After eight-plus decades trying to figure out what goes on in the world
(not to mention what goes on inside my own head) I have reached tentative conclusions on some general subjects, which may be of general interest.
Or perhaps not, but which I propose to inflict on you here
(in no particular order; just as they occur to me).
You are under no obligation to pay attention.
I will be as brief as I can.
Politics. Although we each live a purely individual life, we must establish institutions of governance that take others into account to solve group problems. This creates jobs for politicians, who are people looking for careers that will provide them a livelihood while requiring no special training or ability (except skill in raising campaign funds). There is a certain degree of brand loyalty among politicians, even when they disagree, that often prompts them to protect their professional colleagues in an opposing party, whether temporarily “in” or temporarily “out”. This is called either bipartisanship or loyalty.
Loyalty. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Unless scratching yours will cost me.
Government. The assemblage of legislators, lawyers, policemen, jailers, and executioners considered necessary to enforce docility among the populace. At this point in the development of world government this is considered to be most effective when the task is divided among some 200 separate jurisdictions, each dominated by a different understanding of the rules, and often controlled by conflicting political and theological attitudes. These separate jurisdictions jealously defend their boundaries and their differing points of view, sacrificing vast amounts of treasure and the lives of their healthiest and most promising young citizens in efforts at enforcement. The different jurisdictions are represented by flags, to which citizens regardless of their individual shades of belief are expected to publicly pledge undeviating allegiance.
Bureaucracy. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. See above.
Privatization. Means by which governments can evade their primary responsibility for caring for their citizens by sub-contracting a number of their functions to businessmen admittedly more devoted to lining their purses than to social justice. Unbridled greed on the part of both providers and politicians has led to rampant graft. See Money.
War. Wars settle nothing. Winners are encouraged to continue to believe that all future problems can be solved with muscle. Losers are given a basis for plotting revenge. This is known as the Versailles Cycle. The existence of large armed forces, however, constitutes for bureaucrats a simultaneous solution to the problems of both unemployment and patronage. How that aligns in the Age of the Bomb with the possibility of an itchy trigger finger is a matter for the future to reveal. Always assuming that there will be a future.
Education. As generations succeed each other, we pass along our accumulating knowledge about the world to our successors through a process known as education. The surest way to stifle this process is to insist that students, instead of studying subjects about which they are curious and want to learn, waste their time instead “developing discipline” by memorizing formulas and learning the dates of wars for which they will have no use later in life. Students can thus be inculcated with such an antipathy for the process of learning itself that they will revolt and never recover. A burgeoning bureaucracy, however, will continue to provide millions of jobs to millions of teachers, protected by guild certification.
Science. The effort of each new generation is accepted to be to understand more about the world than the previous one did. A scientist is usually initially attracted to the scientific profession by a thirst for enlightenment, but his efforts can be counted on to produce resistance among those who have been most successful under the existing system and hence most resistant to change — they don’t want to see new information weaken their hierarchical positions. This produces pressure that expresses itself in low salaries and social opprobrium for scientists and high rewards for “deniers”, especially fear-mongers. The scientist desiring a decent salary and a late-model car in his driveway is thus often induced to accept lap-dog employment and fees for compliant consulting opinions.
Reason. This is what we turn to for support after we have made up our minds.
Religion. This is the conviction that belief trumps science. For a religious believer everything is already known, even if he or she personally may not (yet) be permitted to be party to all of the information. Generally this manifests itself in an effort to eliminate the influence of scientists (and sometimes the scientists themselves, think auto da fé). It also leads to bitter arguments among believers about the exact nit-picking details of their beliefs. This can result in confrontations of remarkable ugliness and cause large numbers of premature deaths in religious wars. Reality, except of the deaths themselves, plays a remarkably small part in these disputes.
Money. A poorly understood modern substitute for barter, enabling producers of goods to exchange them without face-to-face contact. Unfortunately, in addition to its usefulness as the measuring stick of value, its divorce from the nature of the goods it evaluates (known as fungibility) has also helped to create a vocabulary concealing degrees of greed and rapacity that we mostly failed to anticipate and that we have yet to learn to deal with.
Economics. The study of how the existence of money and its equivalents alternately facilitate and obstruct the flow of goods and the distribution of wealth. The ratio between the number of different economic theories and the numbers of economists is roughly 1:1. Despite their ideas being constantly invalidated by events, the profusion of economists and their influence on policy-making grows steadily, as “unforeseen inputs” can always be blamed for the failure of their predictions.
MBA. A degree (Master of Business Administration) available at certain institutions of higher education. It attests to the scholar’s mastery of the skills involved in transferring wealth from people with low incomes to people with higher ones. Some of these techniques have attained popular jargon currency with names like mortgages or bankruptcy or investment funds. The successful MBA degree holder can expect a lifetime salary well up in the comfort range, plus bonuses at the end of the year when the black ink is bottled. He is not required to perform any useful productive work — just to juggle numbers. The MBA degree ranks in popularity with an LLD, another field in which mastery of jargon is all-important. See the following entry.
LL.D. This degree (Doctor of Laws), also from a specialized institution, qualifies the holder to fill a privileged position in the court system, where he or she can levy fees from clients for copying out (without fear of plagiarism) legal statutes and case histories and presenting them to judges as original thought, judges who were of course themselves formerly lawyers and can be trusted to protect the guild status of their ex-colleagues.
The Finance Industry. That branch of economics concerned with transferring money from the working levels of society to the upper non-working levels. The details of its functioning vary according to political belief but the same aim prevails everywhere.
B.S. Vulgar designation for the art of seeming to say something meaningful without really saying anything. A popular practice at any level of society where the number one goal is avoiding any action that could threaten the status quo. (See Politics.)
Academe. A refuge where thinkers as contrasted to doers can retreat when it becomes clear that the real world has no use for them. It bestows on its scholars degrees in what are denigratingly called The Humanities in lieu of wages high enough to live on.
Ecology. The study of how to deal with the fragility of our continued existence on this planet. Currently scientists are trying to convince businessmen and religious fundamentalists that global warming is a suitable subject for discussion, so far without notable success. Many examples of rampant B.S. (q.v.) can be found in their arguments.
Tree-Hugger. One who has more sympathy for Joyce Kilmer than Shell-Exxon. Generally today tree-huggers are considered an endangered species.
Literature. Surviving works written before approximately CE 1800 are considered by scholars to be classical. Works originating between 1800 and 2000 are still being sorted out and evaluated by academically licensed critics. Anything written since 2000 is mainly seen as compost material produced by the publishing industry, a branch of the entertainment industry, which is fast becoming the dominant industry in our society. It is contended by supporters that in this vast accumulation of classical writing, investigation, opinion, and exhortation there is an almost inexhaustible supply of wisdom if only we could find it. Unfortunately, the effort to thresh the grain from the chaff is poorly rewarded by our current value systems (See Education) compared to the emoluments offered to other truth-seekers, such as, for example, evangelical preachers in megachurches with their guarantees of everlasting life.
Journalism. The sub branch of literature that deals with day-to-day events. Today it is largely controlled by a few oligarchs through their ownership of the media, but there is currently some uncertainty over how this will play out in the Age of the Internet. The distinguishing characteristic of the average journalist is that he or she believes that behind every event there is a conspiracy, backed by an over-arching meta-conspiracy based on money-grubbing, if only it can be ferreted out. Most of the time this is accurate, but unprovable.
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I’m out of ideas. Add your own.
Vance Weaver 