While those daring to question evil had
throughout the ages been hailed as heroes and branded as
villains, such assessments of “good” and “bad” are usually so
arbitrary as to be immaterial.
All that matters is one’s inalienable
right to question anything in the world - irrespective of how
erroneous that questioning may appear to others - and protecting
that right provides the sole moral underpinning for the
Adjective of “good”.
Therefore, no claim of “good” is worth considering until the
claimant first guarantees others the freedom to contradict it -
a timeless caveat Burke ignores.
Now there's a dichotomy… While Burke's advocacy of “doing something” stresses the importance of actions, our synthesis places its trust in Words. But wasn't the entire progress of humanity achieved only because “good men” had the guts to stand-up to evil and stake their lives - not debating skills, against it?
We've become human by virtue of Language - not actions. Further,
why did those "good men" have to fight evil in the first place?
Because not enough Words - rather then actions, were freely
available to prevent its emergence.
Part 1
Suppose that the Universe, Life and Language repeat themselves with no beginning or ending… If so, which of our everyday social instincts ought to dominate such a continuum?
Remarkably, it should be Edmund Burke's interventionist notion of “good”. Yet however action-based an intervention - the “good” of its mission would still eternally aim to protect the freedom of Language.
CONCEPTUAL COMPARISON
We'll proceed to generalizations at a later stage, but to prepare the ground let's reprise a few handy topics pursued in “Structure of Reality”.
First, Life's sentient awareness arises from the processes of CONCEPTUAL COMPARISON. Those processes reveal Reality as being dual - in one form it leads exclusively to Descriptive outcomes of “same / different” and in the other, to Proportional “less / equal / more”.
Hence, to survive Life must correctly evaluate the following five constants of Reality -
“same / different”
“less / equal / more”
Yet Life will universally entrust its fate to only one of them -
the Descriptive Reality’s constant of “sameness” -
“What’s this situation SAME AS?” it’ll ask Memory. “It’s the
SAME AS X” a reply will come, lightning-like…
“Great, therefore my current response will be the SAME AS all my
previous responses to X”
Why? In whatever Universe, Life will go belly-up doing things it
isn’t wholly familiar with and hence, those who play it safe
inherit the future.
No experimentation, no bold moves, no new survival tricks – just
plodding along on a Descriptive treadmill of “sameness”. But
don’t sci-fi books tell us that Life is ultimately destined to
reach for the stars?
Life’s advancement is never in peril but it happens only within
Proportional Reality. Its “less / equal / more” universally
diverges into the extremities of “least / less / equal / more /
most”, with the “most” segment spearheading the Natural
Selection.
So, while Life remains hard-wired for perpetually responding in
the SAME manner to the SAME situation, repetitions of “sameness”
occurring within the “most” segment surpass the degree of
advancement the process ever achieves amongst the “least / less
/ equal / more /………” segments.
For it is here, at the “most” extremity of its sentient
capabilities that Life is cautiously testing “different”
variants of “sameness”, which – if it survives the experience,
bring it a notch closer to the realm of LEARNING.
To conclude; by limiting its survival responses to the patterns
of SAME AS, Life joins a worthy company - from quarks to
galactic clusters and arguably the Universe itself, Reality is
also embodied within the repetitive patterns of SAME AS.
THE “HOW” AND THE “HOW WELL”
An interesting topic - the “how” and “how well” of
survival…First, note that while the “how” is merely a method of
getting by from one day to the next, the “how well” already
implies the generic notion of “good”…
Why? Life that we see around us today - humanity included, is
the product of every “good” result achieved by a long line of
its genetic predecessors over more then a billion years of
Natural Selection.
It’s worth noting that generically, the “how” and the “how
well” belong to two separate manifestations of Reality -
The “how” is species-intrinsic… A crocodile shares the
“sameness” of its survival method with the “remainder of
crocodiles” just as a fly does with the “remainder of flies”…
The reason? Since the dawn of Life, members of the “same”
species have had their physiologies constantly tested for
compatibility with the “same” survival requirements of a given
Environment - consequently becoming the mirror images of those
requirements.
By contrast, “how well” an individual’s physiological
“in-equality” is faring relative to the “remainder of own
species” depends on a position along the “least / less / equal /
more / most” divergence which Reality had per-chance allocated
to that individual. As such, the “how”, the method, just follows
in the footsteps of a last standing “how well” - the essence of
Evolution.
To sum-up; the functional “differences” BETWEEN species are
defined by Descriptive Reality and the functional
“in-equalities” WITHIN species by the Proportional.
DIVERGENCE OF INEQUALITIES
The processes of CONCEPTUAL COMPARISON may take many forms…In EXPLANATORY COMPARISON segment of “Structure of Reality” we have explored the constancy of A = Bx, from its conceptual role in facilitating the first proto-human exchanges of possessions to serving as a cookie-cutter for all mathematical EQUATIONS in any possible Universe.
In its ONTOLOGICAL COMPARISON segment we’ve probed the essence
of “non-existence” - a concept more fundamental then that of
“existence” and which, if not satisfactorily resolved, will
forever prevent us understanding the latter…
But top fun is the COMPARISON of IN-EQUALITIES - a process that
through a prism of mutually negating Adjectives and Adverbs
reflects the beautiful symmetry of Reality.
To observe this, let’s put some nominal physiological
“in-equalities” under a spotlight -
While the Proportional constants of “least / less / equal / more
/ most” will neatly accommodate any five “un-equal” physiologies, what happens when their number runs into
thousands, millions or billions? Their aggregate will diverge
into the following, well-known structure of linear distribution
-
“equal”
“s / equal / m”
“ess / equal / mor”
“t / less / equal / more / m”
“least / less / equal / more / most”
How so?
Extremes of Nature are inversely Proportional to the frequency
of their occurrence…
See it another way - since repetitive patterns of Reality
constantly gravitate towards the “equal”, the SMALLEST
DEVIATIONS from that “equal” happen MOST FREQUENTLY. Therefore,
the “greater” any such deviation, the “less frequent” its
occurrence…
SEMANTIC DIVERGENCE
One of the most fascinating constants of
Language is the symmetry of its semantic divergence into the
opposite extremes of “in-equality”…
But is it value-free, immune to having its central bulk of MOST
FREQUENT occurrences influenced from either the “least” or the
“most” direction of by the aspirations of our Social Existence?
Take these contextual translations of the “least / less / equal
/ more / most” as our working examples –
“poorest / poorer / equal / richer / richest”
“silliest / silly / equal / smarter / smartest”
“ugliest / uglier / equal / prettier / prettiest”
“fattest / fatter / equal / slimmer / slimmest”
“”costliest / costlier / equal / cheaper / cheapest“
“worst / worse / equal / better / best”
As we see, the divergence of
“in-equalities” in each of the above examples is symmetrical and
whenever our self-interest is not at stake – we tend to throw
these commonplace concepts back and forth like confetti.
But can you picture yourself stranded in the middle of
pedestrian “equal” earnestly imploring the fate “Gosh, I really
want to be sillier and poorer”?
Nope - your instincts will always tilt in the “smarter” and
“richer” direction of social opportunities.
And indeed, spurred by our evolved capacity for mimicking the
success of others, we do in many cases become “smarter” and
“richer” as a result of getting an EDUCATION.
Likewise, could you ever imagine a young woman staring at the
mirror and cussing “Why can’t I be fatter and uglier?”
Again, women’s instinctive aspirations point in the opposite
direction and a multi-billion dollar industry will expertly
present them to potential partners as “slimmer” and “prettier”.
How about buying a car? The salesman offers you a great deal for
$99.000 -a near-new prestige vehicle with a 3-year warranty,
driven only on Sundays by a wealthy old lady…
No doubt, all along you are preparing a strategy to
force the price down for no end of bogus reasons – too many
scratches, oil leaks, depreciation too high, squeaky
transmission, whatever… You’re sure determined to drive a
“better” bargain come hell or high water!
All of the sudden
- just as you are about to counter with $60.000, a perverse urge
to make the matters “worse” and “costlier” comes over you -
“Nope, I want this beauty instead – give you $120.000” you
declare, grandly pointing at an almost worthless jalopy rusting
behind the office. But does it ever happen? Only in “bad”
dreams…
Since we all know that everybody wants what’s “good” rather then
what’s “bad”, why state the obvious? Because behind it resides
the most seminal issue of Social Existence – when conflicting
interests are at stake, how are the “good” and “bad” to be
determined, by whom and for whom?
Indeed, the JUSTIFICATIONS for resolving those matters in favor of some and not others had been in contention since the unprecedented SURPLUS of Agriculture entered our social equation around ten millennia ago. We'll come back to this crucial topic in more detail…
THE GOOD MEN OF HUMANITY
Edmund Burke’s dictum can be implemented on two levels - local
or global, each beset with its own difficulties…
Arguably, the origin of “good men” charged specifically with
intervening to prevent the triumph evil of at a local level
traces from the Roman Republic, via various English
Constabularies, through a unified British police force of the
mid-19th century till the present - where each country
has a police force of one sort or another.
However, with police forces outside the West largely abetting
the triumph of evil rather then preventing it, let’s for a
moment focus on Western law enforcement -
Say you’re a Western cop on $25 an hour, who, after weeks of
diligent work has just arrested a person strongly suspected of
being a career criminal.
Inevitably, a lawyer turns-up… As your suspect smirks
contemptuously,
the lawyer does what the lawyers do – but this time at $500 an hour!
Bearing in mind that each of you is a “good man” entrusted by your society with preventing the triumph of evil, why is one of you earning twenty times as much as the other?
There’s at least one temptation such a cynically distorted
administration of the Law is placing before you every working
day… What is it called?
Now to the global version of Mr. Burke’s call to arms – where
the “good” of intervening is reflected not in how many crooks
we’re sending to jail, but in the reasons for sending the best
of us to a war…
Since here, the costs of intervening can multiply a thousand-fold, we'll take this journey at length, hoping to eventually arrive at a primeval spring from which our current instincts of “good” had been flowing through the eons now long behind us.
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE CONFUSED
In a memorable 1953 film “Shane”, the “good” hero rides out
of nowhere to save a “good” farming family from predations of a
“bad”, land-grabbing cattle baron - the crux of Edmund Burke’s
dictum. Note the constant moral interplay amongst three entities
- 2 “good” and 1 “bad”. Pretty basic…
But things aren’t
always that tidy… Around two and a half millennia ago, Diodotus
– a Greek politician, had argued against collectively punishing
the population of a rebellious city of Mytilene, despite that
order having already been approved by the vote of Athenian
Assembly. He prevailed and fast a boat conveyed the news of a reprieve
to besieging Athenian force with only hours to spare – the
incident itself commanding an anecdotal mention ever since…
Now Diodotus clearly emerges here as “good” in a tripartite
of 2 “good” and 1 “bad”, for against the will of his peers he
had persevered to prevent the triumph of evil in a truly
interventionist way. But who are the remaining 1“good” and
1“bad” parties?
They can be kaleidoscopic… After all, Mytilene had rebelled in
cahoots with the “bad” state of Sparta – an archenemy of Athens.
So, who can tell how dedicated to undermining Athens the “good”
population of Mytilene might have been…
And if the Athenian Assembly had been “good” in rescinding its
decision to collectively punish an entire population, why did it
make that decision in the first place?
Consider a more recent example… Suppose that two criminals rob a bank - not unlike the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union dividing the bulk of Europe in 1939. As it happens in B-movies, one criminal then shoots the other in the back and grabs his share - the Nazis' treacherous 1941 invasion of the Soviets. Seething with vengeance, the wounded robber skulks away but by this time a policeman - the West, has already had part of a shoulder shot-off by that same aggressive criminal, i.e. the Nazi blitzkrieg of 1940.
Having already been attacked by a psychopath, the policeman decides to join forces with the other robber, who hence becomes “good” by default – the 1941 Grand Alliance between the West and the Soviet Union , resulting in $10 billion of aid to the latter.
Now it gets wooly... By the time the pair overpowers the
“bad” criminal in 1945, the “good” criminal collects an expanded
share of the robbery – the whole of Eastern Europe, claims
entire credit for winning that brawl, then denounces the
policeman for being himself a criminal…
It gets woollier… Around 1990, after many decades of community
pressure to mend his ways, the “good” criminal takes part-time
lessons to become a certified bank guard. Flunks all exams – the
Soviet Union collapses soon afterwards, setting Eastern Europe
free.
Gets even woollier…Tutored by the policeman since 1945, the
criminal who for decades personified the “worst” in this world –
a genocide mindlessly conducted by the Nazis beyond any military
justification, had by that time developed into a highly
successful businessman, with the 1990 per capita GNP of West
Germany being about double that of the Soviets.
As of now, community grapevine suggests the former “good”
criminal is back at his old tricks, having merely reformed his
operating methods – not his character.
If so, then what should we expect of the newly assertive Russia,
apparently impatient to illuminate our dim Earth with its
purported greatness? In short, trouble…
Unlike China – another worrisome customer that’s at least
sparkling with manufacturing genius and had over the millennia
made major contributions to progress, Russia has very little
credit in a bank of History. And however true, the “We once
could have killed you!” ruminations behind its obstinate
grasping at global stewardship aren’t a substitute for that
credit. A few key criteria –
First, ever since proto-humans began to compare the respective
worth of their possessions – say, Food, Tools and Garments, a
peoples’ intellectual quintessence had been embodied in the
artifacts they were able to make…
“Made in Russia”? There is no demand for that country’s
manufactures on the international marketplace – unless it is
coming from a liquor wholesaler or an arms buyer.
Second, over the last two centuries of MODERNITY especially, a
peoples’ intellectual quintessence has been revealed in the
IDEAS which humanity at large could likewise adopt and benefit
from…
And what was Russia’s contribution in this sphere? Communism – a
well-intentioned form of social criminality that had only
succeeded in stupefying both its victims and its perpetrators.
Third, a peoples’ intellectual quintessence is most faithfully
reflected in the choices of migration. Had those searching for a
better life been historically moving into Russia – or fleeing
it?
So, when those determined to make an impact on the world have
only two options – brains or brawn, it won’t take a
supercomputer to deduce which of these will underpin Russia’s
ongoing recidivism.
What’s the point
of this tale? The components performing Edmund Burke’s
interventionist notion of “good” – the 2 “good” and 1 “bad”,
rarely manifest themselves to us with the clarity our
clarity-hungry interpretation of those concepts leads us to
believe –
Our intuitive search for immediate meaningfulness of
communication often compels us to see “good / bad” as “white /
black” in situations where they are at best the shades of
“gray”, becoming “white” or “black” only with the passage of
time – sometimes over decades, sometimes generations…
For example, the “good” West has long been castigated for
aligning itself – “gray”, with unsavory characters to contain
“bad” communism. History nonetheless illustrates that once the
nature of “good” and “bad” has been assessed over time, humanity
had no reasons for concern when the “gray” component – strategic
pragmatism, is serving in the army of “good”.
Part
2
Check out your body… You should have 1
“head”, 1 “torso”, 2 “arms” plus 2 “legs”, all equipped with
most amazing functional capabilities. But how did we evolve into
such largish, sophisticated entities?
That story had begun over a billion years ago with the
evolution of sexual reproduction. Whereas previously, Life just
hobbled along on a Descriptive leg of “sameness” – genetic
enclosure A would absorb the Environment’s biomass then
replicate asexually into substantially “same” enclosure A’ –
sexual reproduction allowed Life to sprint forward on two
Descriptive legs of “same + different”, i.e. “male + female”…
And in a situation where genetic A + B becomes either A’B (male)
or AB’ (female) capable of mating with some X’Y or XY’ to result
in either; A’BX’Y, A’BXY’, AB’ X’Y or AB’ XY’, the total
COMPLEXITY of continually emerging genetic permutations soon
becomes astronomical.
So, next time you contemplate a heterosexual intercourse, don't forget the long line of Casanovas which for over a billion years had in exactly the same way compounded Life's physiological COMPLEXITY until it was able to perform the processes of CONCEPTUAL COMPARISON – culminating in higher Life, proto-humans, Language and humanity…
Had it not been for their romantic efforts, there would probably
be nothing of sentient significance on Earth today – just
insipid, asexually multiplying flotsam which occupied it over
the preceding three and a half billion years.
SURPLUS – THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
The emergence of sexual reproduction had a corollary – the
rise, about half a billion years ago, of SURPLUS-dependent Life –
Imagine you became destitute one day; nowhere to live, no
money, barely the clothes on your back… Perhaps “If I had only
saved what I’ve spent on cigarettes…” would wistfully flash in
your mind. Alas, be they matters great or small, the “If only…” is at best a lesson for the future.
So, you’ll battle on with what’s left… Call friends or
relatives? No way, you don’t want them to see you in this
situation. Quickly get a job, any job!
Say six months later, after a sobering brush with indigence
you are back in the saddle. The lesson? It wasn’t having your
vulnerabilities exploited by all and sundry. No, that – you
would conclude, was the inescapable effect of being caught with
no financial SURPLUS to your name… Very “bad”! If so, then what
in this context is “good”?
“Simple – the $3.000 I’ve just managed to save must remain in
the bank and be used in most dire emergencies only!”
What has it got to do with Edmund Burke? Wave your precious
three grand above your head in a busy street and you’ll quickly
realize the importance of “good men” intervening to prevent the
triumph of evil.
Assume that the muses of commerce had smiled kindly upon your
attitude towards SURPLUS and a decade later, you’re the CEO of a
major financial corporation… What’s changed? Certainly not the
essentials –
OK, so you’ve clawed your way onto the apex of a corporate
pyramid – there’s a chauffeur-driven limo, experts snap into
action at your command and your salary could feed hundreds of
families per year… But while you’re tossing and turning at
night, one searing amount – the “$61 million”, burns through
your slumber hour after hour –
That’s the substance of the matter – the money you must find
every week to cover the salaries, rent, taxes, health care,
dividends, interest payments, litigation costs and all other
running expenses of your vast outfit…
Where does that money come from? Obviously, it should come
from your company’s weekly operating profit. Except your records
for the last quarter show an average “3.13 million” weekly loss
and computer projections point to even worse results in the
next… Before the year is out you are heading for some “200
million” in the red… How “bad” is that!?
Not the end of the world. You’ve been there before – your
bank will again extend a usual line of credit… But what was your
mission statement to that corporation’s board when applying for
the top job?
“Under my stewardship we will cease to be a corporate yo-yo that
bounces between profit and loss” you would boast at the time, “I
shall immediately start on building a strong operating SURPLUS
of 5 billion dollars within the next five years – so when the
next financial storm comes we’ll stay afloat, watch the others
sink and salvage the best of what’s left!” Applause!!!
Well, that commendable strategy won’t be coming to fruition,
but here’s a chance to reach even greater heights –
Some half a billion years ago, you’re a multi-celled organism
born of sexual reproduction. Your parents had long dissolved
into watery inconsequence but here you are – gently swaying on
the ripples of some primordial pond and trying to stay alive as
long as possible for no particular reason.
Hey, no more worries about having to provide salaries, rent,
taxes, health care, dividends, interest payments, etc…? That’s
not entirely correct…
Every week you must still find say, “0.61 calories” – your basal
metabolic needs, with which to power the energy-hungry cells
constituting your body. If you can’t – the electro-chemical
workings within those cells will sputter along for while, then
come to a permanent standstill …Kaput!
And should your body start running at an energy loss, there’s no
bank from which “20 calories” worth of biomass can be borrowed
to fill the gap…No, now it is only you and your fickle
Environment – sometimes it’s awash with precious biomass but
often it just leaves you on a brink of starvation.
How to overcome this insecurity?
While still continuing to function at a rate of “0.61 calories”
per week, you could evolve a method of additionally storing say,
extra “0.2 calories” upon your body when the pickings are
plentiful…
The outcome? Whenever your Environment abounds with biomass, you
function at a normal energy-consumption rate while stockpiling
these extra calories as SURPLUS for future use.
Conversely - should biomass become scarce, you’ll still survive
by feeding from your own reserves. Problem solved.
Were you to re-visit that Environment in say, ten million
years, you would find organisms incapable of SURPLUS-storage
perishing all around, just as your descendants are becoming
LARGER and more dominant in the overall scheme of Life.
Here, your physiology has trodden the
first step on an evolutionary path which your alter-ego of
half a billion years into the future might summarize in a
corporate boardroom as; “I shall immediately start on
building a strong operating SURPLUS of 5 billion dollars
within the next five years – so when the next financial
storm comes we’ll stay afloat, watch the others sink and
salvage the best of what’s left!”
Would an expansion of Life’s functional repertoire into sex and
SURPLUS have any bearing on Edmund Burke’s, or indeed any notion
of “good”?
Sex is “good” for a generic reason - it guarantees the
permanence of Life. And when one sees a child curled up in
mother’s arms, what could be more natural then to wish it a
“good” future…Here, it could added that FIDELITY usually
provides couples with optimal lifetimes because of its sheer
social efficiency and competitiveness, rather then ostensible
morality.
In
an interventionist sense, humanity has evolved “good”
prohibitions – on incest, rape or pedophilia for example, along
with the inequitable strictures still rife amidst Cultures
untouched by MODERNITY. That’s about it…
Why not venture deeper into the subject? Because there’s a vast
functional disparity between what sex and SURPLUS respectively
contribute towards the continuum of Life.
In
principle, Life can survive by mating once in a lifetime. But
could it also survive by EATING once in a lifetime? That’s what
endows SURPLUS with its utter supremacy in the affairs of Life.
But not all is well in the Realm of SURPLUS – though it gave
substance to bodily Life and to this day remains the sole
guarantor our commercial and social probity, Life’s blind
instinct for acquiring it has led to some odious distortions -
GIVE ME YOUR SURPLUS
Suppose that the Universe, Life and Language repeat themselves
with no beginning or ending… If so, which of our everyday social
instinct ought to dominate the eternity of such repetition?
Instead of – as before, continuing on with Edmund Burke’s
interventionist notion of “good”, let us look in the eye of an
evil that had made it necessary –
“Feed us - or
else!”
As
constant as Gravity shepherding the contents of a Universe, this
canny instinct for surviving by the efforts of others is
destined to permeate Social Existence of any linguistic Life
within it.
Indeed, if Evolution ever found that 95% of a Language-based
society could be made to labor from dawn to dusk to pamper the
remaining 5%, it may have wryly applauded the latter on their
breathtaking audacity…
Not that such impertinence would be imposed on its victims in so
crude a manner. While letting everyone know that the “… or
else!” sanction is still there, the opportunists realizing that
creation of SURPLUS requires social tranquility, will quickly
wrap their demands in a serene JUSTIFICATION -
“Feed us –
it’s your sacred duty”
And universally, Language will rub into such JUSTIFICATIONS the
marrow of Life dilemma - its perpetual struggle for continuity.
That will be exploited in two ways -
First, the natural succession of parents creating an offspring
who become parents creating an offspring, etc… demands of those
parents much more then merely having a descendant. Natural
Selection dictates that they must also provide it with every
available advantage in its forthcoming struggle to survive and
as Language develops, the social bluff of being “better born”
will certainly smoothen the path ahead for the little ones…
The second form is more insidious… Take stock of Life at any
point - which instinctive imperative would have driven it to
survive right up to that stage?
“I
shall survive as long as possible!” Any lesser commitment on the
part of individual physiologies to prevail the “longest” gets
caught out by Natural Selection and is permanently discarded
into a genetic waste-basket…
Now what happens when Life urged by every fiber in its body to
“survive as long as possible” evolves Language? Sooner or later
an imaginative mind - maybe someone grieving over the death of a
loved one, will conceptualize that mournful event as a mere
artifice…
“No, only the body of my loved one has died”, the imagination
will whisper soothingly, “but its soul shall survive as long
as possible… forever!”
“Where does that soul go to?” the curious would later ask. “The
Afterlife, that’s where – the ever-lasting Afterlife…”
Now the Aristocracy and Religion are not the constant
embodiments of evil per se - far from it. Yet it is inevitable
that universally, their “good” social roles will become
perverted by the triumphant arrival of our old friend - the
SURPLUS…
Ever since mankind discovered the phenomenal SURPLUS of
Agriculture ten millennia ago – where say in the case of maize a
single grain can gross between 20000% and 40000% return per
year, attention of the established elites had centered on
controlling that mesmerizing bounty –
“We own this crop because we own this land! Why? Because our
Deity has deemed us worthy of its special grace!” thundered the
Aristocracies.
“We own this crop because we own this land! Why? Because it’s
the will of our Deity and if you disobey, you’ll never enter the
Afterlife”, the Religions echoed, if somewhat more subtly.
And so, the “why / because” – two enthralling concepts without
which no theories about the workings of the Universe would have
been possible, had ten millennia ago foisted upon the bulk of
humanity the JUSTIFICATION of an inherent social obligation;
“Feed your Aristocracies and Religions – it’s your sacred duty””
Before long, cities built on the SURPLUS expropriated under that
obligation would become great empires and armies never seen
before would clash in the name of their leaders’ blindly
followed JUSTIFICATIONS.
And once ruling over an emergent human
Civilization becomes the ultimate prize, any objective,
society-based appraisal of “good” threatens the affairs of
“good men”…
Why, they are “good” - isn’t that what
the JUSTIFICATIONS of their power had been proclaiming
throughout the known world already?
THE BIRTH OF MODERNITY
Fast forward to the mid-18th century – ironically,
the time of Edmund Burke. The Aristocracy and Religion are by
now a vast, unstoppable juggernaut of despotism. Any fumbles
made in enforcing the “Feed us - it’s your sacred duty”
tradition had long been pitilessly corrected and its
protagonists now own the world!
And Language… If you glanced behind the opulent palaces and
cathedrals, mosques and temples, you would find an evil dog
reeking of persecution, imprisonment, torture and murder - ready
to savage anyone daring to even whisper that its masters are
other then “good men” deserving the utmost of praise and
obedience…
Then came the Watt steam engine, 177O - the springboard of the
Industrial Revolution, plus the American Declaration of
Independence, 1776 and the French Revolution, 1789 - the seeds
of the SECULAR REVOLUTION.
Combined, these account for the most important social
breakthrough since the Athenians started to count votes around
two and a half millennia ago -at last, humanity’s medieval
embankments have been breached towards a new, long-heralded
vista of MODERNITY…
Not surprisingly, most Cultures wouldn’t at the time understand
the merit of following a path charted entirely by the West. As a
result, the world had split into incompatible parts - the
Western Civilization industriously forging ahead and the rump of
humanity that continually lags behind it in a wide range of
capabilities and opportunities.
It
must be acknowledged that by seizing on Western advances,
Cultures of the East - most notably Japan, South Korea and
ominously, China – have also made very substantial progress of
late.
So, what in the meantime happened to the once invincible
potentates of Aristocracy and Religion?
Ever since the jointly owned evil dog of persecution,
imprisonment, torture and murder got emblematically paid-off on
a French guillotine, both have been chewing the fat of an
enormous SURPLUS accumulated through the preceding centuries -
while at the same time assiduously manipulating the nascent,
temporal state to their best advantage -
The Aristocracy of the West now barely merits a shrug - its
opportunities to benefit from skewed governance are fast coming
to an end and the sooner its pompous freeloaders are invited to
join the conventional workforce the better for all concerned.
As for Religion, the case for urging its practitioners to join the conventional workforce is even more compelling and the righteousness of such an act would have brought redemption to great many of naively misdirected but otherwise well-meaning lives.
But we shouldn’t hold our breath - selling the comforting
daydreams of the “Afterlife” still offers so many
state-sanctioned benefits that most “good men” of Western
Religions will see little merit in earning their salvation the
hard way.
That still leaves matters unresolved, for although it is the
right of adults to live in their own La-la-land, what right does
anyone have to impose it on a life on some trusting 10 year-old?
It’s high time the West had realized that its so-called
Religious Education isn’t there to teach kids about the factual
phenomenon of various Religions having emerged throughout the
millennia all over the world…
No, its aim is indoctrinating young, vulnerable minds into
donating Money in twenty years time to a particular Religion -
allowing the indoctrinators to survive in their insular,
sectarian enclaves right until ripe old age.
To summarize, let’s put the “Western Civilization derives its
moral values from Christianity” parrot out of its misery -
If
you want to see how Christian moral values worked in the past,
observe closely the thuggish determination with which Religions
still contemptuous of Secular Morality enforce their “Feed us -
it’s your sacred duty” traditions amongst the medieval Cultures
of the world.
The point? The West only became what it is because some two
centuries ago it had won a battle to free itself from precisely
that kind of behavior.
As
we are on the subject of social opportunism, let us peek at the
current, indulgently named “sub-prime” crisis… Since “All that
is necessary for the triumph of evil is that enough men learn
how to benefit from it”, we should ask not who are the losers –
but cui bono?
AMERICA – a country that gave humanity the First Amendment, had
stayed true to its precepts and remains our sole bulwark against
the belligerence of totalitarianism still firmly entrenched
across the world in a variety of vile incarnations…
Embarrassingly it is also a country whose political
establishment hasn’t yet comprehended that the purpose of being
elected is to protect the PEOPLE from the triumph of evil in the
very way Edmund Burke envisages.
Now the “sub-prime” mortgages are just a new twist to the old
“There’s a sucker born every day” form of real-estate
racketeering…Having banked the SURPLUS extracted from an
underhanded deal, the racketeer bundles its toxic leftovers with
thousands of other mortgages then discharges the lot into an
international pond of greed, fear and ignorance. “Houston – we
have a problem…”
It is a duty of politicians everywhere to enact laws eradicating
that kind of fraud at its grass-roots level and doing so in
America was neither onerous intellectually nor – as some
co-beneficiaries like to allege, would it have led to the
collapse of its free enterprise system…
Why didn’t it happen? Come elections time, America’s VESTED
INTERESTS make their political whores the usual offer “We’ll
keep you in comfort and you just let us look after the interests
of our fine, God-fearing citizens”
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that enough
men learn not to question it
Part 3
Let’s spread a uniform layer of SURPLUS-oriented COMPLEXITY
across the Environment and come back to it a hundred million
years later… We would find that its functional “in-equalities”
had diverged into specific SURVIVAL NICHES - becoming
“different” species.
Since some genetic permutations only succeed at the cost of
others, a hint of “good / bad” divergence appears to be in sight
already. But could it lead Life into developing an
interventionist INTENT? Let’s look at it in context of early
Evolution -
THE INTERVENTIONIST “GOOD”
There’re over six billon people on Earth today, but why are we
all still alive? A much-overlooked explanation - because we
hadn’t been cannibalized by our parents -
However tongue-in-cheek such a thought, imagine trying to stay
alive at the bottom of an ocean a hundred million years ago…
Say a dozen of your offspring dart merrily about, sheltering
near your body at any sign of danger. But unlike your energetic
brood, you hadn’t caught a prey for some days and can barely
move. Actually, all that keeps you going is a SURPLUS of biomass
your body has stored away from the meals long gone - and that
reserve is now running low…
Nonetheless, there’s an instant solution to your problem, for
the FOOD you need is right in front of your mouth! It’s your
offspring, dummy - eat them and at least you might stay alive
until something more substantial turns up.
You won’t eat your own offspring, will you...
Why not? Because you - when an offspring, weren’t eaten by your
parents, who themselves - when offspring, weren’t eaten by their
parents, who when offspring weren’t eaten by their parents, and
so and on across the previous hundreds of millions of years of
Evolution…
But why should Natural Selection favor this instinctive
RESTRAINT over its cannibalism-oriented alternative? Surely,
eating your own offspring doesn’t necessarily spell the end of
your species - just let some survive and they’ll energetically
replenish the numbers. In fact, a few lower-end forms of Life
are practicing it to this day…
Nature loves problem-solvers… Since Life feeding on other
species solves a more difficult problem that can be solved by
Life turning on its own kind, the former will universally
displace the latter and that is how we’ve become what we are
today...
Incidentally, Democracy triumphs over totalitarianism for a
similar reason. And this has little to do with moral values -
no, the freedom of expression it is founded on also happens to
be an indispensable tool of problem solving.
Now back to E. Burke Esq. and his interventionist components of
2 “good” and 1 “bad”. Tentatively, they’re at hand already -
parent A, parent B and offspring C. Here, borrowing on our
contemporary mores one could already picture a “good” parent A
intervening to save the “good” offspring C from being harmed by
“bad” parent B… Familiar?
Trouble is that however true it rings in human context, it
doesn’t conform to the mores of Evolution. Quite to the contrary
- parents across the animal kingdom are extraordinarily
protective of their offspring.
Why? Nothing else works… The parents’ lack of absolute
commitment to the welfare of offspring places that offspring at
a competitive disadvantage relative to the rest of the species.
And as the disadvantaged perish earlier, the inherited genetic
traits responsible for their misfortune largely die away with
them before they can be reproduced.
Now what if “good” parents A and B intervene to save “good”
offspring C from “bad” predator D? Here, although the parents
would have exercised no choice in protecting an offspring, this
classic scenario crystallizes Life’s INSTINCTIVE assessment of
“good” and “bad” for all its future references.
But while it could now be argued that all interventionist “good”
traces back to the parents instinctively protecting their young
from predators, we still aren’t anywhere near its contemporary
ideal.
Let’s visit our closest relatives and see if they’ve ever heard
of Mr. Burke’s worthy sentiment -
Imagine you’re the leader of a chimpanzee troop, deftly guiding
it through the vagaries of survival. Many a prey had succumbed
to your guile, many a predator were led astray… With a hefty paw
and a matching growl you’ve also been adjudicating the feuds
amongst your underlings longer then you care to remember. “Tough
but FAIR” they’d would call you today.
So, why are you a bit unsettled? For a long time, out of the
corner of your eye you’ve been watching the goings-on in a rival
troop across the creek. Nothing worth worrying about, except for
one small oddity -
You have noticed a young chimp frequently staring towards you
and each time it brought back a vague recollection of some nasty
skirmish, the snap of a rival’s bones, the young one biting into
your calf…You sense despair in the chimp’s demeanor, or is it
HOPE - bah, nothing to do with you…
So, what is it? It’s not that you’ve killed the father,
depriving this chimp of the only protection from that troop’s
ferocious cliques - it doesn’t count.
Maybe it is just beginning to dawn on you that what later
happened to this orphan wouldn’t happen under your rule… The
hounding, the beatings, the stealing of food you have witnessed
- no, had they been yours, the ruffians responsible would fly
through the dust in a lesson never to be forgotten.
And that orphan - a hunched wraith covered with scabs, continues
to stare towards you.
Suppose that the Universe, Life and Language repeat themselves
with no beginning or ending…
Yes, we’re back to key NOUNS of this chapter’s first paragraph;
“Universe, Life and Language”. Having found no interventionist
“good” amidst non-linguistic Life, can we identify its source
either in Language, or at least in its precursor?
It
is the precursor – specifically, the proto-human concept of
FAIRNESS. And if that is a surprise, let’s compound it - it’s
the proto-human concept of commercial FAIRNESS…
Are commerce and FAIRNESS now supposed to precede the
development of Language itself - what’s the story?
Over two million years ago, the Stone Tools appeared and for the
first time an artifact had found an additional, social role -
the self-evident usefulness of a Tool could be transferred from
one individual to another in exchange for “anything” of EQUAL
VALUE.
But why bother exchanging anything - our closest cousins don’t
do it and they’re still pretty happy campers…
Primitive commerce seems at best a quirk of Nature – an odd
breakthrough that had given the descendants of one proto-human
group the wherewithal for marching further into the future then
any other… At its heart reside two constants of Reality – one is
structural, the other a universal coefficient of Social
Existence -
The first – Life’s innate physiological “in-equalities”, is a
given. The second waits for sentient Life observing the “things”
within its Environment to see the benefit in correlating two
concepts - the QUALITY of “something” and the QUANTITY of
“something else” -
It is axiomatic that no two individuals within a group ever make
perfectly “equal” contributions to its welfare - be it providing
the food, protecting the young, choosing the next camp, leading
the group against enemies, etc…
Yet against Nature’s grain, those “in-equalities” can still be
compensated for socially -
1.
An individual who abounds with the QUALITY of one thing may
demand an additional QUANTITY of another – an incentive.
2.
An individual deficient in the QUALITY of one thing may be
required to make up for it with a QUANTITY of another – an
obligation.
A
group adopting such basics of primitive commerce benefits in two
ways -
First, the rise of a command structure needed to enforce those
commercial incentives and obligations adds to that group’s
organizational firepower.
Second, those confident of their talent and skills will now use
that big stick to extract from their underlings the utmost of
contribution - increasing that group’s output of “useful items
and skills”, its GDP as it were.
The outcome? Proto-human groups governed by the discipline of
primitive commerce must supplant the bands of laggards who
meander through life with nothing compelling them to maximize
the QUALITY and QUANTITY of their contribution to the common
cause.
As
can be seen, free enterprise – a system oozing with the
Darwinian sense of commercial discipline, has been winning its
skirmished against socialist indolence long, long ago…
EQUIVALENCE – THE PATH TO FAIRNESS
An
already familiar illustration has asked how many “x?” bananas
“B” is a Stone Tool “A” worth? Is it “3 bananas”, is it “5” or
maybe it’s “8”…
It
can’t be worth all of them simultaneously anymore then a loaf of
bread can be priced at “$3.75”, “$4.00”, “$4.25” and “$4.50” in
a supermarket. Assuming that the price displayed happens to be
“$4.50” - is that price FAIR when a shop down the road is
selling exactly the same loaf for only “3.75”? “How come…”
However modern this question may seem, its essence – FAIRNESS,
would have exercised the proto-human mind ever since those
exchanging “useful items and skills” began to sense that an
outcome can sometimes favor the other party. And that doesn’t
even depend on counting specific items, but a broad suspicion –
not necessarily correct, of the same process having led to a
more beneficial result elsewhere. “What’s going on in my case…”
Imagine a procession of skills-dependent proto-human groups
advancing onward since the dawn of Stone Tools – each striving
to endure as a viable social unit. Which sentient structures
would have helped a group to prevail the longest?
With those driven by the discipline of primitive commerce
quickly surging ahead, it wouldn’t be the groups whose warriors
go into battle still seething about being short-changed on some
obtuse barter.
Rather, it would be the proto-humans who – while likewise
strengthened by primitive commerce, had evolved an additional
means for integrating their diverse capabilities, temperaments
and ambitions to the highest degree of social COHESION.
How? Simple - all they needed to do is memorize and repeat the
signs and sounds already noted for reconciling their commercial
quibbles in the past then pass that knowledge onto the
young…LANGUAGE.
Thus, though it rules supreme today, Language couldn’t initially
have been more then an adjunct to the already established
exchanges of “useful items and skills” – a serendipitous
by-product of proto-human efforts to improve the prospects of
own group by improving its standard of FAIRNESS.
What is FAIRNESS? Generically, it’s an attempt to achieve
EQUIVALENCE in the assessment of two reciprocally important
social concepts - they may represent our emotions or ambitions,
promises or favors, talents or skills, tangible items, etc…
Commercially, it characterizes a situation in which parties
voluntarily agree that the benefits they derive by exchanging
“something” for “something else” are EQUIVALENT.
Note now the symbiotic relationship between “something” and
“something else” - a simple act of exchanging one for the other
already engages all the critical five outcomes of CONCEPTUAL
COMPARISON at the heart of Life’s sentient awareness -
“same / different”
“less / equal / more”
First, no exchanges can be contemplated within Descriptive
Reality unless “something same as A” is being offered for
“something different to A”
Why? Nobody in the immemorial run of Commerce had as yet managed
to benefit from exchanging “A” for another “A”…
Second, as it becomes intuitively axiomatic that “something A”
would only be exchanged for “something B” – say, a “fish” for
“some tangerines”, the events swiftly move into the Proportional
realm of “less / equal / more”…
And here, our archetypal instincts to get as much as possible
for as little as possible inevitably raise their clever,
argumentative heads -
Yet as a rule, after the posturing, pleading and bluffing is
over, FAIRNESS informs the participants that a “fish A” is the
“equal” of “x Proportion of tangerines B” – not “less then x” or
“more the x” – and both parties amble away with a grin, each
assured that the benefits derived from that deal are indeed
EQUIVALENT.
Simple enough, but lurking behind there’s an enigma that in any
Universe shall preoccupy not only the primitives nervously
trying to exchange their wares, but also the greatest minds ever
to arise within it…
They’ll discover that “something” in Nature can likewise be
EQUIVALENT to “something else”. What’s more, it will be found
that “something A” must invariably be the EQUIVALENT of a
“Proportion x of something else B” and that in their right
combination, those EQUIVALENTS of A = Bx explain the workings of
their Universe.
To
sum-up - over maybe a million years now the brains of our
proto-human then human ancestors had been marinated, pickled,
stewed and seasoned in the social instinct for FAIRNESS. We are
hard-wired for it as much as we are for its diligent side-kick -
Language. And it is this instinct that had over the ages driven
“good men” into “doing something to prevent the triumph of evil”
in the way Edmund Burke had envisaged.
But it is Language that targets evil and historically, its
selections had not been all that impressive. Why did it fail?
Until around ten millennia ago, Language was merely ensuring
FAIRNESS within the tribes of hunter-gatherers. Then - once
Agriculture arrived, it had been dragooned into imposing and
enforcing JUSTIFICATIONS that gave self-appointed “good men” the
right to seize the bulk of its crops.
Once that swindle paid-off, Language became so committed to
extolling the virtues of such “good men” and punishing any
contrary views, that despite the millennia of tyrants
culminating in the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Mao or Pol Pot,
humanity ended-up without any “bad men” at all - only “good men”
no longer semantically capable of understanding their own evil.
“No claim of “good” is worth considering until the claimant
first guarantees others the freedom to contradict it
NATURE AND ITS SOCIAL DISPARITIES
After meandering along many quirky paths, the time has come for
rubber to hit the asphalt…Edmund Burke’s interventionist notion
of “good” would surely have manifested itself on a grand scale
at least once throughout the ages. If so, who were his “good
men”?
All of Social Existence is ultimately COMPLEXITY expressing
itself through Language. Consequently, the divergence of
“in-equalities” inherent within the semantic heritage that every
Culture passes onto its descendants must result in corresponding
divergence amongst the Cultures themselves - with some
inevitably becoming more successful then others.
The structure constantly representing that divergence is shown
below, the contextual base of “worst / worse / equal / better /
best” now substituting the standard, value-neutral base of
“least / less / equal / more / most” -
“equal”
“e / equal / b”
“rse / equal / bet”
“st / worse / equal /
better / be”
“worst / worse / equal / better / best”
Let’s simplify it… Since there is in Nature no law to ensure
that “different” Cultures have to advance at “equal” rate of
social progress over an “equal” period of time, a few must - by
that default, always finish ahead of the pack.
SEARCHING FOR A BETTER LIFE
How does one without a bias ascertain the contemporary standing
of any Culture when touching that raw nerve almost invariably
leads to polemics about racism, colonialism, imperialism,
supposed achievements of the past civilizations, well-nurtured
grievances of their descendants, etc…? There’s a short cut -
Recall the previous examples of asymmetrical human intent - our
constant, instinctive drive to pursue Life’s opportunities on
the “………/ better / best” side of Proportional Reality. On a
global scale, the success or otherwise of a Culture is
collectively reflected in the extent of its peoples migration
from one side of Proportional Reality to the other -
We
don’t observe Americans or Canadians sneaking across the Rio
Grande with bundles of their backs hoping for a “good” life
south of the border, or the Westerners in general trying to
improve their prospects in Africa, Latin America or Asia…
No, peoples of the world move in a uniformly opposite direction
- towards the Western Civilization… From backwardness to
MODERNITY, memorized dogmas to CRITICAL THINKING, oppression to
freedom, impoverishment to affluence, pseudo-democracies to
Democracy - always away from what is “bad” and towards what is
“good” -
The West prospering amidst a wasteland of other Cultures’
squandered opportunities - that’s the current state of
humanity’s social progress, with all of the supposedly great
achievements of supposedly great civilizations quickly biting
the dust wherever searching for a better tomorrow happens to be
at stake.
In
this context, the West might one day greet its new denizens with
a blunt request “Since your social values had already made the
conditions in your own land so unbearable you had to leave it,
please adopt our values - the social values responsible for the
very well-being which no doubt attracted you over here”
As
for those eyeing the West as an instant solution to their
problems, they could be required to observe a common courtesy;
“If you wish to enter our house, don’t do it through a hole in
the basement but knock on the front door and ask whether you can
come in”
Still, nothing in the above even remotely suggests that an
interventionist “good” is globally imminent…
In
the first example – the divergence into “least / less / equal /
more / most” remains an entirely mechanistic part of
Proportional Reality – applying as much to Language as to
distributing say, a billion galactic clusters in their order of
“smallest / small / equal / larger / largest”. No altruistic
intervention can be contemplated here.
In
the second - given that the source of “good” has now been
established, shouldn’t the “good men” of the West liberate
failed Cultures from the evil that’s causing their peoples to
suffer?
A
problem…Instead of being the cause of cultural failure, social
evil is only its manifestation. And once the visible effect has
been conquered, doesn’t it follow that the underlying cause -
usually some self-righteous banalities ingrained into a Culture
across centuries - must likewise be set right if the overall
objective is to succeed? If so, at what price…
Therefore “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that
good men do nothing” is still subject to “But can the cost of
doing something be justified in all cases?
THE STOCKTAKING
Now assigning to Mr. Burke's 18 th century maxim a modern, global role is valid because evil knows no borders. But just how viable had its modern, geo-politically romanticized version proved in the past?
History doesn’t favor the modern
interpretation. The “good men” who two millennia ago imposed
Roman law throughout the then known world may have shown the
vanquished a glorious alternative to tribal primitivism, but
was improving those societies their primary intention? No,
it was conquest and plunder.
The “good men” of Christianity may
have given humanity its earliest notion of forgiveness, but
was this important social innovation subsequently used with
the primary intention of reconciling the post-Roman world?
No, the fights over control of its
spellbinding message had not only divided that world but
damned Europe to a millennium of war-ravaged, tyrannical
darkness.
The “good men” of Islam may have
re-distributed wealth to the poorest in a society, but was
implementing that important social innovation the primary
intention behind their harsh attempts to subjugate other
Cultures?
No, because it was enforced by
fanaticism rather then reason, that almost contemporary
ideal of shared equity became but a footnote to the
resultant thousand years of obsession with triumph and
vengeance.
The “good men” of the French
Revolution may have given the potentates of Aristocracy and
Religion a fine thump on the head, but was freeing Europe
from its despotism and ignorance the primary intention of
reckless military campaigns waged over the next generation?
No, the grandeur of “Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity” quickly degenerated into
continent-wide adventurism which - although later a great
inspiration to the oppressed across the world, proved no
longer relevant to that Revolution’s original, reformist
goals.
Not unlike the Romans, the “good men”
of the 19th century’s British Empire may have
introduced competent civil administration far and wide, but
was freeing their subjects from some prior injustice their
primary intention?
No, the British overpowered then
exploited them - seizing their opportunity before others
could so in a less civilized manner.
The “good men” of communism may have
entranced the Working Class with a brave vision of
MODERNITY, but was transforming a backward world into
well-educated, prosperous societies of equals the primary
intention of their highly organized international
activism?
No, even when socializing the means of
production had proven a historic blunder that prevented
their societies from keeping up with the rest of the world,
the communist elites still held onto their power and
privileges with vicious dogmatism harking back to the days
of the prior, feudal despots.
Indeed, if you look through the
millennia, only one example of “good men” reaching
successfully beyond their borders with the primary intention
of preventing the triumph of evil - America’s intervention
to deliver Europe from its fratricidal folly during the
Second World War, shines brightly over a miasma of social
wretchedness. Apart from that campaign and its epoch-shaping
aftermath, there isn’t much else to celebrate.
The cost? Hundreds of thousand of
American dead and wounded - not the kind of sacrifice this
country’s political establishment is likely to stomach
again, regardless of the issues involved. And even if
America’s resolve was to remain undiminished, the
ever - increasing artificiality of its economy may before long
sap its capacity for acting effectively.
Yet today, Cultures steeped in
totalitarian contempt for human freedom are becoming
wealthier, more assertive - almost defiant, just as the
Americans haggle over the merit of global intervention and
Europe ponders how many busloads of troops should be sent
fight to from 9 to 5 – that’s assuming its soldiers don’t
become too distressed by the sound of gunfire…
Had he lived today, Edmund Burke would probably take a pinch of snuff, and harrumph ”Children of the West are in for some interesting times!”