Absolute

Real life is messy and full of contradictions. What feels bad might be good for you, what feels good might be bad. What works in one situation might not in the next. Rational people – whom we like to consider “sane” – understand this .

There seems to be a troubling trend, in times of complexity and change, for many people to drift towards absolutes. In an absolute frame of mind, there is no mess nor contradiction. A crystal clear vision separates everything into right and wrong, or some equivalent binary division .

Such a viewpoint does not allow for trade-off or risk/reward. It never deals in percentages nor probabilities. It does not allow for meaningful dialogue – all that can be discussed is how any other viewpoint is obviously wrong. The only mental movement must be toward whatever revealed “truth”.

It is of course comforting to join a cult of absolute believers. They can reinforce and magnify any belief so strongly that anything contrary – words, events, outcomes – cannot be accepted as “real.” Anything except the absolute is mistaken “lies”.

The internet is said to lead many down “rabbit holes”. At the bottom of each of these is some form of absolute. Sane people may deplore what is happening online. But unfortunately, sane people are in short supply and decreasing rapidly .

Advisors

Rulers come in many varieties. Some are conceited and whimsically do anything that comes to mind. Some timidly follow rules and precedence. The best are usually willing to listen to others with strong contrasting viewpoints .

Advisors who always agree with and flatter a ruler are obviously not “advising” at all. They are merely echoing and amplifying the ruler’s desires. Sometimes that works well when the person in charge is extraordinarily intelligent, visionary, or lucky. As, of course, most people in power do regard themselves .

In “real life” a know-it-all has a career that is often nasty, brutish, and short. Underlings have the option of leaving to lead their own revolts and enterprises. Isolated rulers rarely succeed below the top level of authority .

Mostly we cringe at the toadies. They just want the rewards and reflected glory. They are willing to forfeit all integrity to remain within the charmed circle of the glorious leader. But, of course, they are also well aware of how precarious their position is .

We used to glory in being a nation of “mavericks” each person standing firm in integrity. Now that the “yes men” possess orders of magnitude of greater wealth, the medieval jester court has returned .

Privacy

Our culture is roiled by assassinations and mindless mass shootings. A cry goes out to “do something”. But what? There are only a few options. Greater limitations, higher protection, or decreased privacy .

In the US, greater limitations are difficult. Everyone wants access to guns – often the biggest baddest guns that exist. Locking potential perpetrators up hardly addresses the problem, since that only addresses low-level “gang violence” where adolescents mostly shoot each other. Higher protection – a security officer everywhere, domes of bulletproof glass for speakers _ is extremely expensive and often impossible .

And that leaves surveillance. Already video footage is so ubiquitous, cell phone records so complete, that those who assassinate are always caught. Most of them know it and embark on suicide missions, almost impossible to guard against .

No doubt, as in China, we will be willing to sacrifice more and more privacy for greater security. Online and in public, all will be known, evaluated, stored, and used for prediction and “interdiction” of potential terrorists. Most of us will welcome the calm .

But such a blessing can easily become a curse, and I foresee no way of preventing that from happening .

Tyrant

Ancient Greeks sometimes put “tyrants” in power. Romans used “dictators”. The 19th century had “a man on a white horse”. Whatever the name, they seem to be ubiquitous in the current era .

These leaders gain control because of commonly perceived malaise or crisis in the culture (as understood by those who control or want to control the culture). The avowed goal is to “shake things up,” Get things done, and ignore any of the traditional customs and laws that are getting in the way .

Tyrants usually do manage to address issues, often by wrecking norms. For good or bad, they do make previously “impossible” things happen. Sometimes we all admit it is a necessary – even if harsh – cure .

The main problem, of course, is that “power corrupts”. There is little worse than a tyrant who becomes whimsical, moody, and so self-centered that each momentary passion must be gratified. Usually, any sense of perspective is lost and the tyranny boils down to a small clique of sycophants clinging to and fortifying the “glorious leader” no matter what .

No form of government, no civilization, has ever been immune to the siren call of tyrants. As we are now witnessing .

Joseph Campbell

I was brought up through excellent public schools in the scientific aura of the 1950s. I consequently have always had a cosmopolitan outlook. I firmly believe in shallow history, deep history, human evolution, geologic changes. I know there have been innumerable people just like me living in vastly different cultures .

And I accept that religion in some form is necessary to human health. I also went to Sunday church (and Sunday school, and choir) during my formative years .

Joseph Campbell spent a lifetime documenting and comparing all the religions he could get a handle on. He tried to tie together their great concepts and the underlying intuitions that supported them. I have friends who found his work exceedingly shallow, but I accept it and enjoy the widening of my own mind by doing so .

That is why I have such antagonism for the current religious right fanatics. I have rarely met such vacuous minds. I know most of it is probably just a defense mechanism against a turmoil of our times, but it bothers me to find intelligent people crawling into shallow tribal superstition, not to mention side ventures into crystals, astrology, guru’s, and whatever .

I’m happy at such times to reread “The Masks of God” and understand that this too shall pass .

Conceit

“A sucker is born every minute” proclaimed PT Barnum. The “average American voter” has often been vilified for ignorance, prejudice, whatever. Frozen in collective memory by Menken’s “booboisie.”

And yet, we often found that speaking with each other one-on-one revealed a fairly complete interesting human being. Somehow we trusted that – informed by a free press – such good would shine through in the loneliness of the election booth. Mostly, it seemed to work .

But several generations of being assured that “you are just as good as anyone else” have had evil effects. Even in simple conversation, we discover everyone is as conceited as a god, certain that they know everything, sure that anyone claiming to be an expert (except the internet influencers they follow) is a charlatan.

So conceit has fallen on an entire population, certain that at any moment what they believe is true, fortified by warped electronic propaganda. No longer much fun to talk to. Anything but complete interesting human beings. Conceited know-it-alls, who unfortunately carry their very real ignorance and prejudices into the ballot box .

I used to agree that democracy was “the worst form of government except for everything else.” Now I tend to drop the qualifier .

Self Fulfilling

Long before anyone thought of “attractors” there was the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. What you expect to happen (good or bad) happens, not because of fate but rather because you unconsciously work to make it happen .

These days we have an administration that glories in self-fulfillment. They decide cities are hell holes and work actively to make them so. They say people are unhealthy and act to make their idea come true. They decide most people are criminals and – lo and behold – “criminals” pop up everywhere .

Mostly they say we need a “glorious leader” to bring us out of a political malaise. Their desire for a dictator who makes the trains run on time is coming true even to the point of considering all American armed forces a feudal militia .

The trouble with self-fulfilling prophecy, of course, is that it is usually a distortion of reality. And by ignoring reality, the eventual decay and destruction is much worse than it should have been .

So, “attractor” as such attitudes may be, they leave me fondly wishing for the good old days when logical and informed leaders were willing to admit they weren’t quite sure what was best to do .

Sensible

We often forget that the modern world of science and technology began with a devotion to our senses. The medieval intellectual mind was immersed in logic, perfection, and revealed vision. The senses were regarded as imperfect or evil distortions of higher truth .

The earliest proto-scientists rejected all that. They claimed that “true reality” was only what we could actually perceive with sight, sound, touch, etc. Truth was not what we could imagine, but what we could grasp .

Unnoted at the time and little considered since is that evolution has also provided massive checks and filters on our senses. It’s important for survival to know if what you see is a real lion or a hallucination. Our senses are superb at separating “sensible” from “imaginary” most of the time .

The trouble with generative AI is precisely that it thinks in a medieval manner. All is words, revelations, logic. There are no senses, filtered or otherwise, to evaluate reality. Its answers are only as good as the vast storehouse of words that form its higher truth .

So in any normal human terms, generative AI will never be truly sensible. It may be fully logical as were medieval scholars, and yet totally wrong about reality. That nobody seems to recognize this may be the most dangerous thing about it at this time .

French

France has fallen on hard times. As a long-term francophile – mostly from afar – that saddens me. I love the culture and the language, and both have enriched my life since I encountered them deeply in my youth .

My first experience was in high school, since learning a foreign language was just something college-bound kids were supposed to do. I’m not much of a linguist – as an introverted autodidact I have trouble even pronouncing English correctly. But a summer bicycle journey in 1968 exposed me deeply to French and the cultures of France. It vastly shaped my future outlook on life, and provided a slightly un-American perspective on what was important .

Since world war II France has been dealing with what the United States is experiencing now. That is, how to reconcile or preserve what is good about the past – “heritage” here, “patrimony” there. Dwelling in nostalgia is expensive and ultimately fruitless .

For decades, France has been able to survive mostly as a world tourist destination. Lately, not so much. French is no longer useful to most – cell phones do adequate translation work .

Yet I continue to treasure the revelations of “thinking in French” whenever I can .

Literature

An editorial in WSJ told young men they should read more fiction. Broaden outlooks, deal with inner complexities. A different editorial, written by a wealthy young twerp, advised that one’s 20’s should be completely devoted to the task of “becoming a billionaire”, after which, presumably we can live a decent life .

Spending one’s twenties (or any other decade) in a narrow obsession is madness. Believing one is in absolute control of the future is an immature fantasy. Perhaps literature is an antidote to that, or at least a window on alternatives. But there are other ways – falling in love, laughing with friends, having adventures. The list is of course endless .

We currently have made heroes of the wrong people. Life is a gift, not a test. It can only be “won” by living it fully and in balance. Hiding in an obsessive foxhole and thinking you are in charge of your fate will only earn scorn. And, of course, the premise is wrong. Reaching a goal does not mean the rest of your life is taken care of .

We all learn that eventually, unless we damage ourselves too much. Usually, such wisdom and reflections take time and effort. Literature, particularly fiction, offers a shortcut .

But the young rarely take the advice of the old. They know better .

I pity them .