In regard to the Fry interview (Stephen Fry would like to remind you that you have no free will") by David Marchese, I have in the
past read, or been in, a great number of debates about the issue
of free will. Here in this country, our English forefathers if
we have ancestors settling in New England in the sixteenth and
seventeenth century, were probably for the most part Calvinists
who would have put Fry's arguments in those terms. We didn't
have free will because God chose those whom he would save.
Calvinist preachers, however were in short supply and were later
on replaced by Baptists and Methodists who were Arminian, that
is, they believed we had in all things
Free Will. We could thereafter choose to accept God, rather
than the reverse.
Yes, Scientific knowledge has advanced to a point
where we can declare without qualification that we are not
created equal, and Fry mentions some of the reasons that is so.
But I did a double take when I got to the part where in past
arguments God would be mentioned, and here find him presenting
the "collective unconsciousness of the people" in God's stead.
I at one time read a lot of Jung and liked his idea of the group
mind which I take to be equivalent to Fry's "collective
unconsciousness." But I was surprised that Fry would simply
assume this as accepted fact.
I did wonder to what extent Fry believes that his
genes determined his homosexuality. I have in the past read
interesting arguments advancing the idea that "circumstances"
influence some to become homosexual. There was a study years
ago with rats allowed to increase in a confined area. As the
rats became overcrowded they engaged in all sorts of deviant
rat-behavior including homosexuality.
It would be unacceptable today to describe homosexuality as deviant human behavior, but it would in the absence of a given gene, seem equally plausible (and hopefully, politically acceptable) to conjecture that societal circumstances might be the cause of homosexuality. Thus, someone caused to be homosexual by circumstances in early childhood would have this matter decided for him (or her) as much (perhaps) as if the cause was genes.
Fry's actual words were "But we can't choose our
brains, we can't choose our genes, we can't choose our parents.
There's so much." So Fry is probably including the force of
societal circumstances. I came around to giving Fry the benefit
of doubt on everything here except for the "collective
unconsciousness". Not that I disagree with the idea exactly;
although I wouldn't claim it to be an accepted fact. I still
like Jung. But I wouldn't have thought the idea widely
accepted.
David Marchese doesn't comment on Fry's words
directly, but Fry commented on a great number of things in this
interview and Marchese selected just one: "Stephen Fry would
like to remind you that you have no free will." I'm reminded of Joan Didion's saying that a reporter always betrays the person she is interviewing.
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