Should Be Better, Could Be Worse

Pop psychology asks “is the glass half empty or half full?” I’m a middling type, so I always thought “both”. I was more aware that by tomorrow the glass might be overflowing, dry, or broken .

I’ve led a fortunate life. One of the great gifts – unappreciated at the time – was a spell of near poverty when I was a young adult. It put some perspective into my outlook. Since then, I’ve always been much more keenly aware of the difficulties others have than of their imagined happiness .

It settled into “should be better, could be worse”. That philosophy has served well at work, raising a family, and now in retirement. Half empty, half full, no matter, adjust and seize the day .

Interestingly, most of it is a simple mental adjustment. After all, a monk sworn to poverty can be quite content. Wealthy people with the world at their fingertips can be neurotically miserable. I’ve cultivated a sense of permanent contentment, as opposed to the militant envy screamed by this culture and its commercials .

Anyway, there the glass sits, inertly evoking whatever mood we desire. That trick of permanent uncertainty and our ability to control how we feel about it is one of the greatest glories of being human .

Venal

“Venal” is a useful old word for describing someone in government who is susceptible to bribes. In the most egregious cases, that someone also actively solicits them. Usually this is accompanied with threats if the bribes are not forthcoming .

Much of the world works this way. It always did. Local officials can rarely avoid it, even if they are basically honest. It’s human nature to expect gratitude and to return favor for favor .

The sometime naive idealism of Americans believed they could avoid it. Laws. Checks and balances. A free press. Strong opposition parties. We happily followed accusations, investigations, trials, convictions .

Now? Well, venal often refers to monetary bribes, but there are others. Flattery for example. Stroking the ego, right or wrong. “No backbone”. We see the signs. 

Not that money is out of the picture. Billions are being made by high and low officials on crypto deals, inside trading, and pure slush spending .

Nor are the massive threats missing .

I guess, given that everyone thinks it’s okay, a venal government is what we have come to deserve. A payout for our native cynicism. No longer exceptional. Just like everyone else .

Frozen Ideals

We like to believe that as a civilized people we are rational and informed. We’ve left behind meaningless taboos and idol worship. Our enlightened goals are carefully crafted .

But, of course, the important ones are not. We are as driven by hormones and ignorance as any of our pre-dawn ancestors. Our knowledge is too vast and complicated to understand, so we fall back on what we believe we know to be true from personal experience .

The problem with that is that personal experience tends to be limited. Folks claim, for example, that everyone always used to get “married” in some conventional modern sense. Even a brief glance at history or ethnology would prove that wrong. But who has the time? And do I trust a book or my own intuitions and memories?

Factions construct ideals into taboos which they honestly feel reflect eternal truth. Which is fine. Then they try to impose that on others. Which is not fine. If rulers become infected with those ideas, society is in for a terrible time. 

Individuals are incredibly complex. Society is infinitely messy. Shiny ideals soon tarnish. Frozen ideals are a disaster. Everything always changes, and those who do not change to fit new circumstances are usually doomed .

Initiation

Babies are born with few instincts, beyond the most primitive reactions to pain. How to suck, making eye contact, possibly fear of snakes. Most everything we become is acquired via learning. Any baby placed in any social environment will pretty much work out, all things considered .

Of course we learn quickly, spontaneously, consciously and unconsciously. Children are amazingly flexible and accept almost any situation as normal. Until they grow old enough for logic to kick in. Then things get complicated indeed, more so as experience and contact networks enlarge .

So, for the most part, it is no surprise that most people born into any culture support that culture. Not only that, but support their own class and the position of their family in that culture. That is probably a kind of innate human instinct, necessary for tribes and societies to survive .

Oh, of course we can “reprogram”. We often do – or at least think we do – as adolescents, prime youths, or middle-aged adults. How well we adjust to “paradigm shifts” in society – which now  seem to arrive with frightening speed and frequency – depends much on how old we are .

I find that after much turmoil and adjustment as the entire world changed, I still retain many of my early initiations .

For better or worse .

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 .