Eerie echoes of the past

Following the news reports of the past week, I have been trying to figure out which historical parallel is closer:

Is 2013 more like 1914 or 1938?

Heck if I know, but the world’s punditry seems to be seeing both and running with it.

Granted, George Santayana said those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and it is pretty obvious that the world’s current crop of leaders have learned little from their study of history. Of course, teaching history these days is more an exercise in being politically correct that actually looking at what happened.

For example, what happened in Munich in 1938? Well, the major powers of the day came to resolve a territorial dispute over a part of a sovereign county (that was not represented at the conference). On one side was Germany, led by a charismatic leader named Adolph Hitler. He had been a corporal in World War I (then called the Great War because World War II hadn’t happened yet) and had risen to the position of chancellor of Germany (its highest post). Hitler must have been a pretty good poker player because he sure knew how to run a bluff.

On the other side was Great Britain (probably at its imperial height) and France. Now, one has to remember that running an empire is a pretty expensive business and this was in the time of the Great Depression that tanked economies worldwide. In addition, the French spent much of a generation of its young men in the bloody trenches of the Great War and was not eager to repeat the exercise. The Brits were not all that eager, either, have lost a bunch of young men as well as a bunch of money, that it still was trying to get the Germans to pay them in reparations for its role in the First War.

Mister Hitler, already having bluffed the French and the Brits out of keeping his troops out of the Alsace-Lorraine when he marched a small group into the disputed region (with a lot of noise and fanfare that made it look like a much larger force), decided to try again with the annexation of a chunk of neighboring Czechoslovakia. It worked.

The prime minister of England landed with a piece of paper that gave Hitler what he wanted and gave the Brits and the French what they wanted, which was a reason not to go to war. All hail the peacemakers … only Hitler went to war anyway a year later against the Poles and that dragged the Brits and the French back to war … that eventually cost about 60 million humans their lives. Now, had the French held the line at Alsace-Lorraine, or both the Brits and French held the line at Munich, then … well, we will never know.

What happened in 1914? Not much. It was the summer of 1914 that got everyone in to trouble. It started over the assassination of an Austrian nobleman, and then pretty much snowballed almost with a life of its own, until about every nation in Europe was choosing up sides and modern warfare put on its first demonstration of industrial might. The sad thing was that most of the leaders really didn’t want to fight a war, and thought it would be a relatively quick one. Well, we in the 21^st Century have heard that canard, have we not?

So, what are the parallels? Last weekend, the major powers represented on the UN Security Council (plus Germany) reached some sort of nebulous deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran that supposedly, but maybe not, reins in Iran’s ability to process uranium to the point where it can be used in nuclear bombs and the like. Now, the Americans say the deal says one thing and the Iranians say it says another, but then the Americans still are going to go ahead like what they said the deals says is what is going on because they have been fighting wars in that area since 2001 and tired of it; and the Iranians appear to be going to ignore what the Americans are saying and go their merry way. Of course the bottom line is a) do we believe that Iran (after being caught in numerous bluffs and lies) is being truthful when it says it won’t use its capabilities to build a nuclear weapon and b) that the Iranians are merely misunderstood waifs who have been unjustly punished for sponsoring various and sundry terrorist organizations around primarily the Middle East and repeatedly muttering that they want to wipe a neighboring sovereign state off the map. Only time will give us that answer.

Now, not to be ignored, on the other side of the Eurasian landmass, the most populous country in the world is telling its neighbors that that territory they thought was theirs, well … it really belongs to China and they need to get over it. The neighbors are not impressed nor are they very happy. Now, China has told the world that this area of international waters (well, most of it), but includes some islands that have been administered by Japan for almost a couple of centuries, is part of its air defense zone and anybody who wants to fly there has to have Chinese hall passes. Well, the first the Americans, then the Koreans and then the Japanese said poohy to yoohy China and flew their planes through the zone, because areas of it are in zones they already had said they could fly in.

Now, the problem with all this huffing and puffing is that somebody is liable to make a mistake … a very human thing to do … and we will have a repeat of 2001, with airplanes playing bumper cars in the air. Then it cost the Chinese a fighter and a pilot and led to a short diplomatic demarche between the US and China.

This time, however, it seems that the sides are upping the ante and backing their bluffs with a little bit more firepower. The problem with firepower is sometimes, somebody does an oopsie and pulls a trigger and a figurative Austrian noble person gets bumped off.

I guess we could be dusting off the old “domino theory” of global politics, but I hope not. As it stands, however, I don’t see nothing good coming out of events in either Geneva (and the Middle East) or in the East (and South) China Seas. It will be too easy for things to go wrong and then the bullets could start flying for real.

Add to that the economic calamity that is Obamacare, and I think the US is in for a nasty year in 2014. I could be wrong … in fact I hope I am wrong. War really is such an ugly, vile and destructive business. It really ought to be abolished as a bad idea … unfortunately, people just aren’t made that way and war will remain for the foreseeable future an unfortunate part of mankind’s fate.

Kitties eat chicken for supper

Chick-Fil-A is right ... eat mor chiken My Kitties beat the ChickenHawks ... NAH NAH NA HAN NA! KSU 31 KU 10 It is party time and time to do some happy dances ... it is a good season in the Little Apple. If I had the money,, I would be headed down to Aggieville.

Philosophy 101 – Essay #9

Ninth in a series

Essay #1    Essay #2    Essay #3    Essay #4

Essay #5    Essay #6    Essay #7    Essay #8

Still with me? Thanks for hanging in there. I hope this one will be edifying to you.

I have said a lot about choices in these essays, because I believe that they define who we are. However, I have to admit sometimes we don’t have choices, per se.

There are those things that happen that are outside of our control and therefore outside our choices (to some extent). By and large, however, even those things still leave us with some choice that may or may not affect the course of events but will define who we are/were. But, yes, there are things that are bigger than our choices and sometimes our choices have no impact.

Then there are choices where the choice is not between good and bad, or positive and negative, but bad and bad. If we are lucky, sometimes the choice is between bad and worse and sometimes the choice is between to do something and not do something, neither of which will alter the outcome to you.

For example, if you fall off a cliff, you have the choice of screaming on the way down or not screaming. Unfortunately, neither choice will have much impact on the final result when you go splat at the bottom of the cliff.

Life, sadly, is like that. Sometimes things happen that we can’t control. Sometimes things happen that our choices can’t influence. However, sometimes, just sometimes, even in those situations, the choices we make do have impact on others and that does make a difference.

I can cite two examples, if I may.

First, as pointed out by dear wife, an embryo – which is a human being or at least a potential human being – has no voice in the choice of the mother on whether to have an abortion or not. The fetus/embryo just is not in any position to articulate its choice, which one suspects would be to choose life over death. However, the mother gets to make a choice and that choice does have an impact on the potential human being. Here, events outside the choice control of the individual impact that potential person’s fate.

The second would be the case of the soldier who falls on a grenade to save the lives of his buddies. In that case, the soldier has made a choice and that was to cover the grenade with his body in order to keep its shrapnel from killing his buddies. Now, nothing he is going to do is going to stop the grenade from going off and doing nothing probably is not going to save his life, either. However, by choosing to cover the grenade with his body, the soldier has made the choice to impact others’ lives in what, he hopes, will be a positive way (i.e. keeping those he cares about from harm or injury). His fellow soldiers did not choose the alternative for him, but his decision definitely altered their lives. In this case, they had no choice and probably would have not chosen to ask him to sacrifice his life that way.

In addition, you see, not all of our choices are between alternative A and alternative B. Sometimes our choices are between doing something and doing nothing. Often choosing not to do anything is a much more attractive option that to do something. Sometimes, the situation is reversed. However, we must remember that in some cases, there are no options, no choices to make.

It is in those situations, I think that we really define who we are as individuals. How we react when everything is beyond our control says more about us as a person than anything else. Fortunately, I suspect, we rarely realize we are in such circumstances.

Sometimes we are faced with so many choices, probably too many choices. That poses its own set of problems. So, we have to winnow those down to a manageable number.

I have in mind a situation that occurred shortly after my step-grandson had open heart surgery. He was in his bed in the hospital and the doctors wanted him to sit up, and if possible walk. Now, the problem was his choices were too many. He felt that since it would hurt if he sat up that the better choice was either not to sit up or to delay that option for as long as he could. When he refused to sit up … well we all know how stubborn young men can be. In frustration, certain people left the room, leaving Grandpa to step into the void.

I patiently explained to my grandson that in actuality he only had two choices, and both of them were going to hurt. There was nothing that he or I would do that would change that fact. I explained, since I too had a “zipper” scar on my chest, that I knew the pain he was facing and the fear that was gripping him. However, his choices were that he would try to sit up on his own, facing the fact that it was going to hurt, or that Grandpa was going to help him sit up, and it still was going to hurt. The other options, I told him, had been removed from the equation.

Now, I am not all that cold-hearted not to know the fear that was terrorizing him, but I knew the necessity of him taking the next step. Despite his protestations, I wrapped him in my arms and pulled him into a position sitting on the edge of the bed. And then I let him cry as I held him, because I too had known that terror and fear … and pain.

But I had made the choice for him. Did I leave him with any other choice? No, I eliminated those other options as much as any other outside force often eliminates the options we think we have. He survived the experience. I am not sure he knew how much it pained his grandfather to lift him up, but it had to be done. I hope he forgives me someday for making him hurt, even if the hurt was unavoidable.

For you see, I, too, had had to make choices. My choices were that I could have just sat back in the background and done nothing (which I seriously debated doing) or to step forward to offer my help, my intervention where the others had only met with rather loud and raucous protestations because of the fear of the pain and had opted to try to calm the boy by doing nothing.

I am not setting myself up as some saint here, just as a concerned grandparent who knew from experience the pain would be transitory and I had the strength to do what others had chosen not to do. I do not fault them at all. We all contribute what we can.

The whole point is that sometimes life or other outside forces make our choices for us. We have to deal with that reality. We can wail about its unfairness or its cruelty, but to what end? Life is what life is.

People often fear the pain or the inconvenience that comes with events, and often choices that they have made that have not resulted in outcomes they wanted or expected. There is nothing wrong with that. It is natural.

What defines us, however, is how we deal with those circumstances. Do we even think about the impact our choices will have on others, or do we rationalize them to the point that the impact seems inconsequential.

I ask that you take the time to think about that. Mull it over. It is not the easy choice. It is not the simple choice. But then, who ever said the life would be easy or simple. (If anyone did … they were lying their heads off).

I am not sure why, but from my vantage point, I always have viewed life as a challenge. Maybe because I have experienced so many reverses and unachieved expectations, wishes and desires, I have grown to accept them and look on them as opportunities. At least I can say I did have opportunities, even if I failed to achieve what I wanted or thought I needed.

Life is like that … and the choices we make define who we are.

Nuff said.  Again, I hope I have left you with some food for thought.

American exceptionalism vs. mythology

Mythologies we tell ourselves – Military Review article

 

The article cited above is a very good, if long and somewhat jargonized discussion for military leaders, about the problems mythologies play in creating a professional soldier.

Its main thesis is that for centuries soldiers have been given certain mythologies that are used to de-humanize their enemy. In the 21^st Century, mainly due to the information revolution, these mythologies no longer sustainable and often are counterproductive.

For the most part, I agree. I do have problems with the doctrine of cultural equivalence that seems implicit in the article and a couple of other assumptions.

One of its major tenets is that the myth of “American exceptionalism” is counter-productive and should be abandoned (at least that is my take-away from reading it). I am not sure that is a valid assessment, but it is in keeping with the current attitudes of our National Command Authority.

I do think that the myth does set Americans (and their military service members) up for a near certain failure to meet the high standards and principles that we seek to uphold and that does create problems. However, the problem is not whether Americans are exceptional, but rather that Americans, because they perceive themselves to be of an exceptional culture, are held to a different standard that anyone else. It is a case, I fear, of Americans being hoisted upon their own petard.

(For those who don’t know what a petard” was, it was a medieval predecessor of modern artillery. Basically, it was like a big pot filled with gunpowder that was then hoisted up against a gate with the opening facing the gate. It was ignited by somebody riding up with the petard when it was hoisted, lighting the fuse and then scrambling away. The unlucky ones didn’t get away in time and would be blown up; hence they were “hoist on their own petard”)

The very professionalism that is the hallmark of the American man-at-arms (ok, and woman-at-arms to be politically correct) is also the source of his greatest drawback. Because they are supposed to be these professional super-warriors, when in reality they are merely ordinary human beings superbly trained and equipped, they are endowed with god-like qualities … or at least expectations that they have them.

So, we have well-meaning people missing the boat.

Yes, American military personnel do things that we, in our saner moments, wish they wouldn’t do, but that fails to take into account that combat – at whatever level you want to address it – literally is insane. It is the simple slaughter and destruction of humans and property to achieve a political end by means other than diplomacy. It merely is an extension of diplomacy through violence.

Now, I am not endorsing torture, although I understand its uses. I am not endorsing the traditional pillaging, rapine and other abuses of “civilians” in an area of conflict. No, and I don’t think 99.9 percent of American service members do either. However, the military is made up of human beings and we best not forget that salient fact.

People are fallible. People are capable of great cruelty. Americans, despite their “exceptionalism”, are not immune to that. The difference is, for the most part, we actually punish our own for exceeding the levels of violence deemed acceptable according to the “laws” of “just wars.” It may not be enough to meet the authors’ standards, but we do do it and that is relatively rare.

If you look at all the conflicts around the world today and, except for post-conflict tribunals to deal with the defeated and occasional exceptions limited primarily to countries based on Occidental cultural norms, rarely will you find militaries punishing their own for their excesses. It traditionally hasn’t happened, and guess what? That hasn’t changed over all the millennia of warfare.

Not that the problem hasn’t been noted by leaderships going back to the Romans, but unfortunately the utopian world where soldiers only fight soldiers according to some rules drafted by non-combatants never really has existed.

And what bothers me, as an American who feels we have been hoist on our own petard, is that our critics fail to hold the “other” side to the same scathing standard.

Using the same argument that the authors of the article use, I think Americans should be rallying to the colors to combat those who offend our sensibilities and ethical standards. (Not really, but it makes the same sense that their arguments do but then again, it might not be such a bad idea.)

I do think we have to remember, and remind ourselves daily, that our code of ethics, our standards, and our view of the world is not universal. As I often say, the U.S. Constitution applies only on U.S. territory and nowhere else, despite what the American Civil Liberties Union might tell you … or our politicians or activists of whatever stripe is the flavor de jure today.

And as Pappy taught me: A gentleman does not start the fight; he merely finishes it as quickly as he can – using whatever means necessary. I wish some of our leadership would understand that precept and apply it to our foreign policy.

Lions captured in up-close photos by remote control camera buggy =

Lions captured in up-close photos by remote control camera buggy =

A little creativity, and some kitties, and you get some awesome photographs. 

Do moich gości z Polski:

Wydaje się późno, że byłem coraz całą masę wizyt z Polski. Teraz nie wiem, czy te kontrole na miejscu są jedynie roboty internetowe lub nie. Ale na przypadek, że są prawdziwi ludzie, zachęcam ich do opuszczenia jakiegoś komentarza, jeśli nic nie może z innych niż oni są z miasta. Cieszę się, że mogę być osiągnięcie ludzi spoza Stanów Zjednoczonych i zapozna się z opiniami ludzi z innych miejsc, kultur, narodów, itd.

Philosophy 101 - Essay #8

Essay #1   Essay #2   Essay #3    Essay #4

Essay #5    Essay #6    Essay #7

Eighth in a series

By now, assuming that you have read 1 through 7, you – my reader – may have reached some understanding of where I am coming from about the role of the state. I will expound more on what I think is appropriate for the state and society to do to and for the individual in other essays, but to round a square peg for the hole, I need to discuss what I feel the individual owes society.

Remember, life is a contract. We have to abide by its terms or there will be problems.

In nature, it is fairly simple: Follow the rules or die. We humans have added a level of humanity to that harsh dictate and say that we are to follow the rules or adverse effects may visit you.

In nature, the universe abounds with creative destruction, with almost everything reinventing itself to adjust to changes in its environment. It is a thing of beauty and is one reason that I find a belief in God not mutually exclusive from a belief in things like evolution or scientific study. God, the creator, Allah, Jehovah, Vishnu, Ra or whatever you choose to call this entity created the Universe. God set down the rules.

I am not about to go all religious on you right now, I just wanted you to understand that there are rules out there that transcend those made by humans.

However, when humans get involved, then they have to evolve their own set of rules. It is part of being a thinking, rational (at least I hope we are), cognitive, aware species that has the ability to create language and visualize intangible thoughts, concepts and ideas. Actually, it happens with all living creatures that form societies; be they flocks, herds, packs, hives, colonies, pods, etc.

So, society makes these rules. Well, actually, individuals within society agree that certain standards and behaviors are acceptable and certain standards and behaviors are not acceptable. These rules are passed down from generation to generation until they seem immutable. They aren’t, of course, as we have seen happening in societies and cultures around the world lately.

So, what is the individual’s role in all this?

Well, first and foremost, the individual is obligated to choose to abide by the rules of his or her society. I chose my words carefully here because I wanted to emphasize two points.

First, the individual has the right to choose. It is his or her option to accept the rules. That is the freedom that we all have as individuals.

Second, as a member of any society, we have to choose to follow the rules, because that is the price of admission. Everything comes with a price attached. There is, as the cliché goes, no free lunch. You can argue that, but it is one of those immutable laws that that deity that a lot of people today want to deny set down. In physics, it is called the conservation of energy. In some religions, it is called the wages of sin. But anyway you want to phrase it: Nothing, but nothing, is free.

So, since belonging to society, or culture or civilization (or even just a club or group) must come with the individual’s acceptance of the rules of that entity that is the price you pay as part of your contract. You don’t like that, join another universe.

In addition to being willing to abide by the rules of your society, there are a couple of other requirements that usually come along with it. Such as being willing to defend the rules and the society against all enemies foreign and domestic, or being willing to pass on to the next generation the core precepts that encapsulate the rules.

If you choose to do that, then you basically have met the core requirements of the social contract. Unfortunately, in the modern world as in eras past, doing those things sometimes takes more than the minimum effort to get along. People being such as they are, well … you know that asking them to do more than the minimum often is a dicey proposition.

There are those who believe, or at least say, that I did my time in the barrel, that is all I have to do. Well, I disagree with those people. I am not saying I am right, but I am saying that from my perspective that the contract with society is an ongoing thing and we are obligated to keep paying. This is not like a simple purchase where you pay a price and get to keep whatever it is you bought. No, being a member of society is more like a rental contract where you need to keep up your payments.

That is why John Kennedy’s words in his inaugural speech were so apt: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

I guess, in a way, I have bought into the cultural concept of “nobliesse oblige.” (Not that I am any higher – or lower – than anyone else).

Its definition says those of “noble birth” have “the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition < http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noblesse%20oblige>)

Only in my view, we all are of “noble birth.” Now, you can disagree with that, but I would say you are wrong. We are all noble human beings.

That being the case, then each individual has the obligation of honorable, generous and responsible behavior as the price of membership in the society in which he or she is in. To me, it matters not what culture you are raised in, that obligation remains a constant. Those raised in the Christian tradition are specifically obligated by the words of Jesus to reach out to the poor and less fortunate, but the value in that is replicated in most other religions as well.

Where I differ from some people is that I don’t believe it is society’s right to force me to do those things. Yes, society can express its disapprobation with my choice, my behavior, but it cannot force me to act against my conscience.

Again, there is that concept: Freedom of conscience.

You see, unlike Franklin D. Roosevelt, I define the four freedoms a bit differently. It is not the freedoms of speech, worship, want and fear, for to be free of all of them is impossible. It is impossible to free from want, for want is undefinable and unlimited. It is impossible to be free from fear, because it is a natural human response to stimuli.

I agree that individuals should have the freedom of speech (within the limits of the common law torts of defamation, libel and slander) and of worship. However, I would define worship as the freedom of conscience, the freedom to view the world through our own world view, our own prism, so to speak, without undue interference from society or government.

And rather than freedom from want, I would say freedom of choice. We have the freedom to make our own choices, take our own directions, do our own thing (so to speak), as long as we understand and are willing to accept that there are consequences for those choices and actions. It is sort of like saying we have a freedom to want.

We have to realize that Newton’s Third Law of Motion holds true in life as well as in physical sciences: For each action there can be an equal and opposite reaction.

Issac Newton was a very bright person, as he also postulated that in his First Law of Motion: “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.”

Those two concepts really offer a great summation of human interactions.

Finally, I would offer the freedom to fear. Fear is a great force for change. It is a great force to help remind us that our freedoms are not free.

Nuff said, for now but use these words as food for thought.

The devil always is in the details.

The fine print will tell the tale

Good news: P5+1 have reached a deal of some sorts with Iran over its nuclear program.

This is good news, I hope, but the skeptic in me says the devil will be in the details and also to question why now?

If indeed the first reports are correct and if indeed Iran agrees to curtail its uranium enrichment efforts and to forego its heavy water nuclear power reactor capable of generating plutonium, then the question becomes why agree now?

The agreement as announced 11/24 is only for six months. Why not longer?

It is said to be a first step; a first step to what?

Assuming that the UN atomic inspectors can get their act together and logistically put themselves on the ground in place and doing whatever it is that they plan to do without restriction from Iran, is it realistic to expect they will be able to do that tomorrow, or next week or even next month? And then, if nothing is signed in six months, they have to pull out? Are the Iranians not going to debate the ground rules for the inspectors?

Maybe I am being cynical but given that the Iranian top leadership was saying just last week that stopping their enrichment programs was show-stopper, why would they agree now to limit their program, and just let the machines already in place not go on line.

OK, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now. I do hope we in the West are not being snookered again, although I suspect we are, and I hope that in six months that Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama will be able to report that even more progress has been made and verifiable measures are in place that will prevent the Iranian Republican Guard Corps from brandishing nuclear weapons next year.

Philosophy 101–Essay #7

Essay #1   Essay #2   Essay #3

Essay #4   Essay #5   Essay #6

Seventh in a series

Welcome back, as I continue my wanderings through the canyons of my philosophy.

As I left off in Chapter 6, my question remains: What should society do for us?

That is a tough question and I know I don’t have the complete answer.

Now, I would like it if we could differentiate between “Society” and “Government” but that seems so awfully hard to do these days. I don’t know when it happened, but there used to be two separate entities: Society and Government … but today, things that used to be the responsibility of society has, for the most part, seemed to have to morphed into things that we demand that government, as a representative or agent of society, provide for us.

You are free to disagree here, but one of the things that Alexander de Tocqueville found so appealing about the American experiment back in the 1830s was the degree to which Americans voluntarily formed civic associations to solve social problems. We did not look to government for the solutions; we turned to like-minded individuals and used that synergy to achieve incredible feats that made the United States so wealthy – in spirit as well as materiel – and powerful. It seems that visualization of how to solve our problems have given way to letting someone else deal with it … in this case the “government” as agent for us.

This sense of civic involvement has given way to an apathy, or at least a detachment, that since the “government” or “society” has assumed responsibility for solving all our problems and since we pay taxes to that government, then we have fulfilled our part of the social contract and no further effort is needed from us. It is the easy way out, but is the right way out?

Remember, I said that individuals are inherently basically lazy. Now, I don’t mean that in the pejorative sense of the word (well, sort of). What I do mean is that like anything else in nature, we people seek the course that requires the least effort from us. The easier it is, then the more likely that it is a choice we will make. This is not bad, necessarily, but it is the way we are. Deny that truth at your own peril.

Sometimes we do chose to take the more difficult path, but usually that is because we perceive a greater reward at the end of it than if we took the easy road. Again, that is simply the way humans are. We are self-interested and rightly so, because otherwise some predator in nature would have eaten us.

However, over the millennia, we humans have figured out that we can’t do everything by ourselves and that sometimes there is safety, if not more efficiency, in numbers. Hence, man has slowly but surely become more “civilized.” Individuals learned to specialize and trade things for those things that others had. As this civilization grew, so did the need for people to arbitrate and administer the transactions and the bureaucracy was born.

I remember once hearing a history professor tell me that you could tell the level of civilization within a society by the size of its bureaucracy. To wit, my jocular response was, “I think we are civilized enough now, already even, thank you.”

But, yes, what was the thing de Tocqueville was getting at? When we voluntarily come together, the results are nothing short of incredible. When we are compelled to work together, as was the case with the feudal societies of the Europe before the 19^th century, progress can be made, but it is restricted. Unleash the power of the individual and look out.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, that has been perverted somewhat by others – particularly the 19^th century social philosopher Karl Marx – into a view that seeks to release the individual from responsibility for existence and transfer that responsibility to the state. There are those who see Marx’s vision and philosophy as being the best option, but I would contend that they are wrong because it fails to take into account human nature. You are welcome to make your own choice.

The essence of the socialist philosophy (and no I have not read all three volumes of Marx’s epic epistle) seems to have been explained to me as “from each according to their ability and to each according to their need.” I find that concept quite seductive until I start thinking about it.

Let’s take the first part: From each according to their ability. Define ability? Are we saying all that a person is capable of? At what level of effort? Would that be minimum or maximum effort? How about “sustainable” effort? Who decides what that level is? How can we define it in a way that is fair to person putting forth the effort? Are all individuals willing to put out more than minimum effort if the reward for it is the same as for greater effort?

Secondly, who assigns the value to that ability? If we remember that society/state is made up of individuals, then who or what is giving that other individual as an agent of the state the right to assign that value? We can do that through our social contracts. We do that all the time in our lives when we exchange one thing of value with another person for something that person has of value. Of course, under a capitalist system, the individual gets to decide the relative values, where as in a socialist system that decision is left to the state and who is the state but individuals who have taken on the responsibility for others and substituting their choices for the original individual.

Taking the second part: To each according to their need. Define need? How much food, water, shelter, clothing, protection, etc., is required in order to fulfill anyone’s needs. Three hots and cot can be a pretty low standard.

If we cannot define “need” satisfactorily, then how will it be possible to fulfill all the needs of all the people, especially when each person is different and their needs essentially unique? Add to that, how do we allocate the limited resources we have, which – in case you haven’t noticed – won’t begin to fulfill all the needs of all the people to bring all the people up to the same standard (unless you set that standard pretty low – which brings us back to three hots and cot).

So, what role should the state/society/government have in our lives? It has to have some, otherwise it would be anarchy and I am not advocating that.

I alluded to what role I think government/state/the society should have in an individual’s life when I was talking about civilizations. The role should be limited to enforcing contracts between individuals, groups, and the various associations that humans form. Contracts are the basis for our existence. Oral, written, tacit, implicit, explicit, whatever form they take, in the end as members of society we have to agree to some level of enforcement of those contracts.

That is what we do with our unwritten social contract. It regulates our behaviors through social sanctions. Society breaks down when the system of social sanctions breaks down. If you don’t believe that, then just look around you, as examples abound. I could take a dozen news stories a day that would illustrate this point, where society has turned its head on individual responsibility only to have its face slapped.

Unfortunately, we have surrendered individual responsibility in favor of societal responsibility and we are paying the price.

Don’t agree? That is your prerogative, but in the long run, I fear that you will find that you are wrong.

Nuff said for this go-round.

Poor people, poor decisions

"Poor" person's rationale why bad decisions make sense

I read the afore mentioned article on the Huffington Post and was torn between commenting there or here. Discretion being the better part of valor … and wanting to think a bit before making my comment, I chose here.

There is so much wrong with the young lady’s rationalizations. Where others see a just cause, I see merely excuses.

Ok, life has dealt her a tough hand. Get over it.

Second, own up to the fact that a lot of your choices got you where you are today … things that had you done something differently … like deferred gratification instead of going for moment and instant gratification … then maybe you wouldn’t be in the shoes you are in now.

Third, life is not a picnic. It takes hard word and many long hours of effort … and even then  you are not guaranteed material success. I know, because – I would tell the young lady – I have been there. I know about living on a jar of peanut butter and bread for weeks, because that was all I could afford. I know about celebrating the Kraft dinner* I had one day (made maybe two meals unless I was really, really hungry) because I could afford the box, a quart of milk and a pound of butter because I had a good night driving a cab at night** while going to college in the day and working on the student newspaper in the afternoon and early evening.

* For the uninitiated, Kraft dinner is a box of macaroni with powdered cheese mix … it cost me I think 19 cents back in 1971 and that was a dent in my budget. You need a pot, six cups of water, a dash of salt, 1/3 cup of milk and half a stick of butter to make it … takes maybe 10 minutes.

** I drove a cab in Manhattan, Kansas, for a couple of months in 1971. Not Manhattan, NY. Got 40 percent of the fare … and maybe got two or three fares a night – the Little Apple not being big on running around town in taxis. Average fare probably was less than $2. On a really, really good night (where I was lucky), I might make $15 or $20 but that happened about once every two weeks. My other source of income was my drill pay from my participation in the Navy Reserve … a whopping $16 per month back then for an E-3.

Then I spent my first 30 working years as newspaper journalist. Not that I would complain, but I would point out that unless you work for a Guild paper or one in a major metropolitan market, you basically get paid … crap. You have to love what you did, and tighten your belts, and accept that small newspapers can’t afford to pay people what they do in the big cities. I happened to absolutely love what I did. Probably did my children a great-disservice working 60-70 hours per week (with no overtime) and contributed to the collapse of my first marriage.

So you make choices. Like deferring having kids for years and then spacing them out. Like either not smoking or buying the cheapest cigarettes you can find … and then rationing them. Like not taking that vacation or trip … or buying those beers you wanted.

You think you have it bad, you really ought to study what it was like in the Depression in the 1930s, or what it was like trying to find a job in the 1970s when unemployment was in double digits.

College is not something that also is handed out. Granted a lot of parents put their kids through school or you take out loans to go to school. The latter is your choice, however. No one forces you to do it. I know because way back when I was lucky to go to college. The family bank was broke and I was last in line. Big Brother #1 opted to join the Army. Big Brother #2 was lucky to qualify for a full ride scholarship as was Big Sister. Unfortunately, I was not as talented as smart as they were so I lost that lottery.  That meant working, loans and sometimes pleading.

I spent six weeks in college begging not to be thrown out of the dorm while I waited for my loan to come through. I had $12 that lasted me that whole period and became a terrible bummer of cigarettes.

But as the line from Clint Eastwood said in Heartbreak Ridge: I adapted. I innovated. I overcame.

A lot of times your choices are dictated by your environment. That too is life. Get over it. Where you live can be your choice, once you reach a certain age. Again, it is not easy, but then who said it had to be easy or even was going to be easy.

Note: We all basically are immigrants here. Look back at what the life was for those people and stop taking for granted that you can just stand on their shoulders to get where you want to be.  Sometimes you have to start at the bottom.

Finally, nicotine is not just a stimulant. It also works as a depressant, as people under high stress will tell you. Smoking can help calm the nerves so you can cope with high levels of pressure or stress … or calm down after a high-adrenaline experience. I can personally document such usage.

Still, smoking is a choice.

So, if you don’t like the choices you have? Then, make new choices. Change your environment, but accept the fact that the mistakes you have made will encumber you like a load of baggage. You can either own up to them and carry them or dump them.

All too many people these days seem to be turning to the government/society and saying: “Here, carry my baggage.”

Believe me, it is going take us all down if we don’t stop doing that. It is not society’s job to take care of us. Nor the government’s. That is our job. And if others can, and are willing, then helping hands will be there because it is in our own self-interest to help others.

However, don’t complain if they aren’t. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes you have to carry the baggage of your own choices, rich or poor, bad or good.

Don’t waste time blaming others, or situation or society, for your situation. They don’t really care (ah but we do … bovine scatology). You can get yourself out of it, or at least define yourself by trying.

Dang Sooners

Well, I see where Oklahoma found the hex on my Kitties.

OU 41

KSU 31

POOPY! POOPY! POOPY!

Ah, but the consolation is that we scored more than a touchdown against the vile people from Norman. OK, we made too many miscues … but we got 31 points … in my day that would mean a beer down in Aggieville for those who could afford it.

Philosophy 101–Essay #6

Sixth in a series

Essay #1

Essay #2

Essay #3

Essay #4

Essay #5

Once more into the breach lads and ladies (or is that Ladies and Gentlebeans, Boys and Girls, Friends and Enemies, Pickles and Onions – oops, let’s not digress there just yet) … and let’s see where we land.

Society: What is it that we expect from it in our social contract?

That really is the problem facing people these days, isn’t it?

I mean it seems to be a tussle between what the individual is expected to do for himself versus what society is expected to provide for the individual. I am torn, sometimes, twixt the two; especially, since the modern definition of society has been replaced by “the government.”

Because, to me, it comes down to who is in service to whom? It would seem that an equitable contract would be that both sides would have obligations to fulfill and in some sense those obligations would equal out. You know, value for value.

Now, you may not agree, but I think people deserve to be compensated or rewarded for their work, efforts or ideas without “society” dictating what that compensation should be. Society doesn’t own those things. I am just of the opinion that people deserve to receive whatever other individuals choose to give them in return for whatever the individual is offering. It is not up to me or you to dictate that choice. And it doesn’t matter whether you or I consider those things necessities or fill some perceived need. We don’t have the right to demand that we get them and demand that society provide them for us.

There are those who would argue differently, especially those who have been raised in a social value system that emphasizes social obligations over individual choices or a system that argues for the equality of outcome. To me these people are saying that you belong to the society you are in, and as such its demands on you take precedence over the choices you might make as an individual. You might have a different take, but that is your privilege.

Now, I am not saying a) I am right or b) they are wrong, but it does represent two distinctly different philosophical views of the world. Heck, I may be wrong, but it is my belief that the individual and his or her choices are more important that the obligations imposed by society – whether it is law, tradition or a leader. You are free to disagree. I call it freedom of conscience.

However, that puts me solidly in a camp that may be different than a very large portion of the world’s population. I can accept that … the question is can they accept my position with equal equanimity? Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, they can’t because while I can accept that as individuals they have made different choices, their view of society means that I have to accept their choices and make them my own. I am not sure they have the right to do that.

So, I am of the opinion that society should expect us to be willing to fend for ourselves as best we can, when given our individual circumstances. This is the price we pay for having the liberty to make our own choices about what we want to do with our lives and how we want to go about living them. When we stop making those choices, then we have to live with the choices made for us by others.

This is not to say that “society” cannot agree to offer assistance if the various individuals who make up that society make that choice and agree to offer it. What I am saying is that I, as an individual, cannot demand that society do anything for me as a matter of right, other than leave me alone. Radical concept, I know. And it fails to adhere to the concept that we are all our brothers’ keepers, but what the hay? My conscience is clear. I have chosen to help those in need when I can and I haven’t demanded that that society help me when I have been in need.

Society can, by the same token under the contract, insist that I observe certain rules, which I have the choice not to abide by but must be willing to accept the consequences such as the condemnation of the society.

Now, and this is where it gets murky for a lot of people, I also feel that as an individual I have a personal obligation to choose to help others in my society as my part of the social contract. There is a difference between demanding my help and my offering my help as a freely arrived at choice. Again, you are free to disagree with me here.

Does society have the obligation to provide me with the basics for survival such as food, shelter, protection, etc.?

There are those who believe it does. In fact, it seems that such a premise rapidly is becoming the dominant socio-cultural belief in the Occidental World. To them, if I am interpreting them correctly, because we are told by our religious texts that we are obligated to help the less fortunate then society is required to provide these things for the individual. The argument goes, so it seems, that it frees the individual to pursue higher ambitions not tied to necessities of survival, like the pursuit of fulfilment or truth. I am not sure that really works but I think that is what its proponents think.

I have a number of problems with that conceptualization of society. First and foremost being is that it fails to take into the most basic component (some will say flaw) in human nature and that is that each individual basically is selfish; not only selfish, but also lazy and prone to take the path of least effort whenever possible. You are free to disagree with me on this point, but I would invite you to review the history of mankind – in fact all the rules of the universe (the concept is known as conservation of energy) – and show me where man has not shown himself to be such a creature. (I concede there are isolated instances, but generally and predominately, people – left to their own devices – always will look for the easy way out that takes the least amount of effort and gives them the greatest benefit, regardless of the cost to others or society at large.)

Since people, really individuals, always are looking for ways to get more out than they are putting in, you have a problem. The equation, the contract, just won’t balance out as it has to … Nature so loves balance that she gets rather nasty when things upset her equilibrium and so do social structures (which tend to collapse when the balance gets too far out of whack).

Secondly, if there is no price to be paid for these necessities of survival, then they have no value. If something has no value, then it is not appreciated. If it is not appreciated and taken for granted, then it usually is wasted and abused. That, too, pretty much is a component of basic human nature. If it ain’t “ours”, then who cares what happens to it? If I am not invested in “it”, then why should I care?

Thirdly, no matter how you want to cut it, slice it or dice it, resources are limited. They have to be distributed and they have to be rationed. This sets up a conflict between the producers and the consumers. Who gets what and for how much. Unfortunately, such is life and such is the lot of humankind. Until we can provide every need, and fulfill every want and desire, to every individual, then there will be conflict over the distribution of what resources we do have. There will be competition.

Unfortunately, there are those who look on competition as a bad thing. Nature doesn’t, but people do. Competition is inherent in our universe and to deny it is there is, in my humble opinion, another attempt to deny reality.

So, I hope you can see that in all things there is competition, literally and figuratively. It is how we deal with the competition that marks the differences in world views. We can either accept it as a basic premise in our social structure or we can try to ignore that it is there and wish it away. (Hint: The latter view doesn’t really work very well).

And finally, my interpretation of those religious texts is that they are directed at the individual – choices the individual should be making – and not being forced to make. (I know I probably not translating you correctly, Martin Luther, but that is what I take away from your explanation of what Jesus the Christ was telling us.) It is through our individual faith, choice and actions that we “earn” salvation, not through what we are forced to buy or do by some social hierarchy.

I hope that gives you some food for thought.

Nuff said for this go-around.

A bit of perspective on Iran

Iran: War and Diplomacy in a nuclear age

I suppose that soon what I write will be OBE (as we called it when I was in Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield – Overcome By Events), but I will venture forth with my perspective anyway.

Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. It is not merely developing its nuclear enrichment capabilities to serve nuclear power generation and nuclear medical needs.

Why do I say that? Because it obvious in today’s nuclear age, that if you don’t have a nuclear weapon in your arsenal, you probably don’t consider yourself among the “players”, the “big boys” who play the major role in shaping and directing the current course of human history.  Iran, like North Korea, wants to be considered as one of the Big Boys. Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea get our attention because they have nukes. The rest sit as permanent members of the UN Security Council. Iran wants that attention.

Granted, Iran has a much older claim to being ranked among the “Big Boys” because the history of Mesopotamia and Persian really does go back almost to the dawn of recorded history. In that history, for a very long time, Persia and the predecessors of modern day Iran indeed were a major player among the Big Boys. Iran, under the ayatollahs, wants to see its return to what they see as their rightful place in the society of nations.

So, Iran sees having the “bomb” as being in its interest. It is, so to speak, the price of admission or the ticket to the modern day insiders’ club. Make no doubt about it, they want into that club and they want to be the big kid on their block and make the rest of the gang in the neighborhood follow in their tracks.

I don’t fault them. This is absolutely natural. I just don’t think they are good candidates for the Adult Club just yet. Let’s say, I think they have a way to go in the human relations and rights department before they should be allowed in (not that some of the other members are much better, but it seems to me that maintaining a measure of exclusivity is called for here).

What struck me about the article that I linked to was the assertion that war as an extension of diplomacy was a 20th century concept, because it isn’t.  No, it did not originate with Chou En Lai or Ronald Reagan or some U.S. State Department spokesperson this week.

Von Clausewitz, the  German 19th war-fighting philosopher, strategist and theoretician who became the idol and guide for many a military leader in the past two centuries, posited the same point in his treatises on war.

Then there is Sun Tzu, the Chinese war theoretician and strategist, who wrote a seminal treatise on warfare back in the 5th or 6th Century BC (or is that BCE, as in Before Christ or Before the Current Era. I am so politically incorrect). He also pointed out that that war is merely conducting diplomacy with other than words.

Those who attempt to separate the two, in my mind, are either deliberately trying to be disingenuous (i.e. lying) or are terribly ignorant of affairs of state.

Now, the question is (in re Iran): What should or can the US do about it?

Ah … as things stand right now? Not much. Can we impose more sanctions? Well, it is obvious that is not the choice of the Obama Administration. It could definitely make things more painful for Iran, but we can’t have that.

It seems that the progressive view that backing your diplomatic position with a credible threat of  force is inherently wrong, if not evil, is holding sway here. We must believe that our rhetoric and logic will carry the day and the Iranians will see the light and right of  the position of the P-5+1 (the five members of the UN Security Council and the EU) and comply.

As the saying goes, if you believe that, then I have some oceanfront property in Arizona I am glad to be able to sell you.

One must remember that in this case that the theocracy that is the Islamic Republic of Iran is dealing with infidels. All the members of the P-5 plus the EU are non-Islamic nations. As such, a proper Muslim knows that it not necessary to be truthful to dhimmis, especially when it involves advancing the cause of the Islamic revolution.

It always fascinates me when Western politicians willfully ignore the rhetoric of non-Western leaders when it doesn’t fit their preconceptions or idealizations about the outcome they want, but accept the platitudes that are directly contradicted by that rhetoric as the “God’s honest truth.”

I have pretty much resolved myself to the fact that this administration will let the Republican Guard Corps to come into possession of nuclear weapons. No doubt in my mind.

Of course, the Saudis and the Israelis might try to say something different, at which point the Middle East will become one big funeral pyre as nations get sucked into the conflict.

Guns of August, anyone? 2014 seems a propitious year to repeat 1914, but with nukes this time.

Bad Republicans

The Republican conspiracy

I read this article on the Huffington Post and I about fell out of my chair laughing. Why? Because the author’s premise is so silly.

First … the Republicans. TEA Party-nics and conservatives are not Democrats or progressives. They are the opposition. You know, people who oppose you. They should be expected to do what they can to make your policies and plans fail.

Now, it doesn’t take a savant to figure out that they don’t agree with policies like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). So, if you are the elected representative of your particular area (and a majority of the people in the last election for your office voted for you) then it is pretty much a given that you represent at least some of their views and that should govern the way you vote. If your district doesn’t really like some law or policy, then it is your job to do what you can to overturn or change that policy.

The author of the article seems to think that Republicans are some terrible beasts because they don’t view the world through the same prism that he does. That is what is wrong with the world.

Reverse the shoe, say a war in Iraq. Is it not the right of the opponents of such a venture to do whatever they can to end it? It seems that was the progressives’ line just a few years ago.

Of course, they were chastised in much the same manner as the right is being assailed today. That is politics, folks.

I find it humorous to the absurd to watch various people and groups of people hammer their political opponents for their views in language that probably would have been reprehensible in my youth. However, the historian in me knows that the language of politics in the United States always has bordered on the rough and tumble.

I guess what I find most humorous is the view that everyone has to view the world through the same lens, the same philosophy, the same cultural view plate. I find it humorous, because it is so tragic and misguided that it really makes me want to despair, but I chose to laugh at my troubles rather than cry.

I wish, as Pappy used to say, I could knock some heads together in order to knock some sense into them.

People, we are all different. We all look at the world and see different visions. Depending on our experiences and cultural environment, we value different things. Some of these things we agree on the value of and others we profoundly disagree; however, the mere fact that we disagree doesn’t make us bad people.

Just because a person disagrees with you does not necessarily make that person evil … just different. Sometimes that person is evil, but it is not because they disagree with you.

The difference, as I see it, is a different view on how much responsibility the individual for his or her life. Are we, as individuals, supposed to be willing to accept the consequences of our choices? Are we supposed to be willing to accept that life is not fair and often sends adversity our way when we can ill afford it?

A lot of people say we are not. They say we are obligated to help all those less fortunate than we are. I would agree with part of that. I would say I have an personal obligation to make that choice, but that society, or the state, doesn’t not have the right to compel me to do it by force.

So to insist that anyone has a right to demand or compel another give them a good or service at a price less than they are willing to do it is, in my humble opinion, wrong. Even lifesaving medical care.

Another unfortunate aside: It seems to me that in our narcissism that seems to afflicted so many people, we seem to believe that we are supposed to live forever. Wrong answer, folks. We are mortal and every day here is a gift (that is why they call it “present”).

Sometimes, I think, in our quest for immortality, we forget that others have rights too. We forget it is not ours to demand that they forgo their rights just to our benefit. This is not to say that they can’t forgo those rights, but the choice is theirs and not ours.

Anyway, I love when progressives try to defend their demands, but it makes me want to laugh in their face when I hear them denigrate those who disagree with them. What was it Pappy used to tell me about the pot calling the kettle “black.”

Asking Not What Our Country Can Do for Us

Asking Not What Our Country Can Do for Us

As much as I hate to think what this will do but once again those who serve with honor are being asked to take the lead, to take another hill. Were that it not necessary, but that it is the price of leadership and sometimes those of us are called upon again and again to show the way.

We took and oath and we have honored our oath. While we deserve whatever our nation grants us in compensation (and it should honor its commitments to us), we also need to rise and once again move forward ... not just for ourselves, or the buddies on either side of us, but because it is what we do and we do it for the nation and the people that we love.

Philosophy 101–Essay #5

Fifth in a series

Essay #1

Essay #2

Essay #3

Essay #4

For those who have just joined us, I am exploring the roots of my philosophies and sharing them. This really means asking a series of questions and then trying to answer them. Those who have read the earlier essays, I hope this continues along in a satisfactory vein.

Society: What is it? What do we expect of it? What does it expect of us?

Ah, therein lays the rub. Expectations and how do we deal with them.

Society, as I see it, is the social contract that binds humans together to form … well … society. It is the social contract that defines every society.

So, what does a social contract do? It does what any contract in human relations does: It defines expectations. It tells the party of the first part what is expected of them and in return what the party of the second part is expected to do in return. No matter where you are, where you live or with whom you are living with, there is a social contract that outlines the rules of the relationship. Sometimes these are written, but more often they are not. Usually, they are not even articulated but understood because of the conditioning that we all receive from our experiences and cultural environment as we develop into adult human beings.

Interestingly enough, this is where the cultural environment comes into play and pretty much defines how the contract is laid out and enforced. In the United States/North America there are maybe a dozen and a half or so cultural environments or patterns that have been laid down and compete for dominance. Each has its own value system as to what it considers important and what it doesn’t. Unfortunately, while they may share some aspects, they can be mutually exclusive in others in what they expect. Expand that to include the whole world and the competition for dominance and the breadth of beliefs is mind-boggling. We simply cannot comprehend it, or those whose world view is so different from our own.

For instance: What is the role of the individual? What place does the individual have within the construct of a given cultural value system? Is the individual important or merely another bee in the hive?

That adds another paradigm for us to consider when we look at people: Are we herd animals? Are we pack animals? Or are we hive creatures? In each of those paradigms the individual plays a different role, but the question is which paradigm is the best for humans to adopt as a social model? Or maybe there is another model out there for us to consider. Interestingly enough, we humans exhibit characteristics of all those social models, so go figure.

I for one have made the choice that the individual is probably the most important element in the social model, any social model. It is the basic component and is capable of making independent choices separate from the group. To an extent, it can survive without the group, but the group cannot exist without individuals. That is reality. And where there are two humans, one of each sex, then the group at least has an opportunity to thrive and grow. Without those individuals making the choice to be together, then there will be no society.

Others may not agree, but assume for the moment that what I posit is true.

So, the next question becomes how we define what we expect society to do for us and what should society expect of us in return. Remember, this is a contract and like any contract it is a two-way street. Of course, you are free to disagree with that formulation, but I suspect that any society that you create that does not recognize that life is a contract and it goes both ways will be destined to collapse.

Let’s go back to my earlier contention that we all basically are operating in our own self-interest seeking to meet our basic needs in the hierarchy of needs outlined somewhere by psychologists that I vaguely remember studying way back when I was getting that formal education that many of us go through. (Of course, if you want to read a more current version; then read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins – I found it a difficult but very interesting tome.)

Realizing that I am speaking in generalizations, but people are not really altruistic for the most part. There always is a somewhat selfish reason for what they do, even if sometimes they can’t even articulate that reason themselves. People are – at the same time – very complex and very simple creatures trying to satisfy that hierarchy of needs. Occasionally, I admit, saints do walk among us, but they are the exception rather than the rule and societies cannot be built on the expectation that everyone will be a saint (unfortunately, that too is a recipe for failure and disappointment). So, if you want things to work, then find reasons for people to want to make things work. Society needs to make whatever it is in the individual’s own best interest to do what it expects.

To do that, society can use two methods to modify behavior: Rewards or punishments or some permutation of the two. Rewards are more positive ways to reinforce acceptable behavior, while punishment often is a better teacher for immediate correction. Mistakes are nature’s best teacher because usually there is a negative consequence (id est: a punishment) associated with it – sometimes very severe consequences. Fire burns. Touch it and it hurts.

But before we must choose which manner we want for our society to work, we have to decide what we want society to do. So, as individuals, what can we expect society to do for us?

Well, that is the great debate that rages in American society today. In fact, I suspect that the same debate is raging in societies around the world as they come in contact in an age of near instantaneous global communication with differing philosophies and cultures that pollute their environments with strange and new ideas about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.

The point I am making here is that we are all the products of the environments in which we grew up. Whether we want to admit it or not, everything we think, do or say, is a result of those influences that have shaped our lives. We are not clones. We are not all the same. We are different.

Unfortunately, in the modern world, the boundaries have shifted. Our societal expectations, a product of our being exposed to different cultural environments, are in a flux. Whereas, for earlier generations, expectations did not shift much over time; now – with the telecommunications revolution and flow of people and ideas from land to land – the rigidity of cultural expectations are collapsing left and right, leaving many people adrift. In fact, entire countries, societies and cultures are adrift. We are desperately trying to reestablish what those cultural norms are to be.

Well, folks, we ain’t there yet … and I suspect I will be long dead and gone before you get there.

The problem, unfortunately, is that we are still clinging to some absolutes and those are the cultural blinders that we grew up with or we have instituted new ones to replace the old. We still are thinking that everyone in the world, much less our own societies (at all levels), is singing from the same sheet of music but they aren’t. Because they aren’t, we get mad and insist that everyone play by our rules.

So, we have this great chasm in a country as large as the United States over what we expect from society and what we expect society to expect from each of us as individuals. Expand that to include the rest of the human race and all its various cultural environments and it gets even worse.

What will have to happen, in the end, is that each individual will have to reach an accommodation with the social structure he or she chooses to live in. That process is known as reaching a consensus. We don’t have that right now and I see a lot of conflict ahead of us before such consensuses begin to shake out.

Be not disencouraged, however, this is normal. In fact, admittedly usually at a bit slower than the breakneck pace we see today, mankind has gone through these upheavals many times and has survived them all so far. I think it will do it again.

I hope I have given you some more food for thought.

Nuff said for now.

Example of myopia

Battling the spread of anti-biotic resistant bugs

definition of Myopia - see #2

I laud the American Centers for Disease Control for all they do protecting us from the ravages of all the illnesses that tend to attack humans.

However, the news story on CNN illustrates what I mean by cultural myopia. All too often we tend to think that the cultural environment we live in is shared by all … bad news … it isn’t.

That is why all the wonderful things that the CDC tries sometimes doesn’t even make progress in the US. It would be nice if everybody would, as Pappy used to tell me when it was really important that I get his message, listen, hear and attend to what it is saying. Unfortunately, that is not happening and it is somewhat silly to think that it will happen.

Even worse, it leads to the “experts” trying to impose their vision on the less informed people so that they can be protected against themselves, their own follies and foibles.

We are seeing that in the US with the new health care financing regime popularly known as Obamacare (but really entitled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). All those silly people who didn’t have enough sense to get the health care insurance plan that these experts deemed adequate are now being forced to do so, whether they want to or not; or they will face a new tax (it is not a fine, the Supreme Court said it was a tax), because it is the right of every person within the US borders to get health care regardless if they want it or not.

Oh, and employers will face the new tax in a year or so, unless they get with the program.

Now, it seems that a lot of Americans were happy with their lot and pretty well understood the value they were getting for their premiums. Unfortunately for a lot of them (now numbering in the millions), their insurance carrier was forced by federal law to drop the policy that they had because they had changed some of its wording or the pricing schedules to reflect new realities.

I have no doubt that there will be winners and losers in this situation and the winners will be tickled pink at how much they will save. They ought to be … but at the same time, they need to acknowledge that someone else is picking up the tab for them.

I am not necessarily saying that is wrong, because that is how insurance works. Normally, however, it is a matter of choice for both the carrier and the insured. Removing the element of choice – and essentially that is what Obamacare does by setting its vision of what should be covered and what should not be covered – is what I disagree with.  But then, nobody asked me.

You see, I have a problem with the government/society protecting me from my own foibles. Granted, there are those who will argue that we have to be protected from vagaries of life that can inflict so much damage on us. I suppose they have a point, especially when they can’t get someone else to share the burden or risk with them. But then, I disagree. I see life as being basically unfair and our test is to see how we cope with reality. Getting others to carry our burdens without their consent is a little beyond me.

My fear, you see, is that when we do that, we surrender our freedoms and liberty to make choices. To me, that is more important … but then I have to admit I invested a lot in making sure I had health care insurance coverage as I got older.

I have paid and am paying a pretty penny for that coverage – in more than one currency – so, I don’t have to worry about the medical care that I or my wife have to pay for. It may not cost as much now as others, but then I made different choices … and one of those choices always kept one eye on the necessity of providing myself with health insurance at a certain age.

Unfortunately although I keep getting reassured that the federal government is not going to muck with it too much, I fear that the federal government in its good intent is going to change all the rules, negate all the planning and effort I put into setting up my coverage and basically mucking it all up.

You see the U.S. federal government has a long track record of mucking things up … and with me, going back on its word.

So, while I hope that the CDC folks can get their way, sort of, I look at the US and shake my head in doubt.

As for changing the habits in other places? Not a chance that is going to happen. That is what I mean by myopia. These experts can’t see past the borders and realize that things in other cultures and social environments just ain’t the same as they are down in Atlanta.

Anyway, I suspect that regardless of what happens, the human race will endure.

If JFK lived

Book reimages what life would have been like

Give me a break folks. This month is the 50th anniversary of the death of President John F. Kennedy. Guess what? I could give a rats behind.

Seriously, folks, what does it matter now whether JFK was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald or not? It isn’t going to change history one whit.

You can make up all the stories you want about what JFK might have done, or might not have done, but guess what? They didn’t happen.

JFK is dead … and has been since about 1:30 that afternoon. I remember that day. I was in high school. It was about lunch time out in California when it first started filtering through our school. I remember drifting out to the front of the school to see them lower the flag to half staff.

I remember my English teacher running from my class (the first period after my lunch) when the announcement was made over the school’s public address system that it was official that the President of the United States had died of an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas. I remember the next four days either watching the endless TV reports or riding my bicycle endless miles through the orange groves (at the time) of Orange County, California, with my best friend talking about it … speculating about it and the death of Oswald two days later.

Over the years, I have interviewed various “investigators” as well as people related to people involved in the events in Dallas. And I came to a conclusion long ago.

It doesn’t matter who killed Kennedy. You can charge all the people you want and it won’t bring him back. It won’t change the course of the Lyndon Johnson administration. It won’t change what happened under Richard Nixon. It won’t change what happened to Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King. It won’t change a damn thing that has happened in the last 50 years.

JFK was not a saint. I think that should be obvious to everyone now. If it isn’t, then you have been willfully ignorant of all the other things he did in his life.

Robert Kennedy wasn’t a saint either. Nor was Martin Luther King.  All were fallible human beings torn by the currents that tear at all our lives. Sometimes, I think we want to make them into Gods, but they are not.

So, does it matter if, had JFK lived, that history might have been different? No.

Yes, it would have been different because a different person would have been in the Oval Office making decisions, but would that history have been better than the history we (who are old enough) lived through? We don’t know, we can’t know and it is silly to speculate otherwise.

Let’s deal with the here and now. No matter how perfect our hindsight is, it is irrelevant.  History is what it is. We have to deal with the now, with what we think we know now and make our decisions as best we can.

I think, like the American Civil War, it is time for the American people to get over the JFK assassination. It doesn’t matter any more.

Philosophy 101–Essay #4

Fourth in a series

Essay #1

Essay #2

Essay #3

Still in a quest of definitions to define your philosophy? I am, so follow me.

What is society? And how do you define it?

Up to now, I pretty much have focused on the basic element of human existence, as I see it, and that has been the individual, but that is not the whole story. Human existence also has been defined by the associations that individuals make with other human beings. For lack of a better term, I call that “society”.

Society, in its smallest form, is the nuclear family most of us grew up with. It takes on a multiple of other forms as you expand the size of the group.

Societies come in all sorts of forms that can be defined essentially by the group’s behavior. You can have paternalistic societies, where the dominant leaders are normally male and take on the characteristics of fathers; maternalistic societies where the dominant leaders are female and take on the characteristics of mothers. You can have authoritarian societies where the leader makes all the decisions of any import or anarchical societies where no one is in charge. You can have societies where the individual is responsible for everything concerning himself up to where the whole society is involved in every decision that is made concerning the individual. You can societies with “herd” mentalities, where it basically is just follow along with the crowd, or “pack” mentalities, where the individuals band together to work together but under the leadership of one.

There are democratic societies where the decisions are the entire group’s responsibility. There are republics, where the group is so large that subsets of it select individuals to represent them in a central decision-making group. There are aristocratic societies where the leadership and the key roles are passed from parent to child. There are feudal societies where usually aristocratic style leaders follow a hierarchy based on professions of loyalty. And occasionally, you run across meritocracies, where the leading roles fall upon those who demonstrate the best capabilities in their fields. You have tribal societies, where the needs of the tribe or clan rank higher than those of the individual. You have communal societies where everybody shares everything … sort of kinda but that never really seems to work out that way over time.

It is obvious that the human race has developed a society for just about any style of living that you can think of … and then some. Some work, some don’t. Why? Well, I have my theories, but they are just my opinions and you know about those … still, I am going to give you my reason. Those that work take human nature and work with it. Those that don’t work try to change or alter human nature and that is a recipe for failure.

So, that takes us back to the individual and why does the individual do anything. Why do people do anything? Because they perceive it is in their own best interest. In other words, it meets a need that they have, whether it is food, shelter, protection or acceptance (The four basics as I see them). In exchange for helping the individual meet those needs, societies make certain demands on an individual and that usually is conformity to a set of norms concerning behavior.

Social scientists will tell you this is called the social contract and I think it is a pretty good way to describe it. Society says to the individual: You want to participate in our little group, here are the rules. Abide by them and you are an accepted member; don’t and you a deviant and will be ousted. That is the contract and you sign on the dotted line by your consent to live by those rules. You can argue with that definition, but I am not sure how you would replace it.

Now, the problem arises because not all people agree on what type of society they want to live in, not by a long shot. And the bigger the population, the bigger problem gets because the more people you have, the more differences you have. Each individual (there I go harking back to the individual) has their own view of how things should be. Granted, the language he learns to think in and the customs and traditions she grows up with play a major role in how a person views what society is and should be, but they still will have their own feelings and thoughts about the system. Because we do think, we are different. (OK, Pappy used to tell me that most people don’t think, they merely rearrange their prejudices, but that doesn’t necessarily apply here).

However, then the question arises do we act more like a herd or a pack? Remember, a herd rarely has a “leader” per se and generally just flows along, drifting here and there, trying to make sure those basic needs are met. This does not exclude the fact that some herds seem to follow leaders, but those leaders are not choosing, nor are they necessarily chosen, to lead. A pack, normally, is smaller than a herd and, usually, travels with a purpose while following an accepted leader who either chooses to lead or has been chosen to lead. People, unfortunately, tend to display both tendencies which makes it hard to figure out what they are going to do in any given situation. Are we a herd today or are we going to be a pack? Of course, sometimes we prefer just to wander about on our own. Aren’t we a contrary species?

Still, society at all its levels plays a major role not only in the choices we make but also in the choices that we have available. Those choices usually are the result of centuries of traditions and customs so deeply embedded that sometimes we don’t even recognize that they are there and shaping what we are doing. This is especially true when you apply the language to our thought patterns and the value systems that we are exposed to as we develop from infants to adulthood. They form the framework and basis for all else that comes after – with subtle influences from genetic pre-dispositions thrown in to complicate matters.

Those instinctive behaviors – basically stuff handed down to us by thousands of years of specie-specific survival – include our basic reactions to certain stuff that no matter how hard we try, we can control to some extent, but we can’t seem to shake. The most obvious of these is that humans are sexual animals. It is how we reproduce and propagating the species is a very basic thing for just about any creature (otherwise they go extinct). Sex is, after food, just about the most important thing in an adult human’s existence. Sometimes we do it just for the pleasure, but it is pleasurable to encourage reproduction.

(Another aside: Yes, I believe in the evolution of the human species. I do not find that incompatible at all with believing in God. In fact, it reinforces my belief in a divine being. I also think that the Bible can be interpreted many ways, and in our hubris we tend to put it only in terms our own relative comprehension, without considering that, assuming that it is inspired by the Creator in one way or another, God may be traveling to a different drummer and playing on a different time scale that we are. However, I am not going to digress further on that topic. Just remember, time is relative.)

How a society is structured, coupled with its cultural (value-based) influences, together are the key elements in how we humans are. To that end, I would recommend a book that I recently read “American Nations” by Colin Woodard. It does a very readable and interesting job of explaining how the various cultures of the North American continent influence its politics and social behaviors. It is not a perfect explanation, but it does a pretty good job of synthesizing the interaction of the various factors that make up our world.

I hope all this gives you food for thought.

Nuff said, for this round. Stay tuned for another chapter.

Imperialist America

Military assets deploy to help the Philippines

I would really like people to take a long hard look at the list compiled in the above link.

For Americans, it is a lesson of what those tax dollars go for.

For non-Americans, it is a lesson of how the Americans lead from the front.

I know there are those who will piss and moan about American taxpayer money being diverted from needs at home, but what they don’t realize is that this effort is a better demonstration of what the US is about than anything else I can think of.

Note that those resources, designed for war, also can be used to fight the ravages of nature.

Those resources, designed for war, are an instrument to bring supplies to where they are needed because that is a task that is vital to succeeding in conflict.

Understand people that the ships on that list represent a significant proportion of the Pacific Fleet which is spread from the India Ocean to Antarctica to the Panama Canal to San Diego to Japan and Korea.

Journalist were asking: Where is the help for all those people stricken by the devastation of the typhoon?

Well, look no further. And you have to remember, those people helped by those Americans will remember. This is what power is all about.

There is hard power … and that is the ability to fight … and there is soft power … and that is the ability to bring help where it is needed.

For all those who complain about America’s role in the world, there are people in the Philippines (and other places around the world) who will be eternally grateful for the Americans’ presence.

I have seen this first hand. It is one of the reasons that I have been so proud of the men and women who wear the uniforms of the American military. It is part of the reason I was proud to share that honor with them. These people are really a beacon of hope for so many around the world.

Lastly: Yes, this is done in the interest of America. It is to advance the interests of the United States. If that makes the US imperialists, then I am proud that we are.  We may be different from the imperialists who have gone before, for we really are far less ruthless and we really do ask for far less they our predecessors.

Philosophy 101–Essay #3

Essay #1

Essay #2

Third in a series

As I extend my exploration of my own personal philosophy of life, I hope you will follow along as I continue in search of definitions on which to base further discussion. I really hope you find these wanderings of value and possibly interesting.

Our world is made up of what we can hear, see, taste, smell, touch and imagine. I think we all can agree on that.

But how we perceive that world is heavily influenced by a host of learned factors that color and add texture and nuance to that perception. What are these factors, these influences?

By and large, the greatest is our own experiences with life. Each of us, individually, have encountered a unique set of environmental stimuli which has been stored and processed by that incredible computer we have in our head called our brain.

I am not a scientist, nor do I claim to be a particularly well-educated person, nor am I all that much smarter than the average bear, but I have interviewed, interacted and even lived in close proximity with some people who are/were far smarter than the average bear as well as being scientists, specialists and experts in a wide range of human endeavors (Sounds like those TV commercials with one of the Baldwin brothers). That relatively unusual confluence of experiences does give me, I think, my own unique perspective on our world.

It is, for example, the reason I believe that the individual is far more important in human events than we give them credit for. And I am not talking about the “key man” theory of history, or anything related to that. I am more in the vein of the “want of a nail” theory of life or one where each of us, however insignificant we may think we are, plays a role in the greater scheme of things and without that influence, however small it may be, things could and would be different.

Now, you are free to disagree with me, but I have seen far too many instances of where instants make a difference and the sum of those instants make a major change in the course of events. Stop and think sometime about major events in your lifetime. Think about all the things that happened to you leading up to that event … the little things, that maybe delayed you a second or two here or there or a street light that you ran that got you to somewhere 20 seconds earlier than if you hadn’t ran it. Add all those “chance” happenings, multiply them by the number of people involved and you get an incredible array of possible outcomes that didn’t happen. Now, multiply that by all the events that happen in a day … and you will be overwhelmed … it is simply not something you or any computer would be able to handle. Then add in the factor that you have a choice and it is not always binary (yes/no, black/white, pass/fail, go/no-go) and you really begin to wonder. And every person faces the same thing and that is what has made up human history. (Now, I have read that some in quantum physics claim that all those multi-verses exist, but that it too much for me to deal with. Let’s deal with one universe at a time.)

Passing aside: People wonder why I question things like opinion polls and computer models. It is simple, they are too easily manipulated. Change one word here, or a byte there, and the whole thing goes spinning off in another direction.

There is a quote somewhere supposedly by Dwight Eisenhower that goes “Plans are useless, but planning is everything.” That is because plans make various assumptions that usually are not valid … or at least change before you get very far … and it is the planning process that allows you to anticipate the various alternatives that you have to choose from. Life is like that and each of us does our own planning.

So, please remember, that choice is integral to our world along with the person making that choice. Your choices are important.

Next, we have to consider what elements – like our experiences – shape the choices we make. Experience is only one of the things that give texture to our choices. Our environment, and by this I mean our social and cultural environment, also plays a major role, if not a definitive role. You see, our social and cultural environment determines what and how we think.

I know I just lost some people there, so I will step back and make another run at it. What we think and how we think is a product not only of our experience but the language we are brought up and steeped in. That is our social and cultural heritage, our environment, so to speak.

Without language, we cannot think. It is language that gives us the ability to shape our thoughts and imaginings into words that we can share with others. We don’t have the ability to transfer our thoughts via telepathy (well, most of us don’t) and imagery goes just so far with intangible things, so we are limited in how we transmit information from one person to another to words that we agree on what they mean (language). It also is how in our brain that we process and organize those thoughts and ideas that we seek to express.

The words we choose to give wings to our thoughts – whether in written form like this essay or aural so that we hear it – make a major difference in how those thoughts are perceived. And it is important to remember that others have different social and cultural associations with those words even if you are speaking the same language, which in the vast majority of cases around the world we are not.

How we decide to use those words is what our social and cultural environment teaches us. We learn words from all sorts of sources in our lives, and our vocabulary and accent often defines us to various people and groups of people. If you haven’t read or seen the play Pygmalion or the musical play/movie My Fair Lady, then you missed an exercise in what I am saying.

But words, written or spoken, are used because we have agreed on (sort of kinda maybe) a definition of what they mean. Our society/our culture define the words we share, but each of us has our own customized definitions for each word.

Suffice it to say, the cultural environment that you are born into and then chose to live in defines you and helps shape the choices you make and the words you chose to express your beliefs. Again, however, it is very individual and despite what some people will have you believe, just because you share a lot of opinions, views, beliefs with others, it does not mean that you don’t have your own mind. Remember you, and those not-you, are different and each one not-you is a unique individual. (Take that, stereotypes!)

Yes, culture through language often encourages conformity, as does our own need for acceptance and companionship, but it does not negate the reality that each of us is an individual, who perceives the world through our own eyes, our own prism, our own separate set of parameters and paradigms.

One of the hardest parts of “growing up”, I think, is coming to grips with the fact that we indeed are all different. That we really are unique in our own way and that means that we are separate from others. That can be a very discomforting thought for a lot of people because, to introduce a new concept here, people are part herd and part pack animals. (OH! Did I forget to say that we are part of Nature’s Animal Kingdom? Well, we are, so get over it.)

Nuff said for this round … I hope it gives you something to think about.