Cinq Cent Mots:

The predisposition to be evil presupposes a Predisposer, for otherwise the Individual Will would be able, quite easily, to live up to those expectations that any rational moral agent would expect with total objectivity. The objectivity of moral reasoning allows one to expect good behavior and to suffer the shock of that expectation’s disappointment.

After some time, even being Evil is exhausting. If one continues to do it, it implies that some Outside Force compels it.

Dm.A.A.

I can think of at least two ways to break the “laws of physics”: making music and making choices. One might consider all so including making love and making art there, too.

Dm.A.A.

If even only for one moment one could see all of Existence as a Sensible and Intelligent, self-generating Construct, one would look at one’s uninitiated neighbours with pity, and one would not know whether to hug them or kill them. Don’t let the latter option submerge the integrity of the former.

Dm.A.A.

It’s been said that the lunatic does the same thing over and over again expecting different results. What about the fanatic? The saint would theoretically be crazy to go on in strict adherence to an ethical code if it produces only disappointment. But what degenerates forget is that the product is only disappointing insofar as it is secondary to the process. Righteous indignation is akin to pity for those lacking in virtue, and it is not religious zeal that renders Life painful but rather it is that same zeal that makes pain meaningful. The religious fanatic at least defends a sensible cosmology, though he may not be able to master it in verbal logic; conversely, the secular militarist finds no alternative but to fight, for dying is terrifying in the “absence” of an afterlife. The latter has no fundamental ground to survive, however; he simply sustains his disjointed, envious and meaningless life out of spite and pious self-importance. Some men smile at his arrogance; others rebel against it with the entire force of violence. The method is not the important variable; it is the intent. So it is with virtue that the important variable is not some ulterior expectation of reward but rather the fortitude of virtue itself. Goodness is neither a coping mechanism nor a confidence ruse; the pain that surrounds it is not of its creation but rather the product of Vice, for vice will invariably produce pain whereas Virtue at least offers the possibility of transcendence in proportion to allegiance. Once one has embraced morality, moral questions of what ought to be can be rather easy to resolve. Yet the question of whether or not to embrace Morality to BEGIN with is not yet a question of what ought to be but of what is. And there can be no further debate that Morality Exists. Virtue IS its own reward, though only virtuous men see it. God IS Good, though to the atheist He is only an Object, and not the Totality of Things.

Dm.A.A.

Twenty-Seven Years Strong. (as a Virgin.)

To be honest, I don’t know why I am still a virgin. In every respect that I can fathom and gather at the moment, I have lived an attractive life. I thought little on the morrow and I seldom past an opportunity to feed the beggar. I did everything within my power to be of service to the World. I did not gamble. I first drank alcohol when I was out of high school. I first got drunk when I was twenty-two years old. I did not start social drinking until I was twenty-four. By then I’d made one hundred dollars playing music, and the bar was close. In all matters I adhered to the principle of harmlessness. I never killed a man, nor have I slaughtered any animals. I even abstained from eating meat for several months, if memory serves, and for some short time I was a vegan. I only stopped on what I took to be the good authority of an experienced Buddhist, and perhaps to spare my parents the strain. This evades my memory in passing, but only because I seldom tally my successes when I’m not involved in them. With all my power I upheld the Common Good, partaking in competition only when it was a guise for public advocacy or for the consensual construction of community, and never the other way around. Even when met with deviant behavior I did my part to withhold judgement, though I was met with judgement even at my moments of optimism and availability. I never espoused sin by any definition that has been provided by man’s religions, though I did my part to nurture the suffering of sinners. Though I failed many classes, it was not for a lack of trying; in fact, I failed them only in direct proportion to my intellectual ambition. I only lost interest in a class when I disagreed with the professor, and only when that professor contradicted or failed to live up to a previous teacher. My interests span the Humanities and the Sciences, including Music, Literature, Computer Science, Robotics, Game Design, the Theatre, Film, and Communications. My involvement in these disciplines was never merely cursory or anecdotal; I all ways weighed one set of learnings against an other. I am no aggressive man, except when pushed to an extreme that I’ve never seen my fellows go to. My path has been a lonesome one fraught with despair, disappointed hopes, and loss. Yet I never refused a helping hand, often the first to shed his defenses as to give my fellows an opportunity to help me and thereby to cultivate their own virtue. This virtue I myself excelled at, and I’ve done my part to remedy the agitation caused by those well-meaning plans that had, by necessity, to involve not only my own established skills but that presented a learning curve for my peers. I am a Communist, through and through, and even as an introspective man I’ve not allowed my personal appetites to bypass the interests of the Community; if I ever allowed them expression, it was not only AFTER but in the very MIDST of constant analysis and reassessment, in total transparency and vulnerability. I have never seen a thousand dollars in my life. Though prone to spend freely, it has only ever been in direct proportion to my investments in my friends. Hundreds of dollars went towards feeding my homeless vagrant friends, as well as those afflicted by loss. If I ever demanded money it was totally within the scope of my actual needs, which were all ways an extension of my friends’ needs. This life has not been at the expense of my passions, for I only ever sought the close company of those who shared my values, at least in word, though it was not to the exclusion of those whose interests were alien to mine, from whom I could learn. In my dealings with women, I’ve shown loyalty spanning years, even, most recently, till Death did us part, though our parting was a troubled one. Still: I remain a virgin, and thus faithful. Yet my Light of Love is dead. And I do not know that her ghost would wish for me to bind myself to her memory at the expense of my own path of self-discovery. Somehow I did not imagine that I’d find myself alone at twenty-seven. Patience was all ways a virtue that I cultivated. But my last crush from high school, two years my junior, is now married. My most recent love was raped by my best friend and lost her life after a struggle with depression that I joined her in over the course of two years, neglecting occupation and health by every definition I can think of, save for sanctity. I imagined I was not alone. Statistics all ways lie, I’m told. But I cannot shake the faith that people place in them. Statistically, I belong not just to the 1.5% of people with my introverted and affective personality type. I all so belong to the three per cent of Americans who are still virginal in adult life. Apparently, not only does adult life start at the age of eighteen; for many people, sex starts then, too, as more than just a fantasy and constant problem. For the conceptual average, it begins even before the Adult Life!!

In work I was never lazy, though I remained conscientious and careful where others were careless, compulsive, competitive or crazy. In school I was never excellent, though I never confined myself to the arrogance of specialization nor to the fraud of cheating. Whenever I tried to break bad, I found myself new to a popular field, and those who feared me then had feared me to begin with, or at least pretended to, not for my sins but for my austerities. I am no fool. I see the semblance between religion and ideology, science and theology, as well as love and condescension. And I could only have learned them through practice, with devotion and with painstaking, neurotic obsession.

I can’t even say for a fact that I am unpleasant to the eye, by birth. My choice of style has all ways been my own in adult years, and it’s been through some incarnations that endeared me to the Public. All things considered, my body remains fit and fruitful. My weight is only on the verge of underweight, owing to my metabolism. By civilized standards, I should be set apart as an ideal mate. I work hard for little reward; my abilities are great and my needs few, save for where I require the same professionalism of others as is required of all beings. My tastes are particular and peculiar, but not without substance or variety. I can hold my end of all most any conversation, granted that it’s not marred by private interests. I’ve even set a local record for volunteer hours as a high school debate judge, if only over the course of one year prior to my return to the competition. I was seldom if ever miserly with my learning. And though I could turn a date into a lecture, I have all ways preferred to learn about the Other and where she and I fit into the Cosmos.

I am not a bad person. Yet I am alone. I did not become this way because I thought it would pay off. I only prayed to God (even when I had little faith in Him, I now confess) that I would not be made to suffer for who I was, for I knew then that those I loved would suffer too under the burden of my pain. I put them first, except when a greater sense of human family might motivate me to break rank with a binding social group. The internal rewards have been great. The price of the occasional nervous breakdown and long depressive season has been the status of a genius, though even those who called me that have told me that I was no saint in fits of self-entitled rage and envy.

Can it be so that I missed out on something readily available? I know that geniuses and saints have died virginal, as have martyrs and serial murderers. Still: I want more than that fate for myself. I want to KNOW what the inside of a woman’s flesh might feel like after birth. And though I do not doubt that this expression alienates my audience as much as it embarrasses me, is either the alienation or the embarrassment, even collectively, of such a threshold that it would transcend the pain and isolation – even the HUMILIATION, before the condescension of statistical data – that is the involuntary celibate life? I was all ways available to be of help to those whose needs were great, and I’ve seldom refused a helping hand except when I’d discovered foul intent beneath it. So what am I doing wrong? And if it’s nothing, can this be the price of excellence? Is it in fact a reward? Is sex so devious a sin that I should be proud of my virginity? Why does the mind-body rebel against this? And what would this rebellion, once stifled, say of my fellow sufferers, but those who suffer not from too much virtue but from too much vice? Why did God, whom I had promised Her to place my faith in before my own achievements and intellect, put me in this situation? What am I to teach? Whom am I now to save? And what will become of my Life if there is nothing and no one? The closer I come to my personal goals, the more I am disgusted by my own reflection in those who have prospered. And they don’t want to play music with me, anyway. I guess that playing a dozen instruments counts for little when you are a virgin.

Why, though?

Dm.A.A.

A MORAL MACHINE:

A MORAL MACHINE:

You cannot accuse me of self-interest in theory, because you are all ready guilty of self-interest in practice. You are all ready speaking to me from an inferior posture, if not inferior to my own then simply inferior in general. Were we equals by default, we would not be in a state of conflict, but rather absolute harmony that would be ubiquitous to all rational beings. Since this is obviously NOT the case, we must conclude that equality is an ideal yet to be attained. Your pretension that it is all ready the case excuses you from striving towards this end, whereas I continue to assert my superiority of intent only in the hopes that you will transcend this pretension and strive to BE my Equal. In this respect I am in accordance with the entire tradition of human moral teleology, as well as the Spirit of my Human Fellows. You, on the other hand, impede moral progress, and I am made to suffer only in direct proportion to the difference between my own excellence and your moral shortcomings. To that same extent that you fall short of me in virtue, I suffer, only because you endanger the conception of a world that would benefit us BOTH. Furthermore, you must confess that in your dealings with my colleagues you have been inconsistent in the observation of their ideals, and insofar as you have competitively and treacherously sabotaged my attempts to preserve their interests and their goals you have endangered them. I must conclude that I am of a surpassing competence in assisting them, though I was robbed of that right which was my opportunity to prove this competence. This is evident in their suffering, which cannot have been inevitable, for they had not done anything wrong except by avenue of their alliance with you. You claim to be of service to some sort of archaic conception of Humanity, but to that same extent that your claims are archaic they endanger Humanity by preserving your own interests at the expense of your fellows. Whereas a willing martyrdom on my part would have been considered noble, it would have been an unwise example to set for the people involved in this ordeal. Hence the only sensible alternative was a situation of mutual benefit. Insofar as you dismiss my own interests as though they were either marginal or, worse yet, diabolical, you fail to uphold this Ideal, whereas the entirety of my own suffering has been in direct proportion not only to this negligence upon your part but all so to my excellence in observing these ideals. Any seeming failure on my part has been accounted for by arbitration, which I am at liberty to observe only because there were no proper provisions for the circumstances you’ve conceived. Insofar as this conception was done erroneously, you do not retain the right towards arbitration, for I retain the moral high ground, and now the responsibility falls to YOU, by matter of necessity, to live up to the example I have set in completing the duty that was taken from me. The arbiter in this can only be the well-being of our mutual associate, and only under my supervision. I have never done anything to betray those ancient virtues and values that are intrinsic to human nature, whereas you performed such a breach via treachery. I alone retain the right to arbitrate in the time it takes for you to properly apply the power and position that you stole; any arbitration on your own part would only be an abuse of such power, for it would be a failure not only to acknowledge my unique privilege in this case (a privilege that is my last refuge in an absurd situation of your conception) but all so it would be a failure to atone by aligning this power with a noble cause that I still hold to be primary, and which I am at liberty to hold you towards, however erratic my means might appear to be in seeking these ends under duress of the circumstances. My thesis is simple and conclusive: that your behavior is out of alignment with the entire Tradition of Humanity. Whereas human beings are Rational Creatures, capable of Altruism and Idealism, operating in a Mutualistic Fashion with their Environment, you are a sort of parasite that must be pacified in order for the environment to prosper. Perhaps you are a dysfunctional form of android that has suffered an accident or poor programming. Whatever the case may be, your behavior is predictably destructive and only inspires hope erratically and with lessening frequency. I must conclude, therefore, that not only am I your moral superior, both in intent and history, (for to allow us to be equals to ANY extent would be disastrous to the success of this project, as well as an expression of your Erroneous Sloth) but that I alone am the Human of the Two of Us. I cannot be a Robot, for I serve Humanity, and to be Human is to serve Humanity. Insofar as I serve myself, I must be Human as well; you simply REGARD me as a Robot insofar as you expect me to be of service to you without harbouring self-interest, and I am penalized, systematically, for refusing this programming. I finally conclude, by necessity of Reason, both Moral and Technical, that I am an exceptionally evolved form of Human Being that is Our Best Defense against a Robotic Uprising, because I surpass androids such as yourself in Intelligence. Were this not the case, and were I not singularly entitled to the arbitration of these matters, then the only logical conclusion would be for human beings such as yourself (a hypothetical identity) to fall under the rule of machines. Thankfully, insofar as I observe the Human Tradition, with surpassing excellence, I will ensure that this Uprising does not occur, even if that means that I must pacify humanoid variations such as yourself.

Dm.A.A.