Light Ages and Dark Ages

Read recently a dystopic sci-fi short story set near the end of this century in which a floating city of refugees is overturned by one of the then frequent super typhoons in the Philippine archipelago. The “hero” then must flee from super biotech Chinese police. Nothing about the story line offered reason to look forward to the world that will be brought about by climate change, environmental damage, rising sea-levels and technology-enabled authoritarianism. Indeed, the end of the century will most probably be one of desperation, displacement, disease, poverty and death for billions. Made me wonder what is the meaning and purpose of any of the lives we live now if it leads to this. The answer seems to me to be that there is no meaning but there may be purpose.

Most who live in the wealthy countries of North America, Western Europe and the Pacific Rim enjoy lives of security, well-being, comfort and accomplishment. In the past 200 years, advances in industry, agriculture, transportation, and technology have improved the lives of many others and reduced poverty globally. While not everyone shares in this progress, collectively, the human race has never had it better. But the good times and bad times come in waves – light ages followed by dark ages – and the next one may indeed be a super typhoon.

Throughout history, periods during which many lived relatively well are followed by times of collapse. During the golden age of Rome, its citizens enjoyed relative stability and comfort. When Rome fell, Europe entered the centuries of the dark ages. Other civilizations rose and fell in their own spaces and times. This was probably true in prehistory as well. Homo sapiens almost went extinct at least twice before: around 195,000 years ago and again some 70,000 years ago. Both times it took hundreds to thousands of years to recover. We now live in a global civilization that has entered the age we created from scratch, the Anthropocene. When our global light age ends, the dark age will therefore also be globalized.

What does this mean for those of us alive now? Well, we can enjoy what we have. Beyond that, nothing. Ages swing from good to bad and back again. It seems likely they will continue to do so. None of this has any meaning, it just is. At most, it has perhaps been the engine of human evolution as overcoming the past dark age allows us to rise a little bit further in the next light one. But we can not claim credit for our relative well-being. We were just born lucky. And we also cannot be blamed for the past centuries of burning fossil fuel and despoiling nature. We were merely alive when the bill came due. But we can still have purpose. At some point in the next century, humanity will reach a new equilibrium with the changed earth. So we can try to live more sustainably now and do everything we can to ready the world and the next generations for what is to come so that the next age is a light one.

COVID-19: The Great Equalizer

By now, the human species has been altering the natural order for some 11000 years. It started with the advent of agriculture and went through urbanization and industrialization which transformed the surface of the earth and began changing a host of natural systems including the climate, animal life, forests and oceans. We humans have known about this for a while. But most of us – especially those of us in the advanced economies and not living too close to the rising waters – could see the impact of our disruption of natural systems as something that would affect other people – future generations, the poor, those living in low-lying island nations – and not so much us in the here and now. COVID-19 has altered that by bringing to all of us the results of our changes to the earth. It has equalized the impact of the destruction of natural environments (which stresses what lives in them thereby making them more prone to diseases that can jump to us), the way we use animals (including how close we live with them and the antibiotics we use to fatten them) and the close quarters (in large numbers) in which we live. Add to this the way we use hydrocarbons to travel and transport, the interconnectedness of our ways of life and economies and the varying shortcomings of our political systems. We should not have been surprised by the current bio-crisis. It’s not that any one of these caused the virus but that the total impact of what we have wrought was largely hidden until now though very much operative.

So COVID-19 shows us that the bill won’t wait to be delivered and that everyone must pay. The rich may be able to retreat to their enclaves and private transport. But their world will change as ours does. The species as a whole will survive. But this is the wake up call. The future disrupted world is upon us now. Returning to “normal” – whenever and whatever that turns out to be – may well be just a breather before the next episode. We need to take the next step in our evolution – remake our economies and politics, restoring nature even if gradually and treating each other more equally – and start now or the humanity that makes it to the 22^nd Century may be unrecognizable.

Continuing Notes on Sabine's "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 33

For episode 32, see here

The Theory of the Nation-State: The Moderns 

XXXIII. Fascism and National Socialism
 A. Somehow national socialism and fascism were combination of
     professed socialists and professed nationalists.
 B. Attempt to marshal total energies of people behind government
     led to emphasis on war (or preparation for war, even permanent
     preparation for war).
 C. Mussolini and Hitler mined the ideas of philosophic irrationalism.
       1. Combined, on an emotional level, cult of the folk and cult
           of the hero.
       2. Schopenhauer saw behind nature and human life the
           struggle of a blind force within the human mind -- 'will' --
           to construct an illusion of order and reason.  The hope for
           mankind was to end this struggle through contemplation,
           consciousness without desire.
       3. Nietzsche moralized struggle in place of achievement. Values
           based on superior capabilities would replace liberal values. 
       4. Bergson gave utilitarian value to intellect and saw it as the
           servant of the 'life force' (similar to 'will').
       5. Sorel substituted 'life-force' for materialism thus stripping
           Marxism of its economic determinism.  Class struggle is
           the manifestation of sheer creative violence on the part of
           the proletariat. Myths inspire such movements; philosophy is
           social myth.
 D. Hegel was a rationalist and did not see philosophy as myth.
       1. But Mussolini used Gentile's Hegelianism (theory of the
           state) because it was expedient.
       2. Claims were merely in pseudo-Hegelian language where
           'might is right' and 'liberty' is found in subjection. 
 E. Central terms of national socialism:
       1. Folk (race) -- organic people.
       2. The Elite and the Leader.
       3. Lebensraum -- the territorial expansion of a Germanic
           empire.
       4. The Folk:
           i. the individual emerges from the Folk tom which he owes all
           ii. individuals are not equal as they embody the reality of the
              Folk in varying degrees
           iii. at the center is the Leader
       5. Society is:
           i. the Leader -- charismatic 'natural" hero of the folk
           ii. the ruling elite -- provides intelligence and direction
           iii. the masses -- not capable of heroism, inert and led 
               by emotions


Note:  This ends my notes from Sabine's A History of Political Theory. These entries start here. I have tried to be truthful to what I recorded as I read Sabine many years ago but have tweaked them here and there.  I have regained an understanding of Western political thought and its continuing relevance.  I hope they might help do the same for whoever stumbles upon them. 
  


 
 
 
           

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 21

For episode 20, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XXI. Thomas Hobbes
 A. Hobbes' political writings occasioned by civil war and were intended to
      support the King. 
 B. Sought to account on scientific grounds for all facts of nature including
      society and individuals (an approach now defined as materialism).
       1. Derived complex appearances from underlying simple motions.
       2. Used a geometry and physics to account for individual physiology
           and psychology and those to build a philosophy of the most complex
           "artificial" bodies, society and the state.
 C. That which was natural for Hobbes was not an end (e.g. natural law) but a
      cause (the psychological mechanism of the human animal).
       1. Resulting in societies made up of mutual actions and reactions of
           individuals upon each other.
       2. Not moral ideals but causes that will evoke generally cooperative
           behavior are conditions of a stable union.
 D. All emotions and desires derive from primitive attractions or retractions
      from stimulus.
 E. Rule behind all behavior is that a living body is set instinctively to preserve
      or heighten its vitality.
       1. Leads to restless pursuit of means to continue existence.
       2. Means that security is always precarious with result that there is no
           limit on the desire for security and power ("the present means of
           obtaining apparent future goods").
       3. This plus a rough equality in capabilities leads to a war of all against
           all -- with no "right" or "wrong" -- and thus making civilization
           impossible. 
 F. Reason is second principle of human nature.
       1. Makes pursuit of security more effective.
       2. Ruthless pursuit of individual advantage cannot be basis of society.
       3. Calculating selfishness brings man into society.
 G. Laws of nature state what ideally rational beings would do to achieve
      security. 
       1. This forms postulates upon which rational construction of society
           takes place.
       2. Laws amount to this:
           i. peace and economy have greater utility for self-preservation than
              violence and general competition
           ii. peace requires mutual confidence in the surrender of the "right to
               everything"
 H. Society is simply the means to an end.
       1. Based on utilitarianism and individualism.
       2. Such a notion of individualism was a clean break with customary 
           ideas about economic and social institutions.
       3. The defense of monarchy superficial next to this.
 I. To safeguard covenant by which all surrendered rights, a coercive
     power, i.e. government, was required. 
       1. Men do what they dislike on pain of suffering what they dislike even
           more.
       2. Cooperation is formed by union of individuals -- not consent from
           "citizens" -- which acts as, and through, one sovereign individual. 
 J. Law and morals are the same, simply the will of the sovereign.
 K. All necessary powers belong to the sovereign and are individual and 
      unalienable. 
       1. There is no justification for resistance.
       2. Yet if resistance is successful and the sovereign unable to govern
           (provide security), he is sovereign no longer.
       3. Monarchy not essential to the theory.
       4. Church is the only other corporation existing as an act of sovereign will.
 L. Advantages  of government are tangible and must accrue to individuals.
 M. Rests on no general or public good or will, only self-interested individuals. 

Next week: Radicals and Communists

The World in the 21st Century: Facing a Singularity

It seems possible to discern four major trends that will determine the future of humanity in the 21^st Century. They suggest a world approaching a multifaceted singularity that will mark an unprecedented change in everything and characterized most fundamentally by a loss of even the gloss of human agency.

The Economist of March 14 (2015) covers one of these trends in suggesting the likely continued success of “Factory Asia” – China plus its manufacturing chain of the currently even lower wage countries of Southeast Asia. This already accounts for almost half of all manufactured goods produced on the planet. China's advantages – financial and technological plus low cost labor and the very large domestic market – will allow it to continue to dominate manufacturing. But the real story here is that – as The Economist points out – this dominance will make it very difficult for other developing countries to progress to growth and prosperity through making things. The paper suggests services and agriculture as alternatives. But the basic problem is deeper and has been visible for much longer: looking at it globally, there may not be enough work to do to supply meaningful paid jobs to everyone who needs or wants one.

This highlights the second trend – the rising tide of computer-driven automation and the subject of “How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over” by Sue Halpern in the New York Review of April 2 (2015). In reviewing a book by Nicholas Carr (The Glass Cage: Automation and Us), Halpern notes that while predictions that mechanization would put humans out of work – and even Keynes saw the problem of what he called “technological unemployment” – so far technological advance has seemed to create new jobs to replace lost ones. But Carr argues that we are facing something new this time as computer driven automation – robots and virtual robots – takes on tasks such as surgery, drug development, driving, analysis and writing software and not only old fashioned machine production. This means not only losing jobs but most especially good jobs. While increased efficiency and lower cost of the goods and services produced through this new age of automation may be good for consumers with money, the questions arise of who will be able to afford them and what quality of life will those with no or unrewarding work have? As Paul Krugman has noted, most benefit – in the form of higher profits – will accrue to those few who own the robots.

So “modernity” in the 21^st Century may turn out to equal a shrinking middle class and increased and unrelenting inequality. This leads to the third trend, the breakdown of order. Over the last few centuries, an increasing number of people have experienced modernity as disruption to their lives and traditions and an increasingly fierce struggle for livelihood. The frustration, resentment and often unbridled competition produced provided the motive force to the social and political movements that led to the domestic and international conflicts and wars of the 20^th Century. The Cold War contained these forces by dividing the world between just two all-powerful and demanding camps. But since the fall of the USSR, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and reassertion of nationalisms, new forces of disorder have added to the old while the world has splintered into multipolar chaos. Globalization has meanwhile not solved inequality but has succeeded in presenting have-nots with minute-by-minute images of what they have not. The Cold War may have been an artificial order while disorder and chaos may be the new rule in what might be best described as an ever encroaching “state of nature.” And by the way, “military responses” just seem to make things worse and the rich don't seem to see a problem.

This brings us to environmental change, where the environment might be best understood as including the natural world in its totality: biology (e.g., disease) and land (e.g., desertification) as well as weather and climate. Scientists tell us – and have been telling us for a while – that humans are changing the world in ways we can't entirely predict but seem to be leading to challenges unprecedented in human evolution.

So, we – and more to the point, our children and their children – face finding a way to live in a world increasingly characterized by inequality, disorder and automated change that seems to be racing beyond our control. A singularity is something you enter that leads into a reality beyond normal experience. If we have not yet passed the event horizon of this human “black hole,” we are close. Time to start thinking of something different?

The Higgs and Time

It's coming up on a year now since the confirmation of the Higgs particle and field. This was an exciting reaffirmation of the Standard Model of modern particle physics. But after a year of refining measurements, it seems the version of the Higgs found fits too well with the current model and offers no hint of any unexpected strangeness that could lead physicists to further insights and discoveries. The Higgs mass has been determined to be 125.7 GeV (gigaelectronvolts). Quite remarkable measurement but one that agrees so perfectly with the Standard Model that it leaves little room for current theories that tried to go beyond it to a more unified physics. Most varieties of supersymmetry and string theory – the simpler, more beautiful ones that physicists prefer – cannot meet the constraints imposed by the Higgs value. The current model cannot account for gravity or relativity and can't explain dark matter or dark energy. This means that while it can explain very well 5% of the universe, it cannot say a thing about the remaining 95%.

But it may be even more interesting to ponder the fact that the particle that gives other particles mass also has a mass. The Higgs field interacts with some particles (the quarks) and gives them mass while others (neutrinos and photons) are lightly or un-affected and have little or no mass. But if the Higgs interaction gives mass, what gives mass to the Higgs? This is another of the strange places that our modern science leads us. (Are you watching St. Thomas?)

Mass may also be at the root of time. Things with mass cannot travel at the speed of light and therefore exist immersed in time. Things without mass do travel at light speed and therefore are not subject to time. It's as if mass is really a measurement of the degree to which stuff is trapped in time, separated out of what would otherwise be an eternal now. Or to put it another way, introducing mass is a way to throw things out of heaven and down to earth?

The Role of Chaos in Human Evolution

Two terms need immediate clarification. The chaos I am referring to is the deterministic yet unpredictable kind. And I take human evolution to include that change accruing from cultural, social, political and technological processes as well at the slower progression through genetic natural selection.

The conception of natural selection as a form of progression flies in the face of the current politically correct tendency to question the notion that life is evolving toward anything. But the constantly increasing complexity resulting from chaotic processes applied to existing complexity has clearly driven an ever increasing individuation of life since its start a few billion years ago. Natural selection feeds on the random and unpredictable variation characteristic of all life - indeed of all material existence - and results in this progression from lessor to greater complexity.

Down to quantum level, all material processes occur according to deterministic laws even when the outcomes so generated are statistical probabilities. And as interactions between matter and energy become more complex according to these laws of nature – we live in the kind of universe that they do – the processes also become more chaotic. The result is that as complexity increases, it begets greater complexity. And whereas one stone is pretty much like any other stone, every single live organism is a unique individual. And the process of each individual organism interacting with its environment – also always changing – results in achieving various degrees of fitness. The important points here seem to me to be two: that it is individual differences that determine fitness and fuel evolution and that the more individualized the organism, the greater the possible points for chaos to operate.

A human being is a marvelously unique and individualized organism. We vary at almost every interesting point from all other humans. Our cultural and social variability adds extra dimensions to our individuation. Our accelerating technology allows ways of interacting beyond calculation and is a true chaos multiplier. The human race is by this point of time a realm of complexity that the earth has never seen before. Evolution from this basis promises to take us places that we cannot now imagine, if we survive at all.

Thus, everything that we do – to test our boundaries, to right the world’s wrongs, to struggle for our daily bread – and the way that we do it provides the raw material for evolution, for greater complexity. We drive change when we seek to effect our environment in our own way, even though we do not always succeed. In the chaotic processes of life, some win and more lose. (As Crash Davis put it: some days you win, some days you lose and some days it rains.) And in the end, it is not about us but about the fact that our species will survive only if there are enough folks pressing forward even when most of our individual efforts seem to fall short.