A Meditation Upon Scotch Whiskey

     I love whiskey. There's nothing better to do 9 P.M. in the evening than reading a complicated philosophy book while pretentiously sipping on a neat glass of Scotch Whiskey aged at least 12 years. But one does not simply read philosophy books while drinking a glass of Scotch; the least one can do is to meditate and get lost in deep thought.

     Once I pitted myself into a whirlwind of thought. I was reading a Confucian text and I came upon a phrase that almost enlightened me. In English it stated something along the lines of: "If one cares to contemplate upon the natural order of things around us, one can easily find how one can order himself to truly become a human being. A man sees bits and pieces of how he is supposed conduct himself as a person." What a remarkable saying! This concept of seeing parts of ourselves in nature is shared by many religions around the world, including Natural Law, a theological component of Christianity. 

     As I was meditating upon the concept, I took a sip of the Scotch. And, as my eyes fell on its golden tint, I thought to myself: Can I find how I should conduct myself in scotch whiskey? An absurd thought, to be sure! But more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I can indeed find how a person should conduct himself in Scotch Whiskey. I wish to share how I found to be so in this post. 

Good Start

     One thing all alcoholic beverages require is a good start. Scotch Whiskey in particular must come from a fine quality malt (or other ingredients). It must then be distilled with unmatched skill and care to produce the finest of them all. 

     Much like so, a child growing up must be met with great care. Like a distiller carefully distilling whiskey, a child must also be grown with unmatched skill and care. To do so is to give the child proper moral education and ability to be virtuous. At young age they must first of all learn to be temperate so that they can control their emotions and arrive at proper judgment while their reason is not clouded. 

Fine Cask

     Casks are what for the most part gives the distinctness of each Scotch brand. In order to be considered top-of-the-line, it is necessary for whiskey to be surrounded by a good oak cask. A good cask will of course produce a masterpiece. A bad cask will produce a pitiful product, worthy only of drunken frat parties. 

     Much like so, a person must surround oneself with a fine cask. By cask I mean a good group of friends. Those who surround themselves with friends that have corrupt moral standards, they will more than likely to soak in the corrupt moral standards. In doing so, they will have pitiful character full of vices. Those who surround themselves with friends that have truthful moral standards, they will more than likely to soak in the truthful moral standards. In doing so, they will have the excellence of character; they will have virtue. 

Older the Better

     The magic of Scotch Whiskey is the age. The older the better. It takes a minimum of three years of aging for a whiskey to be considered legally Scotch Whiskey. Any younger is not considered as one. However, not all Scotch will be considered worthy of being aged. Only those that had the finest distillation process and the finest casks are considered for aging process by the distillers. Others are sold right after the legal limit of 3 years has been reached for they will not taste that much better by aging them. 

     Much like so, before the aging process, it is imperative that human beings find the right education and the right cask. If aged without the necessary components, they will not turn that much better. They will maintain the youthful intemperance and pride as they age and thus blind themselves to the wisdom that should be gained with experience. Those who had the proper upbringing, of course, will become better people as they grow up. When their youthful intemperance has subsided, they will multiply in virtue and gain wisdom easier than their youthful counterparts for they will have many experiences to draw knowledge from. In this they become better people. 

Many Will Not Get It

     Many people will not get the taste of scotch. Some will say that the scotch is too strong, too smokey, or too bitter; they will spit out Glen Moray aged 36 years without knowing how good it is. The connoisseurs will then tell them: "You simply do not know." Those who do not know will nonetheless look upon the connoisseurs and have one of two thoughts. Some will call them mad for enjoying scotch. The sane ones will admire them and will attempt to learn how to taste Scotch Whiskey from them. 

     Much like so, those that are excellent in virtue  will be seen as strange by many. Even when virtue is something a proper human being should strive toward, many will remain intemperate and ignorant. They will reject themselves from being virtuous for to do so they must conquer their own pride and carnal desires, things that they cannot part ways from. Those who do not understand virtue will, like those who do not get Scotch Whiskey, will have two reactions toward the virtuous. Some will call them mad for learning to suppress their pride and carnal desires. The sane ones will admire them and will attempt to learn how to be virtuous from them. 

Angels' Share 

     As Scotch ages in its cask, a small portion of it is lost each year through the permeable oak. The portion lost is oftentimes called Angels' Share. This process is essential in becoming a better quality Scotch Whiskey. 

     Much like so, a human being must know to give himself up, learn to annihilate pieces of ourselves that hold us back from becoming better: our vices. In doing so we hope to maintain only the virtues.

30 Things That Show the Unintelligibility of Modern Politics

Through our pride, we tend to believe ourselves to be high and mighty, standing above the dulled masses. We critique the political system of being ineffective but we oftentimes play the part in it. I will fully admit that I am a hypocrite in listing these things. Hypocritical or not, valid critiques are valid. And it is through the critiques we improve.

1) An extreme few can define key terms like justice, equality, and rights without contradictions (those who study philosophy, please pat yourself on the shoulder). Yet many hold the illusion that they understand the concepts to make proper judgments.

2) The people of this age think of themselves as the masters of reason. Yet the only thing that moves the minds of the masses is emotional appeals. Such a claim is a sign of their hubris; blasphemy.

3) People cheer or jeer against a new law not for its jurisprudence or lack thereof but for their own favor toward it.

4) Many think: I want this policy because I think it is right. In truth, they think: I want this policy because I want it to be right.

5) Liberals supposedly fight for human dignity. Yet, at the same time, they fight for sexual promiscuity, an attitude that ultimately leads to sexual objectification.

6) Conservatives supposedly fight against sexual promiscuity. Yet, at the same time, they fight for even more unrestricted consumerism, a machine that feeds sexual promiscuity to the masses.

7) Liberals supported the cartoon of Mohammad in the name of free speech despite its offensive nature. Yet, at the same time, they want to censor the Confederate flag for its offensive nature.

8) Many believe to be spirits of justice for believing in the cause they believe in. Do they not know that we humans are too wretched to even delight in the illusion of being one?

9) Many, especially the youth, claim that they have learned to "think for themselves apart from the people" that raised them. Did you really? Are you sure you weren't swept away by the massive load of information your minds were flooded in college without questioning them fully?

10) People crave rational discourse. Yet, at the same time, they actively avoid advanced dialogues that tear apart their thought process to see what's really there; they cower from those that challenge their conscience.

11) Many actively dismiss religions as "irrational" or "superstitious." But this is but a mask to avoid those that challenge their conscience. They know that they cannot crack the philosophy/theology built  and reinforced by intellectuals over the course of thousands of years.

12) Too many are convinced by political internet memes without questioning them. Is this not stupidity?

13) People show their true arrogant selves on the internet (like me). But they cower away from exhibiting the arrogance by not actively taking in verbal discourse. Writing falls on blind eyes, but speaking falls on deaf ears to a lesser degree. Speak your mind! It is better to exercise one vice (pride) rather than two (pride and cowardice).

14) Many claim that they are being intellectual in political and moral matters. But all I see are emotional impulses; many forget that emotions are supposed  to follow truthful principles rather than have created principles follow emotional impulses.

15) Pride is celebrated. It symbolizes freedom from prejudice and oppression. Funny thing, pride is the reason why prejudice and oppression occurs; evil men, out of pride, think of themselves to be higher than others, when in fact all human beings are equal in substance. As the Christians teach, pride was the first sin.

16) A sociological or legal paper on human trafficking does not move people. Not even a graph on a news article moves people. A fancy advertisement does.  

17) Many claim that they fight for equality. But they sacrifice liberty at the expense of it.

18) Many claim that they fight for liberty. But they sacrifice equality at the expense of it.

19) Many pursue equality. But they seek equality in a wrong place. Their pursuit of legal equality is but an illusion of equality; human laws are mere mental constructs when compared to the Natural Law.

20)  Many pursue liberty. But they seek liberty in a wrong place. Their perception of liberty inevitably leads to the vices they fight against; liberty properly sought after results solely in the virtues.

21) People want to be "free thinkers." Yet they actively seek after news outlets that agree with their biases. Conservatives stick to conservatively biased news and Liberals stick to liberally biased news. How are they supposed to think freely when they are clouded by biases?

22) All things now appear black and white for the government; they do not see multiple colors like a person with proper sight. Do they not know that all things depend on their practicality in particular situations? The practical governance of Aristotle, and Confucius is nowhere to be seen.

23) On scientific matters, we are quick to ask scientists to rid ourselves of ignorance. On moral matters, however, we do not go to philosophers or priests. Out of hubris, we believe what we want to believe on moral matters. We like to pretend that we know everything there is to know about morals. We then make political decisions based on our pretense.

24) Both the extreme right and the extreme left fight for things that are contrary to the principles of science even when they are knowledgeable of those principles; young-earth creationists and far-left feminists.

24) Good socialists supposedly fight for justice. But where is justice in not receiving a proportional due to the work one has done?

25) Good capitalists supposedly fight for liberty. But where is liberty in being alienated by corporations?

26) The prideful youth! They exert an argument but they run away immediately after, before a counterargument is exerted.

27) Very few news outlets have honor. The rest merely seek to confirm your bias, to feed into the desire to be correct that springs from pride.

28) If a republic is to fail, pride will be the source of its downfall. In an excessive desire to be correct, the majority will press on their beliefs to suppress the opposing side that challenges their conscience. One day they will wake up and realize that they have created a tyrannical regime. They will wake up and realize that they have sacrificed liberty at the expense of a false sense of security.

29) In the political arena, the problem of education revolves around money. They do not address the defective moral states and the nihilistic tendencies of a modern person. Perhaps this in itself is a sign of nihilism.

30) Pride is what stops public discourse and the democratic process from reaching their full potential. No matter how many trillions we pour into the education system, no matter how knowledgeable the masses are, if this moral vice that is pride is not addressed, the unintelligible nature of our political arena will not change.

Who will lose? Both.

Signs of Meaningless Culture: 11 Things That Would Make Nietzsche Proud

"'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink." - Friedrich Nietzsche

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the one who is famous for saying "God is dead," predicted the advent of rampant nihilism, an age where human beings live as if their lives are ultimately meaningless. In my view, the philosophy he left behind is shaping up to be one of the greatest modernist prophecies in that his predictions are actually bearing fruit unlike Marx's prophecy. His assessment of religion is complete nonsense, but I must give credit to him for predicting such a massive cultural phenomena. These are some of the things common in our culture that would make him rise from the grave and cheer in arrogant delight.

     But first, we should clear up what exactly constitutes meaninglessness and what constitutes meaningfulness to understand why the listed things are signs of nihilism. 

     In order to live a meaningful life, one must live a teleological life, that is to say live a life with an ultimate and lasting end in sight. The only viable end that can be counted as lasting is the common good. Those who dedicate their lives to the common good dedicate everything one does to contribute positively toward the human society and beyond. If one were to live a teleological life, all the pains and all the pleasures would contribute to the common good even in death. If one were to live a perfect teleological life, even the most mundane things like breathing is for the purpose of serving the common good; to do so is to live a life of a saint. This is a kind of life that a human being should aim toward. 

     To lack such dedication to the common good is to have a meaningless life. The self-pleasing desires have an end of pleasing the self. When the self dies, those pleasures would have been for naught. If one has lived a life of self-pleasure, one has lived a life without meaning. 

1) Excessive Monetary Pursuit

When asked: Why do you want to be what you want to be? one would answer: Because there's money in it. Capital is the prime motivator of the majority. Very few say: Because I like it. Even fewer say: Because I believe that I can contribute to the society with this profession for I have talents geared toward this profession. Capital is conducive to human society and the self only to a point where it is conducive to the common good. To pursue capital without a perceivable end is a mere pursuit of self-pleasure. 

2) Intellectual Negligence

When a desired law is passed, people celebrate even when they are ignorant of legal reasoning behind it. They rally behind philosophically challenging concepts like justice, equality, and love to justify what they want without fully understanding the said concepts. When it is obvious that they have been intellectually negligent of the necessary knowledge to make proper decisions, they celebrate nonetheless. This is a sign of selfish desire to be correct, not a deep desire for the common good.

3) Unrestrained Consumerism

Consumerism in moderation can be conducive to the common good. However, the unrestrained consumerism in our culture is not. Modern consumerism feeds urgency into the impulsive pleasures of the masses. With this manipulation of impulses, it urges people to pursue a life of self-pleasure. 

4) Widespread Intemperance

Unrestrained consumerism cannot totally be held responsible for the nihilistic tendencies exhibited by the people. The people themselves should be responsible for succumbing to it and failing to be temperate with pleasures. People buy new phones every year, party with a river of alcohol, and flood their wardrobe until full. Do they not know that pleasure is good only to a point where it benefits the common good?

5) Decline in Marriage

This is where the list gets a bit offensive to many. To marry and start a family is to contribute to the human society by way of providing a new member. Better yet, a proper marriage is to use the natural biological bond between parents and a child and the psychological bond between the parents to grow an exemplary citizen of the world. The desire of intemperate self-pleasing pursuits in professional gain or in number of sexual partners blind many from discovering the necessity of marriage in our society. 

6) Abortion

By aborting a fetus, one shows no interest in the common good. A child to be aborted can possibly be the one to donate millions to charity, cure cancer, or spread peace throughout the world(an exaggeration, of course). The child may not do such great things, but at least there's a good chance that the child will grow up to be a citizen that can further benefit the common good. Disregarding such possible futures is a clear sign that the one making a choice does not have the common good in her sights but her own pleasure.

7) Rampant Sexual Promiscuity

Speaking of self-pleasing pursuits in number of sexual partners, sexual promiscuity is a sure sign of meaninglessness. Sex is a biological function of ourselves that is designed to bring about a new life and induce deeper union between partners. And the union between the two partners is meant to have a more harmonious environment for the child by inducing a lasting and fulfilling relationship between the two. The modern hook-up culture defies the two-pronged nature of sexual intercourse for the sake of self-pleasure. Further, such practice is contrary to our health, meaning it is contrary to the common good.

8) Unproductive Sexual Practices

Masturbation, anal sex, oral sex, or any sexual activities that are not open to the creation of a new life are deemed without meaning for they are but acts geared toward pleasure and pleasure alone. Even if such sexual activities are aimed toward benefiting the partner out of love, the scope of the common good in a teleological life must aim beyond one's death. To fail to meet this criterion is to have an activity's meaning disappear at the end of the actor's life. In effect, it becomes meaningless.

9) Disregard for Human Dignity
People these days are quick to cry out for the dignity of a human being. But I fear that this tendency is but another symptom of intellectual negligence; they want it but they do not know it. The practice of BDSM and pornography are increasingly being accepted. But they neglect once more that such acts are damaging to one's dignity. An actress working in a porn industry is willfully subjecting herself to be used for the sake of another's fruitless sexual satisfaction, and a watcher of pornographic material is using the actress via screen for the sake of his fruitless sexual satisfaction. In the same way, the practice of BDSM requires a submitter to willfully submit one's body for the sake of another's desire, and a dominator  to use the other for the sake of one's own deviant desires. None of these are conducive to the common good in the slightest; they are rather quite damaging. If anything, the abandonment of our own dignity is perhaps the most fearful sign of nihilism.

10) Increasing Secularism
Secularism is an increasing phenomena across most cultures in this world. In the West, Christianity and Judaism are on a sharp decline. In the East, Buddhism and Confucianism also face the same problem. Even in the heart of India people are choosing secularism over religion. Why is this? This is because these religions teach against self-motivated pursuit of pleasures, the same pleasures the people refuse to abandon. As the people live in increasingly industrialized environments where excessive consumerism quickly follows, their moral judgments become clouded. Their condition succumbs closer to the condition these religions fight to stop: clouded judgment due to being intoxicated by pleasures. As he becomes intoxicated by excessive pleasures, the modern man say, "God is dead and I have created happiness" and drifts away toward meaninglessness like an overdosed heroine addict.

11) What I Feel Matters
Lastly, the sentiment that entraps many of the society's youths is a sure sign toward nihilism. It is called emotivism, a moral view that makes moral judgments based on emotions. To see the truth of this, one must look to how college students react to the prevalent moral matters; their brains are absent of moral principles but full of (rather hostile) emotional impulses; they cannot even define justice yet they cry out for it with religious zeal. To see more of this, one just has to remember the slogan: #LoveWins. It was a propaganda measure to rally the people toward the cause using an abstract yet emotionally attached word that even philosophers have difficult time cracking... The majority hopped on the wagon without questioning it. This prevalence of emotivism in  effect leads to moral relativism whether or not the person making a judgment is aware for feelings vary by individuals; the moral truth has no solid and unchanging rock it can stand on. And, of course, moral relativism leads to the logical conclusion that there is no ultimate morality... that morality does not exist, that God is dead, etc. The underlying cultural assumption that there is no morality, that there is no right way a human being ought to live, is the most obvious sign of nihilism.