Reflection on Todd May The Meaningfulness of Lives

In continuing my studied of philosophy and the journey of writing I have engaged myself in practicing however I can. Having read The Meaningfulness of Live by Todd May in the Stone by the New York Times from September 11, 2011 I have chosen to write a reflection piece using characters from the Novel Ender's Game for analysis. All quotes are from the article linked to in the image below.

May begins his column by invoking the memory of September 11, 2001 as his writing comes on the tenth anniversary of the tragedy. A poignant introduction to questions of the meaningfulness of life as tragedy and loss often prompt such questions. In contemporary times it seems like discussions regard the meaning of life, or what makes a life meaningful are absent from the general discourse, left to private conversations. American culture values freedom of expression, freedom of faith, and the freedom to find our own way. Maybe that is why there is so little discussion of the this topic people want to leave matters of faith alone. May quotes Sartre from the essay "Existentialism" rather than re-quote here I have decided to present Sartre's argument.

P1: A meaningful life is a morally good one

P2: God gives humanity moral values

P3: If God does not exist then neither do those moral values

P4: God does not exist

C1: Therefore there are no moral values by P2, P3, P4

C2: Without moral values life has no meaning by P1 and C1

The first thing to be pointed out is that this argument refers to the Western Judaeo-Christian perspective on God and God as the source of morality. One of May's counter's to Sartre's argument is that basing meaning from values drawn from a specific faith excludes other faith and those who accept atheism. His second counter is that even if God existed proving moral values there is still no guarantee that each and every individual life will be meaningful. There is also the Euthyphro Dilemma which is referenced by May which I'll summarize as the question of whether something is good because God makes it good, or is it ascribed to God because we think it's good. Essentially the problem is that when we try to find the fundamental basis of moral values, when we try to define what makes the good good we come into trouble.

The point is made that there need to be another way to find or make meaning and May presents the idea of another writer Susan Wolf. For Wolf, “meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness", this is from her book "Meaning in Life and Why It Matters". But what does this mean? May explains this as, "a meaningful life must, in some sense feel worthwhile...it must also be worthwhile". This means that the person living that life must feel engaged in, they have to feel a sense of value in their actions and struggles this is the subjective attractiveness. But there also has to be some way in which there is objective value in what they do.

It gets tricky trying to pin down just what this objective value could be.It would be undesirable to reduce objective value to just morally good values otherwise much lived experiences will be excluded. What lends objective worth to life outside the realm of morality? What we are asking here is what besides morality can provide value and meaning in our lives. Human life is perhaps the most intricate, complicated, and most misunderstood phenomena that we as a species experience. Imagine just your own subjective experience of phenomena, now imagined the complicated network of individuals interacting together in myriads of ways. What bonds this network together is our temporality. May uses imagery which I think conveys a good way to understand what I mean by this network.

"A life is not an unrelated series of actions or projects or states of being.

A life has, we might say, a trajectory. It is lived in a temporal thickness."

Interactions occur only once, each particular event becoming into each other, the line of lives pointing in one direction--forward. All the drama, all the struggles, and efforts, victories and defeats, milestones and setbacks. Each individual,"...human life can be seen as a story, or as a series of stories that are more or less related”. In the way that we make sense of experience when looking back on it. We all have stories of triumph and stories of heartbreak; we understand the random chance events in our lives narratively to understand who we are right now.

In the stories that we love to read and embrace characters embody certain values like courage and passion, or determination. Much the same in we embody those same narrative values in the stories of our lives.

“When a life embodies one or more of these values (or others) and feels engaging to the one who lives it, it is to that extent meaningful. There are narrative values expressed by human lives not reducible to moral values. Nor are they reducible to happiness; they are not simply matters of subjective feeling. Narrative values are not felt, they are lived.” Think of a character who is intensely passionate or dedicated. I actually think of an example from Ender’s Game using both Ender Wiggin and Hyrum Graff of the battle school.

The novel Ender's Game is set in a future Earth where humanity has begun their progress toward colonizing the stars. Humanity comes into contact with the Formics another sentient species that has master interstellar travel. Upon discovering a forward base of the Formics on the asteriod Eros within Earth's solar system the humans entered into a war between worlds. Humanity won the first war, narrowly, and were preparing for another invasion when the novel begins.The story follows Ender Wiggin a gifted child born by permission of the government because of the promise displayed by his older siblings who did not make it themselves. Humanity was in need of commanders who could strategize against the random movements of the Formics. Humanity had learned in the first war that the Formics we a hive minded sentience. Thus their fighters all moved as one, not running formation, adapting immediately to what the humans did. Humanity sought children to train them for the special purpose of fighting against such an enemy.

As a child Ender enters the Battle School where his grueling training is overseen by Graff. Ender is constantly challenged with adversity and increasing difficulty but he continuously emerges victorious. Ender is chosen for this program and placed in such specialisted training because of Before being offered a position at the Battle School candidates are fitted with monitoring devices observing their every thought and action. Once Ender’s device is removed and he is seemingly disqualified for the program he is taunted by a bully. A fight ensues and Ender beats up the bully before it is ended, explaining that he believed showing superiority would prevent future harassment. Once this is explained to Graff he offers Ender a place in the Battle School. Ender’s decision making once unmonitored and against a larger foe what quick and efficient, so much so that the bully actually died from his injuries. It’s for this reason that he is selected for the special tract. And this trait is what Graff pushes Ender to develop by keeping him isolated and constantly disadvantaged. In another episode later at the Battle School Ender is once again outnumbered by bullies and takes swift action which results in the leader of the bullies getting killed. Ender makes the same decisions inside of the simulation as well as outside the simulation. Graff guides the development of all this from Ender Graff molds Ender into a weapon against the Formics, a human who make decisions similarly as them.

In these sense of meaning developed in this column Graff's life is meaningful because he values what he is doing and he is doing something valuable. In the novel Graff is put on trial after the war for his actions which raised many questions of moral lines. Graff's complete focus was pushing Ender to become humanities best weapon against the Formics, a strategist who could adapt to their random motion.“Meaningful lives can be morally compromised, just as morally good lives can feel meaningless to those who live them.” In comparison Ender’s life may not have been meaningful until the war was over and he embarked on his redemptive quest to find a new home for the Hive Queen as well as become the Speaker for the Dead. May does not seem to separate morality from a meaningful live entirely making the point that an evil life can never be meaningful. Instead we could think of a venn diagram where one circle encompasses narrative values, another circle which encompasses moral values, and other encompassing human actions. Note where there are different overlaps so that one may take actions that are moral but have no narrative value, so it is worthwhile but doesn’t feel worthwhile. We can also take actions that have narrative value but are morally compromised so it can feel meaningful but it pushes ethical limits. There are also actions which are both morally compromised and have no narrative value. “An evil life, no matter how intense or steadfast, is not one we would call meaningful. But within the parameters of those moral limits, the relationship between a meaningful life and a moral one is complicated.” At the end May asked us to consider the narrative themes promoted by the dominant culture where we often find ourselves funneled into either being a consumer or an entrepreneur. To this I would like to add being and influencer or creator. The question is simple are these what gives our lives meaning, that you were an ace at work, or that you were a great shopper? This has the value of at least pointing one in the direction to ask the right questions about meaning in their lives.