Paradigm Shifts

A paradigm shift occurs when former ways of thinking and living no longer work. In personal terms it means our common sense and traditional values no longer apply, and new ones must be created .

Joseph Campbell in his books on mythology made the interesting point that such historic cultural breaks often occurred rapidly (in about a hundred years) then settled in for a long time (thousands of years). A good example is ancient Egypt .

We seem to be in the midst of the whirlwind. Our thinking is forced into new patterns every year or so, sometimes even more often. And unfortunately, it is impossible to tell what will emerge or whether we will like it at all .

My point is that our times may be very unusual. After the dust settles – for better or worse – whatever system of thought survives may last for a very long time indeed .

Okay, a comforting long-term thought. But it doesn’t help each of us now as the storm rages and high waves rock the boat. All we can do is deal with changes as they wash over us one after another .

The curse of “interesting times”. At least we still have the option of imagining various happy outcomes .

Limits

There are two main purposes for any government. One is to provide group security. The second is to maintain social stability. If either fails, government change will occur .

A new book by Phil Gramm claims government should avoid all economic interaction. Like most capitalist visionaries, he certainly does NOT mean that government should not protect property or enforce contracts. Capitalism, after all, requires a certain amount of coercion .

Most of us have come to agree that free enterprise competition, “within limits” is the best economic system. Yet even fervent capitalists agree that monopoly – a natural tendency of successful business – is hardly free enterprise. ONE fruit seller in the market is not the way to better product and lower prices .

But the second purpose of government is what is in question right now. How many limits (“regulations, taxes”) should be placed on capitalistic enterprises to assure security continues? Zoning laws, poverty relief, public spaces, protection of natural resources (air, water) and on and on. It’s not as simple as the narrow-minded ivory tower economists pretend .

Many of us believe that in the modern world of abundance, a certain minimum level of lifestyle should be provided to all adults and a high lifestyle to all children. Not doing so is not only immorally mean, but also a danger to our civilization itself .

Fantastic Tales

I enjoyed Bible stories as a youth. Then those of the “golden age” of science fiction. Even now some space opera and fantasy. All had little twists and turns, many preached a certain view of society. Fortunately, I never confused them with science or history. Sociology – well that hung out somewhere in the middle .

I know the attraction of all those (mostly) male superheroes or charmed individuals who thrive against all odds. But, again, I rarely confused their exploits with what happened in my real life .

What bothers me now is that many people are overwhelmed with a glut of knowledge that still seems unable to predict their individual future usefully. So they cling to militaristic utopias like Heinlein’s StarshipTroopers. Or unfettered economic systems _ some controlled, some free. Or libertarian or dystopian or … And worse, these become not merely touchstones for their own consciousness, which may be a genuinely useful function, but also a blueprint for how society should really be, or actually is, or how they should act .

Ayn Rand is my personal hate. But any fiction is – really – fiction. Each person is more complex than described in a novel. Each society more chaotically unpredictable. Each solution encrusted with its own problems . And each individual life unique.

But not in these tales. “If only” has replaced “once upon a time” in our current fairy tales .

“If you can keep it”

Franklin’s famous phrase is somewhat opposed to the current meme “rule of law.” In some sense, any organized society lives under a kind of rule of law – laws determined by whoever is in charge, even if the “law” is “I can do whatever I want and you must obey me” .

The founders considered a republic to be based on rights grounded in ideas of liberty. Laws which infringed on that liberty were wrong and should be unenforceable.

Those founders did not see much difference between liberty and “rights” owed to any adult white males living in the country. Those folks were supposed to preserve the idea of liberty (even if they treated women, slaves, etc differently.) Fundamental rights included being able to defend oneself, protect property and contracts, and think and say what you wanted. In a libertarian manner – they did not initially see any need to explicitly enumerate a bill of rights – freedom to do anything that doesn’t harm someone else .

All would of course be forever preserved by the innate virtue of the ruling elite. After the founders finished laughing, they constructed a complicated federal system of checks and balances. Alas, over the years, we have deconstructed most of that in the name of “pure democracy” – what the founders called mob rule.

We may be in the final stages of a semblance of a republic. It was, for a while, a nice nearly working dream .

“Life is short, art is long”

“Life is short, but art is long” is one of those old Roman sayings that seem to make sense until we think about it. Up to a few hundred years ago, people conceived of time much differently than we do. Aboriginal tribes existed in a perpetual present, surrounded by “dreamtime” past and future. Civilized folks considered the past as a few hundred or thousand years – back to the Egyptians or some mythical beginning. Deep philosophers assumed the world to always have been as it is, possibly cycling through various stages .

More than that – in direct opposition to current ideas of progress – that past was always better, golden, inhabited by gods or semi-gods. Ancient art was always to be copied or imitated since the degenerate present could not compete. Thus “art is long”.

Now we laugh at a few thousand years. We know the world goes back a few billion, amazing creatures hundreds of millions, people like us over 100,000. And the world keeps changing. And “new improved” is demonstrably better than the old junk .

As for art … well it’s really as “short” as life. Useful for a generation or so at most. Like any legacy, soon gone with the wind, without even the solace of a grave marker .

As for other ” wise”, “golden”, sayings, ideas, and ideals of classic ancient cultures – don’t get me started .

Latin and Calculus

Striving suburban schools in the early ’60s would push Latin and calculus on “college track” students. The idea was – as it had been for centuries – that at least it would develop logic skills, language flexibility, and help us think more clearly .

Nowadays these courses are rarely taught in public schools. For one thing there is less overt “tracking” of students supposedly brighter than others. But mostly, Latin and calculus are seen as pretty useless compared to all the things kids “really need to know“.

I admit I’ve rarely used Latin and never touched calculus in almost 70 years. In that sense, I suppose it was wasted time. And yet …

It is good to get a firm logical base. Video games, wrapped in sensory candy, do not have quite the same applicability. The dry, hard exercises of calculus forced one to confront bare bones rules. Latin required a completely new and foreign manner of thinking and writing .

I have over my lifetime frequently felt the effects of that intellectual workout during my adolescence. Clear logic and formal observation of patterns have stayed with me and enriched my consciousness .

I know it’s not for everyone, possibly gone for anyone, but perhaps another meaningful cultural loss in our downward spiral .

Almost Right

People like to seize on the clearest and simplest explanations of phenomena. Things fall to earth because they “want to be nearer to it”. The Earth is flat. Those explanations are, actually, almost right. They are good enough for everyday life. They only fail if one is trying to predict something or control it. Malaria was associated, rightly, with bad air and swamps. Which just happened to also be filled with disease carrying mosquitoes. Avoiding the bad air in season almost worked very well. But it was useless for an eventual solution which required either draining or spraying the swamps.

I’m reminded of this with the MAHA fanatics, who once again want clean, simple explanations to complex problems. They point out that “science was wrong” in believing that COVID 19 was spread by infected air particles (largely able to be stopped by masks) when it was actually conveyed by tiny free floating viruses (against which most masks were useless). MAHA doesn’t believe science should ever be wrong _ if science gives incorrect advice it’s because scientists have nasty secret agendas .

Probably science has become much too complicated for most of us to understand. And it is still notably wrong or incoherent or provisional in many matters of health. So if flat earth and bad air were good enough for our grandparents, folks are sure they should be good enough for us .

Plato

Now that rich white men have seized power, studying dead white men is all the rage. Mostly it’s a social signal to show who has “merit.” Among the things one must know to be admitted to the club is a gloss of Plato .

I’ve read Plato. I found him a boring ignorant old fool. As are the philosophical musings of anything written before the 19th century – particularly before Darwin and Einstein who finally placed humans properly in the universe .

I enthusiastically enjoy history. I freely admit that any human over the last 50,000 years could think as well as I do, experience life just as deeply. People are complex, amazing, and deal with existence in miraculous ways .

But logic – Plato is very logical, for example – is a tricky tool. Useful but easily dangerous. Politicians, preachers, and various madmen are always able to construct wonderful logical castles on completely wrong and stupid foundations. Plato sees visions of “real ideal” and imagines fairy tale perfect men who wisely use logic to rule everything. He includes souls and reincarnation. In fact, he has no idea of everything we actually know about – well – everything .

Oh, there are major things still unknown and maybe unknowable. The nature of time, the meaning of consciousness, the purpose (if any) of life. None of that related to the cold dead weight of writings such as the Republic.

Wage Slaves

Pre-Civil war plantation owners often claimed that their slaves were better off than the “wage slaves” toiling in northern factories. Of course the main difference was that Southern slaves were permanently slaves, unto the last generation, and had no rights at all outside of being a valuable piece of property .

But I wonder if those gentlemen have a point in the modern world. Not long ago we would laugh at the notion of wage slaves. The world was fat in America, companies took care of employees even providing good health care, and there were always alternate possibilities to escape to .

Now? Not so much .

Medical coverage is frightful. Unions are weak and often destroyed by corporate power. Non-compete clauses are enforced. Entrance certifications are insane. More hours are demanded, more severe effort is demanded, each minute is monitored like in an old Charlie Chaplin film. There is no stability, loyalty, pride, or hope. Any worker can be “sold down the river” by email, gone with no trace at the end of the day . And forbidden to work at the same type of job for years.

There is still a mythology of work in the United States, but it is fraying rapidly. Successful entrepreneurs and the billionaire inheritors are the new plantation owners. It’s a very mean world.

I wonder how long the center holds .

Taxes

The Roman Empire ran government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. Wealthy individuals were required to pay a lot for government positions, in the expectation that they would be more than reimbursed (by bribes, extortion, etc, within reason). It worked remarkably well .

The Roman Empire mostly ignored individual taxes. Entities like cities and provinces were expected to pay decreed amounts, and were free to raise money any way they wanted. If they failed to do so, the legions went in and looted it. That also worked well for hundreds of years .

Modern government is more “enlightened”. It is run “for the people” meaning, by definition, the poor. It is paid for by multiple … well, the problem is that it really is not paid for. The wealthy, as always, have ways to protect their wealth. Their bribes go to preventing taxation, sometimes by illegal evasion, more often by legal maneuvers like “exemptions” or “investment”. The result is increasingly government by debt

In an age when everything will be made by machine and billions of humans helplessly consume, all bets are off. The very idea of paying for scarce items may be obsolete.

But, of course, that land of cockaigne remains ever over the hill, far away, and in the future .