The Great, Global Video Landfill

What better way is there to describe the phenomenon known as YouTube?  A vast dumping ground used by the human race as a place to put everything.  Not just garbage, though there is no doubt garbage aplenty, but everything that we take the trouble to commit to video and then install there, probably forever or as near to forever we can achieve.

Garbage itself need not be worthless.  Sometimes, items of value are put in landfills, on purpose or by error.  Most items found in them at least were valued at one time, or contained what was valued by someone and then used or broken, or aged or became beyond repair.  In time it like other landfills will be the delight of archaeologists and anthropologists, or perhaps even extraterrestrials eager to learn about us after we've killed each other or are wiped out by natural disasters.

There's no denying its fascination.  It's similar to the Internet or the Web or whatever it's appropriately called, in that you will find what you search for, no matter how trivial or exotic it may be (well, within certain limits).  I've found much related to history and my other interests, and I've hardly explored it.  But matters of historical interest must make up only a small portion of what's been dumped there and may be viewed at our pleasure at any time.  Episodes or portions of episodes of series available through other media are there; performances of all kinds; commentary on films, politics and other things by anyone who knows how to post to it....in fact, anything by anyone who knows how to post to it, regardless of its content or quality.  Videos regarding aircraft, ships, cars, cats, aliens, created by people who may or may not know something about what it is they upload.  Or is it download?

That is a concern, or should be.  The extent of the expertise of those who purport to be experts on what they put in the landfill, verification of what is claimed, what's motivated them, the veracity of what you see, are not delved into or expressed, in most cases.  If such things matter to you, they're your concern.  You must make the effort to determine the quality and truthfulness of what you see.  I suspect few are inclined to make that effort.

Some of what you see clearly constitute opinion.  There are several devoted to reviews of TV series and movies, which are amusing though generally negative.  The ones I've seen are especially critical of productions deemed "woke" or which appear to go out of their way to feature characters which are of all races and sexual preferences, at the same time damning traditional masculine characteristics.  

I've written before of my distaste for those I consider media missionaries; those who seem to feel a need to teach or show the less enlightened among us what is proper, regardless of the content of the works they seek to dramatize.  Regardless of the Lore, as it's called in the case of the sometimes obsessively liked books like Lord of the Rings, for example.  I feel a certain sympathy for critics who complain of gratuitous modification of great stories for missionary purposes of this kind.

But there's nothing I've seen to indicate that these critics are particularly knowledgeable, or that they should be watched or listened to, beyond perhaps the number of views they've accumulated.  Why shouldn't that be enough to qualify them for what it is that they do, which I would say is entertain, nothing more, nothing less?

As to such things I'm inclined not to take them very seriously.  What interests me about them is not their content, but what it is that motivates people to make them and put them on YouTube and to watch them.  I think it gives the creators, rather than the watchers, a feeling that they attain a certain fame, or perhaps even immortality given the fact that as far as I'm aware, once you're there on the Web you can never be completely deleted.  I don't think this conceit is disgraceful.  I'm aware of the fact that this blog may be considered my own effort to attain something similar, though I know that the number of views it's had is exceedingly small in comparison with those of any given cat video, which makes that most unlikely.

As to other things we see in the landfill, or on the Web, or in social media, they're to be taken seriously to the extent they influence others.  Those who make them are known now as "Influencers" apparently.  And those who watch or read or hear them are so easily influenced, that what they seek to influence and the reasons why they do so must be of concern.  

We as a species are so likely to make mistakes that the more of us there are, and the more that we're able to influence others, the more the mistakes we'll make in number and in severity.  It's curious that information and knowledge are so easily and widely available through technology, and yet we seem the worse for it.  It was once thought that the better educated and informed we become, the better we will be.  We seem to be determined to establish that is not the case, however.  Disinformation is as or even more likely to be accessed on YouTube or other sources, of course.  But information itself can be dangerous if unfiltered and unrestricted.

 

The "Me" Century

The late, great and (by me at least) lamented Tom Wolfe wrote a book, or perhaps more properly an essay, called The "Me" Decade and the Third Great Awakening.  The decade he referred to was that of the 1970s.  The "Third Great Awakening" he proclaimed was a jest he was making based on the (first) Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening, sadly real episodes in American history of Christian revivals led by Protestant Evangelical leaders.  Besides the preaching of hellfire and brimstone, our sinful nature and the need for redemption, the fear of divine retribution and protestations of piety, the Awakenings resulted in the creation of new sects and denominations and social movements and, in the case of the second one, the YMCA, later to be lauded so vigorously by the Village People.

As the quote at the head of this post reveals, Wolfe claimed that in the Third Great Awakening "Me" took the place of Jesus, and we became fervent in the worship our ourselves.  He provided various examples of our religious self-love.  

The argument can be made that we continue to worship ourselves, and in fact that we've always done so.  Since the 1970s, though, our ability to engage in self-worship has increased spectacularly.  Even more importantly, we now each possess the means to serve as our own missionaries, proclaiming our godhood and spreading our good news throughout the world.  We may expect that our technology will allow us to do these things more and more effectively.  

Each of us may transmit our thoughts, and expose our bodies and even souls to the view of all, and many of us do so.  Such is our self-regard that there is no practical limit to what we're willing to do or say, though we know in the back of our minds that all can be seen regardless of the fact that we seem alone in our room.  And it appears we don't care.  We feel neither shame nor concern; we have no responsibility, we're not answerable to anyone or anything when it comes to our opinions or our actions which we incessantly broadcast--or at least that seems to be the case.  There's no one to question our conclusions or rebut our claims unless we allow them to do so, except in the relatively few cases where law enforcement or those interested in shaming have reason to take notice of us.  The number of those of us interested in shaming is no doubt increasing, however.  It will be interesting to see whether this will lessen our exhibitionism.

That this is the result of our self-love, and even self-imposed godly status, is established by the fact that our unfailing efforts to expose and expound our every thought, opinion or feeling on any subject to everyone and anyone can only be explained by our sense of our own importance.  What reasonable person would assume that these must be made available to the world at large?  A god might do so; also a lunatic, or egomaniac.  

Or can this be explained by another kind of religious or quasi-religious feeling?  Might we sons and daughters (or whatever we might think ourselves to be) of Adam and Eve, knowing that we're tainted by Original Sin, aware of our sinfulness, wretchedness and insignificance, be desperately seeking validation and redemption through use of the vast confessional of the Internet?  Are we Tommies, like the hero of The Who's rock opera, crying "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me" in the World-Wide Web?  Our PCs become pin-ball machines.  Do we think ourselves saviors of ourselves or others?

If we're not gods, we possess the tools to act as gods.  We're capable of making proclamations and expressing opinions on every subject, regardless of our abilities, education, experience and knowledge.  In a very real sense it doesn't matter whether our beliefs have been critiqued, verified, or made subject to peer review in order for them to be made available (so much more efficaciously than through publication) by use of a keyboard or camera.  We don't need such review of or limitations on our expression to be read, seen or heard, and therefore believe them unneeded.  

We can appear to be all-knowing, and act as if we're omniscient, always and with ease.  One doesn't have to be a god in order to act like one.

Barking Mad

What better way to illustrate the smug, cruel, hectoring and thoughtless nature of the times then through this later sketch by Goya?  Surely you see someone you've seen before among those pictured, here?  Someone you've seen on TV or a computer monitor or smartphone, perhaps (where else do we see anyone or anything, anymore?).

I'm increasingly impressed by what I think are the limits of the human mind, made bare--certainly not glorious--by the vast information available to us and our sad reaction to it.  It must be true that there is more available, more to know if we were to make the effort, than ever before in our history.  But though that's clear it isn't possible to think that we're any the better for it.  We seem instead to be suffering from a collective form of attention deficit disorder.

A particular kind of collective ADD, however.  One in which our failure, or inability, to pay attention is paramount, particularly in connection with information which doesn't comfort us or comport with our preferences.  We seem unable to either process or accept such information.  In fact, more than that is involved.  We also actively doubt and even condemn such information.  It is "fake news" to use the unwittingly stupid parlance of the times.  It's something designed to mislead us, by enemies sometimes known, sometimes unknown, sometimes imagined.

As may be expected, this rejection of what doesn't accord with our beliefs and desires is matched by an unthinking, uncritical, acceptance of what does.  Words and sounds and images appear before us or are heard by us, and if we like them we believe them to be the way, the truth, and the light (there's something religious about the zeal with which we accept what we like, especially when it's transmitted via the technology we use every minute of the day, which increasingly becomes our reality).  So, we pass it along through social media as the truth, without verifying what is said or pictured.

In times when communication was much slower than it is now, someone, possibly P.T. Barnum, noted that a sucker is born every minute.  Now perhaps it's more accurate to say suckers are born always.  Why particularize, or qualify?    We live in the time, or kingdom, of the con artist.  Never before has it been easier to pass on and popularize untruth and exaggeration.  In an age where we come more and more to seek simple answers, an understandable result when a limited mind is subject to unlimited information, it may be the case as well that never before have we been more inclined to be conned.

Lately I've been thinking of the play Marat/Sade, and the movie inspired by it (actual title:  The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade).  I'd like to see it again.  It seems particularly pertinent given the upcoming election here in God's Favorite Country.  Perhaps we're in a madhouse of sorts, under the direction of other, more fortunate inmates, playing out scenes derived from a cherished past for the benefit of those who wish us to be amused and distracted while we do their bidding.

Mencken's Prescience

How the Sage of Baltimore would laugh; or is laughing if he found, to his surprise, that there is an afterlife.  I've criticized him in the past in this blog for his elitism.  His dark view of American democracy is a part of that elitism.  But who can doubt, now, that what he said would take place has indeed taken place?

But I don't write to bemoan the lurching, baffling and often deplorable presidency of the current dimwitted occupant of the White House who, if what is alleged be true, suffers from dementia as well as he does from ignorance and incoherence.  Well, not to any great extent, in any event.

What with Oprah expressing an interest in running for president, and other luminaries such as Kid Rock being spoken of as fit for elective office, I wonder if "the inner soul of the people" of our Glorious Republic is as fatuous as Mencken clearly thought it to be nearly a century ago.  Are we, the citizens of God's favorite country, intent on trusting the leadership of our nation to persons not necessarily morons by the usual definition, but clearly--to put it kindly--unready to accept such responsibility, merely because they appear before us on TV or some other medium and appeal to us in some way?

If so, we are the "downright morons" if not those we elect.  One would hope that the average citizen would as a matter of self-interest if nothing else be interested in seeing someone with some experience in government and knowledgeable of it be elected, but the most recent presidential election shows that isn't the case.

It may be that many of us have swallowed, hook, line and sinker that silliest of claims, that a business person would know what to do as a politician.  But what reason is there to believe this claim?  What we expect of government is not what we would expect from a for-profit business; we can't conceivably be considered shareholders in the government of the United States, and certainly not directors of it.  Besides, those like the current president have never even run a business that is accountable to shareholders, or for that matter to anyone else.  His business experience has been as master of a privately run business, subject to his every whim.  Thus, bankruptcy has been his recourse more than once when things go bad.

Is it possible that we've begun to confuse reality with reality shows, or more correctly with what we see and hear on TV, or movies, on what we download, on the video games we play?  Why not?  Aren't they becoming more and more a significant part of the world we experience?  Perhaps even the largest part; perhaps for some of us virtually (pun intended) the entire world we experience.

We are what we know and feel.  We know and feel more and more what is shown to us, what is provided to us by others.  Little or no effort on our part is required to know and feel what is fed to us.  There's no need to think anymore, not really.  The problems we encounter are manufactured, and the way to resolve them is more and more a matter of mere expression, played out before us by others who expound and emote as publicly as possible, whom we imitate.

Appearance is reality.  This has been a kind of foundation of marketing for many years now, and politics more than ever is marketing, and money.  But not only products are being sold, now.  Reality itself is what appears before us.  We live more and more in a fantasy world, but it's not our fantasy, which presumably would be pleasant for each of us.  Who do we want to see, hear?  Who do we want to be on TV, on our tablets and phones and laptops?  That's the world in which we live.

Mencken presumably didn't anticipate where our technology has taken us, but he was a journalist and a critic.  He knew people and politicians.  Even with the limited technology available in his time, he understood that thinking was in peril, and morons thrive on thoughtlessness.  Thoughtlessness will be an essential element of our future.

The Dead Languages Society

It seems there is a difference between "dead languages" and "extinct languages."  An extinct language is one that is no longer spoken.  A dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any living community.  Latin is an example of a dead language.  It is not the native tongue of any person now alive.  However, it "lives" in the sense that it is still spoken by some, read by some; some even write it.  So, the Latin phrase shown above, which may be translated as "Long live dead languages," isn't nonsense.  It actually makes sense, to those who study Latin and other dead languages and delight in creating such phrases.  Better yet, I think, is Sola Lingua Bona est Lingua Mortua, which is to say "The only good language is a dead language."

In the Western tradition, Etruscan is a good example of an extinct language.  Nobody speaks it; very few can read what examples of it we have, and then can only do so in a very limited way.  It hasn't been figured out yet.

It's interesting to view the lists of dead or extinct languages which can be found in such sources as Wikipedia.  What is striking about these lists is that the languages shown as dead or extinct significantly outnumber those which are "living."  Dead or extinct languages may have been transformed over time and become living languages, as Latin became Italian, Spanish and French.  Or they may have been annihilated in the course of cultural assimilation.  The English and Americans insisted that the children of those they conquered learn English.  They even thought they were doing them a favor by conspiring in the destruction of native languages.  And of course they were not alone in this linguistic imperialism.

The extinction of a language is, I think, a real tragedy.  So essential is language that it may be said not merely a people or a culture but an entire world is lost when this takes place, or at least a world view, i.e. how the world is perceived by a people, how they interact with it.  It's a kind of genocide.  The extinction of languages is something like the extinction of those who spoke it.  If that's the case, then our history has been a series of extinction events; hundreds of cultures have been lost or destroyed, ways of living have been wiped off the planet.

English is neither dead nor extinct, of course, but it's interesting to speculate regarding whether it will be one or the other, in time.  I think it's more likely it will be transformed.  It may be that American English will be transformed through the slow progression in the use of Spanish in the U.S., which will take place regardless of the efforts of those who will, whether they like it or not, die soon enough and likely not be replaced or replaced by a steadily dwindling number of their descendants with the same reactionary views.  Or, and this is especially interesting, it may be that English will be transformed by the technology which now encourages us to use it less and less.

It happens that technology at one time contributed to the use of language in the sense that it led to the growth of written language.  Increasing sophistication in the use of tools to increase agriculture and the production of goods resulted in an increase in communities and transactions between them and individuals, which in turn fostered the development of means of written communication to express law and memorialize commercial transactions and eventually treaties, the use of numbers and signs to represent them, etc.  Or so it's traditionally thought.

Now technology promotes the devolution of written language.  Thus we're developing a kind of shorthand, a restricted form of English employing letters as words by virtue of the way they sound ("you" becomes "u"), the use of abbreviations which have become instantly recognizable (e.g. "lol"), and emojis.  The day will come, I predict (for all I know it may be here) when poetry, prose, lyrics are crafted on the basis of such devices of language; we may develop a new kind of hieroglyphic language. 

Old English died out long ago.  What will be come of the English of today?  The chances of it being superseded as it superseded other languages are slim, I believe, but its users and their technology could well render it radically different from what it is now.

Damnatio Memoriae

The ancient Romans had a practice called Damnatio Memoriae, roughly translatable as the condemnation of memory.  It was a decree issued by the Senate ordering that all likenesses of a person, all references to the person made on monuments, paintings, mosaics, inscriptions and, it was to be preferred, on other records be erased.  It was an effort to obliterate a person from recorded memory; official memory in any case.  Such a decree was issued as to Tiberius' all-purpose stand-in Sejanus, when he finally ran afoul of the morose old emperor.


You'll see an example of the effect of the decree above.  That's a portrait of the Emperor Septimius Severus and his family, including his wife, the Augusta, Julia Domna and their son Caracalla, himself later emperor, most famous probably for his Baths.  You might notice the large dark spot under Julia's face.  There used to be another face there, that of their son Geta.  For a brief time, Caracalla and Geta ruled together after their father's death.  That didn't turn out well for Geta.  His brother had him murdered, and then as sole Augustus convinced the Senate to issue a decree of Damnatio Memoriae to remove him from history as he had been removed from this Earth.

Of course, if the intent of the decree was to erase someone from memory, or history, it didn't work in the case of either Sejanus or Geta.  We know well enough who they were.  It's likely, therefore, that the intent was not to do so but to instead deprive them and their memory of all public honor and esteem.  Such things were important to the Romans, and to the Greeks as well and Hellenistic and Greco-Roman society.  The notion of the afterlife wasn't particularly alluring or vivid to the ancients.  One's immortality was assured by undying glory and monuments to fame.

The Romans were not the only people who engaged in this practice.  Most recently the Soviets tried something along these lines.  Stalin did his best to eliminate some of those who were his rivals, real or imagined, from the history of the Russian Revolution.   An effort was made to do the same with him, in a minor way, as to the history of the Soviet Union.  When one has control of the methods by which reputations are made or unmade, and where one is an autocrat, there must be a certain
satisfaction in doing this to enemies, or it may be that it is advantageous in various respects.

What seems to have been an impossible task even in ancient times is certainly impossible now, as we leave our marks everywhere in photographs, records electronic and otherwise, on the Web, etc. nearly ad infinitum--whether we do so voluntarily or at the behest of someone else.  Or so one would think.  Might it actually be easier now than before, at least if the idea is to hide someone from those who lack the knowledge to determine when a person's name has been deleted from the Internet or electronic records  and how to receive that information?  Now that we live online, the ability to control what is or is not online takes on a particular importance.  What is or is not online may be all or most of what we know or can learn, or what we want to know, perhaps very soon.

If, though, we can't "erase" someone from history, can we insert someone, or some unreal someone, into it, especially now?  There are instances where people have believed in the existence of a fictional, fabricated person in the past, but perhaps it may be easier now to create an identity or at least a more detailed, ubiquitous person that we could in the past.  Human, face-to-face contact is becoming increasingly less important, less necessary.  We can fake personality and likeness with remarkable success these days.

Ah, the disturbing wonder of these times.  What a time to be alive.

The Incredibly Credulous

We're being told--by the purveyors of news--that we're imperiled by "Fake News."  Fake News is, it appears, something which purports to be actual news, but is not.  It seems it lurks everywhere, but tends to appear and be reproduced especially on Facebook.

I'm not certain whether I've ever encountered Fake News.  I tend to be amused by satirical news sites like The Onion and the Onion-like English language sites I find on the Web.  Those sites publish what can clearly be called news which is fake, but it must be the case that they don't publish Fake News, because if they did it's difficult to conceive how it poses a threat to our well-being.  The news they publish is plainly fake and fake in a way which amuses or at least provokes thought of a sort (generally in the nature of ridicule) regarding their subject matter.  Presumably, someone would have to be unusually credulous in order to believe that the news stories published on such sites are accurate or true.

Apparently, Fake News appears most on Facebook or similar social media, or appears in unsolicited emails.  I personally find it hard to understand why anyone would believe a purported news story appearing in such emails or popping up on Facebook, but it seems that many do.  That's something I find far more disturbing than Fake News itself.

For some time, those who have believed whatever it is they read in the paper or see on TV have been considered naïve, or far too trusting, or thoughtless.  So, it can be said that we've been aware of the fact that media can be misleading for many years.  We've also been aware of the fact that we can be manipulated by media as well.

One would think that this would make us cautious regarding what shows up on our tablets, PCs, laptops and smart phones.  However, if the news about Fake News is accurate, that's not the case.  We're seemingly more easily duped and less likely to question now than we have been in the past.

Clearly, our technology is such that our access to information of all kinds is much greater and easier than it was in the past. So is our ability to communicate and, more pertinently, the ability of others to communicate with us. Or, perhaps I should say, to communicate to us--to send us writings, pictures, videos, audios, regardless of whether they were sought. Unless we take precautions.

I'm hardly savvy about such things, but assume that in certain if not most cases its possible to block efforts to bombard us with Fake News and otherwise intrude on us electronically. I read that Facebook is taking steps to reduce Fake News, but assume we users can do so as well. No doubt some of us do.

But some of us don't and some of us apparently belong to groups or frequent sites which one way or another provide others with access to us. Assuming this is the case, why do some of us pay attention to Fake News and, evidently, believe it? Have we abandoned verification, or do we now lack the desire to verify? Do we determine what the source of Fake News may be or merely read it, listen to or see it and automatically accept its veracity? Do we unthinkingly pass it along, if we like it? If would seem a relatively simple thing to check the bona fides of Fake News. Is it nonetheless the case that we don't bother to or think doing so is unnecessary? Why must we be protected from it by others?

It's very human to accept as true what we hear from others if it is consistent with what we think is the case. It's good for our desires and prejudices, our thoughts and feelings, to be confirmed. Accept this human weakness as a source of the tendency to believe Fake News. What's concerning is the unquestioning acceptance of information, the suspension of thought which would seem to be a prerequisite of belief in Fake News if such belief is indeed widespread. It could be that our technology is now such as to render us particularly susceptible to manipulation because our receipt of information is encouraged by it and facilitated by it. But the acceptance of Fake News requires something more, something from us and not others. It would seem to me to require that we stop thinking.

Is that a function of technology as well? The speed of communication and our ability to respond to communications is such that we tend to act immediately and without thought to what is sent to us. At the same time, there are limitations on our ability to respond to communications or to send communications which are extensive. If we can only send a certain number of words at one time, we can only express a limited amount of information. The less we can express, the less we think. The less we analyze. The more we merely react and in fact emote. It's an invitation to stupidity and crassness, as we have seen and will see more and more as the Twitter-President looms and comes closer and closer, a noisy orange-tinged storm on the horizon.

That seems to be the way of it. But it's within our control whether we rely on and have recourse only to instant, limited communication and information. We have only ourselves to blame for Fake News and for what we do with/about it.

Zugzwang in the Voting Booth

As I may have mentioned before in some post or other, "zugzwang" in chess (and perhaps in other games as well) takes place in the case where the pieces are in such a position that any move which can be made results in a disadvantage and therefore is a "bad" move.  Here is an unlikely, but easily understood, example:

 

 

Neither White nor Black can make a move without facing disaster.  The pawns of course can't move at all; only the kings can.  If either king is moved, the opposing king can take the now undefended pawn of the opponent, and that's the end of that.

It occurs to me that "zugzwang" is a word which describes, most appropriately, the position each of us will be in when voting in the upcoming presidential election.

I've been dissatisfied with the nominees of both of the two major parties in the past, and so have on more than one occasion voted for a third party candidate or indulged in a useless "write in" vote.  I suppose I could do the same in this case.  But this election is remarkable in that the nominees of both major parties are so peculiarly unlikeable; even contemptible.  It seems I'm not alone in this opinion.  If polls are accurate, there have never been candidates for the presidency who were so unliked.  As one of those nominees will necessarily be elected, the result of the election won't merely be unsatisfactory, it will be revolting.

So, there's an understandable inclination to abstain from voting or, if one feels voting is a privilege which should be exercised in all cases regardless of circumstances, to vote for anyone who isn't a member of the dreadful duo.  But is this appropriate when there's so much at stake in this election?

That there's a great deal at stake in any case seems to be the prevailing view.  There's a sense of crisis, and we seem to become more and more angry, emotional, irrational.  We're polarized (that word seems to be used more and more these days).  The world is more dangerous than it has been; America isn't what it once was.

This is what many people say.  More significantly, this is what we are told that they say, and we're told this over and over.  Our ability to communicate, even when that communication is unwanted and unsolicited, is virtually unlimited.  The news media is ubiquitous; it can't be escaped.  It's always available and is always there, not merely on TV and radio but on the Internet, our PCs, laptops, tablets, smart phones.  Every dispute, every opinion, all conduct is noted and on display.

Those like me, who are cynical about human nature, may hold the opinion (also like me) that in actuality our circumstances are no different than they have been in the past.  They merely appear to be different because it simply wasn't possible, even in the not so distant past, to know or at least be told about ourselves and others and our multitude of disputes, opinions, problems, mistakes, crimes, immorality to the extent we can now.  There's a limit to what we can read in a newspaper, what we can hear on AM radio, what we can see and hear on TVs with 13 channels.  We were every bit as chaotic and misguided in the past as we are now, we're just better informed (or misinformed) than we ever were; and of course there are more of us.

Even so, though, we're more capable of causing damage and doing harm now than we ever have been, and that's particularly the case for those in power.  And we're more easily subject to manipulation.  George Orwell was keenly aware of the power of political manipulation and the tendency of government to manipulate us.  He was aware of the uses to which the media of his time could be put to foster manipulation as well.  But he couldn't fully anticipate the tools we have available to us now or how much they facilitate manipulation.

Due to an evil fate or our own foolishness, we're in a position where our next president will be one of two people, neither of whom should be president.  It's not in our power to prevent that from taking place.  It's prudent to consider which of them is less likely to cause harm, to us and the rest of the world.  One appears to be someone with no principles, someone profoundly ignorant, who is likely to make decisions based on whatever the last person he spoke to told him if experience is any guide, is erratic, with no experience in government and a tendency to act thoughtlessly and emotionally.  The other is venal, corrupt, secretive, stupid it seems in some things, a purely political creature, with considerable experience in government, who seems intent on benefiting herself and her friends, cronies and allies more than anything else. 

I think the latter is less likely to do damage than the former.  In these disturbing times, that may be the only reasonable basis on which to decide how to vote.  We're in zugzwang, yes.  But there are two moves available, and one move is less likely to cause disaster or at least will likely result in less of a disaster than the other.  Happy days.

Now, the World Really is too Much with Us

Wordsworth's poem The World is too Much with Us is I think an admirable one.  I'm afraid that I can't normally think of Wordsworth without envisioning Bullwinkle reciting "I wandered lonely as a cloud"; but I think this Romantic English poet did a good job in the case of this one poem, at least.

The poem has been construed as being a condemnation by Wordsworth of a materialistic culture resulting from the Industrial Revolution, and the resulting disconnection of people, and civilization, from nature.  I can't complain about love of nature; as a Stoic, or struggling Stoic, I seek to live "in accordance with nature."  But I suspect most Romantics of having aristocratic, even elitist, leanings, and so tend to believe that their disgust with industry and "trade" was combined with a contempt of the "common folk."  Those folk were no longer content to be the simple, jolly peasants the Romantics dreamt they were, dancing around the Maypole when not tending the grounds and flocks of their betters through hard and uncompensated labor.  They were becoming men of business, and business was an abomination to those wandering lonely as clouds, swooning over daffodils.

What exactly Wordsworth meant by "with us" is unclear to me.  However, I feel the world is much more "with us" than it was in his day, when the world intruded upon him and others via printed word, or through trains and the telegraph.  By the world being "with us" I refer, even if Wordsworth did not, not merely to our access to information about people, places, things, events, acts, opinions, beliefs, but that such information is foisted on us by others regardless of our desires.

No doubt the ubiquity of newspapers and journals, travel and communication by train and telegraph, was remarkable to many living in the first half of the 19th century.  It may well have felt to them that the world was growing too small as a consequence compared to how it felt when travel and communication was by horseback, or perhaps by semaphore.  Perhaps they also felt that something more was lost to them than their relative isolation.

If so, they would be horrified by the accelerating reduction of the world we experience in our time.  I'm not sure they could even imagine a world in which people can obtain whatever information they seek in a matter of seconds and communicate whatever thoughts, desires, opinions, feelings they have to everyone else in the world in roughly the same period of time and in the same manner.

The world is there, with us, at all times unless we make the effort to disengage from it.  All of the world, good and bad, but most especially the bad because of the media, our politicians and the pundits who are professionally outraged and have the means to tell us so.  They seem to delight in telling us what is bad, why it is bad, and what it is they think someone else should do about it.

There certainly is bad in the world, but is there more bad than there has been in the past?  More people, more bad; this seems an unobjectionable inference, at least to a cynic.  But if one accepts such a conclusion, is there proportionately more bad now?  I don't think we can make that assumption (which is what I think it must be, absent evidence).  Because we can learn, or are told, of bad people, bad things, all over the world, constantly, and because bad people can make themselves known to others with great ease, and this was not the case not all that long ago, there may have been just as many bad people and things in the past.

 In the past, however, we did not know of them as we didn't have the means to know of them.  We knew of some, but had neither the capacity nor the desire to know of others, nor were we as vulnerable--exposed--to them as we are now.  They can appear before us at any time.  We need only participate in a social network, or expose ourselves, as it were, via Twitter, or read or make comments on some media post or blog post, to be subjected to people at their worst.

We humans seem to be unable to improve ourselves to any significant extent except in extraordinary circumstances, or indeed to change ourselves at all for good or ill, so I doubt we are any better or worse now than we have been in our relatively long and bloody history.  The difference is that when we are bad now, as we are all too frequently, it is nearly impossible for people throughout the world to be ignorant of our evil thoughts and deeds.  We, or someone else, will intrude upon their blissful ignorance and tell them all about it.

Knowledge may be good.  It may even be power, sometimes.  But knowledge of everything done or thought by other people, everywhere, is oppressive, and can lead to despair, which can in turn lead to danger.  Philosophical considerations aside, I think Stoicism as a way of life provides a means by which we can avoid being overwhelmed and unduly influenced by the world which is constantly with us.  There are so many things beyond our control which should not disturb us.  We must do the best we can with what we have and take the rest as it happens.

Make the World Go Away

What a song Hank Cochran wrote.  It has been sung by many, perhaps too many, from stars to bands in bars.  Some of these bands no doubt had to put up with annoying listeners like me, who once began to sing "Make the Band go Away" after their version of this sad classic finally reached its conclusion.

But I have no wish to write more of the song, except to note its claim that it was the world which caused the heartache expressed in such a maudlin fashion.  The world did it, not the one with the broken heart.  He should not have....what, exactly?  Succumbed to the charms of the wicked world?

Regardless, I wish the world to go away for different reasons.  I find the world annoying, or rather the people of the world, or most of them.  Those we see and hear about in any case, and their number is growing. 

This makes me sad.  I should not be annoyed.  I strive to walk the Stoic path (has nobody yet written of the tao of Stoicism?), and so should be indifferent of that which is not within the control of my will.  But I find myself irritated by so much of what transpires in the world I see, and sometimes wish that the irritating components of it would kindly go away.  Or unkindly go away, it matters not to me.  At least I'm indifferent to the manner in which it would go away.

We see, and hear, too much of the world and those people who inhabit it these days, as I've noted before in this place.  I've maintained that the deluge of information and opinion we suffer encourages thoughtlessness and thoughtless response to thoughtlessness.  I suppose I'm indulging in that now, thereby proving my point, to me at least.  How does the world annoy me?  Let me count the ways.

The politics of our Glorious Union irritates me tremendously; all aspects of it.  Most recently, I scowl helplessly at the (most recent) calls for impeachment of the President for taking executive action on immigration.  I can't help but wonder at this, given the long history of such action taken by Presidents in the past and given the enormous discretion it seems has been given to the President and the agency by the law and regulations.  There is also, of course, the consideration that the House has refused to legislate, out of what I assume is what it seems primarily motivates our politicians--the desire to be elected and fear of not being reelected.  The seemingly deranged reaction of those opposing the action leads me to wonder, once again, why it is this President provokes such rancor.  More and more it seems to me to be fundamentally irrational, and contemptible.

But unreason is present everywhere, not merely in politics.  It seems we flaunt our unreasonableness around the globe.  Surprisingly, there seems to be a kind of reaction against reason.  We see it and have seen it for some time in the guise of postmodernism, perhaps the most futile of intellectual pretensions.  Futility indeed seems to be what it seeks, everywhere.  At least, it revels in what it conceives to be the futility of everything but postmodernism.  Unfortunately, it provides no hope of anything but futility; it simply claims to provide us with a means to establish that all is futile.

I pause to wonder, though.  Is this my age talking?  Am I becoming, or have I become, an old fogey, like Alan Bloom?  Perhaps.  But what might distinguish me from other old fogies is that I think of reason as a method; I don't think that what was then and is not now is necessarily better than the present.  I don't long for good old days or good old ways.  I don't think the use of reason will result in a return to things as they were.  For the most part I think, and hope, it will not do so. 

But it seems that thinking is something we're not interesting in doing.  Perhaps we never have been.  Perhaps we've always acted on impulse and irrationally, and simply have more opportunity to do so now, in new and different ways, and this is broadcast instantly to the world at large.  It may be that technology has merely enhanced our irrationality, provided a means by which circumstances which previously served to blunt our impulses and stupidity (provided time to think or at least to be less excited).

Certainly, we've found ways to make ourselves appear ridiculous to more and more people.  Also, our sins may be forgiven but if we're not careful they'll live on forever, somewhere on the Internet or some smart phone. 

The likelihood is we're no more stupid (and no smarter) than we have ever been, but our stupidity is less private than it has been in the past.  One would think that would make us long to be less stupid, or at least more careful.  Perhaps it will, in time. 

We can hope that our technology may save us.  Because it emphasizes our faults and failings, it's possible that we'll eventually feel so shamed or disgusted with ourselves that we'll learn to exercise restraint.  Perhaps it will make this world go away by forcing us to think about what we do.

Well, it's good to dream.  But I see another future, one born of our tendency to assign blame to anyone, or anything, but ourselves.  The fear of technology has been with us since at least the last century, what with Heidegger and others whining about what it does to the world and to us.  If we find ourselves so disgusted with what we see and hear, the inclination may be to prevent ourselves from being able to see and hear what disgusts us.  It would be so much easier to regulate media and the Internet than correcting or regulating ourselves  As we have so many times in the past, we may seek to prohibit people from using technology in certain ways, regulating the content of what can be seen or heard or sent or broadcast. 

That would not work of course, but would result in a different world, which we then would wish to go away.

Fear of Technology

I've just read a book with the portentous title The End of Ethics in a Technological Society by Lawrence Schmidt, "with Scott Marrotto" (I wonder what "with" means here; usually we see this with books by athletes and celebrities who have problems writing, don't we?).  It's a worthy book I believe, but I think it representative of a school of thought I find disturbing, in that it portrays technology as something apart from humanity and in some sense controlling it, resulting in...."the end of ethics."

This is not to say that the authors think we have no part in creating technology, of course.  However, they seem to think that technology, once created, effects us in ways which diminish us as ethical creatures, leading us to engage in conduct driven by the technology itself and the desire to create more technology.  They claim that the liberal ethical tradition of rights and duties is not adequate to combat the nihilism which has resulted from technology.  They seem to advocate a return to transcendental, steady, uniform values, possibly of a supernatural nature although they also appear to acknowledge that the idea of natural law, which was abandoned in the Enlightenment, need not have a supernatural basis.

I say they "seem" to advocate this because they claim they are not making any proposal of any kind, but are merely pointing out that other ways of combating this nihilism don't work.  This is one of the annoying aspects of the book, the employment of the "I'm not saying what I believe is right is, in fact, right, but everything else is wrong" approach to critical study. 

To me, the book is far more persuasive than the criticism of technology one sees in Heidegger, which seems sentimental and romantic.  Schmidt (with Scott Marrotto!) doesn't invoke joyous peasants placing seeds in the bosom of nature, or chalices, or monstrous hydro-electric plants, which I think is fortunate for us all.  But like Heidegger they take a passive approach to the "problem" of technology.   Heidegger thought only a god can save us (unsurprising I think for someone who thought that Hitler was the "future of Germany and its law"), and they evidently believe a return to a God-sanctioned morality is required to "stop" technology and its effects. 

The Enlightenment no doubt fostered an unrealistic belief in the perfection of humanity, although I think the excitement generated when thought slipped the surly bonds of ancient and medieval conceptions of "science" was understandable.  And I think it's quite correct that technology can and does present a danger.  But I think it's a mistake to think that technology does so as something unnatural to humanity, that turns us away from the spiritual or the higher concerns which should guide us.  Technology is entirely natural in humans and is something we do quite naturally.  As a result, we do it sometimes without thought.  But it is a result of our desire to make life more comfortable and less of a challenge to us, and is used for the satisfaction of other desires as well.  Those desires have always been with us.

Technology has not ended ethics of any kind, as ethics itself is a kind of technology; it is a way of resolving problems, a guide for better living.   What it can do, though, is to eliminate what has stood in the way of the satisfaction of certain desires in the past, and provided reasons for not indulging those desires.  A large portion of the book is devoted to a discussion of the ways in which technology has facilitated warfare.  The authors point out that drones, for example, leave us detached from the harm they cause.  That may well be, but the reasons for war are the same as they have even been, e.g., a desire to dominate other peoples, a need for resources of one kind or another, fear, hatred, etc. 

When we are less likely to suffer harm, when we risk less, we're more inclined to do things, good or bad.  In that sense, technology can impact our moral conduct.  But this doesn't make technology bad in itself (if it can even be thought of as distinct from us). 

If this has a rather Deweyian sound to it, it should (also it should sound like Dewey's interpreter as to technology, Larry Hickman).  Dewey of course would be (and was) subject to criticism as a proponent of Enlightenment thinking, a "progressive" who believed nature should be dominated by humanity.  But I think this is incorrect because Dewey, unlike his critics, didn't distinguish humanity and nature, technology and ethics or spirituality, philosophical problems and the problems of day to day life as they did.  Nor did he think of technology as an end in itself, as he thought means and ends formed a continuum.

The problem of technology must be addressed actively, by requiring the intelligent use of technology--not use in a short-sited fashion, or in the satisfaction of short-term desires.  Intelligence establishes our resources are limited, and that certain technologies destroy our environment.  Intelligence should tell us that we are parts of nature, not superior to it or that our true life is waiting for us beyond it.

There will be no god to save us, nor need there be.  Waiting for that god or any god is a good way of either achieving nothing or sanctioning absolutism and fanaticism when someone appearing to be that god or a precursor to that god comes on the scene, as one would think Heidegger should have known by the time he allowed himself to be interviewed by Der Spiegel.  Either we will save ourselves or we won't.

But we won't save ourselves by becoming Luddites, or ascetics, or monks, or peasants, or little Buddhas, or nature-loving neo-pagans and Wiccans, though--simply because we won't become them.  We will always be technological.