Harry Potter and the Acceptance of Death

 

Last night, I finally finished Eliezer Yudkowsky's fan fiction series, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It truly is a work of genius that should be recognized alongside the original series. It should be acknowledged that Rowling, for all of her talents with comic dialogue, mystery, and crafting a world you would wish to visit, had a weakness when it came to crafting magic systems and thinking through the implications of a power once written into canon. One can think of Yudkowsky as a satire on the original and an attempt to fashion a smarter version. 

Yudkowsky uses his alternative version of Potter as a means to talk about rationalism. It is to his credit that he is able to write a deeply ideological work of fiction without his message dragging down the entire story. It helps that becoming a rationalist superhero is actually something difficult to accomplish. You cannot snap your fingers and become a rationalist even if Yudkowsky's Harry does do quite a bit of finger snapping. Contrast this with accepting the non-Puritan version of Jesus as your personal savior or deciding to "follow your heart." Such ideologies make for boring fiction because there is no real obstacle that readers should take seriously. All the main character needs to do is get over themselves and do what they, deep down, really wanted to do all along.  

Furthermore, Yudkowsky deserves a lot of credit for his handling of Draco Malfoy and Professor Quirrell. Yudkowsky's Malfoy is not simply a bully but a smart kid, who has been raised by a terrible parent, Lucius Malfoy, and the wider society of Death Eaters to believe that non-purebloods are diluting wizarding magic and risk causing magic to disappear from the world. There is something highly relatable about him as he is introduced by Harry to science as something that forces him to think in ways completely contrary to how he is used to operating. Specifically, Malfoy has to come to terms with the notion that there is an objective reality that will not change no matter the rhetorical arguments or threats he makes. I would not say that Malfoy becomes a good person in the end, merely a less evil one. 

Rowling never bothered to develop Quirrel as a character. His function in the Philosopher's Stone was to be the butler, a character sitting off to the side that the reader does not really pay attention allowing them to become the surprise villain. When I first read the book back in 2000, I had to stop to remember who Quirrel even was. Yudkowsky's Quirrel is a brilliant teacher with a clear dark streak who becomes the primary mentor for Harry. Ultimately this also allows for the development of Lord Voldemort as someone with a plausible appeal. (The revelation, in the end, about Quirrel mostly parallels Rowling.) 

There is a major philosophical difference between Yudkowsky and Rowling that I wish to call attention to. Essential to the Rowling version is an acceptance of death. Already in the Philosopher's Stone, we are introduced to the idea that Nicholas Flamel would allow the stone to be destroyed even though it will lead to his death. This sets up Harry's actions at the end of the series where he overcomes the temptation of the Deathly Hallows and ultimately gives himself up to Voldemort to die. Voldemort, by contrast, is someone who flees death (something hinted at in his name). He made Horcruxes to keep himself alive, has Quirrel drink unicorn blood, and tries to steal the Philosopher's Stone. 

Voldemort only cares about his continued existence and therefore refuses to recognize the possibility that there are principles worth dying for. As such, he is unprepared for Lilly Potter being willing to sacrifice herself even though she had no reason to assume that her death would actually save baby Harry. Ultimately, this sets Voldemort up for being unprepared for people being willing to sacrifice themselves in opposing him even after he has taken over wizarding Britain and resistance is futile.  

Voldemort's pursuit of immortality is connected to his lack of any kind of friendship. Voldemort, even as Tom Riddle, is self-sufficient. He does not need or desire other people. The Death Eaters are servants to be used. He does not care about them nor does he rely on them unless forced by circumstances. If Voldemort is someone who is going to go on forever then there is no reason to attach himself to people who might live on after him. By contrast, Harry is distinctly dependent upon others, mainly Ron and Hermoine. There is no pretense that he could succeed on his own or that he is of ultimate importance. This allowed Rowling to plausibly sell Harry's death in Deathly Hallows. It would not have been inconceivable for Ron and Hermoine, helped by Neville, to finish Voldemort off without Harry.  

It should be noted that Rowling was fairly open-ended when it comes to the afterlife. Not even Dumbledore dares to claim that there really is life after death. Rowling's point was that death should be accepted with courage and part of that courage is not knowing that there is anything to look forward to. Nearly Headless Nick expresses regret for hanging on to the sure thing of life as a ghost instead of accepting what lies beyond, regardless of what that might be. One thinks of the example of Socrates agreeing to drink hemlock rather than violate his philosophical principles while not knowing if there is an afterlife or just an eternal sleep. 

Yudkowsky devotes much of that later part of his work to attacking this view. Harry refuses to believe in souls even when confronted with ghosts. The mark of the fundamental failure of the wizarding world in general and Dumbledore in particular in living up to the standards of reason is that, even with all of their power to violate the laws of physics, they have failed to eliminate death. Essential to Harry's ability to fight dementors (who become exponentially scarier in Yudkowsky's hands) is that Harry recognizes them as death and as a blight on the world that should not exist and that he will one day eliminate. This opposition to death eventually sets the ending with the Philosopher's Stone.  

To respond to Yudkowsky, it should first be acknowledged that it is a positive good to extend the human lifespan through advances in medicine. It is reasonable to imagine that future generations of humans will be able to live hundreds or even thousands of years due to superior technology. This is distinct from immortality though, presumably, longer lifespans will delay the development of a true awareness of death. As a kid, I had a difficult time imagining myself as an adult. Part of becoming an adult is an ability to imagine oneself growing old and then dying. 

I do not wish to dismiss immortality as a good thing. If someone were to offer me some, I certainly would not be able to resist the temptation. It may be possible to imagine a morality for immortals. That being said, our morality rests on the deeply rooted assumption that we are mortal. Being mortal forces us to consider whether life might have a higher meaning that will go on after us. This can be as part of the divine mind or the walls of Uruk. 

This affects how we relate to other people. We are social beings who aspire to be part of institutions that will live on after us. Part of being a parent is the recognition that you will eventually grow old and die. Instead of trying to be the main character of your story, your job is to be an important side character in someone else's story. To truly embrace this perspective, you cannot try to live through your children but, instead, must accept that your children will be different from you. Your job is not to create a clone of yourself but to equip another person, with their own identity, with the tools they need to achieve greatness. Perhaps your job is to read Harry Potter to them and then start printing off chapters of Methods of Rationality and reading them as well. 

Choosing Meaning: An Alternative Version of Pascal's Wager

 

The philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) famously argued that one should choose to believe in God, despite one's doubts, because there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by making such a wager. If you choose to believe in God and you are right, your reward in heaven is infinite. By contrast, the atheist loses everything if they are wrong. If it turns out that there is no God, the atheist gains nothing for being right as they will be just as dead as the believer who turns out to be wrong. A major problem with this line of reasoning is that it undermines the very notion of belief, turning religion from something one honestly believes into a wager that one makes. If we are going to believe in God then we are going to have to honestly believe in God and not simply in a lottery ticket, a horse, or a meme stock that we buy in the hope that the universe, in all of its randomness, goes our way.  

I would like to suggest an alternative version to Pascal's Wager that maintains some value. Let us step away from the question of whether God exists to offer a heavenly reward and instead ask a different question; does life have any transcendent meaning? Let us also throw in the question, does free will exist? Without free will, we are simply puppets on a string acting out some story. Whether we are central characters in this story or not, we as people, who make choices, cease to matter. To be fair, there are powerful arguments to be made against free will and ultimately against our lives having any meaning. In fact, if I were being truly objective in how I looked at the world, I would have to conclude that most probably free will does not exist and that life is meaningless. I choose to live my life in the belief that my life has meaning and that I have free will, knowing full well that I might be wrong, because, if given a choice, I would rather live my life as if it had meaning and I had free will and be wrong than to not believe in meaning and free will and be right. What is there to gain by not believing in meaning? What is the point of being a Transcendentalist and fashioning my own pretend meaning? I might as well pretend that meaning is real.  

Having taken this leap of faith to accept meaning and free will, I might as well accept that there is a supernatural creator of the entire universe who, through some mysterious process that I am incapable of understanding, allows me to have free will and made the world in such a way that it somehow matters how I make use of the free will. It should be understood that, as we are dealing with an ultimate power to provide meaning, we are dealing with a monotheist God and not simply one of many sources of power that can be tapped into. Clearly, belief in God does not necessitate a belief in free will. I have spent too much time reading Calvinist literature to think otherwise. That being said, I do not see how we can avoid an active belief in God without sinking into the radical materialism of Laplace's demon, rejecting free will and any sense of ultimate meaning.

Belief in God would not have to undermine science. We can embrace science as our primary means of understanding the creator of the natural world. Similarly, my study of history has helped me develop a certain Augustinian sensibility to how I understand human affairs. I am skeptical of human claims to virtue particularly those who achieve positions of power. By extension, I do not expect the creations of those in power, such as countries, to fulfill their stated purpose and not collapse due to the inherent flaws of their designers. And yet there are certain ideas and works of the humble that seem to survive the inevitable collapse of civilization to resurface for a new age. (See G. K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man.) I cannot shake the possibility that there is such a thing as providence. Anyway, I cannot bring myself to worship man so I might as well at least keep an open mind about there being something above mankind.     

Once I assume the God of monotheism in whom I am trusting to provide me with meaning and free will, there seems little point in trying to pursue meaning outside of him. This leaves me a choice. I can try creating my own religion to serve him or I can join a pre-existing monotheistic religion. The advantage of creating my religion is that it is likely to be more rational and avoid the inevitable objectionable features of a religion that evolved through some historic process. Historic religions on the other hand can provide a living tradition to connect to as well as an actual community to interact with. If this religion makes claims about a historical revelation that cannot be dismissed out of hand, all the better. The fact that some things in this tradition might make me uncomfortable and force me to struggle with them might just be for the best. To quote Shepherd Book from Firefly: "You do not fix faith. It fixes you."

Let us agree that I have not provided an argument for God, meaning, or free will; that was never my intention. I choose to take a leap of faith in sanity and live my life on the assumption that there is a God and that my life has a purpose and that he has created me with free will in order to accomplish that purpose. I might be wrong about this but I prefer to believe these things and be wrong than to reject them and be right. If you could convince me, as I am on my deathbed, that God, meaning, and free will had been illusions all along, I will go into the eternal abyss grateful that at least I had the chance to live my life as if these things were true.    

   

Quasimodo in the Classroom

 

Imagine that you are the principal at a school at the beginning of the year and you are given Quasimodo as a student. Quasimodo is a hunchback and incredibly ugly but this is no fault of his own and his loathsome exterior covers a truly decent soul. How far would the administration be morally obligated to go in order to accommodate Quasimodo? Clearly, the school needs to protect Quasimodo from blatant bullying. Quasimodo's teachers need to be prepped before the year starts for having Quasimodo. For example, the teachers need to be conscious of the fact that Quasimodo notices how people grimace at the sight of him and that it does real psychological damage. That being said, there are going to be real limits as to what Quasimodo's two moms, the Notre Dames, can demand from the school. 

Despite the fact that social standards of beauty are largely arbitrary and that they discriminate against Quasimodo, who never chose to look the way he does, it would be unreasonable to demand that the school overthrow conventional standards of beauty in order that Quasimodo no longer be considered hideous. A different standard of beauty, besides being impractical, would simply leave some other unfortunate student as the ugliest kid in school. To eliminate all standards of beauty, besides being profoundly impractical, would harm society. Beauty is foundational to art and to ethics. It is by contemplating mere physical beauty that we come to comprehend the possibility of a higher form of beauty such as the virtuous person. 

Unfortunately, a tragic consequence of believing in physical beauty is that, inevitably, there will exist an ugliest person such as Quasimodo who will be made to suffer even if no one is actively mean to him. While it would be wrong to stare at Quasimodo, he will catch on fairly quickly if people are not looking in his direction at all or if the timing for how long people look at him is different from how they look at other kids. What is the principal supposed to tell Quasimodo when Esmeralda turns him down for the prom and instead goes with Phoebus, the football captain, even though he is a jerk? Before the school accepts Quasimodo, the principal will have to be honest with Quasimodo's moms. If they really want to avoid getting him hurt at all costs, the best option would be homeschooling. 

For Quasimodo to attend school, it will need to be acknowledged that, while there is an obligation to tolerate and be kind to him, he will never be truly accepted. The very act of trying to be kind to Quasimodo will only further his alienation. Why would anyone feel the need to go out of their way to be nice to Quasimodo if it were not for the fact that they have already "Othered" him and, feeling guilty about it, wish to cover up for their moral failure? As such, the Notre Dames would have to agree to let the school off the hook for trying to make Quasimodo fully part of the community even though that is what pure Justice would demand.  

I bring up this example of Quasimodo because it sets an outer limit for the moral obligations of a school to a student. The fact that Quasimodo did not choose to be the way that he is allows his moms to make real demands from the school if it wishes to plausibly claim that they are serving the entire community but there is not going to be any blank check to refashion society to allow Quasimodo to function within it. 

Imagine that, while Quasimodo's principal is talking to the Notre Dames, he has to put them on hold because a call is coming in from Steve Urkel's parents, who want him to do something about the fact that Urkel finds himself socially isolated. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with Urkel dressing like a nerd and the school should protect him against physical violence. That being said, the Urkels cannot expect a higher level of support than the Notre Dames. Fairly quickly, the principal is going to have to point out that Urkel is choosing to wear dorky glasses. Even though it is wrong that kids do not want to be friends with him because of how he dresses, if Urkel wants friends, he should probably change his clothes.    

The moment we start dealing with students who violate social norms out of any religious belief or ideology, the ability of the school to act should constrict even further. Imagine that Quasimodo and Urkel were to come out of the closet as transgender Trumpist Christians and came to school wearing skirts, MAGA hats, and crosses. Clearly, Quasimodo and Urkel have the right to wear such paraphernalia even though it will make many people uncomfortable, particularly as they are likely to strongly oppose the beliefs of transgender Trumpist Christianity. 

While the principal is on firm ground to admonish students for making fun of people for their clothes and certainly for their looks, he is on far trickier grounds when students criticize or even mock the beliefs of other kids. Disagreement is an essential part of a free society. As a public servant, the principal needs to be absolutely neutral in the often brutal ideological discourses taking place around the school. He can protect Quasimodo and Urkel as long he acts in exactly the same manner for all other groups. It must be clear that he is not acting out of any desire to promote transgender Trumpist Christianity as that would violate the rights of all the other students. As this standard would be incredibly difficult to reach, the principal may have no choice but to allow Quasimodo and Urkel to be mocked. 

It will do them no good to argue that they really are women, that Trump really is their president, and that God predestined them from before creation to be part of the elect despite their sins. All three claims are things that their opponents have the right to dispute. Furthermore, it will not help Quasimodo and Urkel to argue that being transgender Trumpist Christians is essential to who they are and that their opponents are rejecting their humanity. They were on better ground arguing that being a hunchback and a nerd was essential to their being and even that offered them little benefit.      

To Be Woke At a Wedding

 

I was recently back on the East Coast for my sister's wedding in Baltimore. On the ride there, I got into a conversation with my stepmother where she asked me for a clear definition of the word "Woke." I found myself struggling to come up with a definition that could pass an ideological Turing Test where it would not be obvious that I am opposed to Woke thinking. Part of the problem is that Woke arguments function dishonestly using motte and bailey tactics, switching back and forth between its innocuous and radical claims when convenient. The actual claims of the Woke quickly veer into Poe Law territory that defies parody. Just as I might have been tempted to invent a Westboro Baptist Church to parody Christian fundamentalism, my parody of Wokeness would have involved white people paying a white woman thousands of dollars to tell them that they are racist. The problem is that Robin DiAngelo is not a work of fiction. The wedding itself ended up providing me with a useful framework with which to explain Wokeness. I noticed that almost all of the waiting staff at the wedding was black. By contrast, the vast majority of the guests were white. What might this mean from a Woke perspective?

First, to be Woke means to notice this fact that the people serving had a different skin color from the guests. As such, one should not be so literally colorblind as to not notice the different skin colors around you. Second, one should know enough about American History in general and about Baltimore in particular to recognize that this is not simply a coincidence. Black people are more likely to be economically disadvantaged to the point that they would find themselves working service jobs like being a waiter at a wedding.

These two aspects of Wokeness are fairly uncontroversial as so far all we have done is state an empirical and a historical fact. We have not made any value judgments about my sister, her new husband, and the hundreds of guests at the wedding. Furthermore, there is no particular course of action to be demanded beyond not abusing the staff or anyone with less money than you do. It is here that the radical nature of Wokeness shows its face. 

From a Woke perspective, the people attending the wedding are guilty of perpetuating systematic racism. It does not matter that the people attending may honestly feel no ill will toward black people, were perfectly civil to the blacks who served them, and never actively helped prop up segregation. Furthermore, it does not matter that most of the people attending the wedding were Jewish and that many of them were actually of Middle Eastern descent and not European at all. The claim that Jews have a history of being persecuted and were even victims of the Holocaust is itself a form of racism as it allows Jews to uphold their white privilege and not do the necessary work of dismantling white supremacy. (Note that Robin DiAngelo actually uses Judaism as an example of a defense mechanism used by people at her workshops to deny that growing up white in America makes you inherently complicit in racism.)

It is precisely when it comes to the question of what should be done that we sink into the realm of the Poe Law and Wokeness becomes a self-parody. Clearly, my sister needs to make more black friends. If need be, she should have hired black people to be her friends and come to the wedding. This could have been a form of reparations. Perhaps, she should have refused to hire black people. The fact that these people would not have had a job would help awaken their revolutionary consciousness to overthrow white supremacy. 

My wife and kids are people of color (POC). If we were properly Woke, we would have denounced my sister for having such a racist wedding where black people served white people. Furthermore, my sister showed her racism by inviting her brother's racially mixed family. Clearly, the only reason why she would have invited her brother to her wedding was so his family could offer some token diversity, rendering her racism less obvious to the not-truly Woke. 

Of course, the fact that I married a POC also makes me racist. The fact that I am attracted to this woman could only be because I objectify black women and wish to pretend that I am not racist. As such, my wife should divorce me and take away my kids to protect them from my racism. Even my wife, though, cannot escape the taint of racism. As a white-passing person, she benefits from white privilege while still being able to point out that she is a POC when convenient. The reason why she married a white man was in order to improve her standing as a white-passing person, thus perpetuating the white supremacist hierarchy with whites at the top and POCs scrambling to gain a higher place in the pyramid by making themselves as white-passing as they can and practicing white supremacist values like the traditional family and punctuality. She has spent her life being nice to white people, who are all racist, allowing them to pretend to not be racist by being friends with her. This has culminated with her marrying into my clearly very racist family, allowing us to pretend to not be racist.          

One of the hallmarks of the Woke version of racism is that white people are constantly going to try to pretend that they are not really racist by doing things that appear superficially tolerant like inviting their POC sisters-in-law to their weddings. This is a play on the Christian doctrine of total depravity. Part of being totally depraved is that even when you follow God's commandments, you are only doing it because you fear Hell and not out of love for God. The sinner loves sin so much that even with the fires of Hell raging beneath them they will not genuinely repent but will try to fool God with sham repentance. As such, their supposed good deeds are even more hateful to God than their sins. In Puritan thought, the believer needs to undergo a process where they almost despair of the possibility of ever being saved but continue to try to be virtuous. They might then find themselves filled with the knowledge of Grace and realize that it does not matter that they are the worst of sinners because God has arbitrarily chosen to save them through the death of Jesus. Similarly, in the Woke religion, being white makes you inherently racist, particularly when you try to not be racist. The only way to be anti-racist is to accept that you are racist and that there is nothing you can do to fix that. Unlike Christian total depravity, in the Woke religion, there is no black Jesus who is going to die to atone for your racism. To expect that of a POC would be, dare I say it, racist.