A word about saving

"To save" is one of those wonderful English verbs that can get our minds churning in different directions. It lends itself to ambiguity, double-entendre, and even punning. It's worth thinking about words from time to time.

We can "save" our money; that is, we can put it somewhere (under the mattress, buried in a coffee can in the back yard, in a bank ... all of which yield about the same rate of interest) so that we have it later. We can save our dessert at dinner and eat it later. Saving, in this sense, has to do with keeping something for later use.

We can also "save" a drowning man, or block a field goal and "save" our team from defeat. In other words, saving, in this sense, has to do with rescuing someone or something, preventing it from being destroyed, preserving it in some way. There is an overlap, of course, with our money (or desert) example: spending our money or eating our dessert now means we have destroyed it (perhaps in a very good cause) and not preserved it.

However, "save" can also be used in the sense of "redemption". It is said that Jesus saves, that we can be saved from our sins. Granted, this has an aspect of preservation as well. For the Christian, his or her soul remains unharmed, will a lost soul will be tortured for eternity. (After all, what choices does a Loving God have for those who insist on disobeying?)

The thoughts I have been expressing for the last couple of posts fall naturally into the second category above: keeping things from being destroyed. When considered seriously, we see that my last posted question: "What's worth saving?" pretty much answered itself: not a whole lot. Our money is broken; our financial system is broken; our economic system is broken; our society is broken; our communities are broken. Our relationships are as run down as is our infrastructure. So, when I start wondering about what is worth saving, well, the answer is rather obvious: not much at all. I don't know about you, but when I find broken things lying around, I tend to throw them away. Our consumer goods are generally not worth fixing, and we've taken this wonderfully wasteful model and applied it the rest of our lives as well.

Our political, economic, and social structures are in such a state that we certainly don't want to bury them on a desert island like so much treasure. They've pretty well lost their value. What is a political system worth when the individual has nothing to say? What is an economy worth when only a tiny percentage benefits from it? What is a society worth when its is based on fear and loathing of "others"? They are in such disrepair that we can't prevent them from being destroyed. We've already destroyed them, which is why they are no longer the treasures that we once thought they were. And Lord knows, we can't keep them from going to Hell. In fact, for a growing number of people, they have become Hell itself.

Whatever we do decide to do is going to demand of us courage. We've pretty much got to start over and that means from a state of maximum uncertainty. I'm not sure how good we are at that anymore.

What's worth saving?

You might think this post will be a primer on taking care of your money in troubled times. You couldn't be more wrong. These past few hot and lazy weeks of summer have sent my thoughts to cooler climes. Well, cold, might be a better word. I can't help but think there are some cold, dark times ahead.

Those who know me also know that I'm not the world's biggest optimist. Oh, sure, there are those times when I am willing to admit that this or that will pass, regardless of how we feel about it, but the overall tenor of what I'm feeling these days makes me think these things will pass ... away.

Much of what I write is intended to rouse enough emotion that we pull together and go out there (wherever "there" is) and save those things that should be important to us: the arts and literature, education, society, our democratic systems of government ... you know, the usual suspects. Are they even worth saving?

The truth of the matter is that we value art based on its asking price in the market, not because of the insights it might provide into human nature. Who reads ... or can read -- really read, as in critically and thoughtfully ... and literary success is judged by the number of copies sold. Dan Brown and John Grisham may write entertaining and filmable novels, but what do they tell us about the human condition or show us about our common plights? What kind of education have we got when we've reduced everything to reguritatable facts and testable items? That's mere schooling, not education. What kind of society is it that is based on mistrust, dishonesty, scheming to gain advantage, securing one's own interests at the expense of others, wealth and prestige? And I don't even have to say any more about "democratic systems of government" when corporations and monied interests pick and sponsor the candidates and then tell them which of their own hand-written legislation to pass. That's simply not democracy anymore.

The disciplines and systems that we once held to be valuable have been degraded into consumable decorations. They exist in name only so that we can lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that what we do and how we live and where we live is still OK. It isn't.

Two-thirds of the world's population know that they live in abject poverty with little or no hope for improvement and that their lives will simply be painful, brutish and short. The other third's lives are not really much better, but they can deceive themselves into thinking that what little they have is worth saving, not realizing that they really don't have much of anything left to save.

When in the course of human events ...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ..." Thus begins the second paragraph of one of the holiest documents of the United States of America. In the 11 score and 17 years hence, some things have changed significantly. Some for the better, some not so much.

We now know that "men" in that statement actually means "humans", even though our forebears were really only thinking about males -- and those with property at that -- when Jefferson wrote those words and when the rest of "the guys" approved them. Yes, I know, Texas, the Republican party and Islamist extremists haven't caught on yet, but give them time. What's a couple of centuries amongst friends.

In case you hadn't noticed, that was the upside. The downside is that it really wasn't true then; that is, that they were held to be true, and they aren't true now. What is more, the following clause to the one above -- "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" -- aren't believed in anymore either. Oh, it's not because we stopped believing in a Creator. No, not at all. In fact, it appears that those most willing to ascribe our existence to that Creator are the first ones to ensure that none of this high-fallutin' gibberish is put into practice.

No, what was rotten at the founding of America is what is rotten to this day: property, not inalienable rights, is what counts, and if you've got it, you've got rights; if you don't, well, it just sucks to be you.

Yes, the preamble to the Declaration of Independence tries to justify the rebellion on the grounds that at some point in time, it just becomes too damn obvious that the few-and-far-away are benefitting unjustly at the expense of the many-right-here. The Declaration is interesting, I believe, for this more than any other reason. The lofty language it employs and the general ideas it incorporates were not new then and they aren't new now. The notions that the words point to -- i.e., equality, liberty, life, and the fact that these are in fact inherent, yes, inalienable rights -- are not new either, but there was an indication, a glimmer of hope that a broader base of humanity had come to recognize this. That was the hope, as I said, but it certainly wasn't and it still isn't a reality at all.

Anyone thinking anything even remotely akin to what the Founding Fathers might have been thinking, can be, and most often is, simply branded a traitor and a terrorist. Isn't it ironic somehow that less than two-and-a-half centuries after someone tried to put the ball in motion, that in that same place there is today the largest, most active, concerted, organized and, whenever thought to be necessary, violent opposition to those ideas?

Invisible and insane

That's just another way of saying "out of sight, out of mind". It's one of those wonderful things about language: synonyms don't really mean the same thing, just almost the same thing.

You have to admit that a whole of things happen in places where nobody can really see them. They are, in a sense, invisible. How about who drafts laws, who finances which campaigns, what all happens under the guise of national security? How about universal surveillance, secret courts, almost all financial transactions, decisions by the WTO, IMF, or any number of other non-elected bodies who represent us? We know nothing about any of that ... well, OK a few people do, but the moment they say something publicly about it, they're branded as cranks, conspirators, or criminals ... and most folks don't want to know. Was ich nicht weiß, macht mich nicht heiß, as the Germans say. Or, for you English-only types: ignorance is bliss. Yes, all of that which allows us to remain ignorant; that is, fat, dumb and happy ... well, why would you want to ruin a perfectly nice summer day?

Well, whether it's a nice summer day or not, most of these invisible things are, just as the saying says, simply insane. Who ever would have thought that insanity would become so respectable?

It never ceases to amaze me how people can find reasons for, if not outright justify, the inhuman, unjust, and rabidly greedy actions of TPTB. This is even true for those who are the clearly evident targets of those actions: women, the poor, children, anyone of color. And it is especially true of the not-so-evident targets, TPTB biggest supporters in the end, the so-called middle class. Enslaved by debt -- the house, the new car, the boat -- and sacrificing so-called disposable income on status and what-others-may-think-of-them -- the golf-club membership, the holiday cruise, the timeshare -- the middle class can't afford to screw up, and so they have become fervent upholders of the status quo. Rock the boat and the bank may come for the house; step out of line and the police state will remind you who's in charge, and so, in the deeply ingrained Stockholm-syndrome tradition, they love their captors and admire their abusers.

As long as there are those "others", those just a little farther down the totem pole than themselves, they will hold fast to the idea that it is they, down there, who are the problem, because that's what TPTB have told them to believe. They march, lock-step to TPTB's drums, and they'll goose-step if told to do so.

Blind obedience, abject fear, deep-seated paranoia, ethnophobia, Stockholm syndrome ... I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty unhealthy to me. And, since all of these play out in our heads, it would seem to me that insanity isn't exactly the most inappropriate word either.

Out of sight, out of mind

It's summer. It has been, at least according to the calendar, for about a month now. By this time, even here in Germany where the summer breaks in the various Bundesländer are staggered so as not to unduly clog the highways when everyone heads south to catch some rays, just about everyone is on holiday (as they say here); that is vacation to those of you across the pond. Yes, I have written quite a bit about education lately, and I know it's time to stop. All of us know: when you don't have to think about school, you don't. I suppose not many of us now in the summer break want to think about it at all.

The powers-that-be (TPTB), however, take this particular opportunity to think about it a lot. That's why they are so successful. They do so much when the rest of us aren't looking that we always act surprised when we find out how badly we've been outwitted again. I read recently that in the US, efforts have been redoubled to institute voucher; that is, privatization programs; into a number of states in which they haven't taken hold yet.

You should know that I'm one of those long-extinct dodos who believes that an educated citizenry is a necessary component of a democratic society. Since we've turned our backs on schools and education, though, we've left them to the devices of those who only have one obsession: namely, getting all our money. All we're going to do is transfer some public funds into private pockets, we're going to call it market-based progress, and we're all just going to grab our ankles in the end. I guess it isn't welfare if you don't call it welfare, even if that is all it is. TPTB define what words mean. Reality can take a backseat.

As the old saying goes, "money talks", and so those who have it will simply tell the rest of us what we are supposed to think, how we are supposed to act, and what we are supposed to do. School vouchers are one small, but significant, ploy in the movement to simply get it all. All of you out there who think you've secured your finances, have figured out how to finance your golden years, and who think they might even have something to leave to their heirs ... if you aren't part of TPTB -- and if you're reading this, it's pretty safe to say that you aren't -- all I can say is dream on. They chip away at it every day. A lowered interest rate here, a smaller dividend there, a bit of inflation to spice up the mix, and when they finally do get around to raising taxes, which they will have to do eventually, you can bet it won't be on those who could afford it.

I wish the new were better, but it isn't. TPTB are not going to stop until they have it all. And, by the way, don't think for a moment that I'm talking about duly elected governments when I speak of TPTB ... not at all. Duly elected governments are merely the "face to the public" that legitimizes what is going on behind the scenes. This isn't a whacked-out, paranoid, conspiracy, rant. I'm just calling them as I see them.

Just plain blues

While having my afternoon coffee, I caught part of a history show about Nero. Everybody knows what a no-account, worthless, ruthless, most likely crazy ruler he was. Or was he? That was the tenor and thesis of the show. Maybe the poor guy got a bum deal. Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't.

Personally, I don't think it matters all that much. After all, it was 2,000 years ago, and nothing in the interim is going to change if it turned out that it wasn't quite like we all thought it was. In the end, he was just another person in charge who didn't do things quite as he was expected to do, and a whole lot of people managed to find a whole lot of fault with what he was doing. Same song, different verse; same play, different actors. You would think that history consisted solely of the lives of these individuals.

Here's a city of probably around 1,000,000 people, and only a handful matter. What's that all about? Oh, sure, most of us will go through life not leaving any real mark, but does that mean we're lesser persons because of it? Well, if you accept the conventional wisdom, the "values" that we were taught in school, if you accept the usual portrayal of how things have gone down, you end up with only one answer: yes, we are lesser persons. In fact, we're really worth nothing at all. To some, we're simply worthless.

Isn't that a sad state of affairs after, what, 10,000 years of recorded human history? A handful in Nero's Rome, let it be two handfuls. 10 people compared to 1,000,000 ... a mere 0.001%. If you pay any attention to the news, if you have even the slightest familiarity with current debates about taxation and income distribution and wealth inequality, that shouldn't be that unfamiliar a number. A whole two millennia of human striving and what do we have to show for it? Not a thing. Absolutely nothing at all.

That's a pretty sad balance, if you ask me. I suppose we could read a lot into it if we wanted to, but for me, it simply says that for as big as our brains are and as many evolutionary advantages that this mere fact is supposed to bring, either the theory is wrong (which it probably is) or it's really a matter of size not mattering at all.

We do know, however, that because our brains are the size they are and are constructed the way they are, we have potentials that other animals, don't have. Whereas most animals operate purely instinctively most of the time, the exceptions where care, concern, and altruism appear to be in play are still quite rare, though I, for one, am quite happy they are there at all. But, we humans, more than any other species, all have the potential for empathy, for simply caring about others, but in more than 10,000 years, and quite evidently in the past 2,000, we've left that potential as good as undeveloped.

And we're so proud of ourselves. I just don't know why.

Summertime blues

Though it doesn't happen often, we've got ourselves just a bit of summer here, at least for the moment. Things could change quickly, and then it'd be all just a memory.

Growing up in the US meant l-o-n-g summers. Till high school came around and evening and summer jobs were on the agenda (because those were the days when you could still put yourself through college without going into debt ... it wasn't cheap, especially for a blue-collar dad helping two of us through at the same time, but it was doable), it seemed they lasted forever. Even after I started working during them, it was generally second shift, which meant late nights and very often a round of golf in the morning. The whole rhythm of life changed. But, then again, things were a bit slower then.

Growing up in Western Pennsylvania meant h-o-t summers, too. There were a couple of exceptions, but generally, hot, humid, heavy, dog-days were the standard. Part of the slowness came from the weather. Shade, breezes, especially after the sun went down were what everyone was looking for. Late summer nights on the porch, drinking mom's iced tea. Might as well sit. It was too hot to sleep.

Living in San Jose meant half-year summers. Oh, we had four seasons, but the variation between them was easy to miss. For the first seven years we lived there, we didn't see a single drop of rain. Droughts will get to you after a while. It was pleasant though most of the year, but we always got a triple-digit week in July, just about this time, in fact.

All in all, what all of these places have in common is how much better most peoples' attitudes are when the sun is shining. The temperatures may be weighing you down, but the sunshine makes things brighter and you notice people just smiling more, moving just a little bit more slowly. There's nothing like some sunshine to simply take some of the edge off life.

It's really too bad we can't keep a bit of that all through the year. I'm sure it would help, but in the end you have to take what you get weather-wise, don't you?

I suppose what gets me down about summer, in the end, is that there just isn't enough of it. Here in Southern Germany where I'm living now, we get a bit more of it than we did when I lived further north in Hessen. Oh, don't get me wrong, I know to appreciate it when I get it. Lots of folks around here like to complain when it gets too hot, but you'll never hear me complain.

The heat will simply slow you down. And we need to slow down. Life has become just one, big, non-stop, can't-seem-to-get-enough-of-anything kind of event, and that's not getting us anywhere. Slow down. Do just a little less. Take your time. It's summertime.

Lack of responsibility?

While I'm on the subject of freedom and just how free any of us really are, I can't help but mention, at least in passing, the notion of "responsibility". I'm literally sick and tired of hearing about how people in need are responsible for their own plight. I'm outraged that the culture in which I was raised now considers it "common wisdom" to blame the victims for their tragedies.

Recently I read a Facebook post by a former high-school classmate which was obviously aimed at "proving" (or at least demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that the US was in a "death spiral" because of all the people on welfare. Nowhere was the term defined, and included were also the working poor (for example, those poor Walmartians who get paid so little that they need government assistance to survive) and with a broad statistical brush it was presented that folks on welfare "earn more" than the average working American. Who comes up with this crap?

If welfare is so lucrative, why aren't people deserting the middle class in droves to take advantage of it ... Oh, yes, I forgot, they are being forced to, but that's all their fault. I have a childhood friend who went to college, got a decent job, worked hard, did all the right things, till the company he was CFO of went belly-up. He couldn't get a job to save his soul: he was too old (not even 60 at the time, and obviously (as he was told in more than one interview) too expensive. He became a Walmartian. According to my classmate, it was all his fault.

It's your own damn fault if you're at the wrong place at the wrong time, if your company went under and you were thrown out of work. It's your fault if you are too old (a rather subjective criterion), improperly trained, have skills or experience that make you expensive ... yes, and it's your fault if you are sick, your spouse dies, or you've just been offered the option of taking a 25% cut in pay or not working at all. It is obvious as well that it was these individuals' fault that they bought a home in a particular neighborhood so they could send their kids to better schools. It was all their fault that they developed a circle of friends, as did their kids, because when all the jobs in the area went away, housing prices fell and they were left sitting on pile of debt. Anybody can see that these folks are just lazy, no-account screw-ups who are living the life of Riley at the rest of our expense.

OK, OK ... I know I'm getting a bit edgy again. I'm not apologizing though. This attitude that it's-all-your-own-damn-fault speaks louder than I can ever complain. It is an attitude that is rooted in pure and simple inhumanity. It is an attitude that knows nothing of compassion, understanding, care, concern, justice, hope or charity. It is simply ignorant and selfish. And that's who so many I have grown up with have become. That's what bothers me most, I suppose: I know these people when.

Lack of freedom?

Now that we've seen that maybe we're not as educated as we believe ourselves to be, the question raises itself whether we're as free as we believe ourselves to be. It's not a silly question, it is a dead serious one, for as Goethe once noted, "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." That was a bright guy; Goethe was truly, and in every sense of the word, a highly educated man. No, there certainly aren't many like him anymore. We could use a few of them though. Just a few would be a really good start.

How free are you when your government knows your every move (potentially), knows what you are thinking, knows on a daily basis what your opinions are? How free are you when private companies collect so much information about you that they can present you with custom-tailored advertisements, individually tailored products, and offers you simply "can't refuse", but in a truly non-Godfatherish way? How free are you when you owe so many people so much money that you can't afford -- literally -- to lose your job (or even for your significant other to lose theirs), take a cut in pay, or even take the day off because of other pressing needs? These are all legitimate questions whether you like them or not.

I know plenty of Americans who define freedom in terms of how many and what types of weapons they can own, or where they can build their houses, or where they throw their garbage, or what they do with their property. As I mentioned two posts ago: freedom is one of those words that is simply defined different ways by different people. Still, it is legitimate to ask whether any of these people, in any of the just-mentioned situations or holding the just-mentioned beliefs are really "free".

If anyone, be they public or private, is gathering information on you personally so that they may at some point in the future use that information to ensure that you act in a certain way, you are not free. If anyone has more right to your assets (e.g., your house) than you do, then you are not free. If you are so obligated to others that you cannot simply act and decide according to your own desires and wishes, you are not free. If you are a citizen of an allegedly democratic society but you are not allowed to vote because of some ridiculously restrictive rule, you are not free. If you speak your mind, express your doubts, or raise critical questions without being pressured from without, you cannot be free.

And all those things are simply a part of our everyday, mundane reality. They are things we are confronted with and are exposed to and with which we have to deal each and every day. Oh yes, we believe we are free ...

Lack of education?

Just because the Egyptians might have a long (democratic) row to hoe does not mean that we should advise them against it. Remember, Jefferson said that education was essential to the proper functioning of a democracy, but he did not say that it was a guarantee.

We only have to look at ourselves, or at the United Kingdom, or Germany to know that having a well-educated populace does not guarantee effective democracy. This is particularly questionable in light of the degree of surveillance that the Anglo-axis in the West has been pursuing. So many people acted so surprised when they found out because they didn't "know" how bad it was.

Does this make them uneducated or simply uninformed? Obviously they were uninformed, but does that excuse them for (a) being so surprised and (b) not being willing to do anything substantial about it. Anyone who has a critical slant of mind has suspected for quite sometime that there's more going on behind the scenes than "they" (in this case, the "powers that be", or PTB) are telling us. After all, there are a lot of facts and tons of information available to all of us in the newly declared Information Age, so apparently access to information isn't all that helpful in certain critical areas, such as our rights to privacy and freedom from intrusion, or even oppression.

What my little digression into literacy rates last time tells us is that in the West, at least, we're sending everybody to school, and just about everybody can read and write, but not everybody can think. When I say "think", I mean "think critically". Thinking critically is not complaining about anything and everything, it is not whining about others doing things I don't agree with, it isn't viewing everyone with a different opinion as mentally deficient. No, in fact, critical thinking is precisely the opposite of all that: it's raising questions, especially uncomfortable ones; it is trying to understand why others act as they do and why it is different from how we ourselves might act; it is engaging other opinions and testing them for their accuracy and validity. And that, my dear friends, is what I hardly see at all anymore, especially in all those allegedly highly educated societies (whereby I am including the US here, for simplicity's sake: we know they don't have nor want a society anymore, they are apparently more than satisfied just with their economy).

Yes, the reactions of those around me to what has happened in Egypt said much more about us than it will ever say about them. We are in the process of equating information with knowledge, of assuming that being informed is being educated, of believing that everybody else is all screwed up but we've got our ducks in line. What's becoming ever clearer to me, though, is that we really don't know if they're ducks, and we've got even less idea what order they are in.

Lack of education

The recent events in Egypt tell us a lot, not necessarily about the Egyptian people, but about ourselves. The first step in self-recognition is your own "opinion" about what's happening there. For the moment, I don't care whether you're for or against, think it's a good idea or bad. What I would be more interested in, though, is how you would use the words "freedom" and "education" in your arguments. An unlikely pair in this context, I know, but they belong together nevertheless.

The first thing that the two words have in common is that they have no universally accepted definitions, and I'm not talking about their other-language equivalents, though that too shows an endless variety. No, I'm simply talking about all of us who speak the same language ... allegedly. I've kick around the "freedom" concept on more than one occasion, so I'm not going to go over all that again here. Instead, I want to look at the role education plays in all this, for, after all, I have been going on a bit about education lately.

Ever since Jefferson, the accepted wisdom has been that a well-educated populace is essential to the proper functioning of a democracy. When we look at literacy rates, for example, that is, the proportion of the people who can read and write, we find that it still varies considerably, even 500+ years after Gutenberg (all values rounded to whole percentages):

Country	Overall	Males	Females
United States	99%	99%	99%
Germany	99%	99%	99%
Egypt	72%	80%	63%
Saudi Arabia	87%	90%	81%
Syria	80%	86%	74%
West Bank	96%	98%	93%

Now before anyone gets the idea that I'm picking on the Middle East, I would like to point out that Saudi has a relatively high literacy rate, but is not a democracy, nor is Syria, but there is something of an intuitive correlation between literacy rate and stability on the one hand. Egypt is striving -- uneasily, I'll admit -- toward self-determination, but if there is anything to Jefferson's notion of what's required, they certainly have a long way to go.

Granted, literacy rates are one, rather limited, way of approaching the issue, so next time, we'll dig a bit deeper.

The language of language

Most of you probably hated English class. I was one of those weirdos who didn't, but I know a lot of people, then and now, who are still wondering why we had to read Shakespeare and write essays and wasn't Ben Franklin's autobiography the absolutely most mind-numbing read in the history of printing. I don't blame them for not getting excited about it. Motivating my students was always my biggest challenge in teaching.

But, apart from all the prim and proper, upstanding, prudish, school-marmish notions of English instruction that we all had to suffer through, there is another -- darker, more fun, livelier, and challenging -- side to it as well. It's about communication, but not as any of you who have had to suffer through a communication class are now imagining. English (and here, any of you can substitute your own native language from your own native culture ... everything I have to say applies mutatis muntandis for your own) is about the magic -- and I use the word consciously -- of language. The person who said the pen was mightier than the sword knew what he was talking about. Words -- and I can't say this often or emphatically enough -- are the most powerful weapons known to (hu)man(ity).

We suspected it for a long time. When the notion of higher education first arose, you studied the Trivium after your general education. The Trivium consisted of just three subjects (and you need to think this as analog to a bachelor's degree today): grammar (how words are fit together to make sense), logic -- actually dialectics (how to combine ideas to make sense), and rhetoric (how to influence others with what you say). That's it. It was all about using language to make friends (and enemies) and influence people. No more, no less. These days we all complain about most people's terrible spelling and using 50 words when 5 would have done the trick and pull our hair out trying to figure out what they meant in the first place. Oh yeah, we've come a long way, haven't we?

Regardless, I'd like to ask you to do a little exercise. It won't take long and I guarantee it will tell you more about yourself than you ever really wanted to know. This is it; I call it Fivers:

1. Which are the 5 words you find most uplifting?
2. Which 5 words upset you the most?
3. Who is your favorite person to listen to?
4. Who is your least favorite person to listen to?
5. List the last 5 books you've read and the years in which you read them.

Now comes the hard part: Look at your answers and think long and hard about how they relate. Satisfied? Regardless, the answers to those five simple questions tells you (and everyone else) all they need to know about what floats your boat, what gets your goat, how they can get you to go along, and whether they even have to worry about you figuring out what they're doing.

Really. Think about it.

When values aren't valuable

When we look at the development of, say, the United States (though just about any Western liberal democracy ... as some like characterize them ... would do), we realize that, once again, we're going through a period of real turmoil: income disparity is reaching critical proportions, the middle-class is being seriously squeezed, debt is rampant, crime rates are decreasing while overall violence is increasing, a lot of young people (worldwide) are expressing their dissatisfaction in the streets. As Dylan noted, "Something is happening, and you don't know what it is./Do you, Mr. Jones?"

It would seem that, once again, history is repeating itself. This isn't the first time that there's been a lot of societal turmoil related to wealth inequity (to put it in more formal terms). In fact, Perkin (The Third Revolution) maintains that every great civilization in the history of the world has collapsed when the wealth disparity became unbearable. No Diamond's-Guns-Germs-and-Steel, just simple too few haves, too many have-nots. This isn't an argument we can simply slough off. We need to take this one seriously.

I have tried to make clear that education cannot be the solution to our current dilemma. It's probably the root cause. The collusion of industry and education is not a good thing, because industry is over-represented by wealth. Over 80% of all stocks are held by the wealthiest 10% of Americans, for example. The wealthy elite send their kids to elite schools so that they retain their elite status. The vast, vast majority of schools and colleges are there to merely prepare drones for work in the wealthy's hive. So we buy into the myth that a college education is necessary, but college educations have become mass produced, and more than anything else, they have become so expensive that without a huge amount of debt, you can't even get one anymore. The average American (and increasingly worldwide) student owes so much money when s/he gets his or her sheepskin that they can't afford (literally) to say "no" to any employment that comes along. The more this is the case, the more wages are depressed (this is simple economics), the more difficult it is to pay it all back. In other words, you may be out of college, you may have a degree, but the bank still owns you, and the banks, just like the companies you will most likely end up working for, are owned by the same people who aren't all that interested in you having very much to say about anything.

So, am I saying that we should boycott education, that we shouldn't educate our young? No, not at all. What I'm saying is that we can no longer allow the current system of education to continue. What I'm saying is that we just can't continue schooling our children as we always have, we actually need to educate them, and this might just have to happen outside the current system.

Hmmm, I'm guessing that's too much for some of you.

Even more concerns about the future

Yes, yes, yes, I've been thinking a lot about the future lately. The more I think about it, though, the less likely it seems that there will be much of one. I know that sounds pessimistic and cynical, but it's not really meant as such. It's really a mere straightforward observation. The powers-that-be -- regardless of who you might think that is -- aren't really all that interested in you. They're certainly not interested in your kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews, or anybody other than themselves, and maybe their own.

A few posts ago, I mentioned that the end of education, as it appeared in the Late Enlightenment and Early Industrial Age, was an educated public that was crucial to the success of a functioning democracy. Actually, that's not true at all. I know, that's the accepted wisdom and all, but when we take a serious, critical look at history, we find that deep down, education has always been more about upholding the reigning interests of the time. Do we really believe that with the rise of the nation-state after the Treaty of Westphalia that all those monarchs who founded universities were interested in an enlightened populace? Not really. They were looking for bureaucrats and managers to run their ever expanding realms of influence and power. Even in America where we avoided the hereditary aristocracy ... well, at least until the fabulously wealthy started passing on their wealth to subsequent generations, then it became hereditary after all ... the idea was to school and socialize the populace to become conformists, upholders of the status-quo.

Fichte, the German philosopher who really jump-started mass education, did so in order that "Germans would become better Germans". You only need one day in any American public (or private) school to know that the primary aim of American mass education is to ensure that "Americans become better Americans". What we need to ask ourselves is what "better" means in these contexts. I'm not saying that there is anything fundamentally or inherently wrong with the status-quo values that are the primary object of education, but I am questioning the wisdom of indoctrination and suppression of critical thinking. You can't have both.

I don't know why we're so afraid of those who think critically. If the values you uphold are truly worthwhile, wouldn't they stand up under critical scrutiny? One would think so, but we find out that more often than not, the values being propagated are very good for some, and not so good or downright harmful to others. That's the problem. It's becoming clear that what is being said is policy is not really what is policy.

More and more people are starting to see the cracks in the facade.

More concerns about the future

Since I was going on about not-having-to-be-a-genius last time, I think I should just pick up here where I left off. If the system we have is not going to work in the future (and it isn't going to), then we need to think seriously about what we have to do so that we don't screw our children over. Unfortunately, too many of us have bought into the capitalist lie: there isn't enough to go around, because as one wise person once noted, if all the rich people sat down to divide up all the wealth, there wouldn't be enough to go around. There's always someone who thinks they are entitled (and it's at the top that true entitlements are believed in) to more than everyone else.

Oh, and by the way, for all of you who are thinking this really isn't your problem ... because you don't have kids or disowned your kids, or just because you don't like thinking anymore, or whatever, I just want you to know that you're the biggest problem of all. And that's all I have to say about that.

Just like I have shown that our most fundamental concept of education is no longer applicable to the reality with which we are confronted, it should be increasingly clear that our entire notion of economics isn't really all that sustainable. Education as we know it, no longer applies. Economics as we envision it, no longer applies. For the quick-witted amongst you, yes, politics as we know it is also so dysfunctional that it's only a matter of time until it collapses.

Such events are threats as well as opportunities, of course. Any collapse can be utterly destructive, but any time one thing outlives its usefulness, an alternative has the opportunity to establish itself. The question is whether we're satisfied with how power and wealth is determined, seen, acknowledged, and, yes, distributed.

I really don't know if any of this is really sinking in, but it should be slowly obvious to the most casual observer that the way things are are not the way they can remain. Things are changing, whether we like it or not, and they are going to change in ways that we may or may not like, but for all of you who think I've got mine, let the others fend for themselves, well, I'm afraid you may be in for a rude awakening. Oh, I'm not talking about some bottom-up revolution and guillotines or anything. No, not at all. For all of you who think you've got yours and you're secure: you're not. And it's not that have-nots that are going to destroy you, it's the haves. They haven't got it all yet and they are not going to stop till they get it all ... including whatever you think is yours. I don't want to reveal the end of the story, rather, I feel simply obligated to tell you what's written on the wall over there.

Concerns about the future

For those of you who have been following the last few posts, it will be clear by now (I hope) that we're all debating and talking about one thing when it's really about something else. So what else is new? This happens a lot these days.

The response to the so-called, alleged skills shortage is not more education and training, there are more than enough unemployed, skilled, and capable potential employees out there, but if you, as a company, are not willing to pay them a livable wage to do the work, you shouldn't be surprised when they don't want to work for you. The response to still not finding "qualified employees" is not allowing extra-cheap labor in from foreign shores. That simply undercuts the home market and exacerbates the problem. The real problem is that there are simply not enough jobs to go around, any way you cut it. We have high unemployment primarily because there are not enough jobs to go around. If so many -- particularly transnational corporations (TNCs) -- are making record profits, the lack of skilled labor can't be the real issue anyway. Something else is going on.

There is an old adage in the IT community, namely if a computer can do it, eventually it will. If whatever it is you do -- bookkeeping, quality control, information dissemination ... it doesn't really matter -- can possibly be so organized and programmed that a machine (or computer/software) can do it, eventually, it will be. There are lots of things that computers are doing instead of people, be it taking orders on Amazon or any other online marketplace or calculating and preparing your tax return. The more the machines can do, the more we will let them do ... no, encourage, no, insist, they do. Why? Primarily because we trust machines more than people, and deep down, we have a very ambivalent attitude toward them (cf. my "Prometheus" series on Daily Kos).

The consequence of this thought is simple: we may have a declining absolute population, but we have a more rapidly declining number of employment slots to go around. This is the real problem. We're not ready for this at all. And, the main reason we're not is because we refuse to admit that this is really the problem.

This isn't just a young-people problem. For those of us who are coming into our so-called "golden years", most of us live under the delusion that we paid into the system, therefore we are simply cashing in on our investment. Unfortunately, that's not how the social-security systems in the Western world work. No, those who are working pay for those who are no longer in the pool. We paid for our parents, our children have to pay for us, our grandchildren for our children. With a declining population, however, it doesn't take a mathematical genius to recognize that at some point (and it's not all that far away) that those working can't possibly pay for those who have stopped.

It's not a matter of a bankrupt system, rather it is a simple matter of numbers and how the system functions. It also doesn't take a genius to figure out that the chances that any of our children will ever see a penny of "retirement" are somewhere between slim and none. Oh yeah, we love our children, but we screwed them over anyway. There is a big downside to boomer selfishness, it would seem.