100 Years Ago

The Panama Canal opened on August 15, 1914

The war was just two weeks old.  The Germans were convinced their Blitzkrieg tactic would work – they’d dispatch the French within six weeks, then turn to the Eastern Front and defeat Russia.   They would acquire Lebensraum, literally “room to live.”   It was General Erich Ludendorff’s belief that without colonial possessions, Germany could only acquire it’s “place in the sun” by conquering and settling the vast plains of Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

The French were enthusiastic about the war when it started, but by mid-August they realized that the German machine was organized and efficient.  Their plan relied on the ‘French spirit’ overcoming the cold mechanistic Teutonic mentality.  That didn’t work.   French Commander Joseph Joffre had to re-organize the French plan – which was essentially to go on offense – to organize a defense.  It would be nearly mid-September when it became clear the Germans had failed, and the Blitzkrieg turned to trench warfare, with the lines hardly moving in nearly four years.

In the US the European war was not seen as our problem.   The largest ethnic group in America was (and still is – though by a much smaller margin) German.   The idea that the US should take sides wasn’t popular.   American President Woodrow Wilson, in fact, viewed it as a sign of American superiority that our Democratic system would remain at peace while power politics led the autocratic powers to a pointless war in Europe.

UMF was Farmington State Normal School, teaching future teachers. Her is a 1914 student assembly

On this day, Americans were more pre-occupied with their own hemisphere – namely the opening of the Panama Canal, which would allow ship travel between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans without having to make the daunting journey around the tip of South America.  The expanse of trade and ease of shipping promised a new economic era – not to mention that naval ships could now be moved far more quickly between the two oceans.  But the US was content to let the Europeans fight their war.

World War I would shatter the Europe of old, harken the collapse of the British and French colonial Empires, replace the Russian Czar with Communism, redraw the maps and bring in a world to be built with the use of reason rather than custom.   Royalty and nobility were replaced with ideology and raw power.   Connection to the land, one’s role in the community, and church was replaced by consumerism, industrial assembly line work and materialism as a way of life.

This was true in the US as well as Europe.  In the US in 1900 over 40% of the population was in farming, by 1990 that level dropped to 1.9%.  The US census stopped counting farmers after that, the number ceased to be relevant.

One brave WWI courier, seated far right, was so incensed by the loss of WWI that he went into politics – and instigated the second world war.

But while it may be true that rational thought finally eclipsed irrational and often tyrannical tradition, the 20^th Century did not usher in an era of liberation and prosperity.   In the first half, humans using reason created ideologies – secular religions based on core assumptions and beliefs – and found it possible to rationalize all sorts of heinous acts, including war, often with the good intent of creating a truly democratic and just society.   Mass consumption and economic change led to the Great Depression, environmental crises, and humans to be used as tools, whether in sweat shops, sex trade or as consumers to be used for their disposable income.

100 years ago the modern world finally pushed aside tradition and custom, and an era of radical change, new technology, and more deadly wars began.   World War I would be the last war in which military deaths out numbered civilian ones.

Though the automobile had been invented, nearly half the country still farmed, and the main implement was the horse

A century ago today, people viewed the future with hope.  Yet for over thirty years it would be defined by war and depression, and the US would not be immune.    Now as we look forward to the next 100 years, a few lessons seem clear.

1)  Ideological thinking is dangerous and obsolete.  It led to the Second World War, defined the wasted resources and existential danger of the Cold War, and divides people along unnatural and often absurd lines.  People who might otherwise be able to practically deal with problems see the world abstractly – including other people, nature, and community.

2) War, environmental degradation, a soulless consumerism and massive global corruption the planet at this point in time.  Materially the West is very well off, but we’re a society riddled with alienation, depression, anxiety, obesity, lack of connection to nature (especially children) and a loss of meaning and community.  In the third world corruption, abuse, war, sex trade, and poverty dominate, with communities/tradition ripped apart by global capitalism.

While the “West” has been in constant transition ever since knowledge trickled into Europe from the Islamic world and in the 13th Century the Church shifted from Augustinian other-worldliness to Thomist logic, one can see World War I as the destruction of the old order, and the creation of a new, modern, rational, ideological and very materialist era.   It’s clear at this point that our way of conceptualizing and ordering reality isn’t working.  This new era is under threat from economic collapse, environmental degradation and climate change, terrorism, energy shortages, and a host of problems.  Humans are caught struggling to find meaning, and often doing so by following an ideology or doing anything to, as Erich Fromm put it, escape from freedom.

That has to change if we are to successfully navigate a future in a world that is changing at an even faster pace than it was a century ago.   There are signs of hope – the EU has started a transition to a post-sovereign interdependent political structure.   Social media is opening up new avenues of change, though that can be used for good, evil, or trivial.   But we can’t go on like we did in the past.

Across Europe people entered WWI with enthusiasm – they expected glory and victory. They got years of trench war fare defined by lice, rats, disease and death.

100 years ago the European leaders were caught up in the “cult of the offensive,” believing the next war would be quick, decisive, and won by the country bold enough to start the conflict.  They thought they could harness 20th Century technology to expand 19th Century political structures.  Instead, the war destroyed the world they knew, and things would never be the same.   Unless we expand our thinking, we could be headed for a similar fate.

The Ones that Saw it Coming

Although Wall Street got away with creating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there were some who saw it coming, sniffed out the true nature of the mortgage backed bonds and the craziness of an out of control under-regulated housing market.    Those people are the subject of the Michael Lewis book The Big Short mentioned in the previous post.

They cover a range of character traits.  There is the self-promoting Greg Lippmann whose desire to spread the news in bombastic fashion helped convince a number of people that the housing market was a bubble and the securities backed by those mortgages were toxic.  Then there is Steve Eisman, a blunt, honest hard nosed investor who would offend just about everyone he met.   He started as a conservative Republican but realized as he learned about the game on Wall Street that the real mantra was “fuck the poor.”

Mike Burry of Scion Capital was the first to really understand the scope of coming crisis

The first one who really sniffed out what was happening was a one eyed doctor turned stock blogger turned investor, Michael Burry.  He read through the material with an almost superhuman patience and attention to detail.  He realized that the investments were crap, especially the bonds backed by subprime mortgages.   When his son was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome he realized he had it too.  That had given him the focus to figure out what everyone else was missing as early as 2003 – and also explained the lack of social skills that alienated his investors who were planning to sue him before suddenly his bets paid off.  They never thanked him.

Ultimately they figured out that not only were the big banks creating mortgage backed bonds that seemed to pass off risk, but when they didn’t have enough of those they packaged the bonds into CDOs that, thanks to rating agency incompetence, would magically turn BBB mortage backed bonds into AAA investments.   Then they took it a step further with synthetic CDOs.   To Burry, Eisman, Lippmann and a few other characters Lewis describes, this was blatant fraud.  For Eisman it was a moral cause – the big banks were pulling in billions, earning their traders bonuses in the tens of millions – because they were able to create bonds so complex that the rating agencies didn’t realize they were crap.  Investors thinking they were getting very low risk bonds were being fleeced.

CDO’s were a method by which banks could take low rated bonds and package them to create a AAA rated toxic bond

The thing that shocked them, however, is that when the inevitable collapse hit, the big banks themselves were exposed.  They had rigged the game, but played the sucker anyway.   Corporate leadership didn’t understand the way this new derivative bond market operated, and individuals looking only to maximize their bonuses didn’t care about the long term.  At some point they had to keep playing because that was the only way to keep the game alive.   But it was unsustainable.

What I find intriguing is the personality characteristics of those who figured it out.   They share a few traits.  First, they were honest and not afraid of what others thought of them.  In a world where most people seek approval from others and want to be liked/appreciated, these guys didn’t care.  Eisman would blurt out comments offending powerful CEOs giving a talk, not care what he wore to the golf course, and genuinely didn’t seem to mind what others thought of him.

Second, they were remarkably self-confident.   If it were me figuring out the insanity of the derivative market and how the big banks were setting the entire world economy up for disaster, I’d say “wait, these are the most intelligent big institutional investors on Wall Street – they must know something I don’t.”   And while the thought crossed their minds now and then, they had confidence in their analysis and conclusions.  They were willing to place multi-million dollar bets on an outcome the media, Wall Street and government dismissed as impossible.

Some of most entertaining moments in Lewis’ book are the ways in which Steve Eisman would confront the big players on Wall Street and tell them their products were crap.  Eisman’s latest crusade is against for-profit on line universities

Finally, they were oddly moral.   For Eisman it was righteous indignation at how big money was not only screwing the small investor but also putting democratic capitalism at risk.  For Burry it was a strong sense that the truth mattered, and he needed to follow it.  Lippmann was grandiose and self-promoting, but was up front trying to help others see what was happening.   In fact, they all tried to shout out warnings only to find that the rich and powerful either responded like deer in a headlight or laughed them off.

Jamie Mai, Charlie Ledley and Ben Hockett, who created Cornwall Capital and discovered first that even the AAA rated CDOs were certain to fail, were pre-occupied by what this meant for society as a whole.   The system was sick, could it potentially fall apart?

Those traits:  honesty, lack of concern for what others think (as long as you’re being honest), self-confidence and a strong moral streak gave them the capacity to truly comprehend what was happening.  They were not intimidated by the big names in media and on Wall Street who dismissed such concerns, did not feel like “I must be wrong because the big guys all say differently,” and stoked a sense of moral outrage and purpose.

Once considered an economic guru, Alan Greenspan’s cheap credit and anti-regulatory stance now make him a villain in this story

There is something to learn from this example.   These traits gave them the capacity to avoid the hypnotic effect that culture, media and “conventional wisdom” can have on people.   All around experts repeated the mantra that “the bonds are safe, housing prices won’t fall, this is real, the money will keep growing…”  They did not fall victim to the power of those suggestions; instead, they saw through the facade and ended up turning a huge profit.

They not only saw through it, but it was obvious to them.   Now whether one reads the book by Micheal Lewis or one of the others out there dissecting the crisis (The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein, All the Devils are Here by McLean and Nocera, House of Cards by Cohan about the end of Bear Stearns, etc.), it is so obvious in hindsight that one has to ask “how could they have been so stupid?  How did more people not see it coming?”

The answer: groupthink and a kind of cultural hypnosis due to the power of pervasive suggestion.   The only way to keep one immune from falling into such a trap is to foster true honesty, not worry what others think if acting honestly, be self-confident, and have a moral core.   Not only might one see through scams and thus make money (or avoid losing it), but one will also live a life less controlled by the hypnotic suggestions permeating our culture and media, and instead develop the capacity to be true to oneself.

The Conservative Critique of Capitalism

To Limbaugh even a conservative critique of capitalism is “Marxism”

While some on the right claim that President Obama’s health care law amounts to war on Roman Catholicism due to its birth control provisions, others on the right are attacking the head of the Catholic church, Pope Francis I, for being “Marxist.”

The charge is absurd.

Marxism is a particular theory about how history unfolds, an enlightenment style reason-based theory which seeks to objectively show that there is a correct interpretation of history based on the nature of the mode of production – or how value is produced.   Any economic system (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) that generates value through exploitation (a small group benefiting from the work of others) inherently contains contradictions.   Those contradictions inevitably cause the system to collapse, until finally a system with no exploitation (communism – the anti-statist utopian Marxian version) comes without internal contradictions.   History is a human construct, Marxism has no place for a deity.  I very much doubt that the Pontiff believes any of that to be true.

When the Church built the new St. Peter’s it used an early capitalist method: selling indulgences (time off from purgatory). That had an unfortunate side effect for the church: the reformation

Pope Francis I instead provides a conservative critique of capitalism, one that echoes some of the anti-Communist John Paul II’s ideas.  The Pontiff released a 50,000 treatise, Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), which calls for a series of reforms and admonishes “unfettered” capitalism.  He criticizes trickle down economics, and decries “the idolatry of money” which will lead to a “new tyranny.”   He bemoans the “culture of prosperity” where materialism defines human value, but leaves the majority on the outside, often suffering.   Even those well off feel like their life is lacking because the culture defines so much by material success. People turn artificial wants into perceived needs.

The Pope was not attacking market economics but naive capitalism – those who believe that markets always turn self-interest into the best result possible.   Naive capitalists believe that the “winners” deserve to take as much as they can get away with because they are smarter or work harder.   Moreover, they believe that the game is always open for others to win – that the playing field is level and the market will somehow prevent winners from building structural advantage and using their position in society to benefit themselves and guarantee that they and their children will have a much better shot at continuing to “win.”   Naive capitalists believe the “losers” are inferior – they deserve to be poor.

The Argentinan Pontiff knows poverty – and is becoming very popular among Catholics

The conservative critique of capitalism is not that somehow everyone should be equal.   Traditional conservatism accepts the idea that inequality is inevitable in society, but that it cannot be so pervasive as to be culturally destabilizing.   They distrust capitalism because it debases the culture.   It appeals to the masses, and replaces community with consumption.  It rationalizes wealth inequality without creating a sense of social responsibility.   Conservatives also distrust human nature; they believe that utopian visions of capitalism underestimate human greed, ruthlessness and willingness to cheat/abuse others out of self interest.

Traditional conservatism has an organic view of society – that the culture is an entity that is greater than the sum of the individuals.  It distrusts the radical individualism of naive capitalism, noting that the individual is embedded in a culture and society from which identity, interests, morals and desires all spring.   The culture maintains social stability and order.  Reason alone cannot replace it, since reason is a tool that can rationalize just about anything.   Reason can justify a whole host of contradictory principles and ideals — whatever the individual wants to believe.   That was Edmund Burke’s critique of the French revolution; you take away the cultural glue that holds society together and everything falls apart.

For conservative critics of capitalism, the market doesn’t magically follow the values society holds, nor do peoples’ decisions on what to buy and sell necessarily support their core values.  That’s why people have constructed governments to, among other things, tame the excesses of capitalism.

Count Karl Marx as one of Adam Smith’s fans!

Even the capitalist hero, Adam Smith, knew markets were not magic.   While naive capitalists use his metaphor of the “hidden hand,” it’s a metaphor he only used once, and in a limited context.   If you actually read Smith’s Wealth of Nations it’s clear that he is critical of the capitalists of his era.   Karl Marx even considered Smith his favorite economist, saying that only in communism would Smith’s ideas work properly.   Those nuances don’t fit into the good vs. evil simplistic dichotomy of the Limbaughesque world.

To be sure, the conservative critique of capitalism is distrustful of big government and efforts to promote equal outcomes.   Conservatives embrace tradition, family, community and custom.  Capitalism does damage to all of those – thanks to capitalism Christmas now is more about shopping than worship.   Thanks to capitalism extended families in close contact have become rare.  A sense of community has been replaced by people who hardly know their neighbors, especially in urban areas.   Custom has been replaced by fad.  Perhaps that is why Limbaugh and others want to try to hide all this using a claim that any critique of capitalism is “Marxist.”

Agree or disagree, the Pope is decrying the materialism, self-centered individualism, and lack of concern for the community that raw capitalism often fosters.   That is a value-based critique, not at all Marxist.    The Limbaughs of the world want to put their hands over their ears and mutter “Marxist, Marxist, Marxist…” because they don’t want to delve into the details of how the world really works —   So much easier to have a “left vs. right” caricature than to actually consider the gritty complexity of reality.

Sex and Love

I’ve posted a lot about consumerism and the corrosive aspects it has on our culture and our ability to be happy.  Two articles I’ve read in the last couple days convince me that the problems underlying materialist consumerism are also influencing love and sex, and not in a positive way.

One story involves the growth of completely impersonal “hook ups” solely for sex, especially among young people.  It was a Wall Street Journal review of the book The End of Sex by Donna Freitas.   It isn’t that I morally condemn such promiscuity — it’s not for me but hey, everyone has to make their own choices.    It’s more that as Freitas notes, the “hookup culture” (which apparently 70% of college students admit to participating in) increases the risk of assault and abuse.   That comes from the impersonal nature of the encounters.

In the ‘hook up’ culture two people are supposed engage in sex totally devoid of emotional connection.   The other is just a body to be used for sexual gratification.   Freitas notes that this is using humans as a means to an end, rather than treating them as an end themselves.     Much of the time, especially with emotionally vulnerable young women, this puts them at real risk of abuse.

Perhaps more disturbing is that this emphasizes the mechanistic side of sex over the emotional or even spiritual.   If young people learn to see sex as nothing more than a pleasurable physical act, it may be hard to be open to intimacy — indeed, the “hook up culture” seems predicated on a dismissal of romantic and intimate love as naive.

This mirrors the way our materialist consumer culture focuses on “stuff” over values.   The spiritual and sublime aspects of human existence give way to a cold mechanistic view.    Approaches like Carl Jung’s intuitive and spiritual psychology are replaced by evolutionary biology, where humans are just mechanisms used by genes to try to keep the genome alive.   If there is only body and no soul, then love is just an illusion.

Look at our culture now – how easy it is for people to use others as means to their ends.   People cheat others, treat them unfairly, rationalize the obscene behavior of banks and mortgage companies during the real estate bubble, and look the other way when someone is suffering.   If we’re just stuff on a spiraling rock in space, then nothing matters.  Collect sexual encounters and material objects.   What else is there to life?

Consumerism and the hook up culture breed cynicism and a kind of despair – if there is no meaning, then there is only sensation.   But sensations get boring and thus more excitement is needed.   Without meaning the material can never truly satisfy.  Sexual encounters need to have more drama, consumers need to always buy more, and people live trying to fulfill  needs that cannot be met.   Not by the new Porsche, nor by the wild (and usually drunken) hook up.

The review said that the writer, a Religious Studies Professor, doesn’t condemn casual sex (though she spends two hundred pages detailing its corrosive effects) but argues instead for a more open, healthy view of sexuality.   And that leads me to the other article.

Allegheny College hosted in its chapel a talk “I heart the Female Orgasm” which included (from the previous link):

• An emphasis on individuals making sexual decisions that are right for them, including whether to use the information now or when married or in a serious relationship
• Analysis of the messages women receive about their bodies and sexuality from media, religion, families, and elsewhere.
• Body image, and the links between “befriending your body” and experiencing physical pleasure
• The value of learning how to say “no” to sex—and the problems college-age and adult women sometimes encounter when they realize that’s all they ever learned
• An opportunity to talk openly in same-gender groups during part of the program
• Female anatomy
• Tips for partners about being patient and respectful
• The problems with pressure to have an orgasm, to orgasm faster, to have multiple orgasms, to orgasm with a partner, to fake or not fake orgasms
• Answers to the most common questions about orgasm

This created a visceral reaction from some conservative commentators who accused Allegheny College of hosting a session on “how to masturbate.”   They said the talk was smut disguised as education, put on by the radical left to denigrate religious values.   The fact it was in the chapel got others riled up.

I could go on and on about what that says about the politics in play (is the next chapter of the ‘war on woman’ the ‘war against the female orgasm’), but I won’t.    I find the increasing openness to talk about sexuality refreshing – sex is universal, almost everyone wants it, and most people know very little about it.   The idea it is never to be talked about is irrational – something so important should be understood and discussed.   Now more than at any time in the past that is happening.

To me the best defense against the corrosive effects of the “hook up culture” is for people to learn about, understand and talk about their sexuality.    Sex is pervasive in the media, often in very unhealthy ways.   The messages given culturally tend to increase ignorance and misunderstanding, creating numerous problems such as low self-esteem, intolerance and fear.   Knowledge about ones’ sexuality – and an openness to talk – is power: Power to reject abuse by those who will manipulate the situation to treat people as objects.

Call me naive, but ultimately I believe the capacity not to see others as only a means to a sexual end makes true love possible.   Just as materialism devoid of spirit becomes a cold playground of things that cannot satisfy the hunger one has for more, sex devoid of love becomes a playground of momentary thrills without meaning.   And everything is better with meaning.

Animal and Plant Cruelty

Are these chickens life forms, or just a commodity?

I’ve always had a very logical argument as to why I am not a vegetarian.   Vegetables are living entities just like animals.  They feel in different ways, experience the world in manners we cannot comprehend, but they are life forms just as we are.  Since in the animal kingdom it is natural for creatures to eat both plants and animals, there can’t be anything inherently wrong with eating meat.   A cat could never become a vegetarian and survive, for example.  As long as we do not over-indulge, eating other living entities, plant or animal, is natural.

Lately, though, I am rethinking my argument.   Not that I’m doubting the logic, but there is another factor to take into account: corporate farming.   Consider:  In the Laura Ingalls Wilder book Little House in the Big Woods, Pa butchers a pig that they have been raising for some time.   Every part of the pig is used, Laura and Mary even use the pig bladder as a balloon.   Plants are sown and reaped, tended to by the family.   In one book a locust attack ruins the harvest, such were the risks of life on the frontier.

In the US genetic modification has become standard for corporate farms

That seems a healthy relationship between humans and nature.  You may eat the plants and animals you raise, but you raise them with care.   Certainly you should not be cruel to them.   The food tasted better too – most of us will never know just how good natural food tastes.

This year many things are changing in my life, I feel like I’m entering a year of personal transformation.  One change is to stop closing my eyes to ramifications of how I eat.   I plan to think about where the food comes from, buy local, and move away from fast foods and the chemical laden processed foods that are so easy and convenient.

Fed chemicals, these pigs may as well be cogs in a machine

I was thinking about this as I walked through my local grocery store, seeing the packages of meat and vegetables, processed and ready for sale.    Everything designed to entice you to buy; packages with idyllic farm scenes or products labeled “organic.”   The bananas had a sticker that said “no cholesterol.”   I’m glad they told me!   It’s all marketing.

Then I look at the shoppers, behaving much like I have always behaved.   Looking at different foods, picking them up, dropping in them in the cart.    The intercom switched to the song “King of Pain” by the Police.    I forced an ironic smile.

When I teach about the rise of fascism in Germany I try to explain it in a way that most people in the class end up admitting that if they lived in Germany in 1936 they’d probably have supported the Nazi government.   The reason you can get something like fascism is that the culture accepts as natural and mundane that which should be condemned.   It’s normal to eat genetically modified food.  It’s normal to eat animals who have lived in ghastly conditions, genetically manipulated to increase profits.   Assembly line cars, assembly line chickens.   The fact they are alive is irrelevant, profit comes first.

How cruel are we to the plant kingdom when we manipulate every crop, altering the very nature of the environment.   Farming itself is a violent act, taking the free form of nature and forcing an order to it in order to feed ourselves.   But that’s the same kind of violence that a lion undertakes when he cuts down and devours a zebra.   It’s part of who we are, it’s what we need to survive.   We have brains that make it natural for us to move beyond hunting and gathering.

Of course, if corporate farmers get their way images like these may be illegal

I can’t help but think that in a generation or two people will look back and see us as barbaric and ignorant.   They’ll look at how factory farms treat animals, the way big corporations play with plant genetics and our penchant to not give a damn about nature if we can make money by manipulating it.     They’ll wonder how we could have been so brutal.

But to us it’s normal.   We don’t think about it.  We’re good consumers, programmed to spend and to believe that Monsanto’s main goal is to end world hunger and that the chickens who will make up our McNuggets are happily scampering around the coop as a loving farm girl throws them seeds.

So I’m going to shift towards farmers markets, local food, and try to stop my long running contribution to the cruelty being undertaken against plant and animal.    There are many family farms struggling to get by, working hard and treating their animals right.    I want to give them my business, as much as possible.

Ultimately, that cruelty is really directed at ourselves because everything is connected.

Such is our culture – close our eyes, mock those who think differently and see the world as full of objects to use for our own self-interest, no matter how much damage it does to the planet – to the humans, the animals, the plants, the atmosphere, the land and sea.   But I believe we are connected.   Every bit of cold cruelty that we engage in or enable comes back to bite.  And every bit of love we share or show returns in time to empower.

UPDATE:  The comment from La Kaiser below suggests that my post may read as too broad.    There are a lot of family farms here — the Daku dairy farm just up the road, Sandy River Farms that have their own store, and Marble Family farm, to name a few.  These are the good guys!   People struggling to produce quality food.  I’m concerned about the mega-corporations that look only at the bottom line and are removed from the process.   I hope that the practices shown in those images are more rare than common, but I fear that as the mega-corporations grow, it’ll be all about money.

The Christmas Season Begins

Appropriately the traditional Thanksgiving Day parade is associated with Macy’s, a retailer.

Today Americans travel to be with family and/or friends to celebrate the most traditional of American holidays.   Most people will roast a turkey, enjoy potatoes, veggies, dinner rolls, pies, and various family delights.   Even the most secular of families will talk about giving thanks for what they have.   Many families will take out the Christmas decorations, ready to celebrate “the holiday season,” where the Christmas values of peace, love, and goodwill overcome greed and selfishness.

One need not be Christian to appreciate the Christmas spirit, expressed in everything from Ebeneezer Scrooge’s visit from the spirits of past, present and future to George Bailey’s journey in It’s a Wonderful Life.  Kids get it when they watch the Grinch’s heart expanding as he hears the Whos celebrate joyfully even after he stole their Christmas loot.    The Christmas spirit reflects a belief there is something more important than material possessions and the daily grind.   Love, connection to others, and a sense of the spiritual combine to point to a more joyful and meaningful mode of living.   The eternal trumps the temporal, values trump self-interest.

Target is one of many stores opening on Thanksgiving evening as work and shopping intrude on family

Yet today, even on Thanksgiving many “big box”  stores are opening, usually at around 8:00 or 9:00 PM.  Those not opening today will do so early tomorrow, sometimes at midnight or 2:00 AM, so that shoppers can get the best bargains of the year, so called Black Friday.   Stories of violence often accompany Black Friday — shoppers being trampled as they rush to get bargains, people fighting over the last of a specially priced item.

Then for the next month malls will be full, kids will be adding to Christmas wish lists and then feel deprived if they don’t get most of what they wanted.  Stress will grow as people churn out Christmas cards as an obligation, juggle party schedules, deal with shows and activities planned for the kids, and try to get that shopping done.   The music, lights and smells of the season will offer momentary distractions, but far too often the Christmas spirit gets defined by materialism and stress.

If stress gets too intense it feels like the evil Santa above is hounding us!

Peace on earth, good will to men. “Yeah, yeah, but I have to shop, get this package to the post office, and damn, we got a Christmas card from them?  Sigh.  I think I have one more I can send out.”     “Dad, why does he have five more presents than me, it’s not fair!” It’s the most wonderful time of the year.   Yeah, for the retailers!   For the small shops in the mall!

A savior is born in Bethlehem.   Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, Wiccans and others might smile and nod, but don’t get meaning from that.   Christians will, but many will quickly pivot “hey, that’s the true meaning of Christmas, but I have to go get supplies for our party…why’d we invite so many people…”

What irony!   The Holiday most focused on our better selves has become the most stressful and materialistic time of the year.  Instead of learning the value of sacrifice and sharing, children shout “me, me, me” and fantasize about the stuff they’ll get.   Starting Thanksgiving evening we embrace raw consumerism in the extreme — “you are what you own, and today you can get great deals!”

What if people decided to reject that and grab the true Christmas spirit instead?   For Christians the answer is right there — the teachings and traditions provide a guide of how to steer clear of crass consumerism and materialism.

One does not have to be Christian to celebrate and appreciate the joy inherent in the Christmas spirit: Love for others, good deeds, giving without needing to receive, forgiveness, family, friends, and connections.  The Christmas spirit appeals to the part of ourselves that rises above self-interest and sees meaning in core human values rather than the daily routine or material possessions.  After all, early Christians choose late December in order to mesh the holiday with already existing pagan traditions.   The holiday spirit belongs to all of us, not just Christians.

The holiday spirit is a sense that life has a meaning beyond our mundane material existence.   If one cannot bring oneself to believe in something specific, then imagine — imagine the best each of us can be and the best for humanity.    The boundary between faith and imagination is blurry and perhaps non-existent.

Allow the season to be filled with beautiful, natural, spiritual joy.

The Christmas spirit is truth, even if one rejects the story behind the holiday.   That spirit can be tapped to defy the stress, material excess and greed that too often subverts this time of the year.   That spirit is here, inside each of us, and in the songs, movies, and ideals expressed this time of year.  Grab the Christmas spirit!  Share it.   Make this a season of joy rather than greed.   Let love and human connections trump selfishness and consumerism.    A family snowball fight always beats a day roaming the malls.   And maybe, just maybe, we can enter 2013 renewed rather than spent, focused on values rather than stuff, and thankful for our family, friends, and the lives we’ve chosen to lead.

Disenchanted Humans

“Entzauberung” – literally to remove magic – is the term Weber used in its original German

Disenchantment was the term Max Weber used to describe the impact of enlightenment thought on humanity.   Humans moved from a world of deep spiritual significance to one that can be measured, analyzed and reduced to it constituent parts.    Rather than experiencing reality as a deeply meaningful and even magical whole,  it has become complex mechanistic set of causal mechanisms outside the self known as nature.   Any meaning it has comes from the human mind.

Such a view of reality is both implausible and untenable.  It is untenable because recent discoveries in modern physics, especially in the realm of quantum mechanics, defy a mechanized view of reality.     We don’t know exactly what the nature of reality is, but it’s definitely not some kind of mechanistic set of material chain reactions!   It’s implausible for the same reason we now see old geo-centric cosmological theory as misguided – it views human experience as the center of all reality.

The complex geo-centric models of the universe went to great lengths to keep the earth the center of everything; our current world view does the same for our minds

Think of it – a whole cosmos and the vast multiverse, all a lifeless, soulless set of material interactions with no meaning or core value.   All meaning, value and understanding in the universe takes place within the brains of carbon based life forms on one nondescript planet.   Even if we allow that there may be life forms similar to us on other planets, the result is the same:  a meaningless universe of causal mechanisms, forces and particles.   Meaning only comes as minds behold, label, and try to understand it.

Oh what vain creatures we mortals are!   We no longer believe our planet an unmoving center of the universe, but we think our minds are the essence of what gives reality meaning.   Without our minds to behold the world there would be no meaning, no value, just inanimate forces and particles buzzing about.  Looked at that way, the rationalist world view of enlightenment thought looks pretty absurd.

Still, the enlightenment was about liberation.   The individual now came first.   Rather than being products of a community, individuals were now seen as the creators of community.   As such they had to use reason to determine how to structure it, became responsible for their own happiness and success, and learned to question or distrust the religions and traditions which had provided meaning and social cohesion.

The biggest drawback, noted by first real critic of the enlightenment, Jean Jacques Rousseau, is alienation.   The individual used to be part of something greater than himself.    An individual in so-called primitive times was one with nature, a part of an enchanted world where every event, action and experience had meaning connected to that person’s life.    The boundary between the self and the wider world was imprecise.    Even after Christian thought came to dominate the individual was part of a community, had value due to his or her role, and had a network of support in the clan, village or extended family.   Religion provided certainty in life – as bad as things may be here, a paradise awaits!

Now we’re not so sure.   Most religion myths are seen as implausible, and ever since Montesquieu it’s been clear that the idea that salvation could be an accident of birth – a baby lucky to born in Iowa is likely to be taught the “right” religion while one born in Cairo may be doomed to hell – doesn’t seem likely from a loving God.  In fact the ability of one culture to think its religion the one true one is far fetched.   When you look at the claims of individual religions, their stories break down.

Moreover, individual responsibility for happiness, value and meaning in life — what the enlightenment liberates us to pursue — is a daunting task.   With advertisers insisting that you can’t have a happy life without the newest product, magazine covers defining beauty, and material wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, it’s easy to feel like one is failing.   Even Mitt Romney, the GOP Presidential candidate, stated that prosperous countries have “better cultures” than those with less wealth (he used GDP per capita as the defining principle).   Get that – a culture is judged to be superior ont the basis of its economic output!

There is so much societal pressure to create material possessions with meaning – something that always leaves us wanting more (which is what advertisers want!)

Disenchanted humans, burdened with these tasks handle the challenge in various ways.   Most will turn to existing religions, friends and family, their communities, and their own life experiences to find meaning.  Often this yields an outcome good enough to make life bearable, and sometimes even pleasurable.   Others lose themselves in a host of distractions – sports, gossip, politics, activism, life-dramas, entertainment, books, etc – and train themselves not to think about any deep meaning to life.   That may be hectic, but it makes life like sleep walking.

Yet this disconnection with the world has yet another sinister side, the violence and destruction which has accompanied western thought.  We have high GDPs, but we’ve had the most destructive wars and pioneered true weapons of mass destruction.  We continue to devastate the environment and treat plants and animals as mere products.   After all if only the human mind provides meaning, everything else is to be used.  Their value is measured by the utility they provide for humans.   Colonialism, war, and the destruction of cultures (which, of course, are inferior if they are economically lower — hence exploiting them is doing them a favor by extending western ideas to them) are all actions inherent in this disconnect between individuals and the rest of existence.

It’s time to recognize that enlightenment thought without a spiritual component is untenable.   It’s time to assert that meaning cannot just exist in individual disconnected minds.   It’s time to recognize that we are part of a larger reality where meaning permeates all of existence.   We may not buy the symbols primitive peoples held – indeed, we need to build on rather than reject western thought.   Religious fundamentalists fear modernism because of its disenchanting quality, we need to rediscover enchantment!

As a new information revolution expands our power to connect and communicate, as modern physics breaks down boundaries and shows how little we understand the true nature of reality, we humans have to discover the natural empathy within us.  Enlightenment thought turns off the deep connections we have with the rest of reality, forcing us to experience life through a stark dichotomy of internal and external.   Somehow we have to find a way to reach and feel beyond that.   If we can we’ll have a revolution in thinking that can open doors, expand understanding, and overcome the dark side of enlightenment rationalism.

I don’t mean some kind of new age mysticism or magic crystals.   I also don’t mean a complete rejection of western rationalism.     We simply need a re-enchantment of human existence.   I’m not sure how this will look, but the first step must be to think about the world differently.   See it as magical, see ourselves as connected, to try to feel those connections and the lack of a true boundary between object and subject.   Experience coincidence as synchronicity, see the internal reflected in the external and vice-versa. The world isn’t as meaningless, cold and separate as we’ve been taught to believe.

The Time of Transition

A piece of the fabric of space-time fractured in my office today and a description of a course to be offered in 2279 slipped through. Weird, that.

It is the year 2279.     Here Professor Hubert Morgan talks about the popular history course on the era of transition from 1985 to 2065 when somehow the global system survived a series of crises without collapsing.   Instead, the basis for the peaceful global union we have today was forged.

We look back at the era as one of instability, riots and fear that we luckily managed to survive – students in this course learn to understand the era through the eyes of those who actually lived through it!

People come to the course with a variety of expectations.   They know that this was the era of globalization, economic crisis, the collapse of the sovereign state as a system of governance, intense global warming, energy crises and famine, but they also know that the story had a happy ending.   Not only did they solve their problems through a mix of technological ingenuity, political creativity and adaptation, but they forged an ongoing era of peace, known as the Global Union.

In my course I try to as much as possible get them to experience that era the way the people living through it did — not knowing for sure what was happening, finding it hard to let go of old concepts and ideals, and fearful of the future.

Students get hands on experience with old technology such as this mid-1980s version of a “personal computer.” Now seen as ancient and archaic, these machines were the gateway into the information revolution that changed the world.

We start at 1985 – the year when both globalization and the information revolution started to take off.    We spend time there, learning about the culture, the state of the world, the films (students especially enjoy one called “Back to the Future”), the games, and the music.

Students laugh when they see the 1985 game “tetris,” which looks much like the exercises two year olds engage in to develop spatial cognition. “It’s surprisingly addictive,” one student grudgingly noted.

People choose various media experiences – that was the age of motion pictures, television, and the emergence of music on compact discs – large cumbersome devices that nonetheless opened the door to the era of digital music.  The idea is to immerse themselves in this strange but fascinating past before heading onto the roller coaster of the next eighty years.

Students take awhile to understand ideology.   Ideology is now seen as a kind of mental prison forcing people into stagnant modes of thought, but politics was ideological in those days.   Students need to understand the bizarre “Cold War” and why it was so difficult for people to think outside narrow political or national boundaries.  It’s not that people were stupid or bigoted, they simply saw that world of ideology, ethnicity and states as natural.

We also explore why warnings on the growing economic imbalances, the loss of oil as a major energy source, and global warming were ignored and even denied.   One student described it as “cultural group think.”

I think the part that often most startles them is the “trips” to virtual farms to see how animals were treated and food produced.   Even though they know it’s not real, when talking to the farmers the odors, inhumane treatment of the animals and the way in which chemicals and other additives are simply dumped into the food chain sometimes makes some students physically ill.   Of all the things that make life 300 years ago so wretched, most say food production is the biggest reason they wouldn’t want to go back!

Nothing prepares students for the virtual tours of chicken farms, and immersion into the food and chemical culture of the era. “How could they eat what was treated so barbarically?” students ask. The answer – most people never gave a second thought to where their food came from, or how it was manufactured.

Of course, the worst part of that era — 2015 to 2045 — can’t help but grab attention.  Looked at as a thirty year “era” it’s easy to understand it and figure out why things worked out the way they did.   In our course we try to accentuate the uncertainty people living through that era experienced – they truly feared global instability, mass warfare, disease and even human survival.

As global warming rendered huge sections of the planet virtually uninhabitable due to drought and disease, many thought that humans would fall back into savagery and chaos.

We follow the side stories of the scientists, politicians, thinkers and cultural icons that strove to keep civilization together and built ties between the impoverished suffering states of Africa and parts of Asia with the technologically advanced people in Europe and North America.    Students recognize how fragile these connections were, especially early on, and how easily they might have been destroyed by fearful nationalism and bigotry.    The wisdom that global cooperation was necessary was a hard sell only on!

In 1901 the first “gusher” at Mt. Spindletop in Texas helped usher in the age of oil – cheap, transportable and extremely efficient energy. A whole society was built on cheap energy, and when oil became scarce by the 2020s people feared collapse.

The final era is that of consolidation, from 2045 to 2065 when the Treaty of Global Union was signed and most of the severe problems of the 21st Century were solved.     This includes the new economics in which the ideologies of capitalism and socialism were jettisoned for a pragmatic approach that combined ideas from all, but focused on human liberty and opportunity as the core values.    Massive debt was wiped out as all old currencies were simply abolished and the world started a new with a global currency and blank slate.   In retrospect all that seems to have been inevitable, but students learn how gut wrenching and scary it was while the issues were debated.

In the course we trace how the information revolution led to the capacity to massively decentralize government and bring it closer to the people, making possible a “Global Union” of core shared rules but little centralized power.   They realize how odd such an arrangement would look to an early 21st Century human so used to seeing centralization and de-centralization as mutually incompatible.

The new science of energy, food and climate is perhaps the most intriguing.  We all learn it as natural, and look back at the materialism, consumerism, pollution and poisonous chemicals as a barbaric aspect of the old era.   In this class students learn how that was taken as natural, and how dramatic the change in thinking was — so dramatic that absent global catastrophe it might never have happened.

The virtual trips to the era are life like.  It is as if we have traveled back in time, our ability to use holography to create worlds that appear completely real to our senses makes this possible.

The past comes alive for students with hyper-programmed holographic technology — something imagined (albeit in very crude form) back in 1987 on a show known as Star Trek.

This course reminds us of crises caused by the era of greed, corruption, materialism, lack of respect for the environment and pursuit of pure self-interest without regard for the common good.   By learning about the past we can better understand our present, appreciate what we’ve accomplished, and remind ourselves that humans do best when we understand we share a common destiny, both with each other and with our planet.

If Only We Had Listened Then

On July 15, 1979 President Carter returned from nearly two weeks at Camp David to give a speech that would be remembered as a highlight — and some might say a lowlight — of his Presidency.   The speech is often the subject of such caricature that it gets remembered as far different than it was.   Called the “crisis of confidence” speech, it got morphed into the “malaise” speech (though Carter never used the term) and was trashed by his opponents, both Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

At the time of the speech it was well received.   His approval ratings jumped from 25% to 35% in the week afterwards.   In that speech he said America was at a cross roads.   He painted two visions of the path forward:

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

The first path was one with a mistaken notion of freedom as being all about self-interest and distrust of community.   That path would lead, he warned, to crass materialism, narrow self-interest, and an unsustainable economy.   It would be a rejection of the values that made America great in favor of individual pursuit of people trying to get whatever they could, looking out only for their own bottom line, and justifying any injustices with a claim that if the market provided that result, it must be OK.   As Carter warned:

“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.  Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by what one owns.  But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.”

The second path was one leading to energy independence, a focus on alternative energies, and a renewal of the American community.   For Carter this was a moral issue.   America’s future depends on the American people putting values ahead of greed, and coming together to face a world where we had become susceptible to oil shocks, facing economic uncertainty and realizing that the government couldn’t solve America’s problems.   He called the country to come together and take a long range vision of what is needed, avoiding the temptation to turn to cheap and illusory solutions.

If you don’t want to watch the speech, you can read it here.

Instead the US choose to follow another path, put forward by Ronald Reagan who defeated Carter in 1980 and promised Americans they could, as the beer commercial said “have it all.”

Reagan’s vision was seductive.   First of all, Reagan was a good man and people trusted him.   He clearly believed what he said.   He also was telling Americans what they wanted to hear.   The problems we face aren’t ones of values and the need for difficult choices.   All we need to do is cut taxes and let the American people shine and we’ll be that “shining city on the hill” once again.

When Reagan came into office he removed the solar panels Carter had installed on the White House.    He cut taxes.   The economy grew.   But yet, it was indeed an illusion.    The economy would have grown no matter who had been elected, deep oil price cuts injected massive amounts of money into the economy.   The recession that was so bad in 1980 had been induced by Paul Volcker’s monetary policies; once inflation was tamed, that and lower oil prices were a certain path to ending the recession.

But Reagan and the Democrats — this was a bi-partisan illusion — then engaged in a massive build up of debt.   US government debt to GDP ratio went from 30% to 60% in the 1980s.   That hyperstimulated the economy and started us down the road of having an unsustainable debt-based consumer economy.   Consumer debt started to rise too.    Total debt (private and public) had tended to hover around 150%.   In the 80s that debt zoomed up to over 250%.   The economic boom associated to Reagan was simply a country charging on its credit card, going into debt, and thinking things must be good because they could buy so much stuff.

Of course this continued.   Government debt growth slowed in the 90s, but private and consumer debt kept soaring.   Debt and low taxes on the wealthy produced not jobs via trickle down economics, but bubbles as investors chased the dream of “something for nothing.”   Americans both left and right thought that the good times would last forever, even as debt mounted to nearly 400% of GDP overall (public and private).

Now we’re in a crisis of massive debt, fears of long term energy crises, and no clear way to get back on the path of sustainability.    It’s led to wars and our political system, once the envy of the world, seems defined by partisan pundits who too often see compromise as something for only the weak.   Given that the US system can only run via compromise, it’s a path towards political stagnation and fragmentation at a time when we need to come together.

If we had listened to Carter in 1979 and saw the country’s problems as rooted in a weakening of the core values of community and sacrifice in favor of consumption and greed, we might now be in a much better place with a far better future.    Yet we didn’t.   But we can still learn from Carter’s words.   Our problems are primarily about values and ethics, not about economics and policy.   Focus there first and come together as a country true to our core principles — values shared by the left and the right — and we can start to rebuild the American dream.

Social Media and New Thinking

Facebook is wonderful.    Friends post news stories, funny links, and often inspirational gems.   One link someone posted purports to be the secret to happiness; if you can do what this post says, you will be happy!   All you have to do is give up 15 things:   15 Things you should give up to be happy. 

1.  Give up your need to always be right.
2.  Give up your need for control.
3.  Give up on blame.
4.  Give up your self-defeating self-talk.
5.  Give up your limiting beliefs.
6.  Give up complaining.
7.  Give up the luxury of criticism
8.  Give up your need to impress others.
9.  Give up your resistance to change.
10.  Give up labels.
11.  Give up on your fears.
12.  Give up your excuses.
13.  Give up the past.
14.  Give up attachment.
15.  Give up living your life to others’ expectations.

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory.   Giving up attachment, the post points out, does not mean giving up your love for others and your desire to help.   To me it’s the capacity to detach from the context and understand it all in perspective.

Yet as I contemplate the list I started to think about how these sorts of ideas and messages are being spread on Facebook and other forms of social media, and where that might lead.  I went to the website for “purposefairy.”    It turns out that it is the work of a Romanian born woman named Dana.  The last post appears to be almost a year old (the one linked above).    Other posts are mostly lists, like this one detailing what happy people do differently than unhappy folk.

The comments on the most recent post are almost all from within the last couple weeks.  There are 189 comments, only five seem to come from a time close to when the list was posted.  That means that her post on happiness probably started getting spread on Facebook just a few weeks ago — most of them were just in the last week.  She’s shifted focus from a blog to social media, and the ideas have taken off.

The purposefairy’s facebook page is liked by 16,557 people at this point.   The image atop this blog post was taken from her facebook cover photo.   She often posts links to past blog entries, keeping those messages alive,

There are similarities between the purpose fairy and “Empathic guidance” a woman named Sharon who also has a facebook page.   I’ve been reading her blog for some time.   She mixes inspirational facebook ideas with a more sophisticated commentary about the state of the world/humanity on her blog.

She has inspirational images like this:

With more “political” messages like this:

Empathic Guidance sees the world starting an era of transformation, and she connects personal change with global change.   It’s a powerful mix.   Purposefairy is more focused on advance on relationships and personal well being.   Whereas Empathic Guidance is listed under “community”, Purposefairy is under “health and wellness.”  Empathic guidance is liked by 1195 people, less than Purposefairy, but her facebook page started recently, January 24, 2012.  Purposefairy’s began on February 23, 2011.

My point?  I think Empathic Guidance (or Empathy 2012) is right that something is changing.   I also believe that Facebook and other forms of social media are only starting to have an impact by spreading ideas and connecting people across boundaries.   The boundaries can be geographical, cultural or temporal — across generations.   Empathic Guidance alikens this to an “awakening,” and that seems a good metaphor.  People are starting wake up!

Most of the time people think about the political or community/social aspects of social media.  You stay in contact with friends, you can build connections for political action, and campaigns tweet and twitter.   But spreading messages about psychological well being, seeing the world from a different perspective, and emphasizing human ethics is a powerful counter to the way messages of consumerism, envy and blame have created self-defeating thinking.

People have started to see themselves as victims in a cold world where one struggles to find meaning and contentment.  Discontent and dissatisfied, unable to find true joy in the competitive materialism of the modern world, people too often try to find something to blame for perceived deficiencies in their lives.    People blame their boss, their job, their spouse, their kids, the ‘system’ (the right blames big government, the left blames capitalism), big business, the poor, the rich…everyone but themselves.   Yet where we have real power is in our own lives, and our own thoughts.

So I’ll finish by quoting Purposefairy:

Everything that happened to us until now, happened because of the choices we made, because of our actions, and everything we have felt, we felt because of how we chose to process everything that came our way, because of our attitudes toward everything and everyone, and whatever we choose to focus our attention in this moment, and whatever actions we choose to take, will eventually determine how our life will look in the next days, weeks, months and maybe years. It’s not faith, it’s not bad luck, it’s not the horrible people that keep showing up in your life… it’s only you. You and your perceptions, you and your attitude toward life, and toward every single person you encounter with. You see, our attitude toward all of them will eventually determine their attitude toward us, and how they will choose to treat us, while at the same time, our attitude toward life will determine life’s attitude toward us.

Though my blog focuses on politics, I think there is more going on.  Even if the economic and the political news seems distressing, there is also a growth of positivity, the rumblings of an awakening that can change the world for the better.  That gives me optimism for the future.