The Morality Pill

In a recent issue of the Globe and Mail Guy Kahane, who is deputy director of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, wrote an opinion piece titled  Would We Swallow A Morality Pill, in which he posed the following question: Should we use our growing scientific understanding of the basis of human morality to try to make people morally better?

Here's an excerpt:

It would be ideal if individuals could freely explore different ways to improve themselves, whether by practising mindfulness, reading moral philosophy or, yes, by taking a “morality” pill. But it’s also true that, although some people are eager to take pills that make them feel better, it’s not so obvious that people would want to take pills that would make them morally better. It’s not clear people really want to be morally better. And those who, like the psychopathic Alex [of A Clockwork Orange], need the most help are probably those who would want it least.

Well worth a look, and then consideration, less so for the idea that an actual "morality pill" might be invented than for the question that Kahane leaves the reader with:

"Will we want to take them if they ever become available? And what does it say about us if we won't."

Paul Kimball

Carl Jung: The Origin of Evil & Self-Awareness

Following up on The Modern Man. The one thing that the pre-war Albert Speer lacked, by all accounts, was self-awareness.

Paul Kimball

It's All in the Hearing

"Mercy comes softly to those who will wait
but it goes by quickly you can't hesitate,
the dead can't speak, the dead can't sing
but they can tell you what mercy means,
'cause they've seen it, just listen to them,
'cause they've seen it, just listen to them,
'cause it's all in the hearing.

Picturesque faces locked in timless smiles
long hollowed spaces barren for miles,
searching for something, somewhere beyond
searching for someone whose already gone,
'cause they've seen it, just listen to them,
'cause they've seen it, just listen to them,
'cause it's all in the hearing.

Gods and goddesses they come and they go
and when they die it's painful and alone,
mercy...
mercy...
mercy...
mercy."

A song about modern celebrity, and particularly the "reality TV" celebrity in all its manifestations, more apropos today than ever, as "entertainment news" provides us with a constant parade of "picturesque faces locked in timeless smiles, long hollowed spaces barren for miles."

Paul Kimball

Fall Well

"Ten thousand liars
tell ten thosuand lies
and then they whisper
silent goodbyes,
Ten thousand prophets
tell ten thousand tales
they put Revelations
on the auction block for sale,
stranged, stranged
we've been stranged...

Ten thousand saviours
on ten thousand TVs
offer salvation
for a nominal fee,
Ten thousand sailors
on ten thousand ships
out on the ocean
alone and adrift,
stranged, stranged
we've been stranged...

Ten thousand opiates
cloud ten thousand minds
never allowing them
to seek what they must find,
stranged, stranged
we've been stranged."

Of all the songs that I wrote in the 1990s, this is the one that seems the most relevant today. "Reality" television (or, as it's often known now, "factual programming"), "news" channels that don't tell us anything about what's really happening in the world, Michael Bay "filmmaking", conspicuous consumption raised to a virtual religion...  the opiates get more powerful and ingrained with each passing year, and we just keep falling for it all.

The only silver lining is that I don't think we've reached terminal velocity yet, but we're accelerating... and the ground is getting closer.

Paul Kimball

A Thousand Words - God and Man

Charles Bridge, Prague - June, 2009