Security

Ask folks what they want, and there are varied standard answers. Fame, fortune, health top the list for most. Friends, family, purpose fit in there somewhere. I suggest the most subconscious thing most of us crave is basic security. We like to know what we know, we hope what worked for us yesterday will still work for us tomorrow .

“Oh that’s silly” you will say. If things are bad we want a change. True, but only a change we can anticipate or accept. We always fear change for the worse. Sometimes we would rather realize a pattern than escape it. As Dylan Thomas wrote “there must, be praised, some certainty, if not of loving well, then not, …”

Gamblers seek excitement, but they not only think they know the odds, but securely believe they can always gamble again. Adventurers plan to return from their expeditions. These are bumps in the general security of their times .

Examine all social systems. The most stable tend to be exactly those where people are secure about what they do. Even if what they do is to start something new and different or to take a risk. Nobody wants to wake up in a jumbled inscrutable environment each day .

To some extent, that seems to be this society which is developing around us. It’s often scary. And no, I do not feel any more secure in simply recognizing that fact .

Micro Placebo

We believe in the massive effects of the tiny. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” One vote can change an election. One dollar off a pound of meat will help our finances. “For want of a nail …” Eating a bit more of this or less of that will make us healthier .

After all, we live in a culture of microtolerance. A random raindrop can destroy a cell phone. A rogue cell can begin a fatal cancer tumor. Split seconds win or lose contests. Every little thing counts .

Perhaps it’s a reaction to our true powerlessness. Rationally, we are well aware that a single vote is symbolic. Most of the time micro-effects are frankly swamped by macro situations. A single step does not mean much on a thousand mile trip. After all, everything we do (except maybe jumping off a building) depends on an ongoing series of decisions .

It’s easy to forget in an era of science that glorifies the small, and in which experiments at the most miniscule level breathlessly report a new discovery or linkage. But most actions taken are placebos. The smaller the initial impulse, the tinier its action on a large scale unless something also (such as our mindset) provides a good result .

Unfortunately, microscience is often wrong in a complex real world which continues to adjust and change itself. An awful lot of recent health results are not repeatable. We ping pong from avoiding eggs to eating many, and piously think we have taken off on a better path.

Comparison

Physicians, psychologists, and philosophers seem to think we exist on some absolute scales of being. Are you happy or sad? How happy or sad are you? And where are you positioned on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Also scientifically simplified. In fact, most of the time, an awful lot of our internal evaluation is based not on some abstract absolute, but on comparisons and reference .

Reference is required to narrow the question to some manageable slice of being. Am I sad about what, exactly. Why am I nervous or happy. Are we talking about the delightful taste of chocolate or that nagging toothache? And so on .

Even more important is constant comparison. “Compared to what?” We judge the world in terms of an infinite number of half empty or half full glasses. And our evaluation is strongly influenced by how we regard the contents of others’ glasses. Not merely to keep up with the Joneses but to place myself in proper perspective.

The wisest know it is a great game of illusions. Am I happy compared to that poor beggar on the corner? Am I content compared to that millionaire ballplayer? How about my neighbor? We can choose our medicine or our poison to change our outlook and mood in a flash .

Another amazing ability of survival consciousness that we just take for granted .

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 .

Joy

In my same moments, I simply rejoice in being conscious and aware. A perfect enchanted unity. I reject the artificial division of body and mind, and the still more degraded notion of defining mind as logic. Down that useless path wanders the progress of AI .

We need not celebrate life itself so much as awareness. True awareness, of course, is built on life. An organism that is aware in any sense possesses consciousness. Without running off to deeper metaphysics, I find my own consciousness the ultimate glory of all I am .

Logic, after all, is a barren brittle construct. The joy in solving a puzzle has nothing inherently logical about it. The joy is an awareness of having achieved a solution .

My heresy is to claim that awareness – enabling that joy – requires life, requires a body. Whatever we’ve constructed without life will lack that. No joy. No awareness. No consciousness. Logic will exist, but never the actual exuberance of being .

I have a short “objective” window of existence as measured in years, although my subjective time feels infinite. During that opportunity, I joyfully seize the world and myself in the universe .

I pity those unaware of their own precious gift.

Science has value, as does logic, but that value is hardly logical. Without resort to dry ancient or futuristic metaphysics, I am free to expand into infinity.