Oligarchs, Thugs, Victims

Oligarchs have taken control of the United States. They may enforce their power by buying elections, but they pick candidates and tell the winners what to do. They may claim to follow a “rule of law” but since they control laws, application of law, and exceptions to law this is little different than mafia Dons following a “code of conduct” .

Oligarchy hollows out bureaucracy, and replaces “civil servants” (who believed they worked for the public good) with thugs who know they must only please their boss. They serve at the whim of the wealthy aristocrats, and they shape actions and twist words to make any action “legal”. Whether the final social results are gentle or not, former citizens become a mass of victims. Speaking out is punished, acting against orders is punished severely. We’ve seen it before in countless dictatorships .

Finally, most oligarchs prefer to rule through figureheads. The puppet masters would rather not be seen, not even noticed. It’s easy enough to buy dupes and direct them. Much less aggravating or dangerous .

Oligarchs are not merely wealthy, nor even ultra wealthy. They tend to be megalomaniacs who are certain they know what is right for everyone else. They have limitless power and need not “cling” to it – they are in control, they know it, and they will remain so forever more .

Overprep

We each have at one time or another encountered the phenomenon known as beginner’s luck. A naive person tries something for the first time and succeeds beyond the dreams of the more experienced. And then, the luck mysteriously goes away .

On the other side of the curve, suave experts can suddenly lose their magic. A baseball pitcher can’t find the strike zone. A musician can’t craft a salable tune. Usually, such events are short-lived, but unnerving .

Ours is a culture of perfectability, where everyone likes to believe that with hard work they can do anything. For that reason overpreparation is almost a disease. If a certain behavior is good, more training should make it better .

Except – often it doesn’t. There is a golden patch for anyone doing anything, beyond which extra exertion yields actively declining results. The mood can quickly turn to frustration and anger (and in these times, blame) .

I’ve often tried to invoke the counter-mantra of “just good enough”. That used to suit American pioneers. Not more and more perfect, but adequate to accomplish the task. Anything beyond, however elegant or pretty, would be superfluous waste of time and energy. It fit nicely with my other belief that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” .

Nice to call it a philosophy. Honestly, more likely just innate laziness

Babies and Bathwater

Common law often contains more justice than formal law. Common sense offers more wisdom than that of many experts. Drilling down into one aspect of an issue can blind us to other important considerations. In the old days, this was known as “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” .

With so many experts, so much insecurity, such heavily polarized social viewpoints, bathwater seems to be all around us. Murky, dirty, time to clean it up. Whoops – there goes another infant into the hedge !

The problem really is that in a complicated world, the “new” water is never clean. Ending one kind of discrimination usually just replaces one Injustice with another. Eliminating one type of energy simply reveals flaws in alternatives. Forbidding sexual “harassment” at work can result in no normal romances at all for employees. The list goes on, quagmires of unintended consequences, multiplying endlessly, worse by the day as overreaction sets in .

Right now might be the worst, as an overly interconnected global village reacts to every piece of gossip as if it were holy writ, and in which power only arrives for the most extreme positions. Society has not yet had time to adjust common law and common sense to the new chaos .

Perhaps it never will .

Oh dear, another screaming baby !

Short Tempers

Since at least the Revolution of 1776, Americans have been known for their rudeness, volatility, haste, and short tempers. Once encapsulated in the concept of the “New York minute” with angry drivers honking a second after (or before) a light turned green .

In spite of various calming fads like meditation, that hasn’t changed much. People still get angry at traffic – and so much more. Anything that isn’t exactly as smooth as expected, or delayed, can cause a flash of temper. We are far from becoming a “kinder and gentler” society .

The saving grace has always been that since we get so angry at so much so easily, we rarely have time to hold a grudge. Old injuries are quickly forgotten, we need to reserve our temper for the next problem. The Hatfields and McCoys were an outlier .

These days, the real issue is that our immediate means of expression has escalated and become lethal. The worst is “road rage” where instead of honking or yelling, one driver will ram or shoot another. Almost as bad is lashing out into viral space on the internet, which can ruin lives .

I like to say I’ve mellowed as I got older. Unfortunately, I find my patience just as short, my expression just as loud, my short temper just is stupidly prevalent. Minor disagreements can become either sullen withdrawal or loud argument.

Sure, I forget by next morning, or even within a few minutes.

But I remain fully traditional American .

Executive Orders

“Rule of law” is invoked as an ideal by almost everyone these days. The simplest definition would be rules that are unchanging, well-known by everyone, and enforced equally on all .

Obviously, that ideal is impossible. Laws must change to fit social conditions. They become increasingly complex – murder is different than killing in self-defense – so everyone cannot know them and lawyers are required. “Applied equally” is just as hard – from days of simple weregild to current fines – the rich and powerful suffer far less .

But, even with all those exceptions, the concept is nice. In a democracy, we further have the ideals that laws are formulated and changed only with the consent of the populace. Complicated by social rights that no populace can infringe on. Tangled, but still relatively clear, and has seemed to work decently for hundreds of years .

We oppose that ideal to such things as revolutionary councils, absolute monarchs, and dictators. These have the ability to change laws at whim, decide to whom they apply, make transgressions retroactive, and define terms arbitrarily as they see fit – treason, for example.

And so we come to the title. Rule of law does NOT mean blindly following ANY law. Monarchs can declare any whim as legality. Rule of law implies a certain stable process and application. “Executive orders” from the US president shatter rule of law _ once again, legality is simply power, capriciously and unequally applied .

Sure, rulers will always say it is necessary in “emergencies”. But for them the emergency will never end

Paving the Road to Evil .

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Although the concept of hell has become somewhat obscured in these enlightened times, we all agree that there is such a thing as evil. Creators of horror media feast on it. Nobody denies that evil exists in the world, but an awful lot of it seems a result of somebody’s good intentions .

For example, we all might easily agree that a psychopath kidnapping a 4-year-old and torturing her to death is an act of pure evil. Yet the same outcome, on a massive scale, might happen as “collateral damage” in what many regard as a just war. In such cases, I suppose, we could say that the event was evil, but the people who caused it were acting with justifiable intentions in a good cause .

It is all very well to dilute the idea of evil to the “intent of those causing it”. That goes right back to the old monotheistic question of why an omnipotent God allows evil to happen. And it helps us build a bearable framework around an unbearable tragedy .

The problem with that – and it always has been – is that we degrade our moral sense and treat evil in a rather cavalier attitude. Fortified by a contradictory certainty that we can clearly determine intent, and can easily assign relative weight (“how evil”) to what should be a uniquely absolute moral judgment .

Anyway, I surely see a lot of earnest paving going on all around me these days .

Aesthetics

The old Roman saying went “there is no questioning taste”. Even if we hate what someone else likes, even if we think it is evil, it remains true that that person enjoys it. So aesthetics is an almost impossible ideal on which to base society, or even an activity like art .

Of course, within any subculture or social group, argument is possible. Religions thrive on it – the ultimate form of an aesthetic outlet is probably deep faith. Less life-changing agreements – as in art criticism – are all around us. Fashion, food, morality, even life purpose. What looks good to us? What constitutes a masterpiece ?

Unfortunately, an extremely finely tuned aesthetic sense in anything usually brings problems. The least is an individual obsession, the worst is mob madness. Fine art is littered with the judgments of serious critics which have aged into silly constipated irrelevance .

I found that I must spend effort – before making an aesthetic judgment _ to understand the context. “A beautiful tree” might mean almost anything depending on where your mind is coming from. Are you painting a picture or evaluating lumber possibilities?

Realizing that – and understanding that most aesthetics are careful and often valid in one way or another may be one of the necessary conditions of wisdom .

Microcultures

For a while, “microclimates” were as much in vogue in viniculture as “terroir.” Any gardener knows that growth conditions vary immensely in small spaces – sun, shade, wet, dry, exposed, sheltered. Some plants do well in one kind of space, not so well in another. When it gets to the size of a large hill or a sizable pond – ah! Microclimate !

Naturally there are limits. A lake may moderate heat locally in summer, but deep winter – macro climate – will be harsh. No matter how “protected,” really deep cold will kill vines. And unusual events like hail, drought, fire, or disease respect no tiny differences .

Yet “microclimate” is real enough. It is where vines, animals and nature exist most of the time. Just as what I will call “microcultures“ where an individual resides in society. Family, friends, surroundings. The tiny and local is usually the most significant element of our consciousness, day by day .

Yes, there are greater things that override it. War, economics, technology, social movements. But that does not make microcultures any less real nor – much of the time – less important than grand historic events .

So, like any adaptive species, try to enjoy your current microculture, or find one more compatible. Even if it is just hanging out with people you like .

Hegel Madness

The philosopher Hegel proposed that knowledge advances in a series of intertwined opposites. A “thesis” was declared, an “antithesis” developed and the combined “synthesis” was closer to “truth”. It’s a comforting thought in these times of polarized political and social dynamics .

But there are problems with this cozy illusion .

With evidence-based observation it is pretty quickly determined which is more right. To state that “iron is hard” is not negated nor modified by spouting “iron is soft”. Even if true under certain conditions such as high heat, soft iron is not what most of us encounter most of the time. No synthesis possible .

Then there is the problem of balance. A bucket of boiling water poured into a bucket of ice water might synthesize to a nice bathtub temperature. But a thimbleful of boiling water into a bucket of ice water will hardly modify it .

Finally – and most important for social views – are we even talking about the same thing? A bucket of boiling oil added to a bucket of ice water will do nothing but give us a horrible mess, mostly separated, but with foul water and useless oil.

I’ve never much appreciated pure philosophers. My mind has been fully corrupted by science. Theorize, test, modify.

Philosophers remain active in all areas we cannot test, such as meaning, future and the many instances when consciousness and life are just too complicated. But I never trust their ideas – not thesis, nor antithesis, nor synthesis .

Harassment as Law

Law is regarded as impartial and majestic, in the United States trying to assure that only the guilty get punished. Harassment, a social taboo, has almost always been almost – or more – effective. “No Irish need apply”. Racial red lines for housing. Religious “shunning” of sinners .

You can’t greatly modify innate social behavior, so that type of punishment will probably last as long as people do. However, when government gets into the act, law loses much of its meaning.

The Wall Street journal has run an article on what most of us already knew. Merely arresting and charging someone – even if totally false and later proved so – has dire consequences. Charges, name, address are published. Person loses job, is threatened at home, maybe physically attacked, often must move and start over. Spends a lot of money. All “legal”. All morally wrong, from our traditional view of what “legal” should mean .

In this age of connection, unsupported rumors from “influencers” are bad enough. When the government adds police and other armed services to the mix, it is toxic to all the liberties Americans thought they enjoyed .

Probably no easy answer. Police forces always have a hard job and think they are in the right. When government tolerates bad behavior, there is no escape but to hide away and hope for the best .