Click the picture to see the full-size landscape version (850 x 673 pixels, 107 KB) suitable for US Letter or A4 size printing.
A portrait version is also available. See too the posters set on the new Trinifar Flikr page.
Now you can print a flier and hand it out to your friends, family, and colleagues!
In my wildest dreams, here’s what happens:
A teacher sees this post and prints off a few dozen copies of the “think about the future” poster to stimulate classroom discussion. After an initial exchange of thoughts, the class is divided into groups, each tasked to investigate one of the poster’s charts. The next time the class meets, they present their findings and engage in some give-and-take about why these particular charts were included in the handout.
Seems to me, some variation of this would work with students as young as 14 (given a little basic algebra) and up to those as old as Methuselah. (Why assume learning stops after high school or college graduation?)
Some students might take away a few of these salient points:
- Up to about 1700 world population and CO2 concentration hardly changed at all.
- After the industrial and green revolutions, both population and atmospheric CO2 concentration began to increase rapidly.
- The US generates dramatically more CO2 per person than China, and both the US and China generate far more CO2 per person than the world average.
- To meet the Kyoto Protocol goals, CO2 output needs to be 2.9 tCO2/person on average which is already higher than the world average. The current US average is 7 times the Kyoto goal.
- The GDP measures only total gross economic activity without differentiating between benefits and costs. There are other measures of the economy which add up benefits then subtract costs. One of these is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), and it has been stagnant for the last 30 years — while the GDP has continued to increase.
- In the United States (and pretty much everywhere else), fossil fuels are, by far, the main source of energy.
- Nearly all coal is used to generate electricity.
- Nearly all oil is used for transportation.
- Natural gas is mainly used to heat homes and for industrial processes.
- Hydroelectric and other renewable energy resources contribute only a small amount to our total energy needs.
- The official report of the US Dept of Energy projects total US energy use going up 30% by 2030 in its reference (business-as-usual) case.
- The portion of energy supplied by renewables and nuclear power will not change much.
- Oil and natural gas imports will increase significantly.
- This same official US Dept of Energy report published in February 2007 projects in its reference case that the price of crude oil in 2030 will be $52/barrel, and in the “high price” case $93/barrel.
- Meanwhile the cost of crude oil as of November 2007, only 9 months after publication of the report, is nearly $100/barrel.
- Some might conclude that the official 2007 US Dept of Energy projections aren’t worth crap — even though the department has a budget of more than $23 billion and, as the report says, the authors have “endeavored to make these projections as objective, reliable, and useful as possible….”
Pondering those points, some students might wonder:
- Why are the US Dept of Energy projections so unrealistic? (If they can be so wrong on oil pricing, what parts are reliable?)
- Why the media does not report CO2 emissions per person? (Why, in fact, do they have to find that data on a blog like Trinifar?)
- How, given the vast investment in fossil fuel technology, can the United States begin to make a dent in its CO2 output? How can it shift to renewables quickly enough to avoid the 450 ppm tipping point?
- Why hasn’t the US taken any definitive steps toward reducing its CO2 output?
- What’s up with the emphasis on the GDP when the GPI remains stagnant for decades? Even teenagers can see that taking the family income and adding in their family’s costs isn’t a meaningful measure of how well the family is doing. Why doesn’t the media begin to report the GPI since it’s tells us about genuine progress rather than the GDP, a crude and almost meaningless measure of gross activity?
Since this is “in my wildest dreams,” I have to add: A few students might begin to think about how they can deepen their understanding of these things and affect meaningful change in the society in which they live.
The thing is, while there might be a place in our universities to take up this handout, I’m not sure such a discussion can find a place in American high schools. Where would it fit? Too much math (sadly) for social studies, too much about the future for history class, too relevant (down-to-earth) for mathematics, and to my knowledge high school science is about chemistry, physics, and biology none of which are a good fit (although the combination of them is right on the money). Maybe some of you are more up-to-date than I am with respect to the standard curriculum.
I’m not sure such a discussion can find a place in American high schools. Where would it fit?
Well, they somehow need to get ecology and sustainability studies into the classroom. Does anyone think it would be a bad idea to replace social studies with it?
Kind of embarrassing that I’d forgotten about social studies. When I was growing up we had social studies in junior high (grades 7 to 9) then it was replaced in high school (grades 10 to 12) with history.
This article, Why We Need to Save (and Strengthen) Social Studies by Judith L. Pace just appeared in Education Week and says,
What Is Social Studies? says,
As the title implies, it offers a definition:
So, yes, social studies seems like the prefect place to talk about sustainability issues. I wonder if it is happening?
Well, you did mention social studies in your last paragraph!
But I had the same sort of curriculum you did, with social studies turning into history in HS.
To me, the sustainability issue seems so important that I think it would be wise to make it a big part of social studies. Then maybe it could be worked into history as well. After all, the history of how we got into this mess is pretty illuminating.
By the way, I’m tentatively set to give a talk on population to a class of 9th graders in March. It should be interesting. I’m pretty good with younger kids, but have little experience with 14 or 15 year olds. Should be interesting trying to figure out how to engage them. My 12 year old said, “Just don’t talk some kind of maniac. And give them candy!”
Hey, Trinifar, you ought to know that I share great many of your wildest dreams. And you know, very well, that I am one of those right bastards who see the topic of global warming and climate change as a social issue. I know that humanity is walking (or rather: drunk-driving) down a barbarian path of environmental destruction of every conceivable kind, and that a combination of history, sociology, anthropology, and psychology can give us all a lead to understanding why that is so. We’re fast becoming victims, all of us, of a long range of very bad habits that have gained its rightful place by now as the cornerstones of our modern culture and civilization.
John, when you’re going to talk to 14 and 15-year-olds, you had better not talk too much; ask a few questions and have the teenagers themselves do most of the talking. You’ll be amazed at what these people have been thinking over and made up their mind about.
Break a leg, and not your jaw.
John: Well, you did mention social studies in your last paragraph!
Yeah, but was only thinking about junior high/middle school. Only after searching a bit did I find that it is something taught to older students too.
Magne: …you ought to know that I share great many of your wildest dreams.
Yes, and you ought to know that several of the posts on Trinifar are the direct result of your writing here and elsewhere.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking of doing – engaging them with questions, perhaps after a very brief (10 minutes?) presentation.
A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine who is a teacher. He stated that the students today are much more savvy than in previous generations. They are much more cynical of the standard arguments and have access to a much wider variety of information resources, especially via the internet. I wonder if this suggests that the younger generations are now looking for fresh voices in the political landscape, voices not tainted by associations with powerful groups. Australia’s recent election result tends to suggest this is happening, the emergence of Obama and Ron Paul is suggestive of the same in the US, as is a recent analysis I encountered suggesting that in the US teenagers were leaving the churches “in droves”. Fundamentalism in christianity and Islam may have represented the first wave of this change, in time this change may mature so those extremes die off and a more reasoned and pragmatic political and social philosophy emerges. This is my faith and I’m sticking to it.
You put your finger on something that’s bothered me for a long time. The 1960’s and early 70’s were a time of significant youthful activism around issues like Viet Nam, civil rights, poverty, and the environment — directly challenging the powers that be. We haven’t seen anything like that since — and not because war has gone away and social and economic problems have been solved.
Only something like that, a major social shakeup, people taking to the streets and rejecting en masse the status quo, will get the quality of attention our current situation requires.
The problem there Trinifar is that in those good old days the youth had time and opportunity to think about politics and protest. These days they are too busy working to keep up with the latest news and too worried about their future to risk being arrested or take time out to protest. So in these days what we tend to see is the middle aged much more involved in protest movements because they have the time to do so and don’t have anything to lose. For some of them it even becomes “trendy” to be out there at the barricades. Good on them, but sadly the youth are not in a position, not yet anyway, to develop the 60’s style activism.
I’m not sure it is so different today than 40 years ago, but even accepting that, let’s provide the seed. Those of us who are older and more established can lead the way. Frankly, that’s what happened in the 1960’s. As much as it was identified as a “youth movement” it was led by older people who had a deeper understanding of the issues and consequences.
The demonstrations at the Seattle WTO were a good start. So were the large demonstrations in Europe preceding the invasion of Iraq. I was in Amsterdam at that time and quite impressed with the vitality of the movement there.
John Hasenkam: “I wonder if this suggests that the younger generations are now looking for fresh voices in the political landscape, voices not tainted by associations with powerful groups.”
I’d love to believe that the voters of this world would start to expect elected politicians to represent THEM, and not the interests of a stampeding lot of lobbyists, paid and cared for by a narrow social elite whose political power is seen, not in the open, but in the shadows somewhere, ever present.
What if “global warming” and “climate change” (manmade or not) have come to constitute the headline points of “the new normal” — ie.: a planetary crisis of such magnitude that the best thing to do is learn to cope with it? And not be too worried about any other form of environmental degradation either, as it’s going to make things even worse; you should take better care of your brain.
What if the key myth of this “new normal” would have you understand that being bothered to even think about global warming and climate change, along with a most depressing series of other environmental crisis points, now constitutes a mental disease in its own right?
I’m sorry. — Information overload on my part, I guess.
The establishment of a “new normal” is a very real fear. Just yesterday listening to a panel discussion of the Bali conference the GWB spokesman repeatedly emphasized adaption and the need to avoid anything that might reduce GDP growth. Argh!
RE: – The establisment of a “new normal” is a very real fear.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060914180312.htm
“Farmers need to factor in that they are not always going to get needed rainfall.”
- —
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/us-needs-to-plan-for-climate-change-induced-summer-droughts-12616.html
“The dry summers that we’ve experienced recently may pale in comparison to what could happen in the near future. There is a kind of domino effect as temperatures warm. Precipitation that would have fallen as snow will come as rain and run off more quickly. Spring runoffs begin earlier. Summers lengthen and evaporation increases.”
“Barriers to using new scientific information may come form a combination of technical, cognitive, financial, institutional and cultural factors, [Katharine L. Jacobs] said.”
- —
http://www.evolutionshift.com/blog/category/water/
“The question is not is there or is there not global warming. The question is not whether we humans have anything to do with it. The question is managing risk. Whether there is global warming or not, as a species we should be planning for the worst. If we don’t, hundreds of millions of us will most likely perish over the next 75 years.”
Humanity is in danger of losing the exquisite value in one of God’s great gifts: the carefully and skillfully developed science on climate change and global warming.
Is it possible that the standard for determining what is real and true in our culture today is this: whatsoever is widely shared, consensually validated and judged to be ecomonically expedient, politically convenient, socially agreeable and religiously tolerated is true and real?
At least to me, it seems that good science is being ignored, distractions presented ubiquitously, controversy literally manufactured, or else silence allowed to prevail when reasonable and sensible scientific evidence comes into conflict with what culture prescribes as real and true. Perhaps science does present culture with evidence of inconvenient truths.
Perhaps we have before us a situation in which contrived logic, linear thinking, material obsessiveness and a mechanistic world view, that we see pervading the predominant culture on Earth in our time, could result in the children recklessly charging down a “primrose path” at our behest only to be confronted by a colossal ecologic or economic wreckage, the likes of which only Ozymandias has seen.
Despite our best efforts, could it be that my not-so-great generation of elders is communicating with one another and our children as if we are living in a modern day Tower of Babel? Is our noticeable failure to communicate reasonably and sensibly about whatsoever is somehow real, and to widely share adequate understandings regarding both how the family of humanity “fits” within the natural order of living things and what are the limitations of the planet we inhabit, in evidence here and now?
It appears that the human community is indeed in a serious multifaceted predicament, but only in part because of the objective biological and physical circumstances defining our distinctly human-driven predicament. The global challenges in the offing are further complicated by our failure to communicate effectively about the potentially pernicious results that could be derived from having recklessly grown a soon to become patently unsustainable, colossal global economy, one which we have artificially designed, conveniently constructed, and relentlessly expanded without enough conscious, intelligent regard for the practical requirements of biophysical reality.
Could it be that the current gigantic scale and unchecked growth rate of the global economy is unsustainably driving increases both in adamant per human over-consumption and skyrocketing human population numbers toward the point in human history when the willful, rampant, unregulated growth of consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species precipitates the collapse of Earth’s ecology, even in these early years of Century XXI?
Your consideration is appreciated; your comments are welcome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix
“The term technological fix is most appropriately applied when considering certain types of problems–ones involving both technology and a human societal dimension. It can then be used to distinguish this family of solutions from a distinctly different family of solutions: those involving an attitudinal fix.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitudinal_fix
“An attitudinal fix refers to solving a problem or resolving a conflict by bringing about an attitude change. Persuasion, mediation, diplomacy, and consciousness raising campaigns are ways of doing this.”
- —
Oh well.
I can agree, wholeheartedly (although my heart has been broken into some 935 pieces already), with those of us who believe that climate change must be considered “the new normal” — in acknowledgement of the fact that such a lot of effects of global warming cannot be avoided, short term. It’s a natural fact, of course. Human greenhouse gas pollution of the atmosphere has been massive for a very long time; it is still increasing, and expected to keep doing so for plenty of years, as humanity’s ruling class is awaiting the introduction of “future technological fixes” to the scientific fact — and big problem — of global warming.
To the best of my understanding, this was the real outcome of the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Bali. The IPCC’s scientific consensus, which won’t let humanity off the hook, is to be considered the official truth on which future policy-making is going to respond.
But there’s a tendency among ordinary people to do away with all thoughts about a change of attitudes. It seems to me like the vast majority of human beings are ready to take what is coming, and wait it out. As the thought of mitigating practices in the form of real lifestyle changes is out of the question, as it runs contrary to everyone’s idea of being happy.
Hmm?
Steve,
I repeat myself here, I know, but I really adore this phrase of yours: “widely shared, consensually validated and judged to be economically expedient, politically convenient, socially agreeable and religiously tolerated.”
Now, you seem to raise a question over what — according to “our culture today” — might be the definition of true and real. It even seems to me that you are, as a matter of fact, questioning the right of cultural elites, or whosoever it may be that wields powers of definition to decide what might be real and true.
Well, anyway: that’s what I do. I’m grappling with what I’ve called “the economic criterion of rationality” — which seems to be the key concept to understanding why it is impossible for big blocs of human beings (on a local, national, regional, continental, or global level) to “come together” and start to co-operate.
Modern humans do not know the first thing about sharing. The global, capitalist economy prevents us from doing so. It is based on rather violent forms of white-collar competition, and the only form of justice that is serves, is the famous 50 Cent mantra: “Get Rich or Die Trying” — that’s all there is to it, really, and everyone who is still in his/her right (modern) mind, is fully aware of this.
I believe the relatively small percentage of big spenders and money-makers of this world — who are in complete control of all industries, all banks, all armies, all books of law, and all political offices of this world — is quite naturally able to do nothing other than all that which serves their best economic interests. It’s the logic of the globalized business culture of our times: the nature of the game. They simply cannot think outside the economic box of theirs. Or bubble. Or whatever. They’re just hooked on growth. And because they are the people who employ other people — large masses of lower- and middle-class citizens, who have all come to depend on the salaries they get for doing their jobs, honestly, dutifully and respectfully — they remain as powerful as they’ve ever been. Money makes power, and power makes right. There’s nothing new in this, and everybody ought to know it. Only foolish people like myself will think too much about this, of course, as everybody knows it’ll only make you feel bad.
Reality bites. That’s true and that’s real. Determining what’s culture, what’s social and political systems and what might be best known as human nature, is — at least in my case, which is still untold — becoming more and more difficult as days, weeks and months go by.
I don’t know this for certain, but I would like to imagine that this age of global concern for the changing climate systems of this planet is making way for new definitions of what it is that is true and right. — And not only what is profitable and what is not. Well, so to speak. –
Is it possible that the standard for determining what is real and true in our culture today is this: whatsoever is widely shared, consensually validated and judged to be ecomonically expedient, politically convenient, socially agreeable and religiously tolerated is true and real?
–
More likely it is probable and in accord with a great part of human history. We can go mad chasing truth so it is better not to bother. The value of modern science is not that it represents another method of arriving at the truth but that it allows us ever greater degrees of precision in our control over the environment. That is, whatever be said to finally be “true” is ultimately irrelevant in the very greater part of scientific endeavour, the ultimate goal of nearly all modern human intellectual activity is the power it gives us over the environment. Human beings need to stop obsessing about what is true and focus much more on what is pragmatic. “Secularism” is not about the abandonment of religion but the embracing of a methodology for developing understandings about the universe which facilitate goals that are primarily driven by a strange and damning admixture of pragmatic goals and idealistic intentions.
We must learn to appreciate that for most people what constitutes truth is that which emanates from the all too human authority figures people have chosen to place their trust in. Thus if one chooses to believe that our current leaders know what they are doing and will lead us in the right direction they will accept their judgements and look askance at those who would disagree. For many people there is no external frame of reference to determine the veracity of various opinions traveling about the public domain. There are those who place their faith in the rantings of a Bill O’Reilly, indeed one is tempted to think that such faith betrays a certain intellectual laziness and a deep seated belief that he who shouts the loudest must be the brightest. It seems to me that the majority of population prefer stories rather than science and that is the real problem that we must deal with. Unfortunately it may also be intractable.
As thinkers like Jung have pointed out mythology and narratives are central to culture, these things define culture, give it purpose, and often play a central role in determining what is true. Rationality has no place here, the story is the real thing. Ironically there is a certain logic to that in that rationality can never be sufficient as a cultural underpinning. Even as individuals we long for the right story to guide our lives, the meaning we seek is not found in rational argument but in those aspects of our being that are arational. It is silly to talk about a rational way to live, there certainly can be rational behavior but ultimately the way we choose to live is not grounded in rationality but in our personal history, cultural context, and genetic history. We do not choose the myths to guide our lives those myths are us. I suppose the trick is knowing when the myths that have been guiding one’s life have lost their relevance and new myths must be embraced. As for myself, I am a wanderer, without hope and without god in this world, but nonetheless quite content because for me life will always be a mystery. As I told everyone a long time ago now: I have resigned from the human race, I do not wish to be associated with a species that is destroying what is to our knowledge the most creative and beautiful planet in the universe.
Cultures though need myths and stories, that is their essence. As Carl Jung would assert the survival of cultures, and indeed of most individuals, is contingent on their ability to inculcate the appropriate myths for their circumstances. Most of the time we do this quite unconsciously, we may rest self assured in the knowledge that we are choosing our way but our way is us, we cannot be choosing ourselves, that is a logical impossibility. Even the concept of “self control” has a certain oxymoronic nature to it. As long as we persist in this belief that we are rational creatures making conscious decisions about who we are and how we should live we will continue to unconsciously blunder along into the future. The prevailing mythologies of our age, those of self awareness and rationality, gives each of us the right to primacy of opinion and so stand on opposite sides of the fence shouting obscenities at those on the other side who clearly are “out of the minds”, idiots, brainwashed …. .
While it is fair to say that science can never give us a meaningful mythology what is can do is powerfully demonstrate when the myths we have embraced are deeply wrong and going to cause us a great deal of grief. I do not believe science should be used to directly challenge belief structures but it most certainly should be called upon to demonstrate when certain practical consequences of belief structures are to our detriment. My bias has always been to focus my attention on the concrete, practical implications of science, in the main I very much eschew the more metaphysical meandering that science can encourage in many. I perceive such meandering is a misapplication of science, a failure to understand that the primary purpose of science is not to challenge stories and mythologies(though it certainly can do that) but rather to guide us in our practical dealings with the universe.
Recent history however has pitted science against religion in general. A number of texts, most notably “The God Delusion” and “Breaking the Spell” have set out to demonstrate why Science demands the elimination of Religion. The irony of this is that a rational analysis of human nature strongly indicates that myths and stories are very important in structuring our lives hence wholesale assaults against the same are likely to be met with violent opposition that will only entrench both parties behind their barricades thereby precluding the hope of any future fruitful dialogue. To be fair Daniel Dennett powerfully and eloquently argues in Breaking the Spell that the goal is not to mock or ridicule but to build bridges of communication. Unfortunately many atheists are too silly to appreciate how important this is. On the other hand, Richard Dawkins is being stupid, his emphasis on mockery and frontal assault betrays a profound misunderstanding of human behavior and cognition, hence it is not surprising that many have accused him of making the same epistemological errors he so stridently condemns in others. It is interesting to note that while these texts appeared to make some headway the impact of the same has largely receded from mainstream culture. At least Dawkins can take credit for killing off that dialogue. The atheists return to their borrows lamenting the general religiousity of humanity while failing to realise that atheism is in itself a belief statement because ultimately Science cannot say anything Final about the true nature of the universe. No worry, they are just throwing stones from their borrows and quietly yelling obscenities at those naive believers.
“You can take away a man’s gods but only to give him others in return.” (Jung). “Without a vision the people perish.” (Jeremiah) Humanity needs a new story, a new mythology. Science cannot provide that, Science can only tell inform us as to why we must find a new mythology. It can place constraints on that mythology and give broad indications as to the type of behavior that mythology must inculcate in the greater populace but the mythology itself must come from another place, its origins lie not in our heads but in our whole beings. It is easy to be logical but it is almost impossible to create a new mythology.
Magne,
I have a two part response.
First, I think most people haven’t heard and/or don’t understand what’s going on with respect to climate change, it’s effects, and population pressure. Few people, I think, in spite of Al Gore’s movie and the IPCC reports, are aware of the seriousness of the situation. McKibben, Bartlett, Ehrlich, et al. are not household names. So that’s one thing I’m interested in. Communicating the real nature of our circumstances in a way people will hear.
Secondly, with “it runs contrary to everyone’s idea of being happy” I think you are pointing to the most critical aspect of our situation. People have identified the affluent lifestyle as we know it today (either the American, European, or Japanese variety) with happiness. A sad mistake. To me, this is the biggest problem, associating our current sense of affluence (meaning relatively unconstrained consumption) with happiness. Breaking that association is difficult yet necessary.
John H,
All too true and one reason politics is the way it is. Here in the US it is especially distrubing that so many are willing to follow, with little or no critical evaluation, evangelical leaders’ views of science and public policy.
Yes! That’s what I’m seeking, the story, the new mythology, that captures the mind and imagination leading to a more sensible human society. Since most people will not have either the background or interest in a rational exposition of how to go forward in a way that preserves biodiversity and a rich environment which can support a sustainable human society, I’d like to uncover one or more compelling naratives that accomplish the same ends through more evocative means.
Any ideas along these lines are welcome.
Hey Trinifar,
Perhaps it is not that far away Trinifar. Comically, in an almost cosmic sense, that new mythology may arise from the pinnacle of scientific endeavours: the search for a unified theory. Ever since the “observer problem” emerged in QM everyone has been quietly avoiding it. Now it is gaining increasing status. I have long thought that consciousness is intrinsic to the essential stuff of the universe, thereby avoiding the problem of emergent properties. We are the the universe’s way of looking at itself, that very looking brings things into the universe into an actualised state blah blah blah I won’t bother trying to explain because I’m still exploring but I suggest you try “The Goldilocks Enigma” by Paul Davies.
One of the more intriguing issues that comes out of studies on human longevity is that people with purpose, a sense that their lives are more important than the theory of evolution would suggest, and these people people can be atheists, are the ones who seem to have a decided advantage in the longevity game. There was a beautiful quote I once read … let me check the archive: not there but went something like this:
Too much rationalism will ruin your soul and too much romanticism will ruin your mind. …. .
No, here it is
31
“Romanticism alone can seriously damage your mind, but reductionism alone can seriously damage your soul.”
Title [The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World
Author [Jack Cohen, Ian Stewart
Publisher [Penquin
Place Pub [New York
Date [1994
Sorry, battling through a bottle of wine … .
—-
I am often criticised for being overly critical of evolutionary theory. My reasons for this stance are quite simple: evolution can never explain the wonderful diversity of human behavior and can never explain why just reproducing doesn’t make us happy, let alone explain the fact that many people are happy and have never reproduced, which is the be all and end all of evolution. (Yes, I accept the reality of evolution but to then presuppose it is a complete explanation of human existence is a logic error. It simply can’t be that.) We are more than that. I don’t know what we are and I doubt I will ever know that. The French writer Camus expresses it wonderfully well:
In truth the way matters but little, the will to arrive suffices.
ibid, page 48
But it is bad to stop, hard to be satisfied with a single way of seeing, to go without contradiction, perhaps the most subtle of all spiritual forces. The preceding merely defines a way of thinking. But the point is to live.
ibid, page 63
Myth of Sisyphus.
—
“Living” in our societies has been reduced to the loss of wonder, the accumulation of goods, the belief in eternal progress. All stuff and nonsense. We have been conned:
“A man at peace with the world is an instrument of limited utility but frustrate him enough and you can bend him to society’s ends.”
Schmookler, Parable of the Tribes.
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand in rapt awe, is as good as dead.
Einstein, The World as I see it. The Philosophical Library, New York, 1934
There are too many dead people living in this world.
Magne,
What you say here really ’speaks’ to me today, because it puts into words the challenge that am dealing with in my family, my profession as a publisher, and my avocation as a global-warming activist:
“I’m grappling with what I’ve called “the economic criterion of rationality” — which seems to be the key concept to understanding why it is impossible for big blocs of human beings (on a local, national, regional, continental, or global level) to “come together” and start to co-operate.
“Modern humans do not know the first thing about sharing. The global, capitalist economy prevents us from doing so. It is based on rather violent forms of white-collar competition, and the only form of justice that is serves, is the famous 50 Cent mantra: “Get Rich or Die Trying” — that’s all there is to it, really, and everyone who is still in his/her right (modern) mind, is fully aware of this.
“I believe the relatively small percentage of big spenders and money-makers of this world — who are in complete control of all industries, all banks, all armies, all books of law, and all political offices of this world — is quite naturally able to do nothing other than all that which serves their best economic interests. It’s the logic of the globalized business culture of our times: the nature of the game. They simply cannot think outside the economic box of theirs. Or bubble. Or whatever. They’re just hooked on growth. And because they are the people who employ other people — large masses of lower- and middle-class citizens, who have all come to depend on the salaries they get for doing their jobs, honestly, dutifully and respectfully — they remain as powerful as they’ve ever been. Money makes power, and power makes right. There’s nothing new in this, and everybody ought to know it. Only foolish people like myself will think too much about this, of course, as everybody knows it’ll only make you feel bad.
“Reality bites. That’s true and that’s real. Determining what’s culture, what’s social and political systems and what might be best known as human nature, is — at least in my case, which is still untold — becoming more and more difficult as days, weeks and months go by.
“I don’t know this for certain, but I would like to imagine that this age of global concern for the changing climate systems of this planet is making way for new definitions of what it is that is true and right. — And not only what is profitable and what is not.”
Ironically, I am beginning to doubt that despite all our agreement in this intellectual sphere, we — yourself, Trinifar, Steve, John, Magne, Dave and myself — find it impossible to actually COLLABORATE.
We can talk, but in the absence of the social and economic threads that bind people together, we find it totally challenging to initate some common line of action. THAT, to me, is the absolute power that our civilization holds over us.
Tragic, but true. Reality really does bite.
Warmly,
Krish
Krish,
We are already collaborating by engaging with each other on-line as a kind of mutual-support, learning group. It’s not clear to me what more we can do given, as you note, we live in different parts of the world and have other commitments.
Ironically, I am beginning to doubt that despite all our agreement in this intellectual sphere, we — yourself, Trinifar, Steve, John, Magne, Dave and myself — find it impossible to actually COLLABORATE.
Krish,
We do not need to collaborate. We may learn from each others’ thinking but we do not need to change the world, only our neighbours. There is a wonderful saying Dostoevsky: “Everyone wants to change the world but no-one wants to change themselves.” It doesn’t matter what economic or political systems are in place when the people won’t play the game everything stops. The game must have players and what we are seeing now is more people choosing not to be players. There is a text, “The Hamlet Syndrome: Overthinkers who Underachieve” wherein they mention this not small at all demographic group of Americans, typically of above average intelligence, who have effectively opted out of the game, living in such a way as to live a comfortable life but that’s it. When I read this text it reminded me of a study of old Harvard graduates who had disappeared. It was found that there was nothing wrong with these graduates they just have developed a different value system and so, feeling like strangers in a strange land, had adopted a lifestyle that preferenced distance from society rather than inclusion into it. An old sociological study found that while marijuana smokers were morally alienated from their surrounding culture they were not socially alienated. That is, pot smokers who people who think differently about the world and their pot smoking is more likely a product rather than a cause of that perspective. Frank Sulloway’s text, Born To Rebel: On Creative Lives … puts forward the argument that being able to think differently about the world you live is at least partly contingent on our early life experience, in particular any conflicts we had with parents or older siblings. In “They F*** You Up, the British psychologist gives a reasonable introduction to how sibling rivalry can shape our adult personality.
When you look across all this material you are left bewildered by the welter of variables impacting on human behavior let alone the direction of cultures. Yet over enough time and with patience there is the slow accretion of good information that proffers some important insights to the nature of human behavior. Unfortunately we must also conclude that cultures are essentially, at best, “arational entities”. So it is irrational to be too preoccupied with the “bigger picture”. The best avenue for our efforts is in our immediate world.
Collaboration is just a word and is beside the point. We should not even think about what society must be like but think more about what people should be like. Society is just people, perhaps our focus is too often misguided so that we spend so much time thinking about changing cultural institutions when we need to be focusing on creating a culture that maximises the creation of certain types of people.
This is generational change. In my understanding of human behavior that is frequently the most substantial change. We can represent to the world how it should be living tomorrow. As Stanley Rosen, in The Limits of Änalysis, so eloquently states,
“The positive task of the philosopher is to fecundate his analytical skills with dreams, and to discipline his dreams with analysis. … There are no rules and regulations for being reasonable, and certainly no rules and regulations for dreaming reasonable dreams. In philosophy, as perhaps in everything else, one communicates best his deepest dreams by enacting them.”
This is an easy argument for me because I believe concepts like “human nature” are intrinsically false. There is no such thing. As David Suzuki notes in one of his texts, the human capacity for change is truly remarkable, he cited the examples of the oil crisis and World War 2. It is true, the greatest strength of homo sapiens is not intelligence but adaptability. We are specialised generalists in search of a new myth. We now shape the world so do not so much to adapt. This new myth must in some way incorporate our recently acquired strength to shape the world to our will.
John,
The existence of strictly safe-guarded social or interpersonal taboos, is to me evidence of human nature as a fact of life. I should know that, very well, simply because such a lot of the products of my thought and my way of thinking, has to do with taboo topics. I’m paying the social prize for that, — every waking hour of the day.
Sometimes the things proclaimed as immutable aspects of “human nature” look more like cultural conditioning to me. So I, too, feel frustrated by the ways some people use cultural concepts of “human nature” as excuses to impede beneficial change.
I think of “human nature” as a loose interpretation of the concept of a species’ “evolutionarily stable strategy”. It seems to me that every species that evolves to be recognized as a species DOES have its own set up characteristic behaviors, its evolutionarily stable strategy. Bees have “bee nature”, an evolutionarily stable strategy for bees. Bears have bear nature, an evolutionarily stable strategy for bears, and so forth.
I find the behaviors that seem to comprise our evolutionarily stable strategy give me cause for optimism. For my own sanity, I try to concentrate on that aspect of human nature rather than what our culture proclaims.
I like this post’s title, by the way. For me the phrase “learning to think about the future” describes an important step in the process of change.
Cheers, y’all
etbnc,
Thanks for that. It highlights why I take the time and effort to produce these posts: First and foremost it’s about my own learning. I post as I learn, or at least as I preceive myself learning.
My wish is to create artifacts useful to others.
the nay-sayers may not still believe, but maybe this will creep into their subconscience and affect their behavior.