Magic versus Magical Thinking, a Practical Guide (Part 3): One to Rule Them All

 

Vast swaths of the general public (here, there and everywhere) take great stock in the notion of inevitability. 

This is a very interesting fault in human perspective. The “inevitable” whatever can manifest as concretely positive, negative or neutral, or take a positive, negative or neutral tone. The reason I suggest that this is a human fault is because most people will relate the word inevitable to the word fate, and take both words together as an indication that no action is needed, so why bother to take any?

This is a type of magical thinking. Here are examples of abstract notions people take to be inevitable (aside from the punch lines of an old joke from Daniel Defoe’s 1726 play The Political History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern, famously quoted by Benjamin Franklin: death and taxes): progress, world unity, the end of the world, equality, change makes us better, a simple solution to every question, and God’s will.  I’m sure you can think of a few abstract concepts that are linked to the notion of inevitability. Some of these could be categorized as “pipedreams,” others as apocalyptic fears.

When we think or believe that things or situations are inevitable, do we push back on the notion by trying some alternative or do we give up?

We are asked questions and the manner in which we are taught often implies that there are answers to every question and that we should know what those answers are or how to calculate them. We therefore dutifully attempt to find solutions to every question directed toward us. For example, here is an actual word problem that has been given to children in school:

There are 125 sheep and 5 dogs in a flock. 

How old is the shepherd?

Do you know what the answer is? When children are posed this questions, their first thought is likely: I’ve been given this as a math problem, there must be an answer, therefore, I’d better do something to come up with a solution. 

In reality, sometimes, it might be better to question the question. How old is the shepherd? is intended to be an exercise in logic; it is hoped that students will be able to discern that this question is illogically constructed and unanswerable. Hilarious results ensue, to be sure, when students try to compute answers to such a question. But, let’s be honest, this is a dirty trick to play on kids.

It’s a dirty trick to play on adults as well, who, sadly, also fall prey to the illogical question. The search for a fundamental theory of everything, in my humble opinion, is an adult variety entertaining the illogical question, a high-brow version of magical thinking. There is a lot of grant money being given to further abstract theories of everything, but I find questions along these lines a diversion from the kind of innovation we need—innovation that offers practical solutions to diverse daily problems. For example, it may be more practical to explore non-polluting ways of turning wastewater into biogas that can be safely used as fuel. We, as a species, certainly produce plenty of it! Why not recycle it!

The search for “one and done” solutions is another example of magical thinking. A gullible pubic is socially engineered down a pay-to-play rabbit hole that is papered with bright and misleading advertisements. However, as explored in a previous essay in this series, the world of intense diversity flies in the face of “one size fits all” thinking. We really do know better; one size cannot possibly fit all. Every place presents its own set of circumstances that need to be taken into account, and every individual in a place is liable to present a different set of skills and perspectives that may bear on those challenges. Baking bread is completely different at sea level than it is at high altitude.

Politically, we have in real-time reached that tipping point where utopian literature turns to its darker, fully dystopian side. Every single utopia ever conceived empowers a small elite counsel of elders to dictate what is best for the masses. Plato explored this in The Republic and The Laws, followed by a long line of writers, from Thomas More and Francis Bacon, to Margaret Cavendish and Jonathan Swift, on down to Edward Bellamy and William Morris, thence to appear ever darker in scope with Yevgeny Zamyatin, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, even unto Margaret Attwood. In the most positive examples of this form of literature, the minority band running the program is intelligent and benevolent; on the flip-side, the leadership is always less than well educated, punitive and totalitarian.

In the United States, circumstances beyond the control of the majority plebiscite has put the fate of our foundational liberalism, which for so long seemed to embody “inevitable progress,” into the hands of a conservative majority of the Supreme Court. This same court seems poised to undo all that has been traditionally (in my lifetime) regarded as “inevitable progress” toward equal recognition and rights for unique personhood, poised instead to enshrine “christian values,” retreat from founding Enlightenment principles to medieval standards of law, promote permissible armed violence, and put certain men in charge of institutions and bodies.

It is highly ironic that this small, ultra-conservative group (or members thereof) proclaims a literal orthodoxy exists within the text of our constitution, where two centuries of jurisprudence has seemingly seen the text through a lens more flexible and moving with the times. It seems that this portion of the Supreme Court group is throwing modern America back to the time Cotton Mather and the Salem Witch Trials. Note, however: Less well known than his discussion of devils inhabiting the invisible world, Cotton Mather was also a scientist; he was an advocate for inoculation against smallpox, and he wrote a book proclaiming harmony between Newtonian physics and religion. Fact!

Any claims of original this, orthodox that are illogical excuses to proclaim a modern paterfamilias--which is what? This could only mean a totalitarian autocracy the likes of Stalinism. But who would the pater be? Certainly not Jesus, who used parables to teach illiterate people how to navigate oppression while maintaining cultural ethos and personal integrity. The words of Jesus don’t seem to matter at all to “christians" who call for the death of liberal secularism, control of the womb and the right of armed, white hooligans to menace and kill—what resonates more are texts from Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Meanwhile, the average person, having been rendered inert by false notions of inevitability that are accompanied by a blizzard of disinformation, is thrown down a socially engineered rabbit hole. When and where will we land? Shall the landing be hard or soft?

There are 330 million sheeple and 6 dogs in a flock.

Who is the shepherd?

Representation and Misrepresentation in our Democratic Republic

A few years ago, a mentor and friend of mine passed away. He’d been a professor of Sociology and his specialization was politics; he’s been described by many colleagues, students and admirers as a political historian. It would be a surprise to most people to learn that the primary way in which he came to study politics was by way of exploring utopian fiction.

The word “utopia” actually means “nowhere.” To me, that is the greatest inside joke, ever. People are constantly dreaming up models for what they consider to be the “ideal society,” but these are mostly “nowhere” as in impossible (with a stilted sense of what is reasonably to be expected of real human beings), and most such literary experiments often come prepackaged with what can be readily identified as their Damoclean dystopian counterpart. 

My friend politically identified himself as a democratic socialist. His notion of a better world was one where the culture, morals and politics are shaped as a grassroots effort from below, from among the masses. This notion is not best served by the concept of direct democracy, but recognizes that a system that intends and proclaims fairness and equity to all must afford a great degree of representation.

We are, after all, currently living in a bureaucratic collectivist society, here in the United States. The constitution, upon more modern consideration, is logically intended to apply to all people, and those who run for political office have sworn to represent their constituents and uphold the ideas and ideals of the constitution. The fact that governance does not seem to currently serve that end is just cause for people to quite rightly ask, “Has democracy died?”

My friend’s personal credo was “No double standards.” He had been brought up in a family that tended toward socialism and progressivism. Socialist ideas were to be found everywhere in the United States. The Midwest, now so very conservative, was once a bastion of socialism, with support for labor, as well as a breeding ground for experimental programs and organizations that were designed to work in the public interest. Some may be surprised to read that, but it is true, despite the fact that socialism has been made a dirty word for such a long time. If you need proof of this, here is a link you can follow for a summary of the long, rich history of socialism in America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_socialist_movement_in_the_United_States

Transcendentalism, New Deal, labor unions, Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker Movement, Civil Rights Movement, Wobblies, the New Left – all these and more are aspects of what could be called the American Socialist Tendency, just another name for movements espousing a philosophy and politics supporting social education and programs to help bring people of all classes up.

These, along with many other leaders, organizations and movements, were reactions in large part to the negative role of rampant capitalism in society, the wage disparity and grinding poverty that was in such contrast to the high flying lifestyle of the very rich. Although the constitution is clearly meant to apply to all citizens, the fact that in every generation, any segment of society that could not be identified as “male landowners” has had to fight for recognition and rights under the constitution has been disappointing, to say the least. That laws have clearly, especially to the present day, been used against people who are powerless, many times for the benefit of people with power among the wealthy upper class, or for an empty, “state” victory, goes clearly against the framers’ claim for us all to have the experience of “Justice …  domestic Tranquility … common defence … general Welfare … Blessings of Liberty,” etc.

No matter what some choose to believe, the values that our history of socialist tendencies represent are actually inextricably woven into the fabric of our administrative state, in every federal social program that still exists to benefit individuals in need.

The president’s oath of office reads:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, (so help me God).

One doesn’t need a Ph.D. or be an attorney to be aware that this oath has been broken in many more ways than one, and that partisan brinkmanship has set a course to unravel every progressive step made since at least the Haymarket Riot of 1886. The current administration is trying to bring to life Hobbes’ Leviathan, but probably not to protect the state, and certainly not to preserve the constitution. The interesting thing about twenty-first century capitalism is that it is global, and the war being waged on our shores has significant repercussions both here and everywhere abroad; it’s all about money and power, consolidating it for a self-interested, blindly unethical multinational oligarchic elite. Simultaneously, in other parts of that same global system, other countries are working at crossed purpose toward more ethical statesmanship, making capitalism toe the line.

Getting back to the utopias, I find it interesting that so many of them have top-down ruling classes, and so few have leadership from below, as if qualified people from every class should not be allowed to come together to form governance from where the people are. If it seems whimsical of me to make this observation, we have only to look at the daily news to see that we have reached a point in our Democratic Republic where there is an out-of-touch ruling class making decisions about a diverse populace that it neither understands, nor cares to do so.

The lack of any strong third party or even fourth party, the destruction of party membership, indulging in identity politics rather than cultivating coalition unity, the reduction of party conventions to a rah-rah rubberstamping event, instead of a platform building with caucus representation and ratification, these have contributed to the current condition. You see, what is gone is the representative part of our representative government – where we told the party what we wanted, what we needed, what was good for us, and they worked toward those goals. Those people we elect to office are supposed to vote according to our wishes and for our benefit, not in lockstep partisan obeisance to a petty, populist tyrant. Instead, those representatives are vetted and selected from party leaders to do what is good for them and to our detriment. The bipartisan brinksmanship has now been sown into every branch of the government that “checks and balances” were meant protect against. Don't think the leaders of your party haven't contributed to this state of affairs. It is almost like we don't have parties, at all; it could be the party of one, such as in the 1921 dystopian novel "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin. 

Choice, we are told we have choice. I see hundreds of bottles of different shampoos to choose from in the stores – none of which are good for my hair – but I don’t have the power to choose representatives that will vote for and protect my interests. Our economy is being driven forward so it can be carved out by the oligarchs, pushing more people to homelessness and destitution with stagnant wages and ever-rising, frequently falsely inflated costs. No one thinks about it, but that is a means of voter suppression, driving people out of homes and into the streets; that’s a species of gerrymandering, isn’t it?

So, here we are:  UTOPIA! And, oh, isn’t it fun? The daily outrages are a laugh a minute.

What are we going to do? What can we do?

We must resist, and we can. Educate, organize, vote, and hold elected officials accountable. Public opinion is not enough to affect a referendum, but in this modern world of endless media and technological manipulations, public opinion might sometimes be the only tool in the kit. Protecting and subscribing to and reading real news is vital. Engaging in real and fair discussions is vital. Listening is vital, too. We cannot surrender to cynicism, but we must strive for and participate in rationality. We must obliterate lies with the truth.

My late friend’s widow, also my friend and an activist herself, has this quote by Margaret Mead at the end of each email message, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

We must do everything in our power to make that true.