Simply Wrong

Can anything be “simply wrong?” We live in a complex society, full of relative judgments. “In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking”, but no more .

Almost nothing seems to lie beyond the pale. Apologists and psychopaths can make the most heinous acts seem logical and correct. The gods have vanished, and the visions of gods that remain for the credulous are increasingly mean, exclusive, and bloodthirsty .

Rationally, I would claim that Western civilization is built on the ideal of the worth of each individual person. It becomes, therefore, “simply wrong” to hurt another human being .

That leaves three escape clauses, unfortunately.

The first is how we define “hurt”. Almost anything can be claimed as being for someone’s “own good”. And everyone, and every tribe, will define hurt and severity of hurt differently .

The second, truly evil, path is to merely claim a given human or tribe is not really individual at all. Either born as animals, or having forfeited human inclusion. Then we can do with them as we will .

And, of course, our own often imaginary projected visions that “I had to do it to them before they did it to me.”

And so, in these strange times, even simple becomes complex, and wrong turns into a puff of smoke.

Holiday Rage

I’m writing this a week before Christmas when holiday rage on the roads seems to be at its worst. Everyone behind schedule, in a hurry, overwhelmed. Better watch out !

It’s an annual fever. I used to think it was mostly caused by people leaving the quotidian comforts of their regular routines and having to compare their lives to that of relatives and friends. Having their noses rubbed in promises not kept and ambitions unfulfilled. Competitive juices and anger, but always with an undertone of failure .

This year it feels different. There is still rushing, but less of an edge. The environments have flipped. Daily life no longer feels like comfortable security. Ancient rituals and close relationships loom more important in what is coming to be a scary, out of control, threatening future. It may never be this good again …

Yes, yes, this is just me. I know I project my own thoughts over everything. Ash colored glasses on what may come. But I also try to read enough and stay in touch to at least catch some of the zeitgeist of the age. The flavor of the times is not optimism and happiness .

Meanwhile, I drive carefully and continually dull my own fears .

Democracy

Anyone who has ever served on a committee of a dozen or more people knows pure democracy does not work. It’s why we choose leaders, more or less representative, somewhat expert, to take on the roles of leadership. The only real check in a democracy is the periodic elections, if actually free and fair .

But what do we mean by “representative?” The founders had clear ideas. In the US, the House would be composed of men from the mob, the Senate of men from the elite, and the president a paragon selected by the elite. We have come to decide that all positions should be filled by persons from the mob, chosen by the mob.  We naively believed that in a well educated free society the mob would actually become the elite.

When I was schooled in civics back in the 50’s public school, “representative” meant something like a person who shares my views and judgment – emphasis on judgment – and acts more or less as I would if I were in that position. Lately, however, it has come to mean a rigid avatar, a cartoon image of what I think I want, who always votes as I think I should (not, mind you, as I really do because – hey! – life is too complicated, and time is short) .

Like the founders, I do not trust the mob – or rather the mob mentality – even my own. But with instant communications, mob rule is  here to stay as long as civilization can handle it .

Dystopia

Historic philosophic religions tended to be of only two types. Either things had always been and always would be the same, or the world has once been much better than it is now. Sometimes there would be an apocalyptic cycle, when all would begin again .

Like many human thoughts, these were based on natural observation. The sun comes up every day. People live, decay, die – as does all life. Such can easily be extrapolated to cosmic visions .

Some of the “golden age” believers went further and extrapolated decline into horrors and dystopia. Some preached that we could hold it back for a while with moral reform. And there was always an audience to listen to how bad things could be, maybe because that made the present more endurable .

Now we seem to be in a golden age of dystopian predictions. Following a brief reversion to “progress”, civilization has returned to the old attitudes. The only question is which of the dueling dystopias will happen. Novelists all assume that we are in the golden age, and the future looks bleak indeed .

But the plain fact remains that life mostly goes on, dreamtime as always, one day after another, endlessly the same, eternally different. The certainty of individual mortal journey is, after all, always bleak .

Medical Crazy

Evolutionary nature is cruel and capricious. The only thing that matters in evolution is reproduction. There are lots of complicated ways for a species to achieve that, including various instincts and even altruisms. But an organism that achieves too great a success will overpopulate and die off. Highly successful strategies that worked for millennia can be destroyed in an instant of bad luck as happened to the dinosaurs .

Until recently, although some humans may have dreamed of “threescore and ten”, most adults died by forty, and most children did not become adults. Old women past menopause would have lost all evolutionary reason to exist were it not for the “grandmother theory” that they promoted culture and advantage to their genetically connected tribe .

These days the pampered masses have lost all sense of gratitude for the scientific miracles surrounding them. Most children do not die before becoming adults. Most adults live past forty. Many can extend prime years to eighty and beyond .

Instead it is a litany of how awful things have become. More children with problems (instead of being dead!), more adults with pain and incapacity (ditto!). Everyone thinks they should be a vibrant perfect thirty-five years old forever .

Nature always disagreed, and still does .

Basic Work

Let’s define “work” as any individual activity that helps a society. Then it is possible to tier the various “entitlements” of wealth that various actions bring .

The first level is staying out of trouble and respecting the norms of the civilization which you occupy. That should, in a modern “abundance” culture, give you access to free, unhassled, minimum food, clothing, shelter, emergency medical aid, and opportunity. The basic food can be nothing but fortified bread and water, clothing second hand, shelter a warm room with a roof, medical treatment for trauma, and opportunity an internet connection .

A higher level would up some of these rewards in return for community service. Hours of watching playgrounds, working at common stores, and so forth – things that simply require normal common sense and human interaction .

Only after that is “work” as we now recognize it. The chance to earn luxury and a better lifestyle than others, including high level medical. And that “work” should be taxed at a transactional rate of 50%, to support everything else .

Would people still work? I think so. Supply and demand would still apply. And, in fact, such a scheme is not that much different than what goes on in the idealized “nuclear family” which everyone claims to appreciate .