Rural

Since antiquity, common sense and solid values were supposed to reside in country folk. Not the unwashed peasants (of course) so much as a virtuous landowner. Cincinnatus returning overnight to his plow. Western Europe – the English in particular – made a fetish of the landed aristocracy .

In the US, Thomas Jefferson created the myth of a country-filled with yeoman farmers, who lived on small self-sufficient farms and in their spare time discussed philosophy and engaged in politics. The countryside contained value, cities were filled with vice. That has congealed into a nostalgic view of “olden” days when (“real”) men were men, and everyone else knew their place and stayed in it .

These days, of course, most people live in suburban situations, neither quite rural nor quite urban. Suburbs contain few of the virtues and most of the vices of each. The global Internet further scrambles the mix .

Ah, but we continue to be told how solid rural living is. No matter that farming is done with huge complicated machines produced elsewhere. It suits the ruling oligarchs to fan the embers of this mythology, since the actual potential power of this constituency is so small .

All harmless enough. Unless, of course, the ruling class becomes ignorant and stupid enough to take it seriously .

Infanticide!

There, that got your attention! And such is the real purpose of shock words these days – to condense a slur, rally a slogan, and sometimes promote a hidden message. I remember when students would shout “hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today .”

Some issues are tangled, mysterious, insoluble. Abortion and women’s rights _ or potentially crippled-child rights _ is one of the toughest. Definitions are almost impossible. The world refuses to be solved .

For the record, I am in favor of all children, everywhere, being born normal, healthy, and into circumstances where they are well cared for until their late teens. For the record, in our real world, even if babies are born normal and healthy, society often lets them die or suffer from neglect, starvation, war, disease, or other violence. And genetic luck guarantees that many embryos do not produce normally healthy babies. It used to be far worse – nature was never kind .

But “baby killer” is an effective slur. Nobody wants to be so labeled. The problem is that those who use it are – like those anti-war demonstrators – really pursuing a deeper agenda One in which it is the duty of women to produce and raise children and leave the rest of the stuff to men.

I dislike such people and their agenda. Perhaps one day I too will have to find something simplistic to shout back. Isn’t that really the true problem with our civilization? Not stupidity, not evil, just fatigue at complex, seemingly insoluble, issues .

Business Visionary

We generally admire the extraordinary individuals who through intelligence, drive, or structured vision lead their companies to heights and influence. In the old days Ford, Carnegie, Vanderbilt. In modern times, Gates, Murdoch, Musk .

They are generally saluted as less evil embodiments of human ambition – helpful to society rather than disruptive politicians like Napoleon or Hitler .

No doubt there is some truth in that. Corporations are often a force for good, producing wealth which eventually trickles down to all. A cornerstone of our affluent modern world. Almost forgotten are the days when they were labeled (with some justification) “merchants of death.”

Remember, however, that all of those leaders were human. No matter how ruthless, they were constrained to mortal existence and secondary desires. I believe that, increasingly, AI driven business will become ruthless in ways we cannot imagine, completely morally bankrupt from a social point of view .

The dangers of treating employees like machines has long been luridly documented in literature. AI goes a step further, since it cannot understand any fundamental difference between flesh and metal, nor any obligation to consciousness versus obedience .

Today’s specialized titans of industry, unfortunately, are already well down the road to AI sterility.

Pursuit of Money

Everyone says they want to be happy. The Declaration of Independence proclaims people have a right to pursue it. We say we want others to be happy, our children to be happy. And on and on . Unfortunately, in a competitive society, there are problems with happiness. It just doesn’t fit with the rest of the ethos .

For one thing it cannot be quantified. There is no “standard unit of happiness” as there is for money or distance. You cannot say a person with eight units of happiness is better off than one with two. How then, can you tell who is winning ?

We also prize property, which like other possessions, tends to be stable. Unfortunately happiness is a kind of transient illusion. It can appear for no apparent reason, and vanish just as quickly. We can’t store it in land holdings or a bank vault .

Worst of all, it is fickle. Clearly a person with more dollars is better off than a person with fewer. A clear winner (we like winners!) But somehow a beggar with the right attitude can actually be happier than those refusing to give him alms. Irrational! Yet we all want happiness.

And we work really hard hoping and believing that more money will bestow more joy. I guess sometimes it does. But that “sometimes” is pretty annoying .

Exaggeration and Lies

Exaggeration is often welcome in conversation. We love to claim we caught the biggest fish, had the worst day of our lives. Casual talks with friends are lighter if we stretch the truth, or even invent things out of whole cloth .

But that is entertainment. Serious discussions are not aided by stretching facts to fit desires. Unless, I suppose, you are a lawyer … Seriously, using exaggeration to win an argument is a time honored practice .

The problem is when exaggeration turns to lies. If someone says the water tastes bad, fine. If they say it is dangerous to drink, that should require proof. Lies and truth require more than merely saying something is so .

Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment or when trying to achieve power, exaggerations slide easily to lies taken as facts, for exaggerated goals without foundation or nuance. So we get orations, such as “gypsies are ignorant dirty thieving people and should all be run off or shot on sight.” No proof, no nuance, but unfortunately effective especially when combined with other equally shaky statements like “we would all be better off if there were no gypsies.”

We used to think “lying” politicians were bad, but now we seem to believe “exaggerating” ones are merely cute .

Jonestown

There are many examples of “the madness of crowds.” Somehow most of us can temporarily lose our own rationality in a mass action. More permanently we can narrow and harden our logic and belief into a small cult, or a larger “movement.” Some are mindless and temporary such as mobs; others have deep underpinnings supported by leaders and philosophers, like the Nazis .

The prime modern example to my mind was Jonestown, where a large group of “normal” people gave up their ordinary life. Believing in a charismatic leader, they cut ties, liquidated assets, followed him into a jungle community. When times got tough they followed him into mass suicide.

Although Americans are prone to fads, for the most part citizens here have been saved from massive indoctrination by an inborn cynicism. No matter the cause, we often ask “who profits?” “follow the money”, and “what’s in it for you?” This streak of skepticism may not protect us from momentary enthusiasms, but it does tend to make our allegiances quite fragile. For most of us, true belief can flip overnight, with or without external cause .

Not always, of course. Hence Jonestown. The cautionary note there was that apparently more than a few of the “suicides” were “murders”. Crazy powerful leaders are a lot more dangerous than any neighbor following an influencer primrose path.

Conservative Follies

Liberals imagine a better world that is based on shiny visions of what might be. Conservatives fear that the best world has already passed them by .

Both positions, of course, can be silly, especially in extremes. Liberals tend to optimistic views of people that have little reality in experience. Conservatives dream fondly of a past that never was.

As someone who reads a lot of history and science, the one thing I fully believe is that nothing stays the same for long. Our bodies are seething masses of churning chemical reactions. We age. Life evolves. And yet – it does not do so too quickly, our DNA was billed to be mostly conservative.

Conservatives say they fear change and simply want to return to when things were better. They usually confuse what was actually happening in those olden days with their own visions of what they believe should have been happening .

It’s an old, old story. From first shards of clay texts, there were those predicting disaster (because the stupid younger generation ignored the most important rituals and beliefs.) Age of gold devalued to silver through bronze and iron to maybe sand.

Unfortunately, for all of us, things do keep changing. Even more unfortunately, we have a lot less control over events – especially from beyond our limited circle – then we would like to believe .

Scientist

Until recently, scientists were heroes of the age. Now they are often mocked or even reviled. Science, which used to be the jewel of our culture, is now disdainfully ignored by those who trust common sense and intuition. What happened ?

Many would say “hubris.” But that’s too simple. The definition of science enlarged to include – well – almost everything “good.” Products were “new and improved” by science. All of our problems would be solved by science. A true scientist, certified, by definition must always be right.

And, of course, that was all malarky. Science does depend on a lot of “real” things – observation, logic, experimentation, and – not least – sorting things into a useful and sensible pattern. As does – for example – common sense and personal experience. But nothing is infallible. And all human activities are complex probabilities in an unknowable future .

I accept the scientific structure of physical reality. Within reason, I try to behave as a scientist. I do not _ like many – reject this knowledge and the wonders it delivers. However, I also utilize common sense, personal observation, and probability calculation in navigating my enchanted conscious existence. The best of many worlds, mixed into grateful excitement .

Live Long or Live Well

In our competitive society, there once existed a group of people who firmly believed “he who dies with the most toys wins.” Now that everyone has too many toys, that has mutated into “he who lives longest wins.”

Even in the dim and ancient past, aristocrats and rulers frantically tried to live “forever”. They would eat gold, jade, mercury. Perform rigorous and/or disgusting rites. Indulge in the latest fad – oxygen, radioactivity, fasting, exercise. They wanted to extend their pleasant lives indefinitely, regardless of how that quest might degrade their immediate happiness .

As fairy tales frequently point out, the fly in the ointment was exactly what such an extension would involve. Does anyone really want an eternity as a typical 110-year-old crone, crippled in body, deprived of senses, in constant pain, or barely aware of being human ?

The whole point of having consciousness is to react well in the moment. Perhaps to simply enjoy, perhaps to try for a better future. To fully engage where you exist is itself a kind of eternity _ the only true “reality” we ever experience between memories of the past and visions of the future .

Reasonable attempts to extend living well are commendable. Obsessive focus on distant future possible life extension probably destroys appreciation of actual existence and replaces it with the hollow vision of dreams.

Simple-Minded

In nostalgic eras past, unfortunate individuals with low mental capacity were known as “village idiots” or “simple-minded’” folks. Now we inhabit supposedly kinder times, but those “simple-minded” are still with us. However I refer tp people mentally constrained by their own choice.

Some are intellectually lazy, and find it easier to accept or reject anything they hear without troubling to investigate further. Nevertheless, they hold their opinion – whatever it may be – arrogantly. Others reach the same condition simply because there is too much to know and life requires us to focus on what is relevant .

The harm in so many people willingly becoming simple-minded is that in the myth of our society, citizens are supposed to be well informed. About everything. Admitting that one is fully ignorant or confused or even unsure about anything is not rewarded. To admit ignorance (even to yourself) when you are ignorant is quite healthy. But many of the unthinking may label you as stupid .

We have a voting population certain of their shallow beliefs, too involved in other things to care much except when egged on by volatile wannabe leaders .

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is not king. In the land of the simple-minded the wise person remains as unobtrusive as possible .