A book review.

Scandal is the title of the novel written by Endo Shusaku in 1986. Its setting is modern Tokyo, centered around the Yoyogi-Harajuku area.

The way Endo describes Yoyogi, Harajuku and Shinjuku in the eighties is just as I remembered it. In 1986, Yoyogi and Shibuya were my main playgrounds. For that reason, it’s especially meaningful to me.

The novel itself is a treatment of the nature of man. The main character, Suguro, is a novelist who in every way resembles Endo himself. Suguro is a highly respected, award winning novelist. He is thought to be upright, moral, socially sanitized.

Gradually, Suguro is forced to admit that he has an evil side. An extremely evil side. So much so that it makes his “main side” look like a fabrication. Which side is real? Both sides?

In the final chapters, we find Suguro in a hotel room, with the embodiment of innocence - a middle school girl by the name of Mitsu - intoxicated, naked and unconscious on the bed.

He wants to rescue the young girl. He wants to take her out of the hotel room now, before anybody can harm her.

He does that, but not before molesting and strangling her.

So which is it? Are we evil? Or are we good?

I think I’m a good person myself, but I am also aware of my extreme capacity for evil. I think we all have that capacity. History shows us we do. In a sense, we have two “natures”. A “good” nature that tells us to be good, regardless of negative consequences. And an equally extravagant “evil” nature.

Yes, that’s right, deny it. Deny that you could ever enjoy killing somebody.

That won’t make it go away though.

A week or so ago I went in for a physical. Several months ago I lost a lot of weight, and ever since I can eat two horses a day and still not gain any weight. I love that part, but was worried about the cause.

In the physical, I took barium sulfate and they used a medical imaging technology that I’m not really familiar with to check my vital organs. (Not a CT scan; PET scan, perhaps.)

At the time of the exam, I could tell the technician was concerned. She kept taking pictures of a certain organ, over and over, from several different angles. The organ turned out to be my stomach. The doctor asked me to make an appointment for an endoscopy, citing the possibilities of an gastric ulcer or gastric cancer.

Cancer. There’s a word that’ll scare the snot outta you.

I’m somewhat of a boy scout in the sense that I like to be prepared. So I wrote out the possibilities:

Ulcer - deal with it.

Cancer, operable - operate.

Cancer, metastasized - die.

The last option was the one that was hardest to get a grip on. Even though, in this day and age, death from cancer is not a done deal, it does occur. While realizing the improbability of it, I was determined to be prepared for all options, including the fatal one.

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I’ve spoken out against the intolerant atheists on more than one occasion. This may lead one to think that I side with the Religious Right.

That would be an incorrect assumption. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives, at this point in American politics, are collectivist. They both want to impose morality on the individual. To describe either side as “laissez faire” would be dishonest.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Conservative opposition to gay marriage. By what right does anybody have to employ the force of the government to prevent gay people from marrying? I’m not gay, and I don’t particularly think marriage is a brilliant idea either. But it’s none of my business who marries whom.

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Another book review.

I took a break from the overtly political and philosophical books.

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, is cited in many a political treatise. Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought it the most valuable of all books for education. He went so far as to say:

There exists one book, which, to my taste, furnishes the happiest treatise of natural education. What then is this marvelous book? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny, is it Buffon? No-it is Robinson Crusoe.

Political writers from Karl Marx to Lyle Rossiter have used the story as an foundation for their analogies. The story itself is intriguing and romantic. A single man, fighting to survive alone on an island.

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Another book review.

Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

It is supposedly one of the most influential political statements in the history of political society. I seriously doubt it. I think the concept of communism has been influential. The basic principle of communism is equality. That principle has spawned a lot of politics - socialism, communism proper and syndicalism.

But the Manifesto itself isn’t all that influential, in my opinion. The ideas are just too offensive to most people. The word “equality” sounds nice, until you think about it. But when you think about it, and reach the same conclusions as Marx, you end up saying absurd things like:

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.

Of course property has to go. All property, all private ownership. Private ownership of anything leads to inequality.

And:

Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract Or Principles Of Political Right came after John Locke’s Essay Concerning The True Original Extent And End Of Civil Government. John Locke’s Essay came out in 1690; Rousseau was aware of the Essay when he published his Social Contract in 1762.

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(Today is “Respond to Dave Walker Day”)

Believing, Asserting and Burden of Proof

If somebody says to me, “I think its bad luck to walk under a ladder“, I’d think it odd. I wouldn’t, however, demand proof.

If somebody asserted, “It is bad luck to walk under ladders, and this is a reasonable position”, I would demand proof.

Why?? What is different?

The real question here is what is burden of proof and why does one statement incur it and the other does not?

Burden of proof, lest we forget, is a legal concept. The Corpus Juris states “Semper necessitas probandi incumbit qui agit.” Thus Englished, as Locke would say, the claimant is always bound to prove: the burden of proof lies with him.

You make a claim, you assume burden of proof. No claim, no burden of proof. I can think that bad luck lurks in the shadows, and that thought in itself doesn’t incur burden of proof.

But when I assert – i.e., make a claim – that bad luck exists, then I’ve incurred burden of proof.

When something is stated as fact, or as a reasonable position, at that point it is entered into the realm of debate. In essence, you’ve claimed that the other person is in the wrong if he or she refuses to adopt your position. This is true because we see reason as binding on all humanity. For this reason, the claim that somebody is “unreasonable” is of itself a denigration.

Law codifies the expectation of people to be reasonable with the criminal standard of “reasonable doubt”.

To say that somebody is unreasonable is to say that they are in the wrong. To claim that somebody is acting reasonably is to say that their actions are justified.

Thus, one may expect to assume the burden of proof when one asserts that his position is the reasonable.

As we discussed previously, there are varied definitions of atheism.

Today I’d like to discuss the topic as it relates to the atheist burden of proof. (Read the comments there by Dave Walker - they are the reason for this post.)

Basically, if atheism asserts that there is no God, atheists assume burden of proof for that claim. If, however, they are simply not believing that God exists, and make no claim in regard to God’s existence or non-existence, then there is no burden of proof on atheists.

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I’m not a huge fan of theology, or religion, or atheist dogmas. I’m not a fan of dishonest theories propped up by feeble dogmas and fallacy.

One philosophical question, however, does intrigue me. It’s called the “Problem of Evil”, also known as the Epicurean paradox.

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Often times in atheist debates - the Internet kind - atheists invoke burden of proof. The position held by some atheists is that belief in a god or gods entails burden of proof, and atheism doesn’t.

This is just a quick post to set the record straight.

Whenever a person offers a proposition, the person offering the proposition has the burden of proof. If I, as an agnostic, say “we cannot know whether gods exist”, then the burden of proof is on me to prove that we cannot know.

If an theist asserts that his god exists, then the burden of proof rests with him to prove that his god exists.

If an atheist asserts that gods do not exist, he assumes the burden of proof to prove that gods do not exist.