I THINK MINING

  In search of a morality of mining, I have this week read the following and listened to the following:

• The Best of All Possible Worlds, A Story of Philosophy, God, and Evil by Steven Nadler
• Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett
• Otello (an opera) by Verdi
• La Barbiere di Siviglia (an opera) by Rossini.

I have also talked with many in mining, admittedly all from the northern reaches of Canada mining oil sands and diamonds.  A Sunday conclusion: religion is a belief, a practice, a way of thinking, and a guide to decent behavior.   It has no scientific validity that informs us of how to proceed in technical matters.  But it may help us make more rational and reasonable judgements.  Let me explain.

Nadler asks:

Can God’s will serve as the source of, or even as a guide to what is moral? Or is morality, good and bad and right and wrong, something completely independent of any religious or theological doctrines? Does God will something because it is independently good, or is it good for the sole reason that God wills it?

The book is long, readable, and a terrific introduction to the difficult problem that I phrase thus: Did God pre-will the way we are & what we or did he give us free will to choose to do good or evil?   Because God made this world, is it the best possible, or did He, simple set loose a collection of rules and let it happen, thus creating a world in which evil is possible?  Is evil part of God’s plan and we cannot see why evil exists, of is evil a concomitant of a world of freedom and free will?

Here is what one reviewer says of Nadler’s analysis of  these questions:

The centerpiece of this intellectual history is a vicious late-17th-century debate between three unlikely combatants: Leibniz, an amateur metaphysicist and German secret agent; Malebranche, a gentle French priest and theologian; and Arnauld, an ill-tempered and opinionated monk. The differences in their positions were slight but important: at stake was the very concept of God with potential implications for the territorial wars between various Catholic Church sects. Although the three men were concentrating on questions that had long been the subject of philosophical inquiry, new scientific discoveries were beginning to challenge the power invested in church and monarchy in what became a watershed moment. Nadler (Rembrandt’s Jews) demonstrates why the contentious discussions between the three intellectuals remain relevant: “To the extent that one believes that there is a universal rationality and objectivity to moral and other value judgments, and that the foundations of ethics have nothing to do with what God may or may not want, one has followed in certain seventeenth-century footsteps.”

  (Keep in mind Candide by Bernstein)

Today, these questions remain valid as we face the central issues of mining:

1. Is mining necessary, a part of the good life, a part of survival and the success of offspring?
2. Is mining an evil, necessary, unnecessary, sustainable, or simply a one-time rape of the earth and its resources (put there by God?)
3. Is mining simply a reflection of the greed of capitalists and their exploitation of native people’s happy to live in short, brutal, bloody ways?
4. Who owns the resources that make mines: First, Second, Third, or Forth Nations (I think of First Nations as those who have been there for a very long time, but not for-ever; Second Nations as those who came centuries ago and prevailed; Third Nation are people like me who emigrated and immigrated; and Forth Nations as those who come as Junior Mining Companies to countries not the one of their birth.)

Turning to Dennett, we have a completely different perspective.  Dennett is one of my heroes, but many attack him for his ideas.  Here is why:

In his characteristically provocative fashion, Dennett, author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, calls for a scientific, rational examination of religion that will lead us to understand what purpose religion serves in our culture. Much like E.O. Wilson (In Search of Nature), Robert Wright (The Moral Animal), and Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene), Dennett explores religion as a cultural phenomenon governed by the processes of evolution and natural selection. Religion survives because it has some kind of beneficial role in human life, yet Dennett argues that it has also played a maleficent role. He elegantly pleads for religions to engage in empirical self-examination to protect future generations from the ignorance so often fostered by religion hiding behind doctrinal smoke screens. Because Dennett offers a tentative proposal for exploring religion as a natural phenomenon, his book is sometimes plagued by generalizations that leave us wanting more (“Only when we can frame a comprehensive view of the many aspects of religion can we formulate defensible policies for how to respond to religions in the future”).

The point is that Dennett sees religion and hence modern western morality, the morality that underpins mining, as a construct of the western intellect, and a Darwinian push to maximize conditions conducive of survival and making many off-spring.  If I can mine, and get the goods that make my survival to breed more likely, why then I will mine, even if lesser tribes and their strange religions are displaced.  The only morality of mining, is survival, for mining is access to the things necessary to life, procreation, and the nurturing of off-spring.  With eight grandkids by blood, and even by marriage, I see his point.

Verdi in Otello by way of Iago’s credo reminds us however, that there are some people who are simple evil.  We know not and care not if their evil is by birth, upbringing, nature or nurture, God or the Devil.  The fact is we all know there are some who are just evil.  Sometimes they become miners.  We cannot allow them to prevail.  They will kill Desdemona and may other innocents besides.  They will rape and pillage.  They ignore nature and people in a simple quest to make real their evil natures.  I believe the only defence is good laws promulgated and enforced by moral people.  Maybe NGOs have a role in this defence against the Iagos of Mining.

  To bring all this week’s musings on mining and morality to a rational conclusion, I turn to Rossini and his perennial barber of Seville (Siviglia in Italian.)   Here is pragmatism; the rule of what can be; the achievement of the practical; the power of love; the urge to get a decent partner to breed with; all to music and merriment.   No religion; just love, energy, and music.  Maybe that is why so much glorious music was written for the mass, the requiem, the credo, and the hymn.  Let us celebrate Sunday and avoid the messes on Monday mining.