The privilege of choice

For a number of years I have struggled to reconcile two beliefs: first, a conviction that a great deal of the social problems that blight many communities have far deeper roots than simple idleness, immorality and malice. This sort of thinking would seem backward to the Victorian philanthropists who first worked to alleviate the poverty and social oppression that was destroying working class society. Second, a refusal to allow these deeper causes to become an excuse, both for those involved in these issues and those who seek to understand them.

Recently, I managed to reconcile these beliefs.

It came from a simple realisation. Yes, there are a great many root causes behind such ills as poverty, crime, worklessness, social immobility and community breakdown that go beyond individual faults. Many honest, decent people are trapped in these vicious cycles through no fault of their own, and it is societies obligation to seek to understand these problems and help those who are afflicted by them. But that does not extenuate the individual from guilt for his own actions. We must all take final responsibility for what we do, or do not do.

This simple truth seems to be sadly lacking from much of the political discourse of our times. The coalition government often seems to regard the welfare state as solely the recourse of bone-idle job dodgers, drug addicts and criminals. But neither did Labour’s blind attempt to solve the problem by throwing money at it and smothering it in a blanket of beauracracy and pseudo-sociological excuses get us anywhere. 

Humans have evolved to become rational, thinking beings capable of great mental, emotional and spiritual complexity. This is not a right. As far as we know, we are alone on this planet in possessing this gift. It is a privilege. A privilege that, like most, comes with responsibilities. The fact that we can make rational choices based not (at least, not entirely) on our basic instincts or external influences, obligates us to make these choices and not shrink behind the cover of excuses.

For example, all these scumbags running around our streets attacking innocent people for no reason other than the way they look, or for easy cash, or whatever their reason. Over the last few years we have seen example after example of decent people who did nothing wrong having their lives ruined by meaningless violence. To stamp on someone’s head for a laugh is not a choice any rational being worthy of the privilege     should be making. It is a choice made by people who do not deserve to be treated with the respect of a human being, a respect they clearly give no other. It is a choice below that of a rabid dog. The dog does not have the privilege of choice. It is driven by a instinctual violence and aggression, magnified by the powerful disease into something that even a strictly train specimen cannot overcome. It does not make a clear, rational choice like we can.

We all have choices to make. Every single day of our lives we are presented with choices, some huge, many small. Whether we make the right choice or not, we should never forget that it is a privilege to make a choice at all.

The existential acceptance

Even a moderately sustained consideration of epistemology- the study of the nature of knowledge and thought- will lead, sooner or later, to a single brutal, honest admission. An admission that, for a brief yet punishing moment, may leave one deeply unsettled. It is an admission, a realisation, and eventually an acceptance, that I found myself facing recently.

We simply cannot know.

There are a great many things we cannot know with absolute certainty in the course of our lives, and most likely we will pass from existence without ever knowing. Fundamental questions about our nature, about the universe and all of existence, are perhaps so fundamental that they cannot be answered. Ever.

But this is not what I speak of. By paring back these questions that rely yet on fundamental assumptions, on the fundamental assumption, by considering them over and over that single assumption can be separated from the rest and held up for what it is.

It is the oldest question of philosophy and epistemology, the one upon which all such bodies of thought rest, the question with which Descartes and countless others wrestled without ever fully besting:

Do I truly exist, and how can I ever be really sure of it?

Do I truly exist? The age old question that philosophers have loved to wax lyrical over for centuries. But, perhaps, this is still one of those fundamental questions we could never truly know. Cogito ergo sum- ‘I think, therefore I am’- has been challenged through the centuries yet seems to, largely, hold up. But such a simple, obvious expression of rationalist logic cannot grasp the complexity, the uncertainty, the in-deterministic nature of our existence. Nor does it account for the existence of anyone or anything else bar the subject’s consciousness. The subjects physical body, even, may simply be an illusion.

Yes, we may perceive the universe as purely deterministic, as cause and effect, as a + b = c, yet perception is not necessarily truth. Perhaps our linear, deterministic perception is merely a hazy afterimage, like the shadows cast by  the sun. Perhaps our minds, clearly far from their full evolutionary potential (whether for good or ill, I shudder to think), cannot endure the full complexity and chaos of existence, the absence and falsehood of the fundamental assumptions we hold so dear. We simply cannot know.

And here we come to crux of the matter- we cannot ever be truly, utterly sure of our existence, independent of our surroundings.

Not in the utter surety we look for in our lives, that we tell ourselves we see everywhere, because to accept otherwise might render us totally incapable of living the lives our simple, linear minds set for us.

The honest mind, upon making this admission, must come to accept it with that familiar incongruous duality of our race. We must accept the uncertainty, the frail incompetence of our minds to even begin to truly understand a universe, an existence far larger, more complex and more chaotic than we could possibly know. And for a long, torturous moment, we must let ourselves bask in that knowledge, to glory in the sheer, terrifying freedom that comes with releasing the human impulse to always know, always understand, and to accept that we simply cannot know for sure.

Wisest is he who knows he does not know.

Perhaps Socrates, the father of western philosophy, was way ahead of us all.

BOOK REVIEW: Thousand Sons by Graham McNeill

Censured at the Council of Nikea for his flagrant use of sorcery, Magnus the Red and his Thousand Sons Legion retreat to their homeworld of Prospero to continue their use of the arcane arts in secret. But when the ill-fated primarch forsees the treachery of Warmaster Horus and warns the Emperor with the very powers he was forbidden to use, the Master of Mankind dispatches fellow primarch Leman Russ to attack Prospero itself. But Magnus has seen more than the betrayal of Horus and the witnessed revelations will change the fate of his fallen Legion, and its primarch, forever.

The ground-breaking Horus Heresy series continues with Thousand Sons, the tale of Magnus the Red and his psychically gifted legion. Graham McNeil weaves a wonderfully crafted tale of arrogance, hubris and forces beyond the comprehension of mortal beings bringing about the tragic downfall of a loyal and gifted son, along the way revealing yet more layers to the already immersive universe.

The Thousand Sons are quickly set apart from their fellow legions by more than just their powers, their quasi-Egyptian naming structure lending them an exotic, mysterious edge (even if it is hard to remember who is who at times) whilst the obvious warrior-scholar nature of the Thousand Sons clearly contrasts with the purely martial bearing of other legions, notably the Thousand Sons bitter rivals- the Space Wolves. Fans of the legion will no doubt find this book a feast of information and back-history, though hardcore Space Wolves fans may smart a little at the almost bestial descriptions of the warriors of Russ.

The ...Sons themselves come across as intelligent and often likeable, 3-dimensional persona’s rather than simply vile traitors, lending an even more tragic feel to their inevitable doom, which any fan of WH40k knows is coming but can’t help wishing it could end some other way. The ...Sons fall, though born of their refusal to meet the edicts given by the Emperor himself at the Council of Nikaea, is brought about with grim resignation as Magnus receives visions of Horus’ treachery and knows the only way to warn his father would bring doom to his legion and his world, Prospero. Thus, the reader is left moved by the tragic fate of a legion, and a primarch, whose role in future of mankind, the Emperor tells us, was vital. We do not learn what that role truly was, and may never do, adding yet more tragedy to the situation. 

Magnus personifies his legion tenfold- it is his pride and vanity, his colossal ego telling him he could best whatever the warp could throw at him that ultimately leads to his demise.

If I could make a single complaint about this book, it would be that the powers wielded by even the newest line-troops of the Thousand Sons seem somewhat outlandish and outsized- in almost every combat enemies are dispatched with thunderbolts and fireballs, or crushed with psychic force or their blood boiled in their veins. Whilst their psychic powers are the stamp-mark of the legion, here it seems the Thousand Sons are way more powerful than their counterparts in other legions, who have only bolters and chainswords to fight with. I’m sure this is a difficult balance to achieve, but one that fell slightly on the wrong side here.

Aside from this issue, however, Thousand Sons is a powerful, intriguing and moving narrative that fans of the legion, the Horus Heresy series and, I’m sure, a few outsiders will surely enjoy.