Mount Hope

We recently visited Mount Hope cemetery in Rochester. This was once a major pilgrimage site about civil rights and women’s voting, since both Susan B Anthony and Frederick Douglass are buried there. We dutifully trudged through some overgrown hilly rambles.

I knew this was a “sister” cemetery to Mount Auburn in Cambridge, where Joan and I had frequently bicycled to spend a pleasant afternoon when we were young and poor. Those manicured grounds gave every indication of being an English estate for dead people temporarily residing underground. Everyone ignored the names on markers and mausoleums and simply enjoyed the quiet nooks and vistas.

I’d expected something similar at Mount Hope. But I was rather reminded of an old oil painting series of “empire at its height”, “empire in ruins”. You could detect that the initial spirit was the same, but Rochester lost its economic and spiritual power. Very like visiting the remains of the Roman forum as shown in 18th century pictures.

Perhaps there is a lesson here. Although I admit I take lessons from all cemeteries – new, old, well kept, overgrown, even forgotten. It’s always about mortality, insignificance, human spirit, and hope. Not necessarily in that order nor equally strong, depending on my mood.

I’m grateful for the physical reminder. Ashes may better fit a crowded throw away civilization, but there is a certain morbid joy in encountering such forgotten past lives. A useful humility. A surprising reassurance that my own life is okay. Weeds and all.

Outsourcing Existence

Humans are not a solitary species. A baby alone dies. Most hermits at any age also do, or more rarely eke out a miserable existence. Self-sufficiency is fine only in moderation. We’ve no doubt been outsourcing since the discovery that specialization is useful, even when separating the hunters from the gatherers. Since then barter economies and all the rest have followed almost inevitably, often driven by technological change.

There have been protests that we’ve gone too far. Ancient Greeks regretted that we outsourced our strong memory to writing. Conservatives wept as manly yeomen farmers became effete potters in a city, unable to grow grain or milk cows. Today many fear that having work done by machines will destroy society.

I agree. But only to a point.

I’m not quite a luddite, but I’ve often found it more satisfying to do things for myself rather than outsource tasks to others. I like to do my yard work, I enjoy cooking. I often manufacture my own entertainment by creating or fixing things.

The key is, of course, that I CHOOSE to do so. I don’t want to be forced to cook or mow, or for that matter to harvest grain and milk cows.

Many have begun to fear the effects of AI. Will we outsource all of our intellectual skills to silicon, outsource experience to virtual environments, outsource body health to medicine and drugs? Outsource existence itself, so there is nothing left but an empty ignorant fluff ball.

I don’t know.

On the other hand that does sound a lot like the original garden of Eden.

Capitalism’s End

(With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)

The mythology of capitalism has been established as pervasively as was the divine right of kings at the close of the middle ages. Capitalism, claims the dogma, makes society healthy, wealthy and wise. No other human system works as well and never will.

Things change. Those kings were deposed, beheaded, or shackled with constitutional oversight. New forms of government arose, sweeping away kingly beliefs in mercantilism, aristocratic rule, religious social control. Many alternatives have been tried, capitalism emerged as one of the successful ones.

Things change. Clearly we have reached the end of the industrial revolution. Machines produce everything, including other machines. Humans remain in the economic mix, directing and inventing machines, filling niche services, and toiling in leftover areas like agriculture where machines are only gradually replacing them.

Things change. If current trends continue, machines will have taken over all the production, no need for human intervention at any stage. We need new ideas, but fanatic “capitalists” have become the ignorant priests and destructive luddites of our age, unable to imagine any other system, fearful of what they do not know.

Things change. Like kings, capitalistic corporations may be in their final moments, as those rulers once were.

Things change.

Are you ready?

1913

In autumn of 1913, the European-American world was content, fat, and happy. Europeans controlled the only areas of the globe and culture that they thought mattered. Americans led an exceptional city on a hill advancing to a perfected future. Both felt they were chosen, the rightful rulers of all others, and the guardians of civilization itself.

Intellectuals agreed. Countries were either stable or subdued. Logic and science were taming human irrationality, commercial interconnection made major war impossible. Henry Ford and others were demonstrating just how affluent modern mass production could make everyone. If anything, the rulers and masses were a little too complacently optimistic about the future.

Even the social unrest of the previous 50 years seemed to have settled down. Fiery socialist, communist labor agitators were more conciliatory. Gigantic strikes and revolutionary ideas were confined to a few backwaters. Even those short in duration. Most folks were fed, housed, and felt better off than they had ever been, expecting ever greater things to come.

Who could have predicted the next 40 years? What happened?

Even now, it’s hard to comprehend. One thing just led to another. At the end of it all, many smoking ruins, millions dead, politics unrecognizable. The very divisions of the political globe massively reshaped. And in spite of it all, massive technological industrial advance.

Yes, I do feel that September 2026 feels a lot like that autumn over 100 years ago. And, although I think some people feel the same way, I am pretty sure once again nobody has a clue what will come, or how to affect it.

Work is Meaning

There have been many answers to the ancient question “what is the meaning and purpose of life”. I am sure, unless you are a dedicated fanatic, that you can come up with many. Possibly the silliest – currently ruling American society – is that the answer is “work”.

Supposedly that can be traced to the country’s “Protestant ethic” heritage, but as a modest student of history I know that for masses of people – and the common attitude – this was rarely so. There was religion, morality, social progress, and a lot of other noble stuff, as well as less articulated hedonism, happiness, and just getting by.

But today the Orwellian elites have not only seized control of the means of production, but also dictate mythology. Now “work” as they define it is the only virtue. Lack of such work is evil and should be wiped out. Even mindless sanctified work is SO much better than meditation or playing a flute in a tree (unless of course you don’t much want to meditate or toot that flute – work is defined as “forced to do something you don’t want to do”.)

So, madly, we are driven to consider exercise, happiness, consumption, existence itself as meaningless useless wastes of time unless they involve “work”. “Work”, anyway as defined by the myth makers, which somehow always involves coercion and money to yield a spiritual result.

I suspect in the long run alternative answers might be better.

Social Donations

Any society must do two big things: protect itself from other societies, and maintain internal order. Even the most rabid libertarian agrees there must be a military and an internal police force with systems to protect property, secure persons, and enforce contracts. That means bureaucracies that must be paid.

How to pay has varied tremendously. Small tribes were based on family obligation. Agricultural civilizations used payment in kind. Many empires simply looted. And, of course, there were taxes (for the military king) and tithes (for the social service priests).

After the industrial revolution, things have become very complicated. How to pay for necessary bureaucracy (and what is truly necessary to maintain that society) is uncharted territory in current civilizations. Everyone hates taxes and fees unless they fall on someone else. Hidden taxes and fees are hard to enforce and rarely bring in enough. Nobody is quite sure how to tax capital to retain meritocracy and production.

Two other methods have been tried. One is to simply let rulers buy their way to power and then loot and extort to get even richer. It worked for the Romans and it’s close to the democratic election system today (with elections bankrolled by corporations and special interests).

The other is donations as in religious tithes or today’s non profit gifts or internet pleas.

Purchase of power inevitably becomes unbearably corrupt and destroys the social fabric. Donations tend to clump into smaller and smaller cliques (such as immediate family) which also shatters society.

Perhaps there is a solution out there somewhere, or maybe simple evolution will provide a working methodology. It’s worked so far.

Normally Inert

In apocryphal metaphor, a frog will not jump out of a slowly warming pan of water until it is too late. Similarly, people continue their normal lives as disaster approaches or rages around them.

When I was much younger, I’d casually wonder what I would have done were I living in Germany in the 30s. Or how I would have reacted in the Roman empire as barbarians invaded distant frontiers, or what I might have done in a medieval European village as plague swept nearby.

Sadly, I now know the answer: nothing at all.

We may dream of being part of or even of influencing grand history, but the fact is we live in daily routine. We are too busy with everything around us to care much about big issues. At least until they strongly affect us.

To be fair, this is evolutionary sanity. Survival overrides everything else. We may use leisure to consider cosmic issues, but often leisure not related to daily life is counterproductive to security and happiness.

So the American voter frogs squat in their warm water, as customs and institutions they took for granted are ripped to shreds and incinerated. The only consolation is that sometimes vast destruction leads to evolutionary (perhaps good) change.

Once upon a time I thought the cataclysm would at least take a while and be imperceptible locally. Now I’m not so sure.

Mad King Ludwig

Some rulers such as Caligula or Vlad the Impaler are known for their cruelty. Some such as Hitler are remembered as evil. Others such as Louis XIV marked spendthrifts. And then there is mad King Ludwig of Bavaria.

His fantasy castle is famously the prototype of Disneyland palaces. His fairy tale caricature is as a vain, extravagant, impulsive, out of control sybarite. He did not so much ruin his country as ignore its true needs to pursue his own odd selfish ends.

Naming no names, America now has its own mad King Ludwig. His court is composed of spineless couriers, who desperately fear that if they fail to please him they will be dismissed into outer darkness. Most of them to remain unemployable or harassed by the law for the rest of their lives.

The king is fickle. Each day or night brings forth a few new massive directives, often contradictory, often reversed or ignored in a few days. Subjects ignore or laugh at them to their extreme peril. The king cackles into the darkness.

Unlike the old mad king, this one is quite vindictive and easily angered. Perhaps the new castles abuilding will be magnificent, attracting tourists; models for future theme parks. Or the plaster may all crumble away in time and rain, like most of the other directives.

Nevertheless, it’s surely very entertaining, especially if you are far enough away from the action.

Rochester NY

Rochester, NY

We just returned from a week-long excursion to Rochester. Our son and his wife recently purchased a small, solid home built before 1900, in “Swillberg”, a city neighborhood once covered by an extensive farm exporting pork via the Erie Canal.

We visited fairly often since 2000 or so. I’ve always liked Western New York, possibly because of my fascination with American history. There is a lot in the region – Seneca Indians, Dutch colonization, the Erie canal, boom and bust, the heyday of “rust belt”, giants Kodak, Xerox, Bosch and Lomb, all long gone. Current industrial revival based on education, medicine, science, and technology.

Parts of the city are still in hard times but much is well maintained and recovering well, the near suburbs are thriving. I enjoy small city ambience, which I consider “true America” as much as small town culture. Rural mythology is dead – food is mostly produced by automation and industrial giants. Big cities are a weird global culture unto themselves.

But places like Rochester are deep America to the core. So much history. Much of it built long ago, layers of prosperity and decline. Parks and sidewalks. The Genesee River and its magnificent falls. And – yes – still the Erie canal. I’m always contented and happy after I’ve refreshed memories there.

Once again, by the way, I noticed during the (extremely) long drive up from Long Island just how vast and green the state is, almost more wilderness than cultivation. Magnificent and hopeful spaces.

Holy Writ

Fundamentally, I believe most people are just like me – pretty smart and dumb at the same time. In general, I think small groups of people construct sane outlooks most of the time. There are exceptions. A few people are brilliant in certain areas, a few groups turn into insane cults.

I do not accept that gods directly write anything. All words are formed by other humans. And so I have a skeptical opinion of anything taken as “holy writ”, immutable and perfect from the moment marks are made on a surface.

No need to get directly into religion. What I most detest at the present moment is the “conservative originalist” interpretation of the US Constitution as not only inviolate and perfect, but also the result of a brilliant gathering of minds whose choices can never be questioned nor seriously modified.

The problems go beyond the obvious – that some of it may be wrong or have become irrelevant. Anything stiffly frozen is in some ways fragile, and in others just an obstacle to be destroyed. And there is a nearly nonsensical position taken by some specialists that they alone can determine what the folks who wrote it were “really” thinking and what they “really” meant.

It is simple madness, usually twisted to make words seem to say or mean exactly what interpreters and their cronies have decided. Sad times for our country.