A Purpose for Searching

 I read today a book review of Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, a finalist in this year's National Book Award for Translated Works.  The 'work of fiction based on real events'  concerns physicists reckoning with various periods of science history, including the theories of quantum mechanics and relativity.  There is the chemist Fritz Haber, who invents the reaction that produces nitrogen fertilizer from atmospheric nitrogen, a process used to enable modern agriculture and is estimated to have enabled over 3 billion human lives (and billions more chickens, pigs, and cattle).  His nightmare is that his talent was perverted to also invent the process for producing chlorine gas that was used in gas warfare in WWI and in the Nazi concentration camps.  Karl Schwarszchild solved the field equations from Einstein's General Relativity theory and realized the horror of Black Holes.  

This concept of nightmares from understanding made me think about humanity's drive for understanding as a fundamental feature of cognition (Duh!).  Is there any difference for my brother's search for truth in the Bible and my interest in understanding from logic and science?  I recall with great fondness the feeling I had in graduate school when we used statistical mechanics to derive Boltzmann's gas constant.  I had a sense that perhaps all of existence was comprehensible, was discernible.  The fear of meaninglessness was quenched temporarily.  A part of my psyche says, 'Don't worry!  The answers are out there, and though things seem chaotic and meaningless, it is only your ignorance and lack of data that gives you the impression that all is a mystery.'  A feeling of bliss ensues.

The alternative part of my psyche says, 'Whatever sensation you have of understanding, life leads to death and the abyss.  There is no purpose or meaning.'  Depression ensues.  

Despite the evidence, there must be more, there must be some meaning, even if it is meaning of my own invention.  All is not lost, even in nihilism.  I have the capacity to know love and joy, whether the universe is ordered or unintelligible.  Awareness or ignorance of self delusion does not alter the sensation.  

The Winter of Discontent

 There is an increasing emotional gap developing between myself and my children.  It is disturbing, but it may not be permanent, significant, or even malleable.  That is, I am in general feeling alienated and irritated.  It seems I am always looking at interactions critically and with irritation.  I perceive disrespect when there is likely nothing personal.  

I began this post because I wanted to explore a potential explanation for my discontent.  In my working years, there were many hours of the day devoted to activities of seemingly clear purpose.  My mind was occupied with attending to obligations, planning, analysis, and interaction.  The days seemed filled with endless possibilities involving my thought, decision, and action.  

There were rhythms to this life that allowed the focus to monitor a range of time frames.  For example, there was a long term goal of saving for retirement.  In early years, the goal was abstract and perhaps even beyond comprehension.  My approach to such problems is to assume the goal is essentially unattainable, but like much of life, a suitable outcome would be achieved through continual effort and some realistic near-term action.  

Home ownership was a conventional activity that felt applicable to the retirement goal.  We needed a place to live anyway, and home ownership engaged a time frame in the range of retirement planning.  A thirty-year mortgage brought the abstract into the actual.  It was a commitment and something I could envisage of happening.  With modest assumptions about land value, the ownership would translate into an asset in the value range of income replacement.  As well, I had seen this method of wealth accumulation work for my parents.

Retirement savings seemed impossible at the start of my working career.  Besides the difficulty in rationalizing savings versus meeting every day needs, I had a pension plan with the large company that would be adequate for retirement.  But the large company presented an opportunity I could not ignore.  They agreed to add 50% to my savings up to 6% of my pre-tax wages.  The government agreed to allow the savings to be deducted from my wages so that my income tax decreased.  I could not ignore these incentives, and so we learned to live with 94% of whatever salary I made.  These two actions helped me feel satisfied I was attending to this long-range important issue.

With three children, another actual problem that seemed unmanageable was paying for college.  The estimates for cost ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars, and these estimates were actually experienced.  In this task, we did not develop a savings plan.  Instead, we decided to manage the situation as it came.  We forced the children away from expensive private colleges to help manage the costs,  Somehow, we covered thirteen years of costs.  Two of the children worked while at school, but their earnings never contributed to basic living expenses or the tuition and fees. 

Beyond these two abstractions, we felt the responsibility of raising the children, caring for parents, helping children enter adulthood, marriage, and parenthood.  We were enthusiastic in these activities as they seemed to be the point of living.  We felt confident about a satisfactory outcome and cognizant of the attention and effort required.  The planning and execution formed the basis of daily activity (outside of work).  I know in retrospect, I cannot recall fully the discomforts and the anxieties of those former times.  Today, they seem so full of purpose and meaning, whatever the difficulties.  Life was as we chose.

The 'struggles' of daily life were not without respites and recreation.  Indeed, vacationing and communing with family and friends was another satisfying and happy focus of living.  We enjoyed our family activities on a daily basis.  Meals together, school work, television, phone calls, and vacations were perhaps the most sacred of existence.  For me, these dimensions of life were the reason for everything, even if they were at times subservient to the work and requirements.  At any time, they became top priority.  Such hierarchy contributed to a feeling of agency and balance.  Life had clarity.  Strangely, government and politics were of low concern.  Our preoccupation of caring for ourselves, our broader family, and our friends consumed attention leaving little energy for the intractable problems of society.

Contrast this past life with the present.  With respect to the long-term projects of retirement and family rearing, all is solved.   Work has ceased.  Social Security and Medicare are providing some basic needs.  The children are more or less caring for themselves, albeit without the same perspective about attending to the long-range issues of saving, retirement, etc.  Three of four parents are gone, and the remaining parent asks little from us.  Incomprehensibly, we have amassed a small fortune that leaves us mortgage-free, and with savings such that income from investments grow faster than the rate we can spend.  It was not a goal, but it appears we made it to this point.

The abstractions and uncertainties of 'the future' are now concrete and certain.  There is no longer effort towards any of the former goals.  We participate as we can with our children.  However, our former position as major shapers in their lives and development are long past, as we anticipated and is only proper.  The grandkids are influenced only slightly, again, as we intended.  It is not our place or role to parent them.  

Is it a paradox that I find myself in agitation and discontent?  What is wrong with me?

The Elephant in the Capitol

 The January 6, 2021 insurrection by Trump supporters has had a surprisingly short tenure in the national news.  Occasional reports surface as law enforcement agencies file charges.  One recent report on NPR stated that more than 250 have been arrested.  The report included a graphic of categories for the people and the indictments.  

Thus far, the Republican Party has reacted in a disturbing way.  Republican members who condemned the violence and Trump's role in inciting the violence have been rebuked by the Party.  Member who have supported Trump and who echo his claim that the election was 'stolen' have been lauded by the Party.  Some of the latter group will claim that they also condemn the violence (others are at least honest and do not address the issue), but their rhetoric includes efforts to ascribe the violence to 'a few rowdies' or even to left-wing factions that are against Trump.   A majority of polled Republicans believe the election was invalid.  

The general absence of Republican leadership condemnation of the January 6 insurrection and Trump's role in it represents an acknowledgment by Republicans that they represent a group who fundamentally rejects the democratic process bedrock of our government.  They are unpersuaded by judges, state officials, and the obvious fact that more people wanted Joe Biden to be elected rather than Trump.  The alternative reality for this cohort is that they believe their ownership of the country has been taken from them, and that any and all action necessary to reverse the status is justified.

It is largely a coalition of white supremacists, white nationalists, and Christian activists who feel aggrieved about their minority status.  It is frustrating to hear their irrational rhetoric, but I believe I could get most of them to admit that they know they are in the minority.  Surely most Christians understand that the world at large is not majority Christian.  In my former status as a member of a church, it was my firm understanding that most of the world did not know Jesus as savior.  Perhaps even most Christians did not understand the need to confess their sinfulness and be 'born again'.  Surely this means that the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of their fellow Americans do not share their conviction.

If this analysis is correct, there is an inescapable conclusion about the current Republican Party and its attitude towards the insurrectionists.  This elephant-in-the-Capitol is a sizable minority that would establish authority over the nation by any means necessary.  They have abandoned trust in democracy and in the Constitution.  The group is militarized by members who have been preparing for this occasion over the past few decades.  They are heavily armed and imagine themselves as revolutionaries.  They do not have much in the way of ideals.  Rather, they have an unshakable certainty that those not with them are against them, and that task #1 is to establish authority over these 'others'.  

The January 6 insurrection was no aberration.  The flags other than the Stars and Stripes suggest to me that most of the rioters believe the U.S.A. flag no longer belongs to them (it was stolen by the majority).  Their identity is with each other, and their righteous cause is to take back their country through any means necessary.  They are not listening or negotiating.  They are dictating.

Know thyself and other adages

I have written many times about the practical and moral basis for telling the truth.  The basis is full of, well, practical features of being truthful compared to lying.  But there is an element of lying that seems important to survival, and this element concerns one of the most basic reasons for truthfulness, namely self knowledge.  From Hamlet comes the quote

“This above all: to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man/Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!”

The reasoning provides a virtuous pattern, provided one accepts that lying and deceit are morally abhorrent behavior.  Being false could come purposefully to ones benefit, but it could also lead to misguided actions such that ultimately, undesired outcomes are produced simply because of self deceit.

The problem with all of this is that change often requires, well, a change of heart.  What is true today about oneself may not be true tomorrow.  With the change of heart, is there admission of being false in the past?  Or perhaps the better sentiment to the Hamlet quote is

This above all: to strive to be true to thine own self.

Here we acknowledge the challenge of knowing oneself.  Socrates preceded Shakespeare with 'Know thyself.'  But there is more.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
"To find yourself, think for yourself."
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Midterm Election 2018

I feel like Charlie Brown in his quest to kick the football teed by Lucy.  Forever she will snatch the ball away as I run to kick it.

The elections that I felt should be an emphatic repudiation of Trump instead are a mild rebuke.  It should have been no surprise.  Our nation's heinous and racist past is a better predictor of the future than is our idealistically worded Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  Behavior always dominates words, so it should have been a foregone conclusion that country's path would continue to disappoint.

Being as I am in the privileged 1%, I personally 'benefit' from the result.  Why complain, then?  It is because I believe in the myth of the country about liberty and justice for all.  I need to detach and allow that just as I vote against my self interest, so do the majority of the population.  Insofar as this trend will not affect me personally, why should I care?

Science for Improving Society

Science is a term connoting the study of the physical and natural world.  Scientists use experiment and observation to test hypotheses and to advance understanding.  Engineering and technology use science to build and invent.

I have long believed that the present ills of the world are not based in a deficiency in the application of science.  To be sure, many ills are being addressed by science.  Insofar as one of our current global crises, climate change, has been accelerated by man-made innovation (harvesting and burning fossil fuel), it is argued that science causes many ills.  The list may include all of the innovations of war that kill more efficiently or even have potential to wipe out civilization (think nuclear war).

Other than unintended consequences of science and technology, we think of ethics, religion, and other realms not associated with science as domains for governing interpersonal relationships.  These arenas seem important in determining all domains of human activity, including the choices for applying science and technology.  It is in this sense that I have agreed with others on the need for attention to domains outside of science.

But now I want to advocate for the importance of science in these areas as well.  This is not about applying scientific methods to social ills, as in the fields of psychology, political science, and sociology.  This is about the importance of science as a way of thinking.

When we separate science and confine it to the study of the physical and natural world, we demean the fundamental thought that precedes the science.  That is, science demands a disinterested and unfailingly logical approach to observation.  If more of our activities were more rooted in this disciplined approach, we would become accustomed to questioning causes of ills.  We could become more inventive in our politics and become more aware of beneficial and harmful policies.

Perhaps this idea harkens to one of my favorite quotes from Alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 15.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

The implication is that government is the dispassionate opposition to unreasonable and unjust passion.  When collective action is needed, policy agreed on all sides is a mandate.  When action is in dispute, a compromise can result.  Or else, no action is taken.  This is the logic of limited government.

Returning to this idea about science and government, our collective state can be seen as a living organism, in a continual state of adaptation.  Insofar as dynamics entail social interactions among its members, including unpredictable human passions, scientific method will not produce the kind of truths or knowledge that are obtained in the physical world.  Still, the method is useful in keeping collective action attentive to reason and justice.

In a related essay, I will posit that the primary political consideration before all debates in government is defining the sphere of government.  We collectively perceive injustices, disparities, and inefficiencies, and the fundamental everlasting debate must always be, which of these are the domain of collective (government) action?  When all agree there is a problem, there is a bias in our society that the most efficient path to an answer is private enterprise.  That is, a recognized problem can be assigned a certain value, and that value can be addressed with a commercial answer without the need of government, or in some cases, with a modest government subsidy.  If the problem is not thus solved, it qualifies as one in need of a government solution.  These are to be minimized for many reasons.  First, it is a slow mechanism, and the problem will fester and grow while awaiting the government response.  Second, it is expensive to establish a government agency to address problems. Third, government agencies are susceptible to perpetuation.  Once the problem is addressed, the purpose of the agency should disappear.  If we are attentive to the primary political consideration, government agencies could be dismantled as well as created.

 

Giving Up on Trump Supporters

Having endured the 500+ days of the Trump administration, I am part of a large proportion of voters who wish to see the Midterm elections repudiate him and his agenda.  I would be less invested in this wish if the majority party in Congress was less passive.  But the Republican leadership has shown nothing but deference to Trump.  I assume there are some among them who value the rule of law and who are alarmed at Trump's abuse of power.  But as a group, they have enabled him with their silence.  They are quite in league with him on some fundamental issues that I believe are detrimental to the nation's welfare, but my largest concern is with the way Republicans seem to have abandoned their duty to check the power of the Executive branch and a duty to govern in consultation with the minority party.

I want elected officials to address Trump's use of our government to enrich himself.  I want elected officials to reverse a slate of regressive actions resulting from Trump's election, including reversals of healthcare reform, exits from the Iran-nuclear weapons agreement and the Paris climate accord, and welfare for corporations in the tax reform.  I want elected officials to grant a path to citizenship for the "Dreamers" who are US citizens already in all ways except name and had no role in their status in the U.S. in the first place.  I want a government that values and respects all of its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, or political affiliation, and a Congress that will vocally oppose opposition to this ideal, especially when coming from the Executive branch.  I must wait until 2020 to vote on leadership in the Executive branch, but the Congress needs to assert its function as a check on the excesses and deficiencies of Donald Trump.