I've long maintained that humanity's greatest gift and greatest curse are one and the same - our prodigious talent for delusion. For believing things - passionately - that are belied by both logic and evidence. This is the wellspring of great art. Indeed, as a novelist* I cater to the desire of my own customers to - temporarily and knowingly - believe they are experiencing other realities and the thoughts of credible characters, engaged in barely plausible adventures.
This gift is what we study at UCSD's Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination.
Alas, the same gift has brought us endless pain. Across time nearly every human culture was dominated by narrow castes of men who ruled according to fiercely-protected delusional systems, crushing voices that might speak up with criticism, or alternatives, or inconvenient truths. Those mostly-feudal societies were very badly governed. All of them combined never accomplished the tiniest fraction of what we have, in just a few generations. We who finally found a (tentative and contingent) way out of the Delusional Trap.
Gradually, we developed enlightenment methods to reduce the severity of delusion, not by changing human nature but through the simple but daring method of competition. You may not be able to see through your own beloved errors, but your rivals often will! Indeed, they'll willingly (if irksomely) point those errors out to you. And you'll return the favor! This is the magic of our five competitive "arenas": markets, democracy, science, courts and sports.
Alas, cheaters will always try to ruin these arenas and take us back to olden ways. And so I present to you some of the modern hallucinations that are shared by our fellow citizens.
Make no mistake, your deluded neighbors are not your foes! The real enemy that threatens your nation, world, species and children is the all-too human drive to clutch (desperately) to reassuring mirages.
Delusion #1 – that authoritarians are your friends.
This gift is what we study at UCSD's Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination.Alas, the same gift has brought us endless pain. Across time nearly every human culture was dominated by narrow castes of men who ruled according to fiercely-protected delusional systems, crushing voices that might speak up with criticism, or alternatives, or inconvenient truths. Those mostly-feudal societies were very badly governed. All of them combined never accomplished the tiniest fraction of what we have, in just a few generations. We who finally found a (tentative and contingent) way out of the Delusional Trap.
Gradually, we developed enlightenment methods to reduce the severity of delusion, not by changing human nature but through the simple but daring method of competition. You may not be able to see through your own beloved errors, but your rivals often will! Indeed, they'll willingly (if irksomely) point those errors out to you. And you'll return the favor! This is the magic of our five competitive "arenas": markets, democracy, science, courts and sports.
Alas, cheaters will always try to ruin these arenas and take us back to olden ways. And so I present to you some of the modern hallucinations that are shared by our fellow citizens.
Make no mistake, your deluded neighbors are not your foes! The real enemy that threatens your nation, world, species and children is the all-too human drive to clutch (desperately) to reassuring mirages.
Delusion #1 – that authoritarians are your friends.
One of the
top cognitive scientists in the world, George Lakoff, scrutinizes the appeal of Donald Trump, showing how finely tuned his positions are, to the “strict
father” foundations of American conservatism.
(How ironic that "red" Americans in the volcanically re-ignited Confederacy) proclaim quivering fear of terrorists, when a majority live in rural or suburban zones that are utterly-utterly safe. While "blue" Americans (the Union) largely dwell in cities that are great big terror-targets. Yet, New Yorkers famously stood atop the 9/11 rubble, faced east and shouted: "Iz dat all you got?")
Sure, this much seems obvious. Though I find it hard to
believe that Cruz and Rubio supporters are one scintilla less authoritarian than Trump-lovers.
And mind you, in my experience, yearning for authority also separates the
generally non-authoritarian liberals in America vs. the much smaller but
significant clade of actual leftists. The latter share with the right more traits than...
But that’s a separate discussion. For after we deal with the immediate crisis at-hand.
But that’s a separate discussion. For after we deal with the immediate crisis at-hand.
== The Trillies (Alas!) Aren’t Smart
==
Delusion #2: Because you are rich, you think that means you're smart.
Yes, even if your wealth was inherited, that just tempts you to insist that IQ is genetic! This is the rationalization embraced by all feudal oligarchies, across time. So, so convenient and self-serving... and human. And so, so disproved by the blatant historical record of 6000 years, across which insipidly stupid governance was the norm. Indeed only when those flat-fair competitive arenas finally were set up, did that dismal record start to shift, and human civilization really begin to take off.
So, is it that simple? Oligarchy = dumb and enlightenment arenas = smart? Well, first, those arenas (markets, democracy, science etc) take real effort to maintain. Left unattended, they'll soon get warped by cheaters... as is happening right now. It is our job to do another fine-tuning... the kind of gentle, moderate "revolution" last achieved by our parents in the Greatest Generation, led by their beloved hero, the living human they adored above all others, Franklin Roosevelt.
But what if we fail? The way those brief, enlightenment experiments of Periclean Athens and Republican Florence were snuffed out? If we are doomed to go back to oligarchy, is it too much to ask that our new lords at least try to find ways to govern better? To rule with less self-serving delusion?
In
Existence I portray an event taking place in the year 2040, high in the Alps –
a meeting of the “trillionaire clans,” at which the top planetary aristocrats
(and their hired boffins) ask: can we do
feudalism better, this time?
It’s a
vital question that I never have seen asked, by the forces which are now striving
so hard to re-establish the normal human pattern – oligarchy. The facts are blatant, and yet I have to repeat-reiterate them here, for utter clarity.
The fundamental truths about feudalism are:
The fundamental truths about feudalism are:
(1) that it dominated 99% of human societies
and thus seems inherently hard to avoid.
(2) Almost
all of those owner-oligarchies governed very badly, bringing
progress, science, justice, creativity and adaptability to a near standstill.
(3) The
last 200 years offered up an alternative –
open/competitive/cooperative/flat-fair enlightenment systems e.g. science,
markets, democracy – that has achieved many orders of magnitude more than all
feudal societies, combined.
(4) If the
Enlightenment Experiment is doomed (as the oligarchy’s boffins keep telling
us), then shouldn’t the New Lords be earnestly exploring how to do feudalism much better than before? Is there any hope of getting Medicis and Tangs and Plantagenets - who at least tried - instead of the more typical, stunningly delusional Bourbons, Hapsburgs,
Murdochs, Kochs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs?
Alas, that doesn’t
seem likely. There are no such meetings. (I'd have ways of knowing.) Only unsapient reflex-gatherings to scheme short term power grabs and rent-seeking. And those gatherings must seem desperate, right now, as the steed they had been riding -- confederate culture warriors -- has broken loose from their control. Like the dismayed Junkers lords of Germany in 1933, they are blinking in dull surprise that the beast they cynically whipped into hydrophobic froth has been skillfully yanked away from them by a savanarola-hypnotist.
I could have told them. I tried to. Others have tried. For example, former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich makes this clear in his most cogent missive yet, suggesting to the GOP-owner caste that they have made a series of devastatingly short-sighted and foolish mistakes.
I could have told them. I tried to. Others have tried. For example, former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich makes this clear in his most cogent missive yet, suggesting to the GOP-owner caste that they have made a series of devastatingly short-sighted and foolish mistakes.
What Reich
leaves out is mention of one portion of the billionaire clade... maybe a
quarter of them - who actually got rich by developing great new products and
services. In other words the real entrepreneurial capitalists. Almost all of
whom are now... democrats. (With a few
libertarians.) They already know what
Reich wrote here. Given the stunning disparity in outcomes across democratic vs republican administrations, no sapient person who actually believes in competitive enterprise and Adam Smith would touch the GOP with a ten parsec light saber. (Oh, Reich
has endorsed Bernie Sanders. Interesting "establishment" figure.)
As
Machiavelli wrote, when he surrendered the dream of the Florentine Republic to work for the Medicis…. If we must be ruled by domineering lords, may
they at least be smart ones?
Apparently,
there’s not much chance of that..
= Are truthy-truisms subject to
fact? “Taxes make a state unfriendly to business" =
More delusions? Got a million of em.
For example, here's central right wing Catechism 101: “taxing the rich or increasing workers' wages kills jobs and makes businesses leave the state.”
Ahem? California disproves this year after year, decade after decade.
For example, here's central right wing Catechism 101: “taxing the rich or increasing workers' wages kills jobs and makes businesses leave the state.”
Ahem? California disproves this year after year, decade after decade.
In sharp contrast, Kansas doubled
down on Supply Side voodoo, slashing taxes on the wealthy and giving monopolists everything they asked. The result? State’s finances and services plummeted
below the level called “hellish” and businesses are fleeing Kansas in droves.
Now look at Minnesota. “When he
took office in January of 2011, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton inherited a $6.2
billion budget deficit and a 7
percent unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the
soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself
Minnesota's first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history.
Pawlenty prided himself on never raising state taxes .... as head of Minnesota's state
government, he
managed to add only 6,200 more jobs.
Then Minnesotans wised up. “During his first four years in office, Gov. Dayton and his legislature raised
the state income tax from 7.85 to 9.85 percent on individuals
earning over $150,000 (raising) $2.1
billion. They also raised the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2018. Republicans like state rep. Mark
Uglem warned
"The job creators,
the big corporations, the small corporations, they will leave. It's all dollars
and sense to them."
Except… Minnesota now has the fifth
lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent. According to
2012-2013 U.S. census figures, Minnesotans had a median income that was $10,000
larger than the U.S. average.
It's not that all conservative nostrums are always wrong. I am a fan of Adam Smith. Barry Goldwater had some interesting conservative-libertarian suggestions to try and there are others. Heck I have some libertarian-ishproposals!
But start with this pure fact: every single metric of U.S. national health does better across the spans of democratic vs republican administrations. Every single one. If you are clinging to GOP loyalty, what does that make you?
Probably
someone who recites mantras and incantations.
And clings to delusions.
== Political Notes ==
And finally... let's bid fond farewell. His calm-toned demeanor notwithstanding, Ben Carson had a disturbing fixation with knives. He started losing ground in the GOP race after describing attempted stabbing murders in his youth. Now, leading a new Christian Voter drive, he gives as his motive preventing democrats from appointing judges who will "knife our children in the heart."
Yipe! That some obsession.
Why pick on Carson now? Hey, it's not all about the raging lunatics who are still in the GOP nomination race. (And that describes all of them.) Or the raging lunatics who are sniping at Trump from the sidelines - or endorsing him - after spending a generation veering US conservatism down cliffs of anti-science, hate-drenched, corrupt and lazy insanity. No, no. Pay heed to the whole panoply of political rabies.
Arizona is tapping 17.3% of its electrical power from the spinning in Barry Goldwater's grave.
Yipe! That some obsession.
Why pick on Carson now? Hey, it's not all about the raging lunatics who are still in the GOP nomination race. (And that describes all of them.) Or the raging lunatics who are sniping at Trump from the sidelines - or endorsing him - after spending a generation veering US conservatism down cliffs of anti-science, hate-drenched, corrupt and lazy insanity. No, no. Pay heed to the whole panoply of political rabies.
Arizona is tapping 17.3% of its electrical power from the spinning in Barry Goldwater's grave.
======
* Note we are in the final week to pre-order my new story collection INSISTENCE OF VISION, at steep discount. Official pub date is next week and your first-week order is appreciated... as well as those Amazon reviews! ;-) Show the world there are Good Delusions!
