as differently than responsibility. A great example of this is peer pressure. If the person who is the leader of a group of friends decides to try something, and pushes it on the group, taking part in the new activity is the responsibility of the person, as it provides clues into the person, but the overall blame lies with the leader of the group, for he or she has the power in the group.

That said, responsibility for the action rests with the individual, because one must take it into account in their understanding of the person going forward. Otherwise, negative reinforcement is not for the behavior modification of the perpetrator, it is for the signal to others, hoping they will consider it a consequence for the action. The same goes for positive reinforcement.

Naturalism is the basis for all the tenets. Naturalism also lends itself to conditioning, which is what all behavior is. If something is positive, you repeat it. If it's negative, you avoid it. Humans are tricky though, in that words can condition. This is why this can't be the only tenet. If it were, we would all fall victim to our own conditioning, without seeing the world from other viewpoints, in different ways.

Remiss in my posting

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:05:34 PST

I apologize for those who do read the writings here, for not writing much recently. I've been helping a friend launch his podcast, and also, since I want to start discussing each of the 10 tenets specifically, I've felt a little bit arrogant in doing it. However, I realize that in order to understand my philosophy, it's important to understand what drives it.

Those postings about the tenets are coming.

Synthetic Shock Syndrome in Action

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:17:46 PST

http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/750765,CST-NWS-sweet21.article

Apparently, Obama said something that wasn't negative enough about Reagan, and the response from the former president was to feign shock about Obama praising a Republican. Then of course, Obama had to explain what he meant.

Synthetic Shock Syndrome

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:58:39 PST

I had originally intended to start laying out the tenets, and the reasoning behind each tenet, in it's own post. However, this op-ed from Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun-Times made me rethink what I'd write about today.

Laura speaks of racism as building the country. After a list of the terrible things white people did during a time when civilizations did not acknowledge the equality of those who did not look like they did (not just white people, but all people), she then talks about the "code words" being used in the campaign.

What does this have to do with Boskeism? How does this fit in with the basic tenets?

First, this is outright tribalism. Laura is coming out in protection of Obama (whom I support) because of evil white people. I understand, she is trying to protect her tribe.

Second, she is trying to exert power over those outside her tribe by the use of Synthetic Shock Syndrome, or SSS. Here is an example of SSS:

Liberal: "Every soldier who dies in Iraq is a life wasted"
Conservative: "You don't support the troops!"

SSS occurs whenever someone is looking for something to be offended about, so that they can frame the context of whatever discussion occurs going forward. Dr. Washington's examples of SSS in this op-ed include offense at the following:

Kelly Tilghman's comment about Tiger Woods saying "lynch him in the back alley." This is SSS because it was actually a compliment of Tiger, as the young golfers have no hope against Tiger in a fair setting, yet the African American community feigns rage at this because "lynch" is code for, well, lynching.
"Nappy headed whores". Well, no one said that. Imus said "nappy headed ho". Ask your local dude if "ho" is short for whore in practice. The answer of course is no. To quote the movie "Fear of a Black Hat"... "What's the difference between a ho and a bitch? A ho will screw anyone. A bitch will screw anyone, but you." That's been around since the 90s. Yet, when it became convenient to be offended, the SSS kicked in.
Joe Biden's comment about Obama being "mainstream" and "articulate, bright, and clean." These were meant as a compliment.
Shaheen's comments about what he claims the Republicans will say: "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' " It doesn't matter that he's right. Wouldn't any admitted drug user get the same treatment?
Andrew Cuomo stating:"It's not a TV-crazed race, you know, you can't just buy your way through that race. ... You can't shuck and jive at a press conference." This is another case where I didn't even know that this would be code.

In all of these cases, there was nothing to be offended about. Offense taken at any of these amounts to SSS. It is big business to be offended on the left. Progressives, by their very nature, are inclusive, so they do not wish to offend. By taking offense, you gather up more power for yourselves.

I could go through each one of these, and discuss how it wasn't code for anything having to do with race, but at this point, what is the point. The fact of the matter is as I said in the last paragraph, taking offense gets power for the tribe, and so if you buy what I say, then you know the logic will be ethereal and full of feeling, meaning there is no evidence to corroborate beyond the Razor.

That said, there were two things that were brought up that were legimitate gripes.

The goings-on in Jena. Why did the white kids hang the noose? Power. It was the best way to get some dominance over the black kids. Of course, did Laura mention that the Jena 6 beat up a white kid afterward, dare I say, gang style? No one, even in the African American community, cared about Jena when the noose went up. They only cared after the 6 beat up the kid, and were over-charged for it (based on news reports only, I wasn't there so I don't know if they tried to kill him, but I'll buy that attempted murder didn't occur.) I have sympathy for the Jena 6. However, the reason I have sympathy goes back to Boskeism. Everything is cause/effect, and the fight to not be in the submissive tribe caused this to happen. I understand. The only time cause and effect matters to most people is when they side with the perpetrators.
The quote about "Barack Hussein Obama". Everytime someone uses this, it is for no other reason than to reinforce that Obama is dangerous. It's the same name recognition that gave us George W Bush, and that the Clinton camp wants to use to give us Clinton 44. It is the same classic, dangerous psychology that is used by advertisers.

If you notice, it's rare that SSS is used by conservatives against other conservatives. Conservatism, by it's nature, is surety about its position. Why worry about offending someone if the complaint about it won't lead to diminished power?

Those Tears Again

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:53:41 PST

There has been more talk about Hillary's breakdown on the campaign. People on both sides actually, saying that it helped her or it hurt her politically. Personally, I think it helped her in New Hampshire but I appear to be in the minority on that one.

There also seems to be a split among women as to whether its something that shows weakness. I find this curious because if the thought is you don't cry in public because it shows weakness, but you want to cry, then you are already "weak" and you are just trying to hide your weakness. That is the most political move of all, I would say, to intentionally hide the feelings you cannot control, because of the fear you will be seen for what you are.

We cannot control what we are. It is established for us through our genetics, our instincts, and our experiences. Hiding that person tells us we've learned we should be ashamed about the people we've become.

Gender Politics and Boskeism

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 08:27:20 PST

This past weekend, Hillary Clinton broke down and cried in a public setting, apparently from the stress of the campaign.

I have my personal views on both the Democratic and Republican races, but they are much more about the horse race and not nearly substantive enough to be worthy of discussion.

However, Senator Clinton breaking down and crying is something that should be discussed.

This is a woman who, while she was married to the president, showed strength throughout the various sexual scandals in which the president found himself. Publicly, the woman never showed a crack in the armor. Are we to believe that now, losing in Iowa and the campaign trials are enough to cause her to have a public moment of weakness? Or was this actually calculated on her part?

People cry. It is a physical expression of emotion that we share with very few other animals. However, it isn't always that the tears are a spontaneous response. There are definitely instances where tears are used to manipulate, and often it is a woman who is manipulating the situation by crying. Why? It works. It would be a lie if someone said that women have never cried when pulled over by a police officer, and the result of it is they are let off their traffic violation. This is a learned response.

Wait a minute, how can I say it is a learned response? Take a look at the circumstances, and apply that nothing is a choice. Crying is perceived as a sign of weakness for the most part, notwithstanding the attempts to get men "to be in touch with their feelings." When someone cries, the immediate response, almost to the point of being instinctive, is to comfort. Being the comforter is a feeling of power... "I can change the situation and make it better." Add into that the additional feeling people get when they see a woman cry. Now, in addition to the power of being the comforter, add in the fact that you get to make things better for MOM. The feeling pulls a person in. Is the response the same when the crier is a man? Heck no. It is seen as a sign of weakness. The man is not someone who can lead us if he allows himself to need to be comforted.

That's how we get back to the gender politics. In this, I reiterate there is no such thing as equality, because we will never treat the different sexes the same. We are taught from an early age that we cannot treat women the same as men. We are shown by laws and ordinances that women are to be protected from men. The methods of teaching have even changed in order to give women a better chance in school, to the detriment of male learning. I pass no judgment on any of this, beyond the hypocrisy of insisting that men and women should be treated the same. However, this crying episode undoubtedly gave Hillary a bump in New Hampshire, while a generation ago, it ended the presidential hopes of Ed Muskie.

I am not one who believes in equality. I believe in equal capabilities, but that isn't the same. If people have different chemistries due to having different body parts, you can't assume they are equal. Further our bodies are built to treat each sex differently. This isn't a bad thing, but we have to take that into account when we craft the laws to change our culture. That will not happen though, because women are content with the dual role of princess and provider.

Straight or Gay, genetic or environment

bosk@bosk.com (Jason Boskey) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:25:21 PST

Here is a column from Dr. Laura Berman, who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Several problems I have with what she says, though overall it is good to see.

She says if they mutate a gene in fruit flies, it causes them to not discriminate between males and females. I have two questions regarding the conclusion. First, does that mean that the fruit flies treat all flies the same, with no "gender roles" (if there is such a thing in fruit flies?) Second, did they witness fruit flies attempting to copulate with other fruit flies of the same sex? Were males attempting to mate with males? Were males allowing males to mate with them? Isn't this how we define homosexuality in humans?
The birth order. Has there been a scientific conclusion that testosterone is directly linked to homosexuality? If so, then if a woman wants her male babies to be straight, shouldn't she just take testosterone so there is more in her system to pass to her baby?
Dr. Berman doesn't discuss the inherent disconnect between sex and cohabitation. A person may prefer the company of men over women, or vice versa, but prefer sexual relations with the opposite. Further, she doesn't discuss the environmental pressures associated with preferring members of the same sex for company. I have seen no study to show that preference for the company of the same sex... "hetero lifemates" if you will, means that a person wants to be sexual with people of the same sex.

I agree with her that whether it's genetic or environment, it has nothing to do with free will. Will Dr. Berman continue down the same path regarding what is and isn't free will?