When I despair of the rampant triviality of our society, the substitution of emotion for thought and the increasing removal from the real world that conditions our species' existence, I find it useful to retrace the path of human development from prehistory on. To see where we came from the proto humans, the species that branched off from the tree that became us; to witness the gradual rise of brain size and organization; to see how we began to apply that increased reasoning ability to our surroundings and to ourselves; these are the realities from which we come. These form the foundation of what we are and what we can be.
Recently Chris Hedges published his new book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle in which he shares the same despair. With chapters titled the Illusion of Literacy, of Love, of Wisdom, of Happiness and of America, he unleashes a withering analysis of our extremely decadent society. He begins the book with a quote from James Baldwin as follows, "People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." This is the consequence that people have to understand. Shallowness breeds violence
However, Hedges' remedy for this state of affairs is a return to God. He begins the first chapter with a quote from John Ralston Saul's book Voltaire's Bastards in part as follows, "Now the death of God combined with the perfection of the image has brought us to a whole new state of expectation. We are the image. We are the viewer and the viewed. There is no other distracting presence." As is so frequently the case, even with the Religious Right that Hedges despises, a litany of the ills of our society is followed with a prescription for a return to God. But is not God one of the most pervasive and destructive of our illusions? It is especially dangerous because it asserts an untreatable reality, inevitably imposes absolute values on a world of great variability and thereby leads humans to non-negotiable conflicts resolvable only by violence.
If humans are to achieve the peace they so deeply desire in a culturally shrinking world of increasing population, they will have to appeal to something other than their gods. One possibility I find useful is substituting humanity itself and the context of our development for a deity, not as an object of worship, but as a unifying reference point. Everything we value has arisen in the course of our development. The civilization we seek to preserve and enhance has arisen in the context of this long history of our development as humans. We need badly to understand this development and hence to understand ourselves. We need to understand as well what has propelled us so frequently to disaster and multiply that by our increasing capacity for self destruction. For those who find such an undertaking too mundane, who require something immensely larger than themselves, something mysterious, something spiritual, let them contemplate a natural universe whose immensity Carl Sagan tried to capture in his mantras of "billions and billions of galaxies" and "we are all stardust," which none the less is addressable by human reason. A shift of cultural focus of this sort will make our common humanity, our dependence upon this planet and our shared commonality with the other species of this planet the source for our values and inspiration for our further development. That human beings are capable of this species-wide commonality is evidenced by our response to huge natural disasters such as the Indonesian earthquake/tsunami which disregarded religious and cultural differences that in other contexts have bred enmity and violence. In brief, the remedy for the perils of illusion is not another illusion, but a much better understanding of our humanity and the natural roots from which it has evolved. We had the intelligence to master our environment, now let us use that intelligence to master ourselves.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The American Way and the Learning Society
In his recent speech to Congress President Obama said “There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada's, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.
I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have.”
Aside from erroneously assuming some sort of parity of relevance between these two positions, Obama says that single payer would disrupt the health care that people currently have. This is part of Obama's mealy mouthed approach to the fundamental issue of this society's health care for its citizens. Currently 40 million are uninsured and the cost of health care is skyrocketing. Obviously something “disrupting” has to happen. Further, If social disruption is a significaant factor then why does he continue the adventurism in Afghanistan? The provisions of billions of dollars to bail out banks will be disruptive for this generation's children, but that seems acceptable. It is clear that the current health care “system” is being run in the interest of some of the wealthiest people and some of the most powerful corporations in this country. It is high time some “disrupting” goes on if we are ever to be able to have a reasonably equitable society.
But there is, to my mind, a deeper reason to be concerned by this kind of “reasoning.” It posits that this capitalist society cannot have a form of health care enjoyed by other democratic countries. Obama mentioned Canada specifically. What is so different about Canada? There are few, if any countries, more like the United States than Canada. Is Obama saying that the United States is incapable of learning from other countries? When such an inability occurs in individuals we call it a leaning deficit and seek a remedy. Is Obama saying American hubris prevents us from learning from others? It is long past the time to get over that trait. The world is shrinking very rapidly. We share a planet with nearly seven billion others and the problems we humans present to this planet are many, impending and coalescing. In our own interest, if we cannot consider those of others, we need to grow up and do so quickly. A significant step in this direction would be the adoption of a single payer health care system. Finally, I cannot help thinking that Obama's statement reflects his fear of, or collusion with, the clout of the pharmaceutical, insurance and hospital corporations, as well as the corporate media involved. In a corporation-dominated society like ours this fight is going to have to take place sometime if we are to get our democracy back. I can think of no nobler cause for this president to pursue than the restoration of democracy and civic decency.
There is, however, another possibility for explaining Obama's behavior, at least in part. I suspect that Obama is more cognizant then most of us of the racist potential of this society. We have all seen the bizarre behavior of the Radical Right so far during Obama's presidency. Maureen Dowd in a New York Times column has made it quite evident that racism is a large, if not the largest element in the vociferous attacks by the Far Right orchestrated by Murdoch's demagogic minions, e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and, now apparently becoming the worst of the worst, Glenn Beck. Dowd points out that Representative Joe 'You lie! Wilson “belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol.” She argues that he and the rest of his ilk cannot tolerate having a balck president and are prepared to do anything they can to ruin his presidency. It may be that Obama, aware of the potential for a racist inferno in this country, believes pushing a genuine progressive agenda could ignite it. If so, this raises a question for progressives, Are we prepared to push the progressive agenda at this price? My own view is that we cannot let the welfare of this nation's population be held hostage by threatening radical rightists.
I will add that I think the fundamental flaw in political conservatism is their worship of the past, which as with worship in general, pretty well precludes learning from the past. This singular focus also precludes learning from current experience. The past is definitive of values for conservatives therefore they can only react to changed circumstances by appealing to it. Hence, the denial of global warming, evolution, the humanity of gays and other threats to humanity's future such as a looming food and water shortages of unprecedented dimensions. This is why the responsibilities of progressives to humanity's future have to be thoroughly thought our, articulated, and made politically viable.
Bob Newhard
I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have.”
Aside from erroneously assuming some sort of parity of relevance between these two positions, Obama says that single payer would disrupt the health care that people currently have. This is part of Obama's mealy mouthed approach to the fundamental issue of this society's health care for its citizens. Currently 40 million are uninsured and the cost of health care is skyrocketing. Obviously something “disrupting” has to happen. Further, If social disruption is a significaant factor then why does he continue the adventurism in Afghanistan? The provisions of billions of dollars to bail out banks will be disruptive for this generation's children, but that seems acceptable. It is clear that the current health care “system” is being run in the interest of some of the wealthiest people and some of the most powerful corporations in this country. It is high time some “disrupting” goes on if we are ever to be able to have a reasonably equitable society.
But there is, to my mind, a deeper reason to be concerned by this kind of “reasoning.” It posits that this capitalist society cannot have a form of health care enjoyed by other democratic countries. Obama mentioned Canada specifically. What is so different about Canada? There are few, if any countries, more like the United States than Canada. Is Obama saying that the United States is incapable of learning from other countries? When such an inability occurs in individuals we call it a leaning deficit and seek a remedy. Is Obama saying American hubris prevents us from learning from others? It is long past the time to get over that trait. The world is shrinking very rapidly. We share a planet with nearly seven billion others and the problems we humans present to this planet are many, impending and coalescing. In our own interest, if we cannot consider those of others, we need to grow up and do so quickly. A significant step in this direction would be the adoption of a single payer health care system. Finally, I cannot help thinking that Obama's statement reflects his fear of, or collusion with, the clout of the pharmaceutical, insurance and hospital corporations, as well as the corporate media involved. In a corporation-dominated society like ours this fight is going to have to take place sometime if we are to get our democracy back. I can think of no nobler cause for this president to pursue than the restoration of democracy and civic decency.
There is, however, another possibility for explaining Obama's behavior, at least in part. I suspect that Obama is more cognizant then most of us of the racist potential of this society. We have all seen the bizarre behavior of the Radical Right so far during Obama's presidency. Maureen Dowd in a New York Times column has made it quite evident that racism is a large, if not the largest element in the vociferous attacks by the Far Right orchestrated by Murdoch's demagogic minions, e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and, now apparently becoming the worst of the worst, Glenn Beck. Dowd points out that Representative Joe 'You lie! Wilson “belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol.” She argues that he and the rest of his ilk cannot tolerate having a balck president and are prepared to do anything they can to ruin his presidency. It may be that Obama, aware of the potential for a racist inferno in this country, believes pushing a genuine progressive agenda could ignite it. If so, this raises a question for progressives, Are we prepared to push the progressive agenda at this price? My own view is that we cannot let the welfare of this nation's population be held hostage by threatening radical rightists.
I will add that I think the fundamental flaw in political conservatism is their worship of the past, which as with worship in general, pretty well precludes learning from the past. This singular focus also precludes learning from current experience. The past is definitive of values for conservatives therefore they can only react to changed circumstances by appealing to it. Hence, the denial of global warming, evolution, the humanity of gays and other threats to humanity's future such as a looming food and water shortages of unprecedented dimensions. This is why the responsibilities of progressives to humanity's future have to be thoroughly thought our, articulated, and made politically viable.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Unhinged Society
I know I have written before on America's lost grip on reality, but there is, in my judgment, new evidence of this phenomenon and that it is becoming very dangerous. I have previously remarked the flight to fantasy evident in substituting creationism for evolution and the concomitant use of politics to replace science in the pursuit of that goal. I have also remarked that celebrities have replaced heroes in the minds of children; that the passion to be noticed, Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame, has produced multimillion dollar industries such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter; that millions of people avidly adopt avatars and endlessly play global fantasy games, etc. But, as I said in my last column on this subject, it is dangerous. Witness the recent rash of death “jokes” about Obama by Republicans, e.g. hunting tags for Obama and as I write this column Fox News' Glenn Beck broadcast his hope that poison is added to Nancy Pelosi's wine. The Republicans believe these tactics, including the psychotic but effective assertion that Obama intends, through his healthcare plan, to kill your grandmother, have turned the political tide that ran so strongly against them in the 2008 election—and this in 6 months. If they are right and some liberal writers seem to agree, then the American people are obviously and dangerously unhinged. People now feel free to brandish firearms at political meetings.
Democracy cannot withstand this indifference to reality. It will give way to the chaos generated by emotion-driven conflicts over myths of race, religion, gender and age difference. In the latter case there is a developing effort to pit the young against the old as the movement of wealth to fewer and fewer people deprives society of the resources needed to insure the broad economic base a democracy requires.
Another indicator that this society has lost its bearings can be found in a recently published book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement in which the authors, two professors of social psychology, are mainly concerned with cultural as distinct from individual narcissism. Their judgment, with an abundance of evidence, is that there has been something like a sea change in American culture and it is not for the good. They list a number of social ills that are attributable to this social narcissism to a greater or lesser extent. These ills range from the mortgage debacle to plastic surgery and the whole makeover industry to the plague of “reality” shows. The major result is, of course, social disintegration and all that can flow from that. Under the best of circumstances there is an inherent conflict in democracy between the individual's liberty and the requirements of the democratic society necessary to assure that liberty. Jefferson sought to bridge this bifurcation by making the aim of the state to assist individuals in realizing their full potential. It was assumed, perhaps naively, that such self realization would be consistent with a democratic society.
In trying to understand why society appears to be falling apart I have begun to wonder if, along with the pressures of over population and the fragmenting effect of technology, a new awareness of human fragility is contributing to this disintegration. Never before in human history have humans known so clearly that their world can be destroyed and perhaps is in that process already and that tey are the cause. Aware of the willingness of humans to destroy each other, mankind now fears that it could, and perhaps will, destroy itself.
I remember a final scene in the movie version of Neville Shute's novel On the Beach, in which a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States has unleashed an enormous radioactive cloud that was progressively killing all life as it circulated around the planet. Australia would complete the cloud's globe-girdling trip. People knew it was coming. They fragment into those who pray and passionately declare that Jesus is returning, by which method they supposedly escape the impending doom, and those who accept their fate and have an enormous beach party. Mankind is increasingly aware of its destiny. Is it starting to fragment into the religious deniers and the entertainment addicted accepters? I personally think Shute should have had a third group indulging in violence as they displayed their anger at such a fate. Somebody had to be responsible! We keep telling ourselves that there is still time, if we act quickly, to avoid the various catastrophes awaiting us. Can we really expect the bulk of mankind to act quickly? At its best, will not such an effort create massive conflict as humans fight for diminishing resources and this in the context of nuclear destructiveness? If some external intelligence were to observe humanity playing out this scenario, would it not think the efforts of those who seek to avoid the cascading convergence of such species-ending forces pitiful in their irrelevance? We must, in my judgment, be brutally honest before we can be productively progressive, else we too live in a fantasy.
Bob Newhad
Democracy cannot withstand this indifference to reality. It will give way to the chaos generated by emotion-driven conflicts over myths of race, religion, gender and age difference. In the latter case there is a developing effort to pit the young against the old as the movement of wealth to fewer and fewer people deprives society of the resources needed to insure the broad economic base a democracy requires.
Another indicator that this society has lost its bearings can be found in a recently published book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement in which the authors, two professors of social psychology, are mainly concerned with cultural as distinct from individual narcissism. Their judgment, with an abundance of evidence, is that there has been something like a sea change in American culture and it is not for the good. They list a number of social ills that are attributable to this social narcissism to a greater or lesser extent. These ills range from the mortgage debacle to plastic surgery and the whole makeover industry to the plague of “reality” shows. The major result is, of course, social disintegration and all that can flow from that. Under the best of circumstances there is an inherent conflict in democracy between the individual's liberty and the requirements of the democratic society necessary to assure that liberty. Jefferson sought to bridge this bifurcation by making the aim of the state to assist individuals in realizing their full potential. It was assumed, perhaps naively, that such self realization would be consistent with a democratic society.
In trying to understand why society appears to be falling apart I have begun to wonder if, along with the pressures of over population and the fragmenting effect of technology, a new awareness of human fragility is contributing to this disintegration. Never before in human history have humans known so clearly that their world can be destroyed and perhaps is in that process already and that tey are the cause. Aware of the willingness of humans to destroy each other, mankind now fears that it could, and perhaps will, destroy itself.
I remember a final scene in the movie version of Neville Shute's novel On the Beach, in which a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States has unleashed an enormous radioactive cloud that was progressively killing all life as it circulated around the planet. Australia would complete the cloud's globe-girdling trip. People knew it was coming. They fragment into those who pray and passionately declare that Jesus is returning, by which method they supposedly escape the impending doom, and those who accept their fate and have an enormous beach party. Mankind is increasingly aware of its destiny. Is it starting to fragment into the religious deniers and the entertainment addicted accepters? I personally think Shute should have had a third group indulging in violence as they displayed their anger at such a fate. Somebody had to be responsible! We keep telling ourselves that there is still time, if we act quickly, to avoid the various catastrophes awaiting us. Can we really expect the bulk of mankind to act quickly? At its best, will not such an effort create massive conflict as humans fight for diminishing resources and this in the context of nuclear destructiveness? If some external intelligence were to observe humanity playing out this scenario, would it not think the efforts of those who seek to avoid the cascading convergence of such species-ending forces pitiful in their irrelevance? We must, in my judgment, be brutally honest before we can be productively progressive, else we too live in a fantasy.
Bob Newhad
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Shadow Falls
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
So wrote T. S. Eliot in his poem The Hollow Men.
The speculators are back, flipping property. The real revitalization—repairing and renting the homes—will have to wait.
So wrote Alyssa Katz in her article There Goes the Neighborhood in the September 2009 issue of The American Prospect magazine.
There is an amorphousness in the processes of modern societies that was not there for the vast majority human existence. It is that murky, ill-defined area between decision and act. which when institutionalized (think government or corporations), is responsible for much of what goes wrong in our societies. Because of it we are much less sure of how our decisions will eventuate. We consume vast amounts of our resources in this gray area.
Ever since civilization began to appear there has been the gap between what G. W. Bush called the deciders and the rest of society. However, it was quite clear what was the king's or the priest's and what was that of the ordinary person. There was little “grayness” in the difference although there was in the use the king or priest made of his resources. Nowadays however, with huge populations and complicated technology that generates a near impenetrable fog, (some would call it a black hole) mankind has been put adrift in a fog of its own making.
I think the recent rash of anger experienced by politicians as they returned to their constituents, while much of it may have been triggered by the bigots of religion and race and loud-mouthed sound biters, reflected an effort on the part of much of this country's citizenry to penetrate the grayness which confronts them. Who is responsible for our situation? How did it happen? How will it be remedied? These questions are fundamental to people at this time and search as they may they basically get no answers. As Katz points out, massive amounts of public debt incurred to keep people in their homes by reducing their mortgage payments have been waylaid by the institutions that government chose to do this job. They have been largely consumed or made less effective by the grayness. This is among the reasons that progressives much preferred FDR's approach of creating jobs so the necessary remedy is made explicit to the people. The remedy does not trickle down through the very institutions that caused the problem in the first place.
This shadowland is the playground of the devious and manipulative among us. It provides the ability to intercept communication between the governed and the governors and makes for decisions and agreements made in secret. It is the root cause for the continuing call for accountability. Why, for instance, do the wealthy have no three strikes law for fraud or are sentenced to minimum security prisons or house arrest when the common burglar is sent to the harshest of overcrowded jails?
One of the greatest threats in an era of increasing instability is that a “savior” in fascist garb will come riding out of this fog of confusion and increased alienation with a clear and simple message, usually rooted in the society's myths and prejudices. One need only examine the cultural myths and bigotries Hitler and Mussolini appealed to in order to acquire absolute power.
Finally, all of this is compounded by humanity facing global realities it has not faced in 10,000 years and this time we know it in advance.
When one writes in the above terms one is expected, in this wildly optimistic society, to present some sort of remedy. However, every possible remedy seems fraught with its own perils. It is tempting to say, as some have, that our societies are too big. They must be reduced in size so that citizens have at least some acquaintance with those that govern them and the mechanisms employed in governing, but how is this to be done when we have a technology that is global in scale and generates wealth and power on that scale?
There are those who say we need to remove much of the technology we have created and live much closer to the land and elements, which were the cradle of our existence for the vast majority of our species' existence. But even if we tried, there is not enough land and resources left to provide an “acre and a horse” for each family, We are, in short, living on the edge of chaos lost in a miasma of deliberate ambiguity and focused on ourselves rather than our species.
Bob Newhard
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
So wrote T. S. Eliot in his poem The Hollow Men.
The speculators are back, flipping property. The real revitalization—repairing and renting the homes—will have to wait.
So wrote Alyssa Katz in her article There Goes the Neighborhood in the September 2009 issue of The American Prospect magazine.
There is an amorphousness in the processes of modern societies that was not there for the vast majority human existence. It is that murky, ill-defined area between decision and act. which when institutionalized (think government or corporations), is responsible for much of what goes wrong in our societies. Because of it we are much less sure of how our decisions will eventuate. We consume vast amounts of our resources in this gray area.
Ever since civilization began to appear there has been the gap between what G. W. Bush called the deciders and the rest of society. However, it was quite clear what was the king's or the priest's and what was that of the ordinary person. There was little “grayness” in the difference although there was in the use the king or priest made of his resources. Nowadays however, with huge populations and complicated technology that generates a near impenetrable fog, (some would call it a black hole) mankind has been put adrift in a fog of its own making.
I think the recent rash of anger experienced by politicians as they returned to their constituents, while much of it may have been triggered by the bigots of religion and race and loud-mouthed sound biters, reflected an effort on the part of much of this country's citizenry to penetrate the grayness which confronts them. Who is responsible for our situation? How did it happen? How will it be remedied? These questions are fundamental to people at this time and search as they may they basically get no answers. As Katz points out, massive amounts of public debt incurred to keep people in their homes by reducing their mortgage payments have been waylaid by the institutions that government chose to do this job. They have been largely consumed or made less effective by the grayness. This is among the reasons that progressives much preferred FDR's approach of creating jobs so the necessary remedy is made explicit to the people. The remedy does not trickle down through the very institutions that caused the problem in the first place.
This shadowland is the playground of the devious and manipulative among us. It provides the ability to intercept communication between the governed and the governors and makes for decisions and agreements made in secret. It is the root cause for the continuing call for accountability. Why, for instance, do the wealthy have no three strikes law for fraud or are sentenced to minimum security prisons or house arrest when the common burglar is sent to the harshest of overcrowded jails?
One of the greatest threats in an era of increasing instability is that a “savior” in fascist garb will come riding out of this fog of confusion and increased alienation with a clear and simple message, usually rooted in the society's myths and prejudices. One need only examine the cultural myths and bigotries Hitler and Mussolini appealed to in order to acquire absolute power.
Finally, all of this is compounded by humanity facing global realities it has not faced in 10,000 years and this time we know it in advance.
When one writes in the above terms one is expected, in this wildly optimistic society, to present some sort of remedy. However, every possible remedy seems fraught with its own perils. It is tempting to say, as some have, that our societies are too big. They must be reduced in size so that citizens have at least some acquaintance with those that govern them and the mechanisms employed in governing, but how is this to be done when we have a technology that is global in scale and generates wealth and power on that scale?
There are those who say we need to remove much of the technology we have created and live much closer to the land and elements, which were the cradle of our existence for the vast majority of our species' existence. But even if we tried, there is not enough land and resources left to provide an “acre and a horse” for each family, We are, in short, living on the edge of chaos lost in a miasma of deliberate ambiguity and focused on ourselves rather than our species.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, August 9, 2009
American Lumpen or the Politicization of Ignorance
There is, I believe, a developing political movement of the uneducated by choice. By this I mean a flaunting of ignorance for political purposes with the intention of appealing to the ignorant as being just like them. Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin are prime examples. To be ignorant is to be trustworthy.
Despite the fact that the founders of this country included a high incidence of intellectuals aware and engaged in the philosophy, science, economic and political thinking of the day, our country turned against intellectualism early in its history and it became fashionable to condemn intellectuals as “elitists.” Richard Hofstadter remarks this process in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Adlai Stevenson was so branded in my own time.
I suggest that the current form of politicized ignorance began with Richard Nixon's sending the Republican Party south to get the popular constituency it needed. This was done deliberately by a corporate America that had already moved the New England textile industry south to take advantage of cheap labor and anti-union state governments using a typically American contradictory euphemism, right to work laws. Hence we have the anomaly of the poor and middle class Southern whites in the service of the wealthy Northerners. Only in America!
The South, especially the Deep South, has been an intellectually backward part of this country since its founding, mainly because of racism. This continues today principally because Southerners are trapped by the guilt of pervasive racism. Because of this they remain very defensive. In effect they have no place to go intellectually. They cannot accept the human race as such and hence are not free to explore and understand the complexity of our species. The ascendency of the South in the Republican Party has made anti-intellectualism an unstated plank in the platform of that party. I should add that it is in the interests of the corporations that control the Republican Party to encourage rampant ignorance because people can more easily be seduced by advertising, both commercial and political, and by appeals to their emotions.
This process has resulted in one of the two major parties of this country promoting candidates who believe in creationism, deem global warming a conspiracy of the United Nations and a “Birthers” movement denying that President Obama was born in the United States This is more than folly, it is dangerous. A society with this number of people unhinged from reality becomes exceptionally vulnerable to manipulation. It confuses fact with belief and feels free to create “facts” that suit their motives. This is the kind of social mentality that permitted the rise of fascist regimes in Europe. I believe we can see this kind of ignorance in action in the current Republican-orchestrated ruckus at town hall meetings by Democratic Congressional representatives. This is the kind of bully boy tactic that the Nazis employed. In this respect it is also instructive to note that a prime mover of these attacks, Rush Limbaugh, has accused Obama of being a fascist. This kind of assertion by those who practice fascist techniques is done to preempt use of the term by applying it to their opposition first. Notice it is not the usual “commie” demonizing of the Republican past. The fact that these ludicrous, devious, misuses of language can be so effective is a measure of the degree the American public is removed from reality and thereby so profoundly gullible. That we are entering the throes of fascism is underscored in the article Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism? found at http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/141819
Culturally, this can, I believe, be traced in significant part to the ascendency of the role of advertising in our society. The pervasiveness and insidiousness of 24/7 saturation of advertising, the application of advanced psychological knowledge to its development and the vast amount of fiscal resources available to it, have produced a citizenry increasingly incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction and therefore prone to accept the emotionally satisfying rather than the noetically verified. That this society is the most powerful on the planet does not bode well for our species.
Robert Newhard
Postscript: Bill Maher has an interesting take on the abysmal level of American ignorance at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-smart-president_b_253996.html?view
Despite the fact that the founders of this country included a high incidence of intellectuals aware and engaged in the philosophy, science, economic and political thinking of the day, our country turned against intellectualism early in its history and it became fashionable to condemn intellectuals as “elitists.” Richard Hofstadter remarks this process in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Adlai Stevenson was so branded in my own time.
I suggest that the current form of politicized ignorance began with Richard Nixon's sending the Republican Party south to get the popular constituency it needed. This was done deliberately by a corporate America that had already moved the New England textile industry south to take advantage of cheap labor and anti-union state governments using a typically American contradictory euphemism, right to work laws. Hence we have the anomaly of the poor and middle class Southern whites in the service of the wealthy Northerners. Only in America!
The South, especially the Deep South, has been an intellectually backward part of this country since its founding, mainly because of racism. This continues today principally because Southerners are trapped by the guilt of pervasive racism. Because of this they remain very defensive. In effect they have no place to go intellectually. They cannot accept the human race as such and hence are not free to explore and understand the complexity of our species. The ascendency of the South in the Republican Party has made anti-intellectualism an unstated plank in the platform of that party. I should add that it is in the interests of the corporations that control the Republican Party to encourage rampant ignorance because people can more easily be seduced by advertising, both commercial and political, and by appeals to their emotions.
This process has resulted in one of the two major parties of this country promoting candidates who believe in creationism, deem global warming a conspiracy of the United Nations and a “Birthers” movement denying that President Obama was born in the United States This is more than folly, it is dangerous. A society with this number of people unhinged from reality becomes exceptionally vulnerable to manipulation. It confuses fact with belief and feels free to create “facts” that suit their motives. This is the kind of social mentality that permitted the rise of fascist regimes in Europe. I believe we can see this kind of ignorance in action in the current Republican-orchestrated ruckus at town hall meetings by Democratic Congressional representatives. This is the kind of bully boy tactic that the Nazis employed. In this respect it is also instructive to note that a prime mover of these attacks, Rush Limbaugh, has accused Obama of being a fascist. This kind of assertion by those who practice fascist techniques is done to preempt use of the term by applying it to their opposition first. Notice it is not the usual “commie” demonizing of the Republican past. The fact that these ludicrous, devious, misuses of language can be so effective is a measure of the degree the American public is removed from reality and thereby so profoundly gullible. That we are entering the throes of fascism is underscored in the article Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism? found at http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/141819
Culturally, this can, I believe, be traced in significant part to the ascendency of the role of advertising in our society. The pervasiveness and insidiousness of 24/7 saturation of advertising, the application of advanced psychological knowledge to its development and the vast amount of fiscal resources available to it, have produced a citizenry increasingly incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction and therefore prone to accept the emotionally satisfying rather than the noetically verified. That this society is the most powerful on the planet does not bode well for our species.
Robert Newhard
Postscript: Bill Maher has an interesting take on the abysmal level of American ignorance at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-smart-president_b_253996.html?view
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wealth, Property and the Dire Need for Reform
In a world and time such as ours it is not unusual to be outraged by human conduct, but sometimes the outrageous event provides insight into just how bad things are and why they are that way. The so-called budget deal reached by California's governor and its legislature is one of these. 500,000 children will no longer have health insurance and thousands of infirm elderly people will no longer have home care. Meanwhile a proposed severance tax on oil to redress some of the budget shortfall was eliminated and the oil companies were allowed to resume offshore drilling after 40 years of protecting our environment against this practice. In the midst of the legislative struggle caused by a Republican minority the wealthy Republican governor provided the perfect paradigm for what has gone wrong with this society when he said that he would wait out the legislative battle by basking in his jacuzzi while smoking a favorite cigar. This is the modern equivalent of Nero playing his fiddle while Rome burned.
The need to control wealth for societal benefit is a world-wide priority on a par with the need to reduce human population. Contemplate this. Let the enormity of the implications settle in: The 1996 U.N. Human Development Report report gave the mind-boggling statistic that the net worth of the 358 richest persons in the world was equal to the combined income of the poorest 45 percent of the world's population, that is, of 2.3 billion people. The aberrant distribution of wealth in the United States has resulted in an unresponsive government, a munitions-for-profit industry second to none and war without even a credible pretext. This kind of maldistribution of wealth is an ancient problem for humanity, but technology and a vastly overpopulated planet have made its elimination critical to human survival.
One of the greatest bastions of wealth is private property. The old myths of private property will have to be mitigated if not abandoned. Notably, private property, while taken note of in the Constitution, was never mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. This would imply that private property is not essential to freedom, which is the burden of the Declaration of Independence. This planet is our species' only home. Nobody can own it. “It” will be here after we are long gone. Ownership is after all a social convention expressed in law. Some societies, including those of Indigenous Americans, did not have this notion. As a human convention it can be changed. Perhaps we will have to develop some system of “right to use” to replace ownership. This was a hot topic for philosophers of the 18th century when the United States was founded. I think this was so, in part, because Europeans were still finding their way out of centuries of feudalism. Initially transcontinental trade followed by the manufacturing of the Industrial Revolution created great wealth for non- aristocrats.. Private property was thus viewed as a hedge against the land-based dominance of the aristocracy and the crown. In brief, private property was a defacto banner of individual freedom. Is property a right as John Locke contended or is it a human convention as David Hume argued? Because property now has global significance and has become so powerful an influence on human well being it is, in my judgment, high time we began a reconsideration of the full implications of property ownership. Simply consider that Coca Cola can deprive Indian farmers of the aquifer they have used for centuries. Shell Oil can pollute African jungles with impunity. And Goldman-Sachs and the other money-manipulating corporations of Wall Street can cause a global economic collapse.
We can begin the kind of reform that is needed by defining property as a right of use conferred by society for purposes it deems useful. This, in effect, is what the corporation was intended to do. Incorporation is a grant by society to engage in a specified kind of business for specified purposes and, initially, for a specified period of time.
Enhancing this concept of the corporation so as to insure that the public good said to result from the approved incorporation is clearly defined would be a large step in the needed direction. Society should reserve the right to retract incorporation when the public good ceases to be served. This should be accompanied by the removal of corporate personhood illegitimately obtained by corporations in the 19th century. After all, if they are persons the repeal of their incorporation would be a form of homicide.
Bob Newhard
Postscript: As I was finishing this column David Sirota posted on Alternet an article on how the richest 1% of Americans are trying to subvert universal health care. It can be found at http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141520/how_the_ultra-rich_are_trying_to_kill_health_reform/ health care
The need to control wealth for societal benefit is a world-wide priority on a par with the need to reduce human population. Contemplate this. Let the enormity of the implications settle in: The 1996 U.N. Human Development Report report gave the mind-boggling statistic that the net worth of the 358 richest persons in the world was equal to the combined income of the poorest 45 percent of the world's population, that is, of 2.3 billion people. The aberrant distribution of wealth in the United States has resulted in an unresponsive government, a munitions-for-profit industry second to none and war without even a credible pretext. This kind of maldistribution of wealth is an ancient problem for humanity, but technology and a vastly overpopulated planet have made its elimination critical to human survival.
One of the greatest bastions of wealth is private property. The old myths of private property will have to be mitigated if not abandoned. Notably, private property, while taken note of in the Constitution, was never mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. This would imply that private property is not essential to freedom, which is the burden of the Declaration of Independence. This planet is our species' only home. Nobody can own it. “It” will be here after we are long gone. Ownership is after all a social convention expressed in law. Some societies, including those of Indigenous Americans, did not have this notion. As a human convention it can be changed. Perhaps we will have to develop some system of “right to use” to replace ownership. This was a hot topic for philosophers of the 18th century when the United States was founded. I think this was so, in part, because Europeans were still finding their way out of centuries of feudalism. Initially transcontinental trade followed by the manufacturing of the Industrial Revolution created great wealth for non- aristocrats.. Private property was thus viewed as a hedge against the land-based dominance of the aristocracy and the crown. In brief, private property was a defacto banner of individual freedom. Is property a right as John Locke contended or is it a human convention as David Hume argued? Because property now has global significance and has become so powerful an influence on human well being it is, in my judgment, high time we began a reconsideration of the full implications of property ownership. Simply consider that Coca Cola can deprive Indian farmers of the aquifer they have used for centuries. Shell Oil can pollute African jungles with impunity. And Goldman-Sachs and the other money-manipulating corporations of Wall Street can cause a global economic collapse.
We can begin the kind of reform that is needed by defining property as a right of use conferred by society for purposes it deems useful. This, in effect, is what the corporation was intended to do. Incorporation is a grant by society to engage in a specified kind of business for specified purposes and, initially, for a specified period of time.
Enhancing this concept of the corporation so as to insure that the public good said to result from the approved incorporation is clearly defined would be a large step in the needed direction. Society should reserve the right to retract incorporation when the public good ceases to be served. This should be accompanied by the removal of corporate personhood illegitimately obtained by corporations in the 19th century. After all, if they are persons the repeal of their incorporation would be a form of homicide.
Bob Newhard
Postscript: As I was finishing this column David Sirota posted on Alternet an article on how the richest 1% of Americans are trying to subvert universal health care. It can be found at http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141520/how_the_ultra-rich_are_trying_to_kill_health_reform/ health care
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Perils of Boredom
I have often wondered what has allowed our affluent country, under no undue stress, to become so fundamentally polarized? There was no major depression, no unpopular war. Even the Cold War had settled down to an agreed-upon detente. I don't think it is sufficient to say Ronald Reagan or Newt Gingrich or Grover Norquist did it. I suggest people such as these were merely catalysts, who for their own purposes tapped into a pervasive social phenomenon: boredom.
When a society becomes sufficiently affluent the necessities that drive human beings are diminished. The greater the affluence and the wider its distribution the more profound is this loss of necessity, which people like Bill Bennett have glossed and misused as the loss of a “moral compass.” This cultural loss of focus is a byproduct of affluence and results in a heavy emphasis on amusement as an antidote to the boredom that ensues. It also makes a society more vulnerable to political manipulation.
Notice that Ronald Reagan's main message was not greater affluence. It was not even overcoming the Russians, although this was prominent. It was that Americans should “walk tall.” That they should move in the world independent of other nations and cultures. That they personally should be self-sufficient and forgo the securities of government support. Shortly before Reagan was elected, President Carter drew attention to America's cultural boredom in his “malaise” speech of 1979, which subsequently played a significant role in his defeat in the election. Americans did not want to hear the truth: they wanted to feel good about themselves. Reagan and/or his advisers were aware of the same phenomenon and used it to gain office and turn the country over to corporate rapine and religious bigotry. What Reagan did was persuade Americans that they were still the self-dependent pioneers that their forebears presumably had been. People did not ask how the criteria of the frontier might play out in a nation of hundreds of millions and a world facing nuclear weaponry. This was the reinstilled purpose, benighted though it was, for American political life. Americans, so devoid of historical awareness, did not see that we had been through what Reagan proposed before. The age of the Robber Barons had amply demonstrated what an economy dominated by the frontier dog-eat-dog encounters between economic goliaths who had no regard for the common good was like and what its consequences were, e.g. repeated recessions and depressions.
Robert Nisbet in his book Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary
observes that “The range of cures or terminations of boredom is a wide one: migration, desertion, war, revolution, murder, calculated cruelty to others, suicide, pornography, alcohol, narcotics. Tiberius relishing those he tortured, or Sherlock Holmes taking to the needle, the pains and results of boredom are everywhere to be seen, and nowhere more epidemically than in Western society at the present time.”
Obviously the political process was one of moving the country from a common interest politics to a self interest politics. Once the pressure of the Great Depression was off and the prosperity following World War II had taken effect, people thought they no longer needed government except for military purposes. A public hubris set in, massively encouraged by the corporate financial sector eager to weaken the people's control of them. We are now living with the consequences.
The social hazards of affluence are many. Among the most subtle, yet dangerous, is the tendency to boredom. Barbara Tuchman, I believe in her book The Guns of August, notes that the Great Powers of Europe were armed to the teeth and had detailed plans for invading each other prior to World War I and that this was commonly known. She describes one episode in which German. French and English college students are congenially noting that they would probably be fighting each other soon. Such is the absolute idiocy of boredom. In a world bent on massive introduction of technology, with the resultant removal of necessity, this poses an ominous portent for future generations. What the antidote might be I am not sure. We know that social purpose can address boredom, whether for good or ill. However, purpose as a motivator is very risky in its reliance upon the emotions and difficult to maintain for the same reason. Perhaps we will wind up breeding boredom-resistant humans as Aldous Huxley suggests in Brave New World.
Bob Newhard
When a society becomes sufficiently affluent the necessities that drive human beings are diminished. The greater the affluence and the wider its distribution the more profound is this loss of necessity, which people like Bill Bennett have glossed and misused as the loss of a “moral compass.” This cultural loss of focus is a byproduct of affluence and results in a heavy emphasis on amusement as an antidote to the boredom that ensues. It also makes a society more vulnerable to political manipulation.
Notice that Ronald Reagan's main message was not greater affluence. It was not even overcoming the Russians, although this was prominent. It was that Americans should “walk tall.” That they should move in the world independent of other nations and cultures. That they personally should be self-sufficient and forgo the securities of government support. Shortly before Reagan was elected, President Carter drew attention to America's cultural boredom in his “malaise” speech of 1979, which subsequently played a significant role in his defeat in the election. Americans did not want to hear the truth: they wanted to feel good about themselves. Reagan and/or his advisers were aware of the same phenomenon and used it to gain office and turn the country over to corporate rapine and religious bigotry. What Reagan did was persuade Americans that they were still the self-dependent pioneers that their forebears presumably had been. People did not ask how the criteria of the frontier might play out in a nation of hundreds of millions and a world facing nuclear weaponry. This was the reinstilled purpose, benighted though it was, for American political life. Americans, so devoid of historical awareness, did not see that we had been through what Reagan proposed before. The age of the Robber Barons had amply demonstrated what an economy dominated by the frontier dog-eat-dog encounters between economic goliaths who had no regard for the common good was like and what its consequences were, e.g. repeated recessions and depressions.
Robert Nisbet in his book Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary
observes that “The range of cures or terminations of boredom is a wide one: migration, desertion, war, revolution, murder, calculated cruelty to others, suicide, pornography, alcohol, narcotics. Tiberius relishing those he tortured, or Sherlock Holmes taking to the needle, the pains and results of boredom are everywhere to be seen, and nowhere more epidemically than in Western society at the present time.”
Obviously the political process was one of moving the country from a common interest politics to a self interest politics. Once the pressure of the Great Depression was off and the prosperity following World War II had taken effect, people thought they no longer needed government except for military purposes. A public hubris set in, massively encouraged by the corporate financial sector eager to weaken the people's control of them. We are now living with the consequences.
The social hazards of affluence are many. Among the most subtle, yet dangerous, is the tendency to boredom. Barbara Tuchman, I believe in her book The Guns of August, notes that the Great Powers of Europe were armed to the teeth and had detailed plans for invading each other prior to World War I and that this was commonly known. She describes one episode in which German. French and English college students are congenially noting that they would probably be fighting each other soon. Such is the absolute idiocy of boredom. In a world bent on massive introduction of technology, with the resultant removal of necessity, this poses an ominous portent for future generations. What the antidote might be I am not sure. We know that social purpose can address boredom, whether for good or ill. However, purpose as a motivator is very risky in its reliance upon the emotions and difficult to maintain for the same reason. Perhaps we will wind up breeding boredom-resistant humans as Aldous Huxley suggests in Brave New World.
Bob Newhard
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