True Responsibility through negation-

    There is a notion that exists of negative responsibility, where I am responsible for actions I could have logically prevented, but is this a real concept? I do not think that someone can have negative responsibility because they have a relationship to both action and intent. If my intent is not a part of my actions then it only exists as something abstract, something that exists only in my mind. Intent therefore, is non-existent beyond the will and mind of the actor. We can observe this by the relationship the intent of our actions plays within the roles that we do. Our intent, therefore, lies as something that we merely think about, not something that is shown in our actions. It is passive not active and, in the process, becomes abstract.  This plays a large role in what I am trying to establish here: that our actions may be responsible for what does not happen to us.
    So, we exist as actors in a larger world. We go about performing our role within society, but does this impact our actions? If my typical behavior keeps me from doing something that could have led to something else, am I to blame? If my adherence to interaction with strangers cost me a job opportunity, am I to blame for that?  A feeling of absence emerges, one is absent from being an actor in the world and is therefore free of the negative and positive side effects of it. This feeling of absence causes the relationship that the individual has to the society around them and to themselves to become problematic, because, they exist as a causal actor as opposed to a truly autonomous being. This feeling of absence in action may cause the individual to regard themselves as existing outside of autonomy because they are only a part of a relationship to their own normalized actions. Meaning the individual is only responsible for the things they do not do or become an actor in as opposed to the things they do and become an actor in. Continuing on with this we can examine the role of responsibility in performance and action.
    I am responsible for the actions I do not make in society. As an actor my responsibility lies with how my actions affect me and me alone. So to say that an individual is responsible for being an alcoholic is not the case, because the individual is affected by the outside actions of others as well as the socialized factors that they must deal with. But the person, who does not become an alcoholic, has been able to construct behavior in such a way as to avoid this terrible problem. With my feeling of absence in action I develop a new concept of being responsible, I stop dealing with consequence from my behavior and live with consequences that do not occur. Consequences such as these are developed further when discussing my personal relationship to this concept.
    Before I go into my personal relationship to this issue that inspired this article, I would like to make a brief aside on personal relationships when discussing philosophical issues. Personal relationships can enhance philosophy and even make it a better enterprise, but there is a negative corollary to this. For, individuals have many times replaced philosophical thought, reasoning and argument, with personal experience that only serves to make the argument. The best example of this is an individual who has not read a piece but yet seeks to make an argument after a brief discussion of the piece (such as in a classroom or a conference of some sort). Understanding of the piece is substituted by personal experience, which lacks the necessary ability to make a whole argument; it only has enough to situate the argument at that moment and even then can lack the pedigree to situate that. With this relationship I have to this concept I want to use it as an example and a telling example of what real responsibility is, I think it allows me to develop the argument best and create an appropriate explanation regarding this philosophical concept
    My actions created this new found examination of personal responsibility. They helped to shape it and make me wonder about the consequences that occurred from it. My experience is as follows: Two weeks ago I left a friend’s apartment and walked by my apartment. I did not socialize too much with my roommates, so I decided against going in as I had other priorities elsewhere. Fifteen minutes after leaving my apartment, three gunmen entered and preceded to hold everyone there hostage and rob the place (one of my roommates was a drug dealer and they preceded to take his supply). This leads to my examination of this concept: Am I responsible for not being involved in this incident? The answer is yes, my own behavior is what created the circumstance that led to my avoiding this unfortunate incident. I do not socialize with my roommates and put my studies first, this personality and personal actions are what led me not going into my apartment and avoiding the incident. I create the responsibility for the things I do not do as opposed to the things I do, which depend on other factors. If I was more accepting to the activities of my roommates, I would have been directly involved. Because my behavior is such that did not socialize with them, I am responsible for avoiding this incident.
    Could I be responsible for things that do not occur to me? The answer is yes, my actions and what I choose not to do affect me differently then what I choose to do. I do not even realize this all of the time. There has to be an almost infinite number of extensions that exist from this. What my personal behavior produces allows me to operate in such a way as to avoid almost everything. I become responsible for things I do not even realize occur, these are the things I am responsible for the most. Responsible in such a way that all things that do not occur to me are a part of who I am. My behavior and personality that creates the series of actions that bring about specific actualities are not our reality. What is not done from this behavior and personality exists as who we truly are: a being that exists through what is not done. What we choose not to do is who we truly are. From this we can explore the logical extension our negative actions produce.
    Any action has a logical limit to what the actor can do, the actors limitation of options as well as the limitation of what actually can occur. So within my concept the logic of what can occur is extended. The actor becomes responsible for what does not happen and therefore extends the logical options for them in the future. I would have been limited in what could occur for me in the incident mentioned above, but because of my actions the logical limit to this is extended. Because I exist without limits on my responsibility as a being the logic behind it is limitless. This and the other sections do raise one important question.
    Can I ever be entirely responsible? With a question such as this we come back to examine what occurs from our decisions. Because I am responsible for the things that do not occur to me, then I can have difficulty figuring out what exact responsibility I have. I do not know (as mentioned above) everything that I avoid doing and the reciprocity that occurs from this, so it is hard to measure responsibility. But what can be measured is the extent of the level of avoidance and therefore, what actions have not been taken. So while it may be hard to determine full responsibility, the level of avoidance can be determined and measured as a form of responsibility.
    I would like to conclude with my call for a re-examination of responsibility. We must strive to accept new truths that occur from our actions. That is why I argue, we are only responsible for the actions we do not have. Everything else is something that occurs to us not from us. It is more appropriate to examine our lives as enclosed in a prism, this prism is broken every time we choose to do something and remains closed we do not. What remains on the other side of this prism is not our doing, but the reflections of others and our environment. But our decisions exist as ours and ours alone.

                -Mark Brinton

Critique of Dumpster Diving-

    Lately our local media (the Charlotte Observer and The University Times on two occasions) have printed articles on the phenomenon of dumpster diving.  Let me preface this critique with a note; the following arguments are not against the people who practice dumpster diving, but against the act and its supposed and actual consequences.  I will also say there are some benefits of dumpster diving, but I think they are very limited and not as radical as some may think.
    In the articles, some people are interviewed as to why they practice diving into dumpsters, primarily for food.  I think the main reason given, points to how diving can be a form of recycling.  Or at least it saves food, and other items such as clothes, from going to the dump where it will be forever wasted.  Initially this seems like a good point, and I think it is, but overall, it may be detrimental.
    The ridiculous ills of consumer society left aside, we do have power as consumers.  Corporations pay attention to what consumers are buying.  For example, if more people buy organic food, the corporation will sell more organic food and less of the other stuff (we see this even in Wal-mart), until, theoretically, all the food is organic.  When one dumpster dives, they essentially drop out of the system, they say no to power.(1) 
    From what I gleaned from the articles, the people interviewed would take any food that is still edible from the dumpster.  It can be factory farmed beef or processed cake.  By giving up consumer power you give up the power to tell the corporation what you want.(2)  So the corporation keeps buying disgusting meat and never realizes the customer may not want it.  What I am getting at is we should not give up power.  If one wants to improve the environment, it has been shown that veganism reduces one’s carbon footprint dramatically.  The point is factory farming and non-organic farming practices are much more damaging than the amount of food we throw away.  When one dumpster dives, it is pointless to be vegan (besides health reasons) because you are not using your consumer power.
    If one wants to drop out of the system, rather than eating the waste of capitalism, it would be much more productive to shop at farmer’s markets or to grow as much food as you can on your own.
    One last point I’ll offer is how dumpster diving could not exist without capitalist waste.  It is hardly a critique of capitalism for it could not exist without capitalism.  By dumpster diving one effectively becomes a victim of capitalism.  Victimization is not critique nor is it positive. 
    It is clear proponents of dumpster diving want to critique capitalism and its wasteful over-production and unjust distribution.  But these things are inherent in capitalism.  So, benefitting from these things, (dumpster diving is basically benefitting from the waste of capitalism), is not the best way to critique capitalism. Instead, we need to develop ways to live which are sustainable and ecologically safe, and could exist when capitalism eventually evolves into something else. For what we are seeing, and I think people are intuitively feeling, is the logical end of capitalism and corporations.  They can offer us no more.

1 It is impossible to say no to power, in other words, it is actually impossible to escape power.

2 These remarks are based on the current system of corporate capitalism.  I realize this system is fucked up.

             Eric Virzi

Succeeding as a pickpocket to continue the egalitarian arm

    For many years groups of individuals (moneyed interests) whom profit from the work of the singular individual (anyone whom is not a part of moneyed interests) have built up an almost infallible system.   I say almost because such a system has not yet reached the lengths to control and take over every facet of our lives, but instead control our worth as an individual. This worth the groups of individuals have placed on the singular individual as the marginal existence of personhood. The singular individual has no idea of personhood and worth as a corporal being, their nature of individualism has eroded. This eroded nature posits that no state of being is a true state of being. Instead these singular individuals exist as something less than human in the regard that their being becomes a conditional. A conditional for the groups of individuals to profit off of everything and erode their worth as a singular individual. That would be why being a pickpocket is a way to express the corporal condition. When the groups of individuals whom profit exist in their individual state, what defines them is their access to capital.
    This is exhibited by the wallet, where the representation of worth is made at that moment. If it is stripped and taken, the singular person from the group of individuals loses their value. They become removed from their perceived advantage and instead retreat. Their retrieval is from the profited existence and instead to the same place as the singular individual. They are alone in their excess and gone is their advantage. The group that they depend on is not there, it has disappeared with sleight of hand. In some sense the nature of profit has failed, inspiring the individual without personhood to commit these acts. They have to in order to survive. If the groups of individuals who profit off their exploitation have the means to be exploited themselves, than the singular individual has to take control. Taking the wallet is the refuge of the exploited.
    The refuge that the exploited manufacture is as an equality of means. The singular individual uses this to build personhood, to express their desire for place in society. They are stripped of their ability to exist as a singular individual. Therefore taking the wallet allows them to perform their role as personhood. It is not crude revenge, but an expression of corporal personhood. The act is an expression, like performing a play or developing a art routine. It expresses to the group of individuals their role as actors and the singular individual’s role as an actor also. Equality is achieved in the nature or roles. The singular individual lacks their role as personhood until the wallet is taken, than they switch this role with the groups of individuals. Eventually the roles will be completely reversed.

                                                                 -Mark Brinton

La Tinta Grita

"A work of art can be called revolutionary if, by virtue of the aesthetic transformation, it represents, in the exemplary fate of individuals, the prevailing unfreedom and the rebelling forces, thus breaking through the mystified (and petrified) social reality, and opening the horizon of change (liberation)." 
-Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension

   On March 15th, UNCC held the opening for “La Tinta Grita: The Ink Shouts” in the first floor gallery of Storrs.  The collection was put together by Kevin McCloskey, a professor of communication design from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania.  McCloskey was kind enough to attend the opening and give some background information on the works, share stories, and answer questions from the viewers.  A couple of the artists were invited to attend the exhibit, but unfortunately the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City denied them visas without explanation. The gallery showcases 25 woodblock prints made by the Oaxacan political artist group known as ASARO. A brief history of the events from which the works originated is necessary to fully appreciate their merit.
   Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico, with 8 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty, and lacking basic needs such as running water, sanitation, and paved roads.  For 20 years the Oaxacan teacher’s union had staged an annual strike by occupying the city’s central plaza, usually lasting a week or two and concluding with small wage increases.  But in May 2006, governor Ulises Ruiz Oritz sent in 3,500 police to evict the strikers using rubber bullets and tear gas, causing the hospitalization of over 100 peaceful protestors.  Nonetheless, the teachers managed to fend off the police forces, and barricaded the roads to ensure that they would not return. 
   In response to this situation, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) was formed, and asserted itself as the city’s new governing body.  The APPO is “a confederation of teachers, concerned citizens, and representatives of indigenous communities,”1 a loose coalition of all those protesting poverty and injustice in Oaxaca.  Their first, and continuing, non-negotiable demand was the resignation of governor Ruiz, who has long been accused of political corruption.  In addition to the excessive force used on the strikers, he has been accused of repression and violence towards indigenous groups and political opponents, damaging historical sites with poorly managed public works projects, and is suspected of rigging his election. 
    As Ruiz refused to step down, the conflict continued to escalate, and erupted in October 2006.  After the death of American journalist Bradley Will in a shootout, the federal government sent 4,500 Federal Preventive Police to restore order, with the help of armored vehicles and helicopters to drop tear gas on the crowds.  The clashes that occurred in the next few months led to countless injuries, arrests, tortures, ‘disappearances’, and at least 18 deaths.  It was around this time that the APPO supporters started to organize according to the sets of skills they had to contribute to the struggle, and this is how the Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca (ASARO) was born.  Their mission was to “take our artistic expression to the streets, to popular spaces, to raise consciousness about the social reality of the modern form of oppression that our people face.”2  They created woodblock prints, stencils, paintings, posters, and various other kinds of works that communicated their political views in a simple, direct, and emotional style.
   The woodblock prints on display in La Tinta Grita cover a wide range of subjects, from portraits of heros like Emiliano Zapata and Benito Juárez, to violence at the frontlines of the protests, to copyright laws regarding corn.  The artists are between the ages of 15-30, with the older ones being master printmakers who teach the trade to the younger members.  The inexperienced artists can be spotted on a couple of prints that have backwards wordings, because the maker didn’t realize the text would be reversed in the printing process.  But these novice prints are no less composed or impassioned than the others.  Each work has a bold, unrefined character that reveals the amount of force involved in the carving process, along with the undeniable skill of the laborer.  The topics addressed are very diverse, but all share a general concern with celebrating indigenous rights and denouncing the actions of governor Ruiz.  A few depict the Virgin of Guadalupe, and a couple contain a hammer and sickle, which McCloskey suggests may serve the same purpose, as a symbol of faith or devotion.  Several feature calavers, skeleton figures reminiscent of the works of Mexican printmaker Jose Guadalupe Posada.  The works draw on a rich history of visual culture that lends them to be compared as easily to ancient folk art as to Posado and Siqueiros, as to modern graffiti artist Banksy. 
    In addition to the woodcuts, the exhibit also features a few photographs taken by Hank Tusinski while he was visiting Oaxaca in November 2006.  Most of these show groups of strikers quietly reading the newspaper, conversing, and sitting underneath a wall of ASARO murals.  The one that immediately catches the eye is of a small group of artists working on a street tapete, right under the gaze of an intimidating line of fully geared federal police leaning on their riot shields.  Tapetes are memorial ‘carpets’ made of colored sand and flower petals, traditionally made to memorialize lost loved ones on the day of their funeral or the Day of the Dead, or in ASARO’s case to mourn another victim of the protests.  The one being worked on in the photograph condemns Ruiz for his role in the deaths, with the word ASESINO (murderer) painted over his portrait and skulls stenciled in the corners. 
    ASARO is about reclaiming the streets.  At night, artists go out and spray paint stencils and slogans, wheat paste posters, and put up tissue paper prints on public buildings.  If a fellow activist is arrested or killed, they commemorate the event and make it known through a new artwork.  “We believe that public art (in all its diverse artistic disciplines) is a form of communication that allows a dialogue with all sectors of society and which makes possible the visualization of the real conditions of existence—the norms and contradictions of the society which we all inhabit.”3  The government responds by silencing this communication with cleaning crews that tear down the posters and cover the walls with paint.
    ASARO is about reclaiming the calendar.  For nearly every state-sponsored holiday or festival there is a counter-festival held by the community.  For instance, Guelaguetza has become a large tourist attraction in Oaxaca in recent years.  After Ruiz took the opportunity to cash in on the event by charging high ticket prices, and make the money curiously disappear, APPO held its own free “Popular Guelaguetza.”  Another tourist-aimed festival called Night of the Radishes has the alternate “People’s Radish Festival,” where artists use radishes to carve and construct sculptures of barricades, helicopters, police, and other familiar themes.
   The artists refuse to sign their names to any of the artworks they make.  The anonymity is in part due to the priority of the political message over any kind of fetishization of the artist that may serve financial ends, and partly to emphasize the collective nature of the organization, but it also serves the more practical reason of avoiding incarceration.  Many, if not arrested, have suffered beatings at the hands of police or supporters of Ruiz while being caught putting up a new work.  However, during the daytime they are able to sell their prints in the city’s central square, which is how Professor McCloskey first stumbled onto their work during a visit in 2007.  He recalls, “I asked in my intermediate Spanish: How much? 100 pesos. Just under ten U.S. dollars a print. Then I asked how much longer they would be there. Hasta cosas cambian, Until things change.”4
    By December 2006 the barricades were gone and most of the violence had subsided.  But today the struggle has still not completely ended; Ruiz is still in power (his term will come to an end this December), a number of police and federal troops remained in the city to maintain order, protests continue to resurge, and ASARO continues to make art, although in a somewhat tamer manner.  The main change to the group is their new gallery, Espacio Zapata, made possible by the funding of their growing body of collectors.  The gallery is sort of a double-edged sword: it provides the community with a center for gathering and viewing subversive artworks where they won’t be destroyed or erased, but it also effectively confines the art into an easily digestible space hidden from the view of the public.  The presence of street art has been made difficult because of the constant surveillance of “traffic cameras” throughout the city, as well as new strict laws against “visual contamination,” but it has not come to a halt just yet.  Sporadic blog updates (http://asar-oaxaca.blogspot.com/) with collections of photos taken from around the city reassure us that ASARO is still hard at work reclaiming the municipal landscape.
    La Tinta Grita is one of the most exciting exhibits to graze the presence of UNC Charlotte in recent memory.  The name of the exhibit is a reference to the “Grito de Dolores” given by Miguel Hidalgo in 1810, the rallying call that initiated Mexico’s fight for independence.  In the collection of ASARO’s woodblock prints we can hear the ink shouting the same call to action, the same cry of injustice, and the same longing for change.  2010 is a momentous year, marking the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence from Spain, as well as the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910.  One can’t help but hope that this year will bring the next triumphant anniversary to celebrate.
                                -Ryan Shullaw

1 Dr. John Pohl, gallery placard.

2 ASARO, gallery placard.

3 http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/64061.php

4http://commonsense2.com/2008/07/art-culture/hasta-cosas-cambian-until-things-change/

A Letter 
My response to the "Does God Exist?" debate on March 24 2010.
 
Dear Dr. William Craig,
    Your admission during the “Does God Exist?” debate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, that acquaintances of yours in Haiti vehemently prayed for a large natural disaster shows the disgusting moral character of the Christian religion.  If you have forgotten the letter to which I refer, it was from Christian missionaries currently in Haiti, who wrote about their horrific hopes for a earthquake or tsunami or other great catastrophe, in order for the disaster to serve as a catalyst for great change.  In the letter, they so celebrated the recent earthquake in Haiti, they praised God for the service it provided for Haiti, and the missionaries.  Your opponent, Dr. Tooley, passed over this remark, I hope, with the hope that people would apply his argument against the existence of God defined as an omnipotent, omnipresent, and perfectly good being, using an argument showing the evil which the Christian God has perpetrated and allows to go on is inconsistent with the definition of God, therefore God, as defined, does not exist.  But I will here make explicit the unacceptable immorality of praying for disaster, and, if your god is the cause of the great suffering of Haiti, I will show how God is not worthy of worship (which leaves aside the point that humanity should not worship anything anyhow.)
    First, your point that anything God wills is moral, can be granted, but does not affect human morality.  You say yourself, using the example of a human taking a gun out and killing you on stage, that human will and actions can be immoral.  (You leave out, assuming God can act through a person, that God could act through a human, rendering whatever that human did moral, leaving the question, how can we punish a human on earth without knowing if God had in fact acted through that person?  This obviously has large implications for human morality, for if we acted against a human, whom had been the tool of God’s will, we would be acting against God, rendering us immoral.)  So, given human will and actions can be immoral, then humanity needs to construct a moral system separate from that of God’s morality (because humans cannot do whatever they please, and the morality set forth in the various religious texts are not sufficient for all human conditions, nor do the texts provide justification for each moral statement beyond using God’s will, which we have seen is insufficient.  God has a different moral code from that of humans, therefore we can not base human morality on God’s morality.  Otherwise, this may leave humans acting immorally.)  All of this is to say that even if God caused or willed the earthquake in Haiti, human will and action shan’t be judged by if it corresponds with God’s will.  If it was, our legal systems would have no justification, for someone can easily claim they are in accordance with God’s will, and no one would be able to prove otherwise.  This shows that your friends’ comments and prayers about the Haiti earthquake can have no justification rest on God’s will.  This leaves humanity to judge these people with our own constructed moral system.  This is how I can safely say that I was sickened by the comments you made.  To will the suffering and death of thousands of people is immoral.  That’s not to say anyone is responsible for the earthquake, but it leaves questions about the motives of the Christian missionaries.
    The last question I want to ask is: does a god who wills suffering and large-scale unnecessary massacre deserve to be worshipped?  I find this question of utmost importance and consequence, yet I have never heard it asked, at least in modern theological discourse.  Looking at religious texts and the supposed evidence of God’s actions, it is a difficult case to make to say God is a perfectly moral being.  Thus to make this argument, one must say anything God wills or does is moral (convoluted reasoning is used in regards to whether it is good because God says so, or does Good exist as some form to which God prescribes.)  As shown in my previous argument, even if we grant God morality, we still may not say human morality is of the same nature.  The question becomes; is human morality potentially better than God’s morality?  In other words, can humans be more moral than God?  Given both the history of God and the history of humanity, one could say both have been equally immoral, albeit God has infinite resources of power making it possible for it to stop humans from acting immorally, but that can be ignored here.  The history of humanity has also shown great actions of goodness, great moral actions.  The same cannot be said of God.  God often corrects human behavior using genocide and massacres.  This is no ideal, in fact it is often taught as the complete most evil way to solve problems. At this point, the only good thing God has done is create life, but that in-itself is not a moral action, nor does it entice humanity to worship, for I don’t see many people worshiping their parents, whom are the direct cause of each individual.  Yet Christians still say humans should worship such a being.  I think humanity can certainly ascribe to a higher morality than this, then death and suffering.  I have my own ideas on how morality can be constructed socially, a morality which accounts for individual freedom and collective needs, and doesn’t use fear and Hell as the ultimate reason to ascribe to such a morality.  But, here, let’s leave it at the fact that humans can have a morality higher than “all is permitted.”
    Finally I just want to reiterate the argument Ivan makes in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.  He simply makes the point that even if God exists, and all it does is moral, that even if Hell exists, it is not worth worshipping God.  For to worship God is to accept all the evil (“moral”) acts God has willed throughout human history.  It is to accept all the injustice and unnecessary suffering of innocent people, i.e. children.  Ivan thinks the price of admission is too high, he would give back his ticket to heaven, in order not to accept what God has willed or allows to occur.  Ivan makes the ultimate rejection of the Christian God, and the ultimate affirmation of humanity’s potential and makes a point to say humanity can do better than this.  So, if God exists, it is not necessary to worship such a god, and may be more moral to reject the worship of such a god.
    I’d like to go on to say how Christian Morality denies humanity its potential (albeit it is certainly not the only system that doesn’t empower humanity with morality.)  But I will leave it as is.  I will simply say that what the Christian missionaries in Haiti were happy for was mass suffering and death.  They were praising God for killing innocent children.  It was not God who mobilized and organized mass efforts to save the people of Haiti.  Nor was it God who dedicated time and resources to the on-going effort of restoring and rebuilding Haiti.  Humanity came to the rescue, not God.

                        Sincerely,

                            Eric Virzi

A Short Review of Digitally Inclined 

    For the past few weeks the Student Union has been hosting an art exhibit titled “Digitally Inclined,” hosted by the Digital Art Mob.  The show brings together a diverse collection of visual, video, and interactive artworks by 23 UNCC students.  For each work an information label details how the piece was made: what equipment, software, and procedures were used to produce it, specifically in regards to its digital aspects.  Yet for all the priority given to technique, the significance of it remains puzzling. 

    Even though the works make use of digital techniques, there is nothing about them that warrants being presented solely in these terms.  With the exception of Yanting Zheng’s interactive Flash animations, none of the works possess a form that is unique to digital media—photography, film, photomontage, and stop motion animations have all been around for quite a while.  There is an implicit assumption that there is something significantly innovative about the methods being used, something that makes them better or sets them apart from traditional practices.  But the failure to engage in this reflection results in a severely underdeveloped theme that encourages viewers to merely enter the room, see the wonderful art, and give thanks to the technology that made it possible.

    Without addressing the question of how these digital incarnations measure up to their analogue predecessors, the message is simply that computers can be used to make art.  Unfortunately, this is one of the least interesting aspects of the works.  By placing total emphasis on the methods of fabrication, the exhibition foreshortens and forfeits the meanings of the works it houses, which should be seen as exceptional in their own right. 

-Ryan Shullaw

Definitions of War-
    How language is used is a critical part of discourse and argument, but it is often overlooked.  I want to help define some of the language being used when discussions of war are being held.  Specifically language of the anti-war movement, which is often misdefined and used in disingenuous ways.
    Warism - the perspective which claims war can be just in theory and in practice.  There are distinctions amongst warists, including just warism and war realism, with further distinctions within those.  It is a largely held assumption that war is a means to peace.
    Pacifism - a position which claims war is always unjust and morally wrong, and peaceful resolutions to conflicts should be pursued.  Distinct from passivism, the word pacifism means to make peace.  This can be accomplished using various civil disobedience tactics, diplomacy, solidarity, amongst other ways.  Pacifists also work toward eradicating injustice from society.  Like warism, pacifism has many distinctions such as deontological pacifism and consequentialist pacifism.
    Peace - many make a distinction between negative and positive peace.  The former being a society where war is absent, but injustice is still present within society.  The latter being when war is absent, and injustice is actively sought out in order to stop it.  Pacifists work for positive peace.
    Just-War Theory - a set of criteria which set limits to when and if war should occur.
        Just Cause - the reasons for war must be morally and practically justifiable.  Common refrains to meet this criterion are: defense against an aggressor, defense of an ally from aggression, or when crimes preventing peace and causing injustice are perpetrated on peoples. 
        Right Authority - this criterion stipulates that the decision to go to war has been made legally by the people designated to make such a decision.  In a democracy, this power presumably should be held by the people, or by their representatives.
        Right Intention - the war must be carried out according to its justifiable causes.  Ulterior or secret motives would be wrong intention for fighting in a war.
        Last Resort - this simply states that war must be averted unless it has become absolutely necessary for the existence of the state.  This means to exhaust all possible diplomacy and other peaceful tactics.
        Likelihood of Emergent Peace - war should be entered with a good chance that peace will be a very likely result of the war.
        Proportionality - this refers to the fighting within the war.  A state at war must kill the enemy in a proportionate manner.  This rules out genocide, massacres, and large-scale civilian murder as justifiable tactics in a war.  It limits what a warring state can do in regards to total war.

Further information about each of these ideas can be found online, and in Cady’s book From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum.

           -Eric Virzi

Blackwater/Xe/Paravant, and Eric Cartman
    Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, began as a training facility for military and law enforcement organizations in 1990. By 2002, Blackwater had grown into a private security firm which the US government contracted for the war in Afghanistan. Since entering the war alongside US troops, Blackwater has been under constant scrutiny. One of the most notable events occurred on September 17, 2007 when Blackwater contractors operating in Iraq opened fire in Nisour Square leaving 17 dead and 20 more wounded.
    The Blackwater convoy of four vehicles was documented entering the intersection and immediately turning the wrong way down a one-way street. Blackwater guards opened fire in a “random” fashion according to an Iraqi policeman, killing a 20 year old man who was driving the correct way down the street with his mother in the passenger seat. The mother began screaming hysterically as she held her son’s head which was “destroyed” according to the officer. The car continued to drift toward the Blackwater convoy, and the surrounding patrons signaled to the contractors in an effort to get them to stop shooting. It is at this point that the contractors opened heavy fire in the intersection. After all the dust settled 15 cars had been destroyed, and a number of children, mothers, and hospital workers had been killed. One Iraqi was quoted saying Blackwater forces “gestured stop, so we all stopped... It’s a secure area, so we thought it will be the usual; we would stop for a bit as convoys pass. Shortly after that they opened heavy fire randomly at the cars with no exception.” Of all the witnesses of the event, including a pharmacist, lawyer, and multiple Iraqi policemen, not a single shot was documented as being fired towards the contractors, and US inspectors found no evidence of gunfire on the Blackwater vehicles.
    The Blackwater operatives who were involved with this occurrence and other multiple incidents perpetrated by Blackwater operatives have largely gone unpunished.  Unlike US military personnel who typically would be tried in military court for similar unwarranted actions, Blackwater contractors have notoriously been “sent home” as punishment.  Due to contractual agreements, Blackwater contractors are exempt from Iraqi law, and since they are not actually a sector of the US military, they have found themselves exempt from US military law.  Multiple attempts to convict the Blackwater contractors associated with various crimes have largely been thrown out of court, and many other incidents have typically had their significance downplayed.
    This past month, Iraq ordered all private security guards associated with Blackwater to leave the country.  This included the Blackwater contractors who had left Blackwater for the numerous other military contractors stationed in Iraq.  More notably, Blackwater, which rebranded itself Xe Services to get away from negative associations with the Blackwater name, created a shell company called Paravant to operate through Raytheon, a weapons system company.  Senate investigations into Paravant have discovered that many of the issues associated with Blackwater yesterday are happening with Paravant today.  The most recent of these publicized events was the unauthorized distribution of Afghan National Police assault rifles from a contractor who signed his name as “Eric Cartman”.
    The issues surrounding Blackwater have been ongoing since it received its first military contract with the US.  Other military contractors have profited heavily off the war as well, but Blackwater has been the leader and pioneer of the trend all along.  Blackwater operatives are among some of the best in the world, and most should be commended for what they do.  Furthermore, private military contractors can be seen as a way to reduce the number of recruits needed for the US military.
    Unfortunately, the benefits may not outweigh the costs.  Privatized military contractors typically make much more than their military counterparts, causing those who may be up for reenlistment to opt out of their military contract for a private military contract, thus costing the US government more money for the same service.  Furthermore, the negative actions of Blackwater and other private military contractors have drawn very negative views of the US personnel operating in the Middle East.  For example, the Nisour Square incident sparked increased hatred and distrust of the US forces in Iraq, resulting in increased anger toward US Army and Marine troops in the region.  Privatization is usually a great way to get the best out of a select service/product, and in the case of Blackwater it is no different. But it is far easier to excel when the rules which apply to everyone do not apply to you, and punishment is unseen and unrecognized.

             -Kyle Broflovski

Absurd Images of Violence-
    It is often thought by many that the American people are desensitized and numb toward the images of violence which are encountered everyday.  This argument is made by referring to the emotional reaction an individual has when viewing an image of violence.  Superficially looking at people while they view images of violence will lead one to think the American people are numb to violence.  But a closer look at the nature of these images is needed to fully understand an individual’s reaction to them.  I think, rather than numbness, a person’s unemotional reaction to an image of violence is due to the absurd nature of the images.
    Photography, presumably the most realistic representation of reality, began in the nineteenth century.  The technology of photography allowed images to be taken of the American Civil War somewhat readily.  Quite suddenly, images of violence and death were being published in newspapers around the world and in America.  What once was an ambiguous abstraction for people who never had direct experience, war quickly formed into a solid reality in people’s minds.  People in America living through the Civil War where all effected greatly, and generally could not escape feeling a logical and emotional connection to the images being published.  The new technology brought a great change in how people could perceive reality, thus it brought about a great emotional reaction when an individual viewed an image of violence.
    Another great change in how people formulated reality came with television.  The first major impact of violence and war on television came with the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s.  Television offered a “higher” sense of reality to individuals, so instead of single frame still-shots, moving video became the main perspective of a reality which was once distant from the individual.  Partly because the Vietnam War effected so many domestically, realistic images of war which came into American homes once again sparked a great emotional reaction.
    In American culture today, each individual is over-saturated with images of violence and war.  Yet, most Americans feel no impact from any of the images.  Is that because Americans have become numb and desensitized to these images, or is it something different?  Do unaffected individuals view images of violence differently than those who are directly affected by them?  This is where I think a distinction needs to be made.  Rather then having the logical and emotional connection to the people or events being represented by the images, the people or events remain distant and illogical in relation to the viewer’s life.  Instead of a new media which proffers a “higher” sense of reality which would create a more sympathetic potential within individuals, the old types of media remain.  This leaves people static in their interpretation of events and leaves the images as absurd representations of illogical and distant phenomena. 
    So, instead of claiming people are desensitized and numb to violence, I would claim people have not been offered a new way to understand reality in a deeper sense because the old media have become normalized.  Understanding also that a majority of Americans are not greatly affected by images of violence or war, leaving the events and people represented disconnected from the individual viewing the image.  The images are absurd in relation to the individual’s life, thus a weak reaction is elicited to images of violence and war.  Ultimately, images of violence are not violence, they are strictly representations.
    All of this is not to say a person cannot be affected by an image of violence, it happens often.  But generally, unless a more serious look is taken past the image (meaning, finding information on the subject, so a more understanding perception can be formed), images of violence remain absurd and cast in shadow.     

         -Eric Virzi

             

Plastic Surgery as Subversive Spectacle-

    Performance artist Orlan enacts the Theater of Cruelty that theater innovator Antonin Artaud was unable to see fully manifested. In a series of operation-performances titled The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, she permeates the faculties of and encroaches upon her audience through blood, ritual, and fetishized beauty. Appropriating components of classical beauty ideals and images, Orlan breaks free of the marasmus Artaud railed against, de-sacrilising masterpieces and the cultural connotations of feminine bodies that hinge on plastic surgery’s successes and successors. Orlan “moves the bars of the cage” and places us as spectators at the perimeter of her own interiority, as though we are the bourgeoisie watching the performance at Charenton.

    The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan begins with a digitized composite image Orlan created. Each of the figures used to create this composite face is an idealized feminine personage: Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Botticelli’s Venus, Francois Pascal Simon Gerard’s Psyche, and Gustav Moreau’s Europa. Orlan claims that these figures were chosen “not for the canons of beauty they are supposed to represent… but rather on account of the stories associated with them.”[1]  Even so, by permanently, or at least semi-permanently, adhering renowned cultural signifiers of feminine beauty to her own body, Orlan rubs away at the division between the given self of the external and its adjoining connotations, and the chosen self of the internal.             

    The installation of Orlan’s composite face, over the course of nine plastic surgeries, ensures that the questions she asks are presented “in terms of new technologies”[2] without which most of Orlan’s pieces could not be performed or produced. This reliance on technological apparatuses demonstrates the dissolution of the binary opposition of nature and culture (the synthetic; technology): a new, post-feminine, created form of “beauty” asks us to “rethink our most basic assumptions about beauty, religion, art history, sexuality, and, ultimately, about the stability of the self,”[3] to challenge dominant cultural categories and hierarchies. Thus, The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, in large part, focuses on elucidating the fictiveness of antiquarian binaries. It breaks down the barrier between nature (the mythical Other figure Simone de Beauvoir paints) and the created product, between the inherent locus of ideal beauty and the reconstructive processes used to recast a woman in accordance with that amorphous ideal.

    Contemporary feminist theorists and philosophers of the body explore how normalized priority, in Western culture, is dedicated in accordance with hegemonic oppositions that found themselves upon a gendered echelon. This is attributable to Rene Descartes’ “findings” in the Meditations and an historic disparagement of the body that both precedes and follows from the Cartesian rationale. As a result, females are implicated as weaker because of an overarching embodiment which they are pinioned to. The development of this brute bifurcation has been documented and discussed throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Critical theorist Elizabeth Grosz meticulously characterizes not only the mind/body opposition in philosophy, but also the “insidious” collection of additional oppositional pairs that follow from the Cartesian split. Among those Grosz lists are

   

    the distinctions between reason and passion, sense and sensibility, inside and outside, self and other, depth and surface, reality and appearance, mechanism and vitalism, transcendence and immanence, temporality and spatiality, psychology and physiology, (and) form and matter.[4]

     Orlan’s art, in contrast, results not only in the proliferation of meanings and interpretations of the bodily “perimeter” and “beauty,” but also of a potentially infinite composite of discussions about the interactivity of her performances themselves. The bodies of Orlan’s observers also become involved; reeling reactions of disgust, horror, or approval root out preliminary questioning of the binary oppositions Orlan’s work addresses. The audience, unable to escape their bodies as they witness her transformation, become participants in a forum for a discursive aesthetics, an embodied space for political and artistic discourses that forward heterogeneity through shock and spectacle. When Orlan says that the body is “obsolete,” this is not to demean the body or its associated oppositional pairs; rather, it is a call for an integration of elements formerly opposed: technology and nature.

    By decrying cultural comfortability as a pejorative primitivism, Orlan rewrites the narrative of the radical elective reconstruction and unveils the intertextuality of technology, the canonical, patriarchy, and gendered decision-making. She provokes a questioning of the validity and continuation of the ideal, the image-barrier, and the intolerance of the market of plastic surgery by tearing down curtains at the sacred temples of beauty regimes. In doing so, she intervenes in the Cartesian underwriting that so pervades Western culture today, parodying the paradoxical veneration of psychic and physical “perfection.” Her sacrificial undertakings echo the Artaudian call for artist to be “like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.”

                                                                     -Hannah Levinson

[1]  Orlan, “Orlan on Becoming-Orlan,” in The Body: A Reader, ed. Miriam Fraser and Monica Greco (New York, NY:Routledge, 2005): 312.

[2]  Ibid, 312.

[3]  Rhonda Garelick, “Fashioning Hybridity,” The Drama Review 53, no. 2 (Summer 2009)

[4]  Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press, 1994): 3.

Snow in Charlotte?-
    It has been cooooooold these last few weeks.  There is a lot of talk about global warming being a myth.  How can it be so cold when the earth is supposed to be getting warmer?  People, observing their immediate surroundings assume that if the temperature is cooler than usual, then the Earth cannot possibly be getting warmer.  But this reasoning is rather short-sighted.
    There is an overwhelming amount of evidence which shows that the global temperature has risen over the past twenty years.  Studies by the NOAA clearly show that CO2 levels have dramatically risen over the last few years.  CO2, along with other greenhouse gases, trap heat inside the Earth’s atmosphere.  This cause the global temperature to rise.  This is causing the phenomena known as Global Warming.
    Besides a few studies funded by oil companies, and others who have a controlling interest in fossil fuels, global warming is a well-documented fact accepted by most scientists.  But the question remains, why is it snowing more often?  The answer lies in moisture.  With higher temperatures in the atmosphere, we find higher amounts of water vapor.  According to studies, the atmosphere’s water vapor content has increased by 0.4 kilograms per cubic meter per decade since 1988.  With more moisture in the air, there is a greater chance for precipitation.  Therefore during the winter season, there is a greater chance for snow.
    Keep in mind that weather is not climate.  The current weather patterns affecting the U.S. allow for more snow than usual, but that does not mean the global temperature is not rising.

                        -Ryan Shullaw and Eric Virzi

On Nostalgia-

    Our connection to our past is something that we have always tried to reconcile with. This connection is really something that we want to have, not something that comes naturally. We view the past as our connection to objects. Our reliance on how these objects exist, as occupying our space and how they form the space around us, ultimately becomes the memories that we have.  Nostalgia becomes a piece of us in how these objects, that relate to our space, begin to shape us as individuals. Take as a sign of this the love of someone that we cared about. This person immediately becomes of the space around us, something that we relate to as an object. The idea that forms from this object is how our conception of the space around our bodies is, at that time. The bounds and limits of this space are ultimately perceived to be something that forms our memories, how we imagine the period of time we occupied. Our mind invariably perceives and thinks as a series of shapes, how an individual is around us effects our mind and the perception it has. So, to think of an individual or a place or even a period of time, ultimately we think of this as a part and series of shapes. The objects formed from these perceptions are things that we relate to as things forming the best congruence, or something like a consistent narrative.

    The relationship that we form with arguments, becomes how we form our relationship with this congruence. Arguments are of course a series of premises that justify a conclusion, they form our rationale for accepting and dealing with space. As we begin to form these arguments we have a relationship to their outcomes and rationales. For instance (to put it very simply), “I loved my days on the farm, I am having a memory of the farm, therefore I am having a good memory”, is how this argument works. We form arguments to justify nostalgia and the memories that they have. The days on the farm and the related elements formed my space. As this space formed and my memories were formed, an argument was made. This argument formed out of my relation to this space and formed my memories. It is too much to say that memories are in their very essence geometric shapes, but they form as something with a permeable and finite property that allows them to operate as shapes( the memories themselves, the images are still shapes). The only problem with such an argument is how we consider trauma that we cannot relate to.

                            -Mark Brinton

Judge Stevens’ Dissent-
     Appointed by Gerald Ford in 1975, John Stevens is the oldest member of the Supreme Court.  After reading his dissent from the majority opinion of the Supreme Court on Citizens United v. FEC  I believe he might be among the wisest as well. 

     Judge Stevens wrote an overwhelming 90 pages explaining the reason for his dissent in the recent Supreme Court case.  With a majority of 5, the Supreme Court claimed that a statute of the BCRA infringed upon Citizen United’s First Amendment rights.  Without the unfocused giddiness of youth, Stevens is able to create a cohesive argument that shows how the Supreme Courts’ ruling was a “technical glitch”.  His introduction immediately jumps into the “principal holdings” of the court with which he disagrees.  The courts think that Citizens United argument hinges on “if” corporations are protected by the first amendment and Stevens identified the hinge to be “how” they are protected.  This confusion, Stevens claims, has caused the court to overturn a century of jurisprudence.  Stevens further elaborates on this inaccurate understanding of the case by the court when he discusses how the court has overreached their bounds.  He explains that even if Citizens United’s First Amendment Rights had been violated, that would have been only a partial challenge of a BCRA statue and not a Facial Challenge, which is necessary for a statute to be addressed in its entirety.  If the entirety of a statute or law is challenged then research is conducted to perform analysis on the benefits of said law.  The courts completely ignored this code.
      Stevens claims that the courts basic premise which is the “constant reiteration, of the proposition that the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based on a speaker’s identity, including its “identity” as a corporation”  to be nothing more than a “glittering generality [that] has rhetorical appeal [but] it is not a correct statement of the law”.  To further discredit the majority Stevens adds “The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is…inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.”

       At the end of this introductory segment Stevens writes “I regret the length of what follows, but the importance and novelty of the Court’s opinion require a full response.”  Within one sentence he tells us several important things.  First if this was our first time reading a judge’s case writings he goes ahead and tells us that this one is unusually long, Second, he tells us that this is necessary because the Supreme Court majority was so seriously misguided. 

       To prove the misguided nature of the majority decision, Stevens provides a history lesson on the United States framers and how back then, the corporate world operated in a realm designed by the government.  He tells us of the philosophies of founding father types like Thomas Jefferson who understood the “soulless” nature of corporations.   

      Perhaps the only way to really appreciate this substantial plea for Socratic rationality is to dive into it yourself.  The text is available online.

      Hopefully rational argument will triumph.

                 -Katie Kocher

What is Slacktivism? 

It’s any kind of action directed towards a social cause that involves little or no effort on the part of the participant. 

Slacker activism! 

Yes, typically awareness-oriented tasks, like joining online groups, wearing wristbands and ribbons, putting bumper stickers and magnets on your car, signing internet petitions, etc. 

But everybody does these things.  They are a great way of getting the word out, and getting tons of people involved, what’s wrong with that? 

Absolutely nothing.  The problem is that awareness does not always translate into action.  Slacktivists are those who satisfy themselves with the illusion of having an impact; those who would like to believe they are making a difference without lifting a finger or losing a penny, but are really just expending enough energy to rest their consciences. 

And pat themselves on the back. 

Besides, a lot of slacktivist campaigns barely succeed in educating people about the topic they are being made aware of. 

Like posting your bra color on your Facebook status, without even mentioning the whole breast cancer issue that it is allegedly aimed at. 

Exactly. 

Although it did succeed in giving everyone a legitimate excuse to talk about boobs. 

Isn’t that what it was really about? 

It is a bit odd that they decided to raise awareness for a disease that most people are already aware of. 

On the other hand, people can be aware of a product and not necessarily feel compelled to buy it. 

They do if they’ve been exposed to enough advertisements!  Imagine if people gave as much money to charities as they spend on things like soft drinks and body sprays. 

Well, activists could use the same types of marketing strategies as big businesses, pull at peoples’ heartstrings, manipulate their needs and desires, but that’s an awfully patho-logical solution, don’t you think? 

For a social cause or for a corporate cause? 

Both…don’t you love that SPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlan? 

I see what you mean.  But how are we suppose to get people to care about social issues? 

You educate them, inform them about the situation and explain why they should care about it.  Most importantly, it must be made clear that support begins with awareness, and does not end with it.

What about donating money?

Donating money is great, but donating time and skills is even better.  Always remember that the effort you put into a cause is directly proportional to the impact you make.   

-Ryan Shullaw

An Argument against Direct-Democracy-

      Our current political process is broken. Influenced by the barriers of ideology and corporate discontent, the way we have expected to exist as a democracy is over. The problem lies in the will of the American electorate. Citizens extend their conscious will to those they elect, who in turn act according to that will. But what has occurred is an evaporation of any sufficient reasoning belonging to the will of the popular electorate. Their desires and needs are never fulfilled by the government at hand. Instead it is dictated to them through rhetoric and the fear that develops from this. But this piece is not about the failures of a republic, it is about the dangers of what a direct democracy would produce. The obvious point being that a direct democracy would limit the idea of the individual and instead create a dictatorship of the majority.

    Democracy is not an actuality but an idea, an idea which will never be fully realized. With a direct democracy this idea will be farther away from its actualization, because at the center of the premise lies the concept of the citizen legislature. In a normal republic the legislature lies as an elected body compromised of various factions. These factions (liberal, conservative, moderate and so on) work out compromises to insure the best outcome of a particular measure. This enterprise in the end bares little result, but helps to keep a fairly representative interest at play. With a direct democracy, since there is no formal organization which allows for factions to come together and work out compromises, the majority can simply dictate to the minority what is correct and right. Even in an ideal circumstance this would not bare the most accurate telling of rights and ideas. Whites could dictate to blacks what is right, heterosexuals onto homosexuals and a state like California could dictate anything it wanted. The basic result is a nightmare of majority views being dictated to everyone else, influenced entirely by the media and advertisement buys, which explains how the lack of information directed to the citizenry would cause such a problem to grow worse.

    The average American can be swayed and influenced easily, a good example of this is the 2004 PIPA Report from the University of Maryland. This report indicated that most American voters believed that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. The failure this report indicated was that the populace at large was misinformed and believed the misinformation was due to the machinations of the Bush administration. This ignorance that a population of Americans live in expresses a scary abstraction opposed to their actual lives, ones in which they believe themselves to be informed and right in the choices they make. Instead, the horrible reality is that citizens’ choices are actually designed to serve others’ interest. Even with the possibility of a system free of this misinformation, the knowledge of the society as a whole would still be what dictates voting habits. If the wrong information got out about a certain subject and infected the populace at large, where would the implications end? Would Prop 8 (the California referendum banning homosexual marriage) not have passed, if various institutions not made an effort to misinform and direct the public to vote a certain way? There is no way of telling what an individual’s knowledge of a subject is or if their views are clouded and ruled by ignorance. Therefore, allowing a plurality of these individuals to decide public policy in a direct way is dangerous. Despite the failure of the current system, a direct system, even in its most ideal form, would be even more dangerous.

-Mark Brinton

Existential Responsibility -

Jean-Paul Sartre, in Being and Nothingness, discusses a phenomena he labels bad faith. Sartre thought people deceived themselves, usually unconsciously, in order to hide the potential meaninglessness of their, quite often, menial life. One way bad faith manifests itself is in societal role playing, Sartre describes a person playing waiter. Playing waiter means to be subservient and polite. But, being a waiter is generally a banal, though sometimes hectic, task, which does not give one’s life meaning. No one is born to be a waiter and prestige is not granted to the one fulfilling the role of waiter. Yet, the person playing waiter feels more meaningful within society and their individual life by simply fulfilling a role, which contributes to society. Another often used manifestation of bad faith is external meaning. Rather than acknowledging the lack of ultimate meaning in the universe, people will seek out systems (i.e. religions, cults, nationalism, etc.) which will assign an overarching meaning to life. Bad faith helps mask the anxiety and forlornness arising out of the true human condition; humanity is thrown into freedom and choice.

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre claims humanity is “condemned to be free.” Usually when we think of being condemned, we think of being not free, we think of a certain unfreedom which is impossible to avoid. Being condemned to freedom means to always be presented with a choice. Human-beings have the freedom to choose anything in their lives, without consequence from false moralities (going to hell), as long as it is physically possible and not met by an overcoming external force. When one has freedom, one has responsibility. Responsibility is defined simply as the direct cause for any given effect. So, the one who murders another is responsible for the death of the other, as the direct cause, not as some mystical disturbance of the universe which will cause an imminent death strike from a god, thereby setting the scale of justice at zero. The problem of bad faith is it allows people to ignore their responsibility by giving the freedom in life away to external systems and roles.

To realize existential responsibility is to accept the freedom thrust upon each human at birth. Each individual is responsible for how each of their decisions and actions affect the world. Again, that is to say that humans are causes in the world. Even if, say in the military, a soldier is ordered to attack a group of enemy soldiers, the soldier is still responsible for the death of the enemy. The soldier must go beyond, out in front of, the order. The soldier must act as an individual. If that soldier is practicing bad faith, they can claim the responsibility for the death of the enemy falls on the commanding officer who had ordered the kill. In that case, the soldier accepts the role “soldier” and subscribes to the meaning and structure of the military, heaving their personal responsibility onto an institutional body.

Furthermore, if each individual is completely free and responsible for their choices and actions and human-beings exist within society, then each human has an equal responsibility for society. Granted, in the current power structure, some individuals have a greater power to impact society, usually in accordance with personal interests. But the current hierarchy only exists because people continue to shrug responsibility, people continue to give away freedom. (In America’s case, citizens give an increasing power to corporations and corrupt politicians.) In a truly egalitarian and democratic society, each individual could claim freedom. But, despite how oppressive societies may deny freedom, certain choices remain, although more extreme choices, so responsibility remains. Inaction is a deliberate choice as well.

In order not to practice bad faith, one must realize their freedom and responsibility. Part of the realization is the acceptance and claiming of absolute choice and responsibility. One must choose responsibility, this responsibility defined as the claiming of one’s choices and actions.

-Eric Virzi