Say-So

A couple of weeks ago, at the forefront of NYT magazine a very interesting article by Jim Holt titled The New, Soft Paternalism was printed. It posits that as “highly competent, well informed people” we are nevertheless capable of making choices detrimental to our own well being. It also suggests that the government maybe the right body to step in, and help us help ourselves by outlawing, for instance, helmet free motorcycle riding. The operative example of the article is gambling:

In some states with casino gambling, like Missouri and Michigan, compulsive gamblers have the option of putting their names on a blacklist, or “self-exclusion” list, that bars them from casinos. Once on the list, they are banned for life. If they violate the ban, they risk being arrested and having their winnings confiscated. In Missouri, more than 10,000 people have availed themselves of this program. In Michigan, the first person to sign up for it was, as it happens, also the first to be arrested for violating its terms when he couldn’t resist sneaking back to the blackjack tables; he was sentenced to a year’s probation, and the state kept his winnings of $1,223.

As smart and lancinating as this approach may be, what caught my attention was the author’s very elegant sidestep into philosophy and David Hume’s idea of multiplicity of the self . Mr Holts observes of the critics of the program

But some libertarians have deeper misgivings. What bothers them is the way soft paternalism relies for its justification on the notion that each of us contains multiple selves — and that one of those selves is worth more than the others.

In essence, the program encourages long term rational thinking, and punishes the instant gratification seeking limbic part of an individual, to some degree limiting overall personal freedom. Holt further explains:

A distinctive quality of humans, as the third earl of Shaftesbury observed three centuries ago, is that we do not simply have desires; we also have feelings about our desires. Take the unhappy heroin addict: he gives himself an injection because he desires the drug, but he also has a desire to be rid of this desire. The philosopher Harry Frankfurt has given such “second order” desires a central role in his analysis of free will: we act freely, he submits, when we act on a desire that we actually desire to have, one that we endorse as our own. Beings that do not reflect on the desirability of their desires — like animals and infants and, perhaps, our short-run selves — are what Frankfurt calls “wantons.”

Segue - The Prestige , a film by Christopher Nolan the master of temporal play and non linear story telling. Multiplicity of selves in real and physical terms is predominant, but the film carries an undercurrent of multiplicity of emotions all through its end.The reviews and synopses well describe the body of the story, but none of the ones I came across mentions the force which galvanizes the century old rivalry between Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier. That of course is love. And while Rupert Algier’s love story is pure and simple, preserved at its peek of perfection through memories by its premature end, Alfred Borden’s affairs of the heart require the understanding that a protagonist can be in love one day with his wife then out of love with her, at one point in love with another woman, and both at the same time. The setup is suggestive of a deep emotional imbalance yet in the light of David Hume, Harry Frankfurt and earl of Shaftesbury… it is not unthinkable that one man be subject to coexisting yet contradictory desires. Possessing an intuitive understanding of complexities of human psyche, I was content with the face value of presented situation. However, ended up being fooled. Without giving away the plot of this satisfying cinematic experience, the interesting dichotomy was somewhat “rationally” revealed to originate beyond the expected id-super ego daily mud wrestling and neatly and clearly resolved (along with all other pending mysteries) through a confession of a dying man.

For further exploration of nuances and complexities of love I dawdled in Plato’s Symposim . Besides nudity, pederasty, drinking, flute girls who were also courtesans and games, the men at the symposia engaged in rhetoric. At one hosted by Plato, among other accomplished attendees was Socrates. When his turn came to speak the philosopher took the stage to recount his meetings with Diotima and her attempt at imparting her conviction and knowledge of love. Though I hoped to discover a truth on the subject from a wise woman from whom even Socrates took instruction, the teachings of Diotima were enlightening but difficult to relate to. For one, the debate whether love is a God, and ultimately categorizing Eros as a “great spirit” which acts as an intermediate between Gods and mortals conveying “prayers and sacrifices” or “rewards and commands”. The absolute terms debated are “wisdom, beauty and goodness” yet they are never defined. And finally the predicable and disappointing injection of pregnancy and birth that is inherent to the female experience (yet is insufficient as a basis for an entire cosmology, in my opinion): “Love is giving birth in beauty either in body or in soul.(…) All people are pregnant… “. Despite the personal objections, a single theme becomes apparent, it is the diversity and multiple subtleties of possible loves. Love as a need, love as desire, love of knowledge, wisdom or beauty, love of poetry and the nuances between being a lover or a beloved. Other speakers elaborate on love, the earthly or divine, love between two men or man and woman, love as reconciliation of opposites. My favorite, and an allegory of sorts is given by Aristophanes:

The sexes were originally three, men, women, and the union of the two; and they were made round–having four hands, four feet, two faces on a round neck, and the rest to correspond. Terrible was their strength and swiftness; and they were essaying to scale heaven and attack the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils; the gods were divided between the desire of quelling the pride of man and the fear of losing the sacrifices. At last Zeus hit upon an expedient. Let us cut them in two, he said; then they will only have half their strength, and we shall have twice as many sacrifices. He spake, and split them as you might split an egg with an hair; and when this was done, he told Apollo to give their faces a twist and re-arrange their persons, taking out the wrinkles and tying the skin in a knot about the navel. The two halves went about looking for one another, and were ready to die of hunger in one another’s arms. Then Zeus invented an adjustment of the sexes, which enabled them to marry and go their way to the business of life. Now the characters of men differ accordingly as they are derived from the original man or the original woman, or the original man-woman. Those who come from the man-woman are lascivious and adulterous; those who come from the woman form female attachments; those who are a section of the male follow the male and embrace him, and in him all their desires centre. The pair are inseparable and live together in pure and manly affection; yet they cannot tell what they want of one another. But if Hephaestus were to come to them with his instruments and propose that they should be melted into one and remain one here and hereafter, they would acknowledge that this was the very expression of their want. For love is the desire of the whole, and the pursuit of the whole is called love.