Irrationality Lane
We're all glad, I'm sure, for the one miner who lived through the Sago mine ordeal, but it isn't a "miracle," that he did, but something that's explainable by biology or where he was situated in the mine. Yet, this story on CNN.com:
Randy McCloy, the only survivor of a January accident that killed 12 coal miners, left a Morgantown, West Virginia, hospital Thursday to recover at his home on newly named Miracle Road."I would just like to thank everybody for their thoughts and prayers," he said softly before leaving the hospital with his wife, son and brother-in-law for his home in Simpson.
Anna McCloy thanked the doctors who treated her husband after he was pulled from the Sago Mine barely alive.
"Our family is glad to be going home," she said. "Today is another part of our miracle, just three months after the accident. However, there are 12 families who are in our thoughts and prayers today and every day."
At the hospital, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin also announced that the street leading to McCloy's house is being renamed Miracle Road and presented him with a green sign bearing the name.
"West Virginia does believe in miracles," Manchin said.
Randy McCloy, 26, and 12 other miners were trapped underground after an explosion in the Sago Mine near Tallmansville.
The other miners died in the explosion or from carbon monoxide poisoning.
According to The Associated Press, McCloy said Wednesday that was still mystified as to how he was the only man to survive the blast and will try to forget those hours after the accident.
"I try to leave out all the gory details and stuff like that because I don't like to look at them in that light and that way," he told the AP. "I just like to picture them saved and in heaven, stuff like that."
You may want to picture them that way, but the truth is, they're decomposing. It's okay, perhaps, for kids to believe in Santa for a little while, but isn't it kind of pathetic when adults do the equivalent?
Why is it helpful to believe what the evidence tells us -- that people become dinner for worms -- not that they go on to "something better"? Well, for starters, because if you think that way, you might live as I do -- as if every day could be your last.
Yes, it's hard to have a friend die on you, especially in horrible circumstances. It happened to me with my friends Marlowe and Marnye, but I have no illusions as to where they are.
To many, it probably seems I'm too picky in going after stuff like this, but it's all part and parcel of the general stupidity that makes up the religious orientation of our society -- and that of the more violent whack jobs who want to kill us because we don't believe in their particular Imaginary Friend.
There's a great post at Joy of Curmudgeonry that addresses the irrationality in your own way of thinking about the subject of rationality, Amy:
http://curmudgeonjoy.blogspot.com/2006/03/watchword-of-reason.html
The curmudgeon includes this great quotation from Leszek Kolakowski (not someone you can dismiss as a loony fundamentalist) in Modernity on Endless Trial:
"[I]n the normal sense of ‘rationality’ there are no more rational grounds for respecting human life and human personal rights than there are, say, for forbidding the consumption of shrimp among Jews, of meat on Friday among Christians, and of wine among Muslims. They are all ‘irrational’ taboos. And a totalitarian system which treats people as exchangeable parts in the state machinery, to be used, discarded, or destroyed according to the state’s needs, is in a sense a triumph of rationality."
Artemis at March 30, 2006 11:47 AM
This is completely disjointed from what I was talking about. Moreover, I'm not mandating anything -- I'm saying not using one's capacity for rational thought is a waste.
The reason, I believe, for not consuming pork, had to do with the fact people didn't have refrigerators.
"And a totalitarian system which treats people as exchangeable parts in the state machinery, to be used, discarded, or destroyed according to the state’s needs, is in a sense a triumph of rationality."
This is asinine. It's not rational to just use up other people, because the effects of doing so are likely to bite you in the ass. Moreover, there's self-esteem in behaving well, and rewards that can't be measured in the moment. If you behave well, you engender goodwill from people you know, and will probably have a manner about you (generosity of spirt) that engenders even strangers to show you goodwill.
Anybody who doesn't eat pork because trichnosis didn't go over big when there were no refrigerators should start thinking with their brain instead of reciting rote from their bible.
Amy Alkon at March 30, 2006 12:40 PM
"It's not rational to just use up other people, because the effects of doing so are likely to bite you in the ass. "
-- Not really -- if you control the totalitarian system as part of the party apparatus or ruling class, it's likely that you'll be "food for worms" before there's any unpleasant consequences. Ain't no one or nothing gonna come back and bite Stalin in the ass unless they dig up his corpse.
Of course, people should use their capacity for rational thought. So should you. If you do, you'll be forced to admit that there's as little empirical evidence for Good or Right (or whatever code you live by) as there is for the Imaginary Friend.
Artemis at March 30, 2006 12:52 PM
I believe in miracles. I just don't believe they're divinely ordained. I think the simple fact that sometimes the world aligns a certain way is a miracle of a sort. I was quite sick last year and every time a test went my way or a treatment did its job, I felt like a little miracle had occurred, even if deep down it was the miracle of modern science (with some ancient medicine thrown in for good measure). But the few times I caught myself looking upward with those cliched pleading eyes, I'd remember that it was ridiculous to pray for assistance from a god who, if in existence, had decided to make me sick in the first place. But I thanked a lot of doctors and nurses profusely, that's for sure.
Newcomer at March 30, 2006 5:56 PM
"a totalitarian system which treats people as exchangeable parts in the state machinery, to be used, discarded, or destroyed according to the state’s needs, is in a sense a triumph of rationality."
Oh, my. It sounds like someone's got a really bad case of Frankfurt School gastric reflux. Could someone open a window in here?
Lena at March 30, 2006 8:30 PM
That's why we love Lena- who else can turn a Horkheimer diatribe into a fart joke....
eric (UCR Marxist turned capitalist swine) at March 30, 2006 8:53 PM
Um, cute jokes, but I'm not sure you uber-rationalists understood Kolakowski's point. I wouldn't know, though, since in your infinite rationality, you didn't bother to address it. (Were you under the impression, for instance, that Kolakowki was a member of the Frankfurt School or that he championed totalitarianism?)
You've all read Modernity on Endless Trial, have you? Cool! Let's hear your critique, O Rational Ones.
Kate Marie at March 30, 2006 9:08 PM
Um, cute jokes, but I'm not sure you uber-rationalists understood Kolakowski's point. I wouldn't know, though, since in your infinite rationality, you didn't bother to address it. (Were you under the impression, for instance, that Kolakowki was a member of the Frankfurt School or that he championed totalitarianism?)
You've all read Modernity on Endless Trial, have you? Cool! Let's hear your critique, O Rational Ones.
Artemis at March 30, 2006 9:09 PM
Ooops, sorry for the duplicate comments (and yes, the first includes my real name, which I don't -- for supremely irrational reasons -- usually like to append to comments, but oh well ...)
Artemis at March 30, 2006 9:13 PM
Getting back to the original article, I don't think the word "miracle" should be used anywhere near an incident where 12 out of 13 people died. A batting average of .077 is not my idea of divine intervention. I wonder how the families of the victims feel about that street name.
Gary at March 30, 2006 11:28 PM
Calm down, Artemis. I have no great objection with people who apply the word "miracle" to the occurrence of low-probability events that make them very happy, and I've often thrown aside rationality in the pursuit of criteria such as pleasure and justice. "Modernity on Endless Trial" sounds like a very interesting book, but unfortunately I don't have time to read it. Have a nice weekend. I hope you get pounded like the wanton bitch that you are.
Lena at March 31, 2006 5:57 AM
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