Getting Past the Past

I've been reading a couple of recently famous neo-Marxist tracts (Hardt & Negri, Empire and Multitude), which takes forever because I am not up-to-speed [if I ever was] on my 18^th and 19^th century philosophers, such as Hegel, Rousseau and Schopenhauer. I hope to review those books later, when I have a more settled opinion of the work. There is no doubt Professors Hardt & Negri not only have many valuable insights, but require the reader to be a scholar of Karl Marx and Frederich Engles - with the emphasis on Marx. But, for the purposes of this essay, I only need those gentlemen to point out that erudition does not resonate with the people; certainly not ordinary Americans.

Stupidity and Ignorance

That brings up my first problem, that it is nearly impossible to understand what is happening to us globally without literacy, even scholarly erudition, yet most people lack all but the rudiments of intellectual ability. For instance, I remember reading a decade or so ago that the "average American" is largely unable to do simple math problems by age 35. Math is one of the first intellectual skills to disappear with aging, and apparently much else follows by age 50-55. Most people are essentially silly gooses after age 65 or so. (Maybe that's why grandparents seem pleasant to grandchildren.)

Nonetheless, there is some hope. It also turns out that brains are like muscles, and can be kept functional until very late in life by exercising them. This means people who read a lot, do math, think about things and make many decisions are far more likely to arrive at 75 or 80 with a viable human mind. I believe it also helps to be argumentative, contentious, somewhat opinionated and judgemental (provided others around you argue with you about it) to distinguish oneself from our zoo-bound nearest relatives. Being "opinionated" does not mean being like Archie Bunker, or any other smug, complacent person who has settled, absolutely correct (self-serving) ideas. What the foregoing unpleasant characteristics need to have in common is an ability to change one's mind as well. So, absolutists and fundamentalists of all stripes are not benefitted by being contentious or judgemental; there is more to the prescription for brain health that that.

Here, I must note the interesting problem that most people's mental abilities seem to "peak out" between 25-30 years old. The people with the least experience are the ones with the most innate ability, and vice versa. Typically, young people can see the faults of our social system clearly. This is not difficult, as anyone who cares to shed a few vested interests would see the disparities. I think it is that clarity which naturally aligns most young people with Liberalism. But, for just that reason, the young and the dispossessed are not allowed or encouraged to take part in critical decisions, even if they are allowed to discuss or vote in marginally important training sessions. No one is trusted until weighed down with investments in the established order. Little by little, as people are encumbered with mates, children, houses, cars, furnishings and the corresponding mortgage and debt payments, the glimmer of a different social order fades and dies. Once you are trained about the importance of having a mortgage, and all those other things, you are more trusted not to upset the apple cart. Very few people manage to shuck the weight of worldly cares and possessions to retain their youthful clarity of vision. Putting it another way, most people find they have little use for mathematical calculation once they've put on the blinders and halter, and get hitched to the wagon.

Conservatives, as usual, turn things upside down or inside out. It is their frequent saying that anyone who is not a liberal when young has no heart, but anyone who is not a conservative when older has no brains. I say this is not exactly the reverse of the truth; it is half of a half-truth. The fact is that most people lose their brains as they get older, and that is associated with increased conservatism. It takes a combination of heart and brains to be a liberal, but, lacking those, it is easy to fall into conservatism. It's easy to conform, do what you're told and let things be as they always were, even if that is dysfunctional or even crazy.

So my first problem amounts to this: people don't understand what is happening to them because they become illiterate. Whatever intellectual abilities are developed in youth are soon lost in the education of adults. Were it not so, I doubt this (or any) society would stand at sundown. While having lab tests at Kaiser this morning, I noticed a cartoon posted by the phlebotomist:

A frazzled chicken is on the psychiatrist's couch in a dark room. It tells the bearded Freudian doctor, "I'm afraid of being fried."

When we have learned not to consider such a thought, we are entrusted with some say in the running of our society. But, I ask, is it unreasonable for chickens to worry about what goes on at Kentucky Fried C-!-n?

Reaction and Resistance

So, I come to the second problem, which is how to convince people the sky really is falling? I put the problem that way, because that is the way most people see it. I've been repeatedly told I'm crazy, that the things I worry about aren't happening and, anyway, things will turn out all right. Lots of people just don't want to hear the sorts of things I put forward. The simplest reason for the instant reject I often get is that the cure would upset people's comfortable, complacent lives. "NO! I don't want to be told about the train wreck ahead. I just want to enjoy my club car martini." This simple reason is also the most insidious, because it is what kept black people in slavery for centuries. It keeps the Bandit in office. It is behind the vast majority of inhumanities and abuses documented in our 10,000 years of history. I'm all; right Jack, as long as it happens to someone else ...

Some of the worst applications of this second problem are the refusal to deal with global climate change, overpopulation and several related environmental problems. "I've got my SUV and make enough to pay for the gas it guzzles. So, what's your problem? Get off my case!" Most people are simply unable to foresee the consequences of their actions. They do not connect filling up the tank and any number of environmental problems. They do not perceive CO₂ production as eventually stifling their own breathing. It might be different, if every time you filled up you also got a sample of being smothering to death; but, you don't. "That's a long way off; maybe it will never happen to me." Or, so people think and feel. There is nothing immediate and sensible to prompt, to warn, to prevent. Whatever is known is in the form of scientific data, rows of printed numbers or scribbles on paper, that only the scientifically inclined understand. Problem One enables Problem Two: since I don't know anything, I don't care about anything. "Why the hell are you bothering me about this, anyway?"

People aren't convinced by arguments and scientific data. Were it otherwise, we would have done something about global climate change over 20 years ago. There would be very few gas-powered cars left. Probably the Gulf War and Iraq, and 9-11 too, would never have happened. Despite those appealing alternatives, people are unmoved: they've learned to live with desperation.

The worst and most backward people are religious (and other) fundamentalists. These Old Believers are the ultimate reactionaries or know-nothings, sunk in the mire of 'it was always done this way, ' 'it is written ...' or 'Simon says ...'. Thus, some religious fundamentalists are unconcerned about the fate of humanity as either (a) "God will provide," or (b) "Judgement Day is nigh," or (c) "It is pre-ordained; it is according to God's will." Those folks are joined by people - of whatever seeming persuasion, including liberalism and humanism - who believe nothing can be done about it, so they won't do anything. The result is, of course, that things go their merry or disastrous ways, unaffected by any human choice.

The foregoing darker types are joined by the seemingly modern, brighter middle classes who won't take a risk. It doesn't matter whether the corporate bosses are cutting their wages and benefits, the government is cutting their welfare benefits, or the country is headed for economic, social or other ruin. This stodgy group won't do a thing until the bulldozer arrives in their front yard. Even then, as in the AARP ad opposing Bandit privatization of Social Security, the housewife stands by while her house is flattened by plumber-wreckers. Unfortunately, this is an all too common pattern. People won't strike. They won't risk their jobs. They won't speak out at public meetings which are supposedly "town halls." They will go along with whatever authority imposes on them. This is the foundation of Fascism, Stalinism and tyrannies of every other kind.

Solzhenitsyn makes the point in his Gulag that the Communists - True Believers - were treated worse than everyone else. They were frequently deprived, tortured and murdered, not only by prison guards, but by their fellow prisoners. Their response to this fatal situation was most often to write to Uncle Joe, asking for pardon. They believed they had been wrongly sentenced, and the "Little Father" would soon correct the mistake. Very few political prisoners survived the Gulag, in part because their touching belief in Uncle Joe was the same sort of belief people once had about the Tsar. Having that sort of belief proves you are a reactionary, not a forward-looking Communist, so the plaintive letters were proof of correct condemnation. Gulag survivors had more cynical, realistic views about the way things were.

Murphy's Law

In addition to functional illiteracy, and deeply reactionary or resistive inclinations, there is a third problem in bringing about change. Things can go wrong. This is a major reason why those who are neither stupid, nor ignorant, nor reactionary nor even resistive, often do nothing. They fear unexpected consequences. Since, in science - especially biological science - a hundred or more experiments fail for every success, this is not an unreasonable worry. The counter to it is, 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' It is a matter of having the courage to go on.

There is no doubt in my mind that homo sapiens is in a far better shape today than, say, 10,000 years ago. Even most of the poorest Asians and Africans now live a longer, better life than most of their peasant ancestors just 100 or 200 years ago. (This is not always the case, as very often colonialism/imperialism destroyed better-off, established societies.) This is not the result of European colonialism or American Imperialism. Also, I don't think it is the result of capitalism, or even political democracy. What has happened over the millennia is improved knowledge, and better methods for coping with the various disasters that befall us as well as everyday problems. They key to both of those categories is simple: transmission of knowledge - recording and teaching experience. This is a conservative process. In the education of the young, we insist upon their learning sacred texts, such as multiplication tables. At the same time, for most people, this type of education leads to resistance to conceiving new ideas and trying different methods. Conservative education represents the results of eons of trial and error which enabled the species to survive. Most "higher" animals train their young in this manner. (Although, here we have a circularity, as "higher" is at least partially defined by the ability to learn from education and experience.)

But, I note, there was trial and error. For whatever reason, some Chimpanzees learned to use "fishing sticks" to trap termites, whereas others learned to use simple weapons, such as spears. Somewhere, somehow, someone fooled around with something often enough to get a noticeable result. That result "stuck." Different tribes of Chimpanzees apparently had different inclinations as to what to fool around with, because they have different tool sets. It's the same with Homo Sapiens. Based on those observations, I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that there is a "creativity" or "intuition" gene or meme (probably both). Some members of those primate tribes don't just learn the sacred texts, they write a page or two of their own.

Whatever it is labeled - curiosity, boredom, playfulness, or even willful contrariness - there is a tendency for some members of the species to try something new, something different. It is likely that most of these experiments fail, and some may even end in death or disaster. Despite that, some trials result in useful knowledge or praxis which eventually benefits a society and the species. Once a behavior is acquired, that same conservative education process guarantees it will spread. Here, however, two quizzical thoughts arise: one would have to be an idealist, a Good Samaritan, to try any experiment and how does that experience spread from the discoverer to others? Clearly, Good Samaritans may risk injury or death in conducting their experiments. Further, the conservative education process resists anything new and different. So, how does the "fishing stick" get inserted into the Chimpanzee curriculum?

Generally, this is the much-discussed altruism problem. There are naturally observable altruistic behaviors; e.g., birds taking care of their fledgling cousins. Against that, there are the cuckoos and mocking birds that prey on others' nests and plant their eggs on others. The agent of change does not have to know what it is doing; altruism is not necessarily conscious, directed behavior. The fishing stick Chimp could just get fatter than his starving tribe-mates, and thus assume leadership, without his relying on anything more than the pre-existing methods of promotion. It could be the fattest Chimp survives longest, or that having a fishing stick improves fighting ability, either characteristic being a method of assuming leadership. Once an innovator gains a leadership position, it becomes safe - even de rigueur - to teach the innovation.

Because history demonstrates it, and because we can observe innovation making its way into human and non-human societies, there must be ways of getting around Murphy's Law and the other forms of resistance to change. This may yet be frustrating to revolutionaries, as the rate of change may be glacially slow.

Too Fast and Too Slow

In our era, we are caught between natural events happening faster than many are prepared to handle, and yet in most cases we have the ability to outrun disruptive changes. The particular irony of post-modern humanity is that we brought the overwhelming fast moving changes on ourselves, without considering all the consequences or our willingness to cope with them.

I present my classic case of both too fast and too slow: global climate warming. This is something almost certainly attributable to human activities, but which wasn't considered a problem until recently. As a species, we have been extremely short-sighted in our use of technologies that have impacts far beyond fishing sticks. Most people were desirous of the warmth of a few coals, and never thought about the eventual deadly (London) smogs that would result. Our species lacks some sort of native "integrative" faculty, which would add up our contribution to pollution to that of everyone else, so as to arrive at the total. We just don't think like that. "What's another 10 or 20 gallons of gas?" Thus, the microscopic increment that serves me is not important and uncounted in the macroscopic result.

Just as Newton and Leibniz added an infinity of infinitesimals in their calculi, so modern science finally discovered and verified the consequences of our polluting ways. The infinitesimals do add up. The same science offers us a way out of our self-induced miasma: e.g., fusion power. But, are we willing to grasp that straw? So far, not.

Meanwhile, we speeded up our society and our pleasures, but we haven't paid attention to that ever-faster changing climate. What may have seemed unimportant a century ago has now gathered momentum, and comes at us faster than we can run. It's like the recent tsunamis. The best you can do is run as fast as you can, and hope; otherwise, you are lost.

So, by being self-centered and short-sighted, and desirous of life in the fast lane, we may have set in motion tornadoes that crush us all. There are some ways out of our predicament, but they cannot wait for eventual acceptance, like fishing sticks. We asked for the fast car, but are unwilling or unable to get out of the fast lane or we aren't fast enough to outrun the disaster on our tail. The contradiction of our desires and creations is about to sweep us away.

So, there's the problem. How do you get people to accept the solutions to our problems on time? Whether it's global climate change, over-population, medical care, clean air and water, adequate food, clothing and shelter, human rights and environmental protection, the problem seems to require solutions faster than people are ready, willing and able to undertake them. It's all a matter of learning to run faster, maybe a lot faster.