Hunks of meat suspended in time

Recently, I had a bit of a discussion on social media (and yes, I know I'm too old for that, but I've got an extremely young grandchild and need to keep up-to-date, or some reasonable facsimile) ... well, it wasn't as much a discussion as it was an exchange. Let's face it: social media doesn't lend itself to discussions, nor was it ever intended to.

Discussions need to be done tête-à-tête, I agree, but I've been involved in the electronic medium long enough to know that it is possible to have long, deep, meaningful, debates and discussions online, but you need people who can, and are willing to, think and who are willing to persevere till Hitler (or some other Nazi reference) butts in. Exchanges are nice enough, but they are pretty meaningless in both the petty and grand scheme of things. Social media is there for people to spit out opinions, to try to impress others with one's own wit and brilliance, or to just vent. That's not really what I consider to be engaging an idea, notion, or possibility in any superficial or meaningful way, but we shouldn't expect more than a media channel can deliver.

Nevertheless, even such pithy exchanges, you can get a feeling for where the other commenters are coming from. Every time we open our mouths (or let our fingers do the talking) we tell the world where the shoe is pinching (as the Germans like to say) or what our particular problem is this week. People ain't refrigerators: they can't keep nothing. You want to know what's important to someone, what's floating their boat, tickling their fancy, or pissing them off to no end: just listen. They'll tell you. If you don't know what's bothering your partner, well, then you're not listening.

Oh, it's easy not to listen. In fact, it takes a good amount of effort. Most of us are so wrapped up in ourselves that we can't get past the monkey-chatter in our own heads to pick up on whatever it is that "they" are going on about. The old Zen saying may be that those who say, don't know and those who know won't say, but I can assure you that the vast majority of denizens of this planet don't know what they know nor are they willing to try to figure out what you might know. It's so loud in most of their heads that they would rather just turn it off than have to try and filter the worth-hearing from the noise. And let's face it, most of it's noise. There's a lot of noise, both inside and outside our heads.

But that's not the point. What struck me in my recent exchange was how few options we had. Center point of the back-and-forth was "human beings". You can love 'em, you can hate 'em, but you can't avoid 'em ... they're everywhere. For obvious reasons there are 7 billion of us on the planet these days and truth be told, most of us don't have a clue ... about anything. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining nor am I accusing: most of those 7 billion can't have a clue: they're struggling to survive today, let alone tomorrow; they're so poor they don't have dirt to rub together; they're hungry, sick, forlorn, forsaken and forgotten. But ... and it's a bit but(t): we in the West do, and we, in the West, should know better. But, we don't. And that's what hit me first. The vast majority of human beings in existence, that is, alive today, didn't even get factored into the discussion/exchange equation. What does that say about us?

The second thing, though, that hit me ... OK, it was more like a bitch-slap ... was the assertion/contention/assumption that if humans were involved, whatever the topic was, it was doomed to failure, because, well, human beings are beyond hope anyway. There was/is the implicit, though if necessary, explicit assertion that humans are incapable of anything other than stupidity, bullshit and nonsense. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not accusing my interlocutors of anything other than short-sightedness: they appealed to history, and history -- regardless of who has written it -- documents the failure of human beings. We haven't gotten a damn thing right in the half-a-million or million years that we've been here (and I'm only referring to homo sapiens right now, for simplicity's sake, not because it's the only way to see things): violence, rape, pillage, plunder, war, death, destruction, thievery ... regardless of whomever we love to pick out and praise as being laudable, enviable, praiseworthy. They only managed to stop the destruction long enough for someone to write down how great they were. I get that. Really, I understand that, but the conclusions they draw from this is simply ... well, wrong. Let me explain.

Two forces are at work here: First, there's the factual evidence that over time, and according to whatever records we have been able to salvage, the creatures on this planet know as "human beings" tend to act more stupid than smart and are much more violent than peaceful. But ... and, again, it's a big but(t) this says nothing about how human beings actually are. Also, and closely related to this, is the deduction/assumption that human beings are simply not capable of any more/better than that. In other words, if human beings are involved, whatever you have planned is going to go south; that is, there is such a thing as "human nature" and it more or less precludes that any other outcome is possible. These are insufficient, inadequate, inappropriate conclusions to be drawn from the evidence for they are based on an incorrect assumption about human beings in general, namely that they have a "nature" and this nature is somehow defective.

This is a common, widely spread, and simply wrong conclusion. It assumes too much, and it has to. Why? Because those who believe that "this is how things really are" start with two incorrect assumptions: (1) past actions of human beings are accurate predictors of future behavior and, the one I like to call the materialist fallacy, (2) we're just big hunks of meat who are the unfortunate product of chance. If matter is all there is, well, you can't -- no, shouldn't -- expect too much of others. After all, they are, at best, products of chance who have no clue why they're here or what they're up to. But, this is going to far too fast.

Now it's your turn. Think about it: who are we creatures we call 'human beings'? Is there a reason for our presence on this planet or are we mere products of chance? Does life -- no matter what we think it is -- have some meaning or is this all just a big coincidence? Do we have some fundamental, basic "nature", some way of being that when you get right down to it just can't be changed? Do notions such as "good" and "evil" really exist or are they just illusions? Do the ideas of "right" and "wrong" actually exist or are they merely conventions we've accepted so that we can get through whatever the hell this is we are experiencing until tomorrow? Do we have any say (in any sense of the word) in our lives or is everything simply determined, if not predetermined, by the accidental interaction of forces, events, whatever beyond our knowledge?

OK, I know these are what is often referred to as "heavy" questions. When you get down to it, though, each and every one of us has to have some idea, some story, some explanation that we like to tell ourselves that helps us get through the darkness of unknowing as to why we're here. But, hey, maybe there's no reason at all. I'm not claiming there is, I'm only asking you to think about what you think the answer to "the question" is.

So, where does this leave me with my "discussants"? To me, it's relatively clear: they are what we know in this day and age as "materialists" and they don't know, to be kind, any better. And here, too, you shouldn't misunderstand me: I'm not criticizing or condemning these folks in any way, shape or form. They simply believe that all there is to life, the world, the universe, to all that is is, well, matter. I know: it all sounds so simple. At some time, a long time ago, an explosion -- to be precise and scientific, a Big Bang -- occurred and the ball started rolling who knows how and who knows where and here we are. One of the products of this "bang" was matter ... stuff ... the shit we knock our knees against when we're not paying attention. Somewhere along the line, we -- that is, you, me and every other human being on the planet or who ever existed -- showed up, as a, well, coincidental by-product of this "bang". Though we don't know for sure, we still "know" that matter is all there is. And here we are.

Well, this is where my discussants are at any rate. We've got a lot of people now, just as there have been a lot of people before us, but all of them are more or less fortunate or unfortunate accidents of a huge fart that took place billions of years ago. (To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't trust these accidents with much of anything either, but I started from a different assumption, and that makes all the difference in the world.) We're (and by that I mean we human beings, allegedly with consciousness and free will) are freaks of nature, and I use the word "freaks" in the most well-meaning sense of the word: it was just an accident that we are as we are; there's not a damn thing we can do about it, and if we consider the laws of statistics and probability, we shouldn't be here anyway. Unfortunately, we are. Funny how that works.

Well, what disturbed my discussants, I believe, is the fact that the fate of our planet should be placed in the hands of these freaks. Oh, I understand their shock and dismay. After all the failures we have to show for ourselves, I am the last person who would jump up and yell, "Hey, let the failures take charge!", but the truth of the matter is that there is only us. We have it in our hands -- and here I've got a lot of good science on my side -- to destroy the planet or to at least eliminate ourselves (and probably a whole lot else, including thousands, if not millions, of other species) in the process, and these folks -- my discussants -- are the ones that potentially are going to save us from ultimate demise. I agree, the chances are slim, but -- truthfully -- if not us, who? Yeah, we're pretty screwed up as a species, but we're also the only ones who have even the slightest chance of pulling ourselves, and everything else, back from the brink of extinction.

Yes, I exaggerate. My hero of heroes, George Carlin, accurately, and I believe appropriately, declared that human beings are to the planet nothing more than a bad case of fleas: the planet can shake us off and go on as if we never existed. And for as right as he was/is, that's a whole other issue and not relevant here.

So, here's the point: what happens to the earth and all of its inhabitants is nothing we can worry or not worry about. It doesn't matter. What happens to us, human beings, as a species, is, nevertheless, in our hands. We can participate in the further development of planet earth or we can decide to opt out. And this is where things start getting both serious and interesting: it's up to us. We can change our behavior and play along in the Big Game of Chance, but we can also opt to just spite ourselves ensure that not a one of us survives. This is what my fellow discussants didn't get, or didn't want to acknowledge: we have a choice in the matter, and the mere fact that we have a choice makes us different than any other species of living thing on this planet ... for better or for worse. We may -- and probably will -- choose the path of death and destruction. We seem to like that. But ... whether we like it or not ... we, and only we human beings, have the option to choose Life over Death.

You can't fix stupid, but stupidity can be fixed

We've got a problem. By "we", I mean those of us who find ourselves in what we like to think of as the 1st World -- and I'm not the first to ask somewhat naively, where's the 2nd one? Yeah, you, almost all of your reading this, and your friends, and your friends' friends, if they have any, and the people around you, like family and neighbors, and all of us who have too much time on our hands, too much money in our pockets, and too little sense to know what to do with either.

Now, before you go off all insulted because you're struggling to make ends meet or you're starting to sweat all the debt you're carrying around or whether there is going to be anything left for your kids or grandkids ... if you're concerned about any of that, you are precisely whom I'm talking to. Your problem isn't insufficient funds, it's insufficient gratitude. The vast majority of human beings on this planet would swap places with you in a heartbeat: and you'd die having to deal with theirs, and they'd think they'd died and gone to heaven. It's a matter of perspective, true, but also relativity. According to popular, widespread, and most oft proclaimed ideology: you chose your problems; the vast majority of humanity had theirs dumped on them by people who care more about themselves than even you do. If you've got a conscience, you'll never make it into the top 10%, let alone 1%. You're not cut out for it. Or sell your conscience. At the moment, however, you're just in the way ... of progress to make a better world or your just another wannabe for those at the top who want, and will eventually, get what you have.

You might get the impression that I'm a bit miffed at the moment, a bit irked, a bit bothered, a bit off-center. And you're right. I am. But, I firmly believe that I have every reason to be. Oh sure, I've cobbled together a fixed-income existence; I don't own anything other than a car of good middle age; I've got family around me, a couple of friends (who at least people who tolerate having me around); I've got a roof over my head, enough to eat and access to the world's largest cesspool of information, the internet. I haven't got a single reason to complain about anything in my life. But I'm also not only not the only person on the planet and I'm not the only person in my immediate environment. I'm part of a larger whole that varies in size depending on time of day, phase of the moon, and societal configuration.

In other words, I lead a relatively normal Western life. And I'm thankful for that, believe me. I'm thankful that I have the wherewithal, the inclination, the talent, the time, the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you. But, I must admit, I'm rather bothered by the echoes that are finding their way back to me. Like most of you, I've got a real life and an online life, and the online life has to do with social media to a large extent, and regardless of what you think about either in general, I can assure you that, in particular, the online part is causing me more and more concern with each passing day. That's why I'm bringing this up here, with you, with all of you who obviously have an online life as well. The number of people with online lives is growing daily. The "society" that these online denizens are forming, however, is not exactly what I had hoped it would be way back when 95% of the people on the internet lived within 10 miles of my home. Yeah, I've had a chance to watch all this develop, and I'm not all that excited about what I see.

I'm going to out myself right up front: I don't believe the least in "human nature", but I believe unboundedly in "human potential". I believe -- deep, in the very heart of my own being -- that human beings are the living expression of the possibility of all possible possibilities. (That's the optimist heart that beats in my breast.) And I also believe, unreservedly, that the low end of those possibilities is the world we have thought out for ourselves, the world in which we're all -- at the moment -- forced to live. Stated succinctly, we're the biggest of all of G-d's failures. (And thus beats my cynic's heart in that same breast.)

We are, and have shown, that we're capable of the most exhilarating flights of brilliance: fire, the wheel, more-than-sufficient food production, disease eradication, alternative energies and explorations to the stars. At the same time, we have demonstrated that we're capable of the most terrifying horrors imaginable: war, genocide, unimaginable physical and psychological violence, greed, selfishness, self-absorption, and lack of empathy that there are moments when I find myself almost yearning for that last affront to occur so that we all go down the tubes the blinding fire of nuclear annihilation. And therein lies the rub, as the bard so eloquently put it.

You should be aware that all of G-d's children don't have the same intellectual capabilities and capacities. And that's OK as far as I'm concerned. Some of the nicest people I ever had the honor of dealing with weren't the sharpest pencils in the box, as they say, but they were Menschen, in both the true and Yiddish senses of the word. They cared about others, were kind, generous, helpful, supportive, and chock full of empathy and sympathy for the plight of others. I don't consider these people stupid, however. No, to me, stupid is when you think you know something, when you think you are smarter than you really are, or when you let external, non-personal "attributes" drive your actions.

Three of these are particularly dangerous: money, guns, and power. You can be bright, but once money (or in its most fundamental and nefarious form, the love of money) takes over it's good-bye smarts. Money is a prime cause of stupidity. You think your money makes you better, and smarter than everyone else, but it doesn't. It makes you think you're an authority on things you have no idea about (e.g., Bill Gates and world health or education). Guns are also a classic, and they (or the violence they represent) is a key feature of the gangster/Mafioso boss Hollywood has infected us with for decades. The propensity toward violence or violent behavior, the willingness to use it so "resolve arguments" is prototypical of stupidity in general. And finally, power ... often some vague combination of the previous two attributes, or "actual" power, like a political office (here, Bush the Lesser jumps out as poster child for what can happen when the intellectually challenged get it in their heads that they're better than and worth more than others) ... is the worst of all. And it's the one that has the most disastrous effects on the most people.

Even the most superficial gloss over the history of humankind reveals that it has been those awash in stupidity who have been in charge. We don't know who it was who figured out "fire", but we know practically everybody's name who used fire -- in one form or another -- to ensure that hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people had to suffer to satisfy their own egos. And we praise them, look up to them, remember them, and as school-children are forced to memorize their names, but in the end, they were stupid, self-absorbed, self-serving egoists who forced their personal mentation on others. Alexander the Great, the Roman Caesars, the British and other European royal houses, from Stockholm to Madrid, and, most recently, a whole bevy of American presidents (not starting with but particularly egregious since Reagan), have tortured the life out of countless human beings for the greater glory of , and we laugh and gloat and cheer and pat ourselves on the back for being so "great". But why? What's so smart about being able to kill untold human beings at will? Why do we think -- at this point in history, here, at the beginning of the 21st century (since we've agreed on counting years) -- that this is a good thing? Sure, it enables you to sit there in your room; fat, dumb and happy that you can look down upon the vast majority of humankind; but you need to explain to me what about this is good.

Recent history has shown us what's going on. Whether is was Thatcher in Britain or Reagan in the US, or Clinton (who could cover it over better than most), or Blair or Bush the Lesser (if that wasn't the tip-off, I don't know who was) or Merkel, or Cameron or Juncker or Schäuble or Gabriel or Obama or that it's not the bright ones who are leading the way and seeing to it that the proper shots are called. No, among this limited selection of individuals there are those who -- on their own, in a normal conversation -- would come across as half-way intelligent and reasonable, there seems to be the overwhelming propensity, if not compulsion, to blow any and all alleged inherent intelligence to the wind and strut forth as a contender for the crown of Village Idiot.

This -- not the results of neoliberal economic policies -- is what trickles down. We then find the same behavior patterns in the general population, be it in alternative political parties (like the AfD in Germany) or alternative political candidates (like Trump in the US (though Hilary isn't much better) and his followers) or just plain misinformed-and-proud-of-it welfare-bashers, gun-nuts, evangelicals, flag-wavers, sports-fanatics, and small-minded bleaters would rather complain about others than actually do something for or with others to make a difference. And I'm amazed each day at the number of people for whom this description applies.

No, I don't have a very high opinion of the general quality of information available on the internet, but there is a lot of good, sound, reliable information to be found there. But you have to go looking for it, and you have to wade through cybermiles of sludge and jungle to find it. There are good, sound, and inspiring insights to be found there, but you have to be able to weigh and evaluate, compare and contrast, and, well, think, to figure out which they are.

Of course, you have to be willing to explore thoughts, ideas, opinions, and views with which you don't necessarily or immediately agree and you have to be willing to assess their validity, their impacts and maybe even their worth. But that takes both time and effort and, well, with all the important stuff so many of us have in our lives that needs to get done, who is going to ensure they do this as well? But, most importantly, you have to be willing to communicate what you find and discuss it with others, not just with people whom you agree with. You need actively engage other ideas and notions if you are ever to come up with thoughts and ideas of your own. And who, pray tell, is going to be willing to do that? There are some thank goodness, though they are few and far between. There are some who haven't yet given up, even though they are reviled and ridiculed by those who have chosen stupidity and their particular way of life.

The point is that we don't have to be in the messes we're in. We don't have to deal with all the ignorant nonsense which pervades most of our lives. We don't have to allow stupidity to rule our lives ... but we are, we do and we will, because to change any of it, we might just have to change ourselves. So, don't complain about stupid (and all that is wrong with everybody else) if you choose stupidity yourself. And that is the choice too many people are making.