PHILOSOPHY AMONGST THE CHICKENS
First of four talks for a class of students of philosophy and education
at Mercer University, Georgia, USA, 28th September 2005.
About
moral absolutism in chickens, with some - late - reference to its re-emergence
in two virulent new forms as National Socialism and Stalinism in Europe
and Russia in the early 20th century; the possible connection with the
teaching of mathematics and other sciences in programmes of universal
education in the preceding period; and modern parallels.
Good
evening. It is very kind of Professor Davis to ask me to talk with you
this evening, and I certainly feel it an honour to do so.
Professor Davis has asked me to try to contribute
to your discussion of moral absolutes, and I imagine he hopes I may
offer some comments about this from a different perspective - if not
a new one. I am going to try.
Just a few weeks ago I was in a hen-house on a small
island in the Inner Hebrides, which is off the North Western coast of
Scotland. On a British scale, this is about as lonely a place as it
is possible to be. On the island with me was the lady owner, who is
an old friend of mine now in her late 70s, about two hundred sheep,
a dozen fine red Highland bullocks, and six chickens: five black spotted
hens and a very fine cockerel. Originally there had been six hens, but
now there are only five.
These hens cannot possibly know how lucky they are.
There are no rats, although there are occasional otters and several
mink. Some months ago the mink had killed the two ducks on the island,
but had also exterminated all the rats, so nothing and no-one now bothers
the hens for weeks at a time.
Then I arrived, and I decided to make myself useful
by cleaning out their hen-house. It had once been an old stone cottage,
probably two hundred years old or more, and although it now has a rusty
tin roof instead of thatch, it still looks like a little old stone cottage.
The chickens had a hole cut in the bottom of the door to let them in
and out, and inside the cottage their nesting boxes were built around
the big old hearth.
It had not been cleaned, I suppose, for several years.
All morning, and most of the afternoon, I scraped and dug and shovelled
and brushed; and I cleaned that hen-house right down to the old flagstone
floor.
And all this time the hens and their gaudy paramour
stood just outside the door worrying. "What, what, what, what?"
I could hear them asking each other, and of course him. "What is
it he's doing, what is it he's doing? Don't you know, don't you know?"
Occasionally the cockerel would let rip a tremendous "Cocka-cocka-cocka-doodle-doodle-doodle-OOO!
- just to let them know he was still in charge. But of course he was
as worried as they were. Chickens don't have a lot of understanding
of what humans are about: except that we are not to be trusted. We steal
their eggs.
Finally I wheel-barrowed away the last load and left
them with a clean floor and clean perches and clean boxes with fresh
new straw: a proper little cottage parlour again. All they really needed
was a nice warm fire, a carpet, and a dog.
Later that evening I walked rather proudly up to the
yard to see how they were settling in. There was no-one there. There
was not a chicken in the hen-house or outside. I wondered if the mink
had come back and got them. Somewhere, a bloodbath; a massacre.
Finally I found them around the back of the old garden.
There are some really old trees there, ancient sycamores all growing
sideways because of the wind, and all these chickens, and the cock,
were roosting in the branches ten feet from the ground, huddled together.
There was not a cluck of welcome from them. No thanks: just six pairs
of beady black eyes that followed me resentfully. "What is he going
next?" they seemed to say. If any of those chickens could have
killed - I am sure they would have and I would not be talking to you
today.
Q. Now, perhaps you can you can think about this story, and tell me if you can see what it might possibly have to do with moral absolutes - from the chickens' point of view, that is.
A. Well, whilst it was for the best intention, I had thoroughly upset their world. Our two moral worlds had collided. In mine there is a rule that cleanliness is next to godliness. In theirs - do you remember Chicken Licken? - any disturbance of normality can mean the sky is about to fall down. Those chickens in the tree, the chickens whose universe had so completely ruined, would certainly have killed me if they knew how. Moral absolutes are intended to preserve the stability, or the appearance of the stability, of a society. They are intended to stop or dissuade anyone from doing anything that might disturb the society as a whole. It is perfectly normal and necessary for societies to have moral absolutes. It is less common for societies to have rules which permit them to change them. The most serious problems arise when societies come into contact which have different sets of absolutes. These become most dangerous of all when one or both believe that their absolutes are dictated by God, or that they are derived from some reading of history, which they can neither discuss nor change. The most difficult possibility is then whether societies can agree on a moral rule which removes the possibility of conflict whilst leaving the other moral rules intact.
Q. Can you think what this might be?
A.
By agreeing that anything that everyone cannot agree about must be treated
- to differing degrees - as possible, probable, privileged or private
Shall I go on?
I learnt a little later how the sixth hen had died.
Chickens, as you may know, live for only six or seven years at most -
and if allowed a lot of freedom they may live much less than this, because
of rats and mink and so forth.
The sixth hen had been the last of the previous flock,
and was therefore the oldest and wisest of all. She knew, for example,
to go down to the shore at low tide and pick up a rich harvest of sand-hoppers
and small crabs. The new hens and the cock refused to let her join them.
When she neared them, they would chase her away. When they went into the
hen-house to roost, they would not let her perch with them. She had to
stay down on the floor in a corner by herself. They would not let her
feed when they were fed.
Very soon, however, the cock also took to trampling
on her several times a day. She soon became so terrified of him that one
day - my friend assured me that was gospel truth: she was sitting outside
the house in the sunshine one day when the hen came dashing down from
the farmyard, pursued by the cock, jumped onto her lap and stayed there
until the cock went away.
The five other hens took no notice of the fact that
she was being treated in this way. They were young and sprightly: their
feathers dark and shiny. She was old and her feathers were white, but
they were soon drab and dusty because the cock was constantly trampling
her down and pecking at her neck. The lady owner tried to find her a place
where she could feed and roost alone. But of course she wanted to be with
the rest. It was her instinct to stay with them, because this is where
she should feel most secure. But her tormentor never stopped; the others
never supported her; and finally she was dead.
Q. What has this to do with moral absolutes?
A. Some moral absolutes are necessary for the survival of a group, but some may be arbitrary. Their purpose is then to define and identify the acceptable behaviour and appearance of the group. Anyone who does not fit the required pattern will be excluded from the group and may be destroyed.
Q. Can you think of any way in which this has to do with human behaviour?
A. Well, we have tried to understand chicken behaviour in human terms. This might be entirely wrong. On the other hand it could mean that humans often behave like chickens.
*
Originally
I proposed to Professor Davis that I would talk to you about the last
time that Europeans began to behave like these chickens. This was the
period in which Europe and Russia were dominated by two rigidly deterministic
social systems: first in Russia and the Soviet Union from 1917 until
about 1990; in Germany from the early 1920s, and then in much of the
rest of Europe up to 1944.
From an historian's or a social scientist's point
of view the most remarkable fact about these two systems: National Socialism,
and Marxist-Leninism and then Stalinism, supposedly completely opposed
to one another - and their conflict together did indeed cause an immense
loss of life: almost 80 percent of the German war-losses, and of course
all the Russian, were on the Eastern front - is how uncannily similar
these systems were in nearly everything they did.
At least one very eminent historian examined this
fact at great length and finally decided that it was all due to the
psychological - or psychopathic - similarities of Stalin and Hitler.
But this begs the question: why, even so, did their entire societies
only follow their orders when given the same kind of orders? Their societies,
their histories, their cultures, after all, could hardly have been more
different.
My own answer to this question - and of course it
is a very humble answer in respect of the vast library of analysis created
by historians and social scientists - is that they have all missed the
most important fact.
I think the most important fact is that in both Russia
and Germany a new and very large class of managers and scientists and
military men had been created by the early part of the 20th century
who were generally convinced that a new political logic, a new political
logic modelled on a newly perfected mathematics which they were convinced
could no longer make mathematical mistakes, could no longer make the
political mistakes. All that was required of them was for them to apply
this new political logic remorselessly, pitilessly, without regard for
any material or historic or human costs - even their own lives - because
it must produce a perfect future.
I will be talking about this again on Saturday. I
hope some of you can come to that talk.
Thank you.
24/09/05
