Is there such a thing as "Western culture"?

If I take my own "definition" from last time seriously, the answer would be "no", but that would be a bit short-sighted.

The factor that stops us is the first one -- Language -- for we in the West certainly don't speak a single tongue. In the narrower sense of the term "language", this is true, but we need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. Linguistically, most Western languages (Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque excepted) are at least loosely related. The number of Greek and Latin-based words that have found their way into all Western languages, often in their own language-specific forms yet they are still often recognizable (e.g., the differences between philosophia-philosophie-philosophy-filosofia, etc. are not all that extravagant). Very often, key concepts are shared, even if the words themselves are different (e.g., notions like "holiday", "illness", names of body parts, etc.); that is, there is often almost a 1-to-1, word-level translation possible. Keeping in mind my admonition to look for what connects rather than what separates, we need not dismiss language outright.

Similar, but perhaps not as obvious, comparisons could be made in regard to the other factors I identified, but what interests me most is what is not obvious at all, what is so taken-for-granted, that we don't think about such things at all. This is particularly evident in the Beliefs and Customs areas: for example, that marriage is between only two people and is generally done in a ritualized manner in front of witnesses; that the roles played by men and women are asymmetric; that the individual is special; that the notion of "property" held in very high esteem; that a scientific, objective approach to problem resolution is worthwhile; that reason is a good thing; that we have at least one holiday honoring our home country and that most of the other holidays have Christian roots. When I was young, however, much of this was much more apparent and, consequently, taken even more for granted. But there are indications that the underlying cement of Western culture is starting to crumble.

Our beliefs and customs most often found their expression through the medium of religion, and that's what's changing most quickly and most deeply. Even though Christianity is anything but monolithic (i.e., three primary divisions: Catholic Protestant, and Coptic; two flavors of Catholicism (Roman and Orthodox, the latter breaking down into a growing number of subgroups); Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Pentecostal Protestants, the latter three having split into innumerable specific denominations, as well as special-cases like Mormonism. What binds them together is much, much less than what makes them different. In times past, most people were either unaware or unconcerned about the differences, but these days, they are playing an increasingly important, decisive, and divisive role. Couple this with a dramatic rise in the number of individuals declaring themselves atheist (whereby, the vast majority of these are, I believe, merely agnostics), and a growing number of people who more or less reject religion altogether in favor of a much less clearly defined "spirituality", and it soon becomes rather obvious that what made us in the West a WE is rapidly losing its cohesive strength.

As is so often the case, these factors, trends, and developments are neither good nor bad, but that our thinking make it so. The current attempts to unify the West religiously to combat what is perceived as a more monolithic religious threat (e.g., Islam) clearly show just how disconnected we've all become. Maybe it is time to finally drop the notion of a "Western culture" all together. The world is getting smaller by the day, so perhaps it is really time to starting thinking more about what we can and do share and stop worrying at all about what makes us different. Deep down, we're hardly different at all.

What, then, is "culture"?

Nations are new. Cultures are as old as humanity's presence on the planet. There are, indeed, various kinds of cultures: tribal, local, regional, corporate, national, or transnational even. When we think and speak of "culture" these days, we almost automatically think of a "national culture", but only because we are often ignorant of all that history, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology may have to offer us. I'm not going to try to fill that gap, I'm merely going to point out a few salient features of "culture", because our ignorance is causing a lot of misery in a lot of lives.

In simplest terms, a culture is the language, customs, beliefs, and actions of a given group of people who feel bound together because of those four things.

1. Language is a strong component, to be sure. This is why one often speaks of the Anglo-American culture (which also includes, oddly enough, the Australians, and for some, the South Africans, but not necessarily (or at least not consciously, the Belize), or the German culture, whereby the language is spoken as well in Austria and parts of Switzerland, and these are included in the concept.
2. Customs describes "the way we do things around here". It includes holidays, like a big, family meal at Thanksgiving, or Santa Claus (or whoever brings Christmas gifts); and sports (baseball, football, soccer, lacrosse); and little things like whether people shake hands when they meet, and more.
3. Beliefs include the stories and myths that a particular group holds dear, be it the Pilgrim Fathers, Charlemagne, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. These may be religious in nature, but they can also be secular and profane, like owning guns is a fundamental right, or all persons are created equal, or property rights trump personal rights.
4. Actions are what really defines a culture, though. These are the things a group does, not only because that's the way they do things, but because they believe they have a right to do them. It's not only the way a group acts towards others, but because they have always been able to act that way. In other words, the customs and beliefs often drive what a culture thinks it's OK, good, right and proper to do.

I would be the last person to say what a given culture says, believes, or does is good or bad or right or wrong. All I know is that there are a lot of different ways to slice the reality pie. What I also know, however, that there are way too many cultures on this small planet which think that however it is that they have decided to slice that pie is the "right" way, the "proper" way, the only "reasonable way" to slice it. My only response to that is, well, "bullshit".

Beneath, behind, and beyond whatever we think our culture "entitles" us to, we need to recognize the simple, unalterable fact that everything any of us, individually or collectively, say, believe, and in particular, do has effects on others; that is, anyone other than ourselves or our (cultural) group. We forget that all too often.

Whatever we think is good, right and proper is only what we think is good, right and proper. Some values are universal (not harming others, for example), but even these can be relativized once we start thinking that "our" culture is "better" than "their" culture. Unfortunately, that's where we are today.

We believe we are the good ones, and those "others", well, they're the bad ones. It turns out, however, that they are merely the others whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not. Knowing what that otherness is and understanding what we have in common rather than what separates us are the true marks of the cultivated, civilized person. No more, no less.

Is there culture beyond yoghurt?

Our English word "culture" derives from the Latin cultus which means more or less "tilling, cultivating, tending". The very roots of civilization can be recognized as it was when humans first learned to systematically till and cultivate the soil, to farm, that they initiated what we today refer to as "history": the story, the narrative of where we as a species have been. That, of course, is the most general, all-encompassing view of the situation.

There are individual, isolated and particular histories as well. At the other extreme we have individual histories, which we no longer call such, but rather call biographies. Just about any geographical region that you can name, has its own, often oral history. And, since the late 17th century, we find the development of national histories as well, many of which are intertwined. The history of the United States in unthinkable without the history of Great Britain, and its history is tightly interwoven with that of the Portuguese, Spanish and French, all of which were greatly influenced by the history of Rome and Greece, and voila we've got the makings of Western Civilization.

These histories don't only describe what this or that person or this or that group have done, they also describe means of expression (statuary in Greece and Rome, painting in the Renaissance, music in the 18th and 19th century, just to intimate some readily recognizable motifs), rules of interaction (e.g., Roman law), and institutions (in the West, primarily the Church) which have left an indelible impression on how we do things, how we express and how we organize ourselves, and, not the least, what we believe.

When we stop to reflect upon such things, they come into much sharper relief than usual. Our everyday mode of interaction with them is on the contrary subliminal, unconscious, assumed, or simply taken-for-granted. Whatever it is that makes a culture, however, takes time, long periods of time. There is never just one thing that distinguishes one culture from another, that's for sure. They consist of an amalgamation of traditions, legacies, stories, works of art and language, and more that operates so far beneath the threshold of consciousness that we have difficulty saying what they are. And many of them sit so deep, so firm that we have trouble recognizing them even when they are specifically pointed out to us.

What appears to happen, though, when someone, like Mdme Thatcher, rips the heart of the economic-political-social-religious-cultural matrix is that the entire edifice collapses and we end up with an every-person-for-themselves situation: John grasping firm to the political, Joan to the cultural, Jane to the religious, and Jim to economic. We become like the blind men describing the elephant, as a tree (if all you can feel is a leg) or a snake (if you happen to be holding the trunk) or a rope (if you've got the tail). We've got all of the pieces but no keystone to hold it all together.

Lest we forget

Make no mistake: the events of September 11, 14 years ago, were unnecessary, tragic, shocking, damnable, disgusting, and devastating. There is no way that anyone can "justify" what happened. It was an destructive and frightening act of terror.

We should remember, though, that we still don't know who was responsible. We were told who was responsible, and this was different people or organizations at different times, but we do not know with any certainty. There are, to this day, too many unanswered questions. I'm anything but a conspiracy theorist or practitioner. I yearn for clarity, for transparency, for uprightness, and for honesty. Things that I'm sure many of you would agree are lacking today.

Almost 3,000 people lost their lives, needlessly on one single day. Death tallies like that are normally the result of war, but war was "declared" on "terror" in the wake of those events. And that, my dear reader, is what is so troubling.

The government has spent years trying to convince us of who was behind the attacks, but their arguments and proof are unconvincing. The commission report is laughable and contradicts itself. Nevertheless, we attacked Afghanistan, which was not behind the attacks, even if they were allegedly sheltering Bin Laden. We attacked them for revenge. The country was in chaos before and after the Russians were forced to leave. It wasn't Pakistan, our ally. It wasn't anyone with whom we had friendly relations, but we had a bone to pick with Saddam Hussein and that was the "trump card" eventually played. We attacked Iraq only a few years later, a second act of revenge. We may have been threatened by Al Qaeda or some similar organization, but we attacked countries ... out of revenge.

Since time heals no wounds, as yesterday's Facebook activity will attest, what is it that we have actually done? We've killed, maimed, wounded, traumatized, more than one million human beings. A few of them were from "our side" (about 7,000) if you count 9/11 itself. But the remaining 999,993,000 were "them". No more, no less. Just "them". We weren't defending ourselves, we weren't being attacked. We were attacked once. We, on the other hand, have been attacking ever since.

What does that say about us? About us as a people? About us as a civilization? The old Kabbalistic adage states it clearly: you become what you hate. And we hate. Over 1,000,000 people have lost their lives directly because of this event, another 1,000,000 are in the process of being killed, more than 50,000,000 people are fleeing for their lives, and we have the cold-hearted audacity to glorify the killing, allegedly in the name of the killed. What has become of us?

Two (or more) wrongs have never made a right, and they never will. We gave up our moral high ground long ago, but we still refuse to acknowledge that we're not a damn bit better than those whom we despise, detest, and hate. I'm sorry I have to say it, but for all you so-called good Christians out there screaming the loudest at the Muslims, don't forget that, by your own standards, you will be judged by what you have done, and not by what you have said.

If we want to maintain that Life (whatever you may perceive that to be) is somehow sacred or of high value, then it is time we started acting like it. You can turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the crying and anguish of the suffering, but there's not enough pathetic (in the sense of unjustified pathos) patriotism to cover it over or tune it out. You can act like you are in the right, but to find glee, happiness, or pleasure in the suffering and death of another human being is sadism, pure and simple.

And that, dear reader, is something I don't think we should try to forget.

Remember Pearl Harbor

For those of you without much of an historical memory, it was 73 years ago today that World War II started, right? Wrong. It was 73 years ago today that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor (in Hawaii), and this incident was the catalyst for Congress to declare war on Japan on 8 December, and to declare war on the other Axis powers (Germany and Italy) on 11 December; later in June 1942, Congress also declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, and that finally got us fully involved in the war. You see, history isn't always (or even very often) in reality like it is presented in our history books. We tend to grow up pretty misinformed. But I suppose we like it that way.

We Americans, in particular (though the Brits and French aren't far behind), love World War II. That was really the last decent war when you think about it. Who the good guys and the bad guys were was perfectly clear. The reasons for fighting were understandable and communicable, and it took only the least bit of propaganda (there is to this day a bit of unclarity on whether the Americans knew the attack was coming and let it happen as it did for the greatest dramatic effect ... but that's sort of irrelevant, as it wouldn't have been the first time we were willing to sacrifice a few hundred innocents in order to wage war for the "greater good"), to get everyone on board. No, the big picture was clear; the threat had been made visible; the level of response seemed reasonable. No, they just don't make wars like that anymore.

What most people are not aware of or what a good number of people like to ignore is that the United States has been at war, with somebody, somewhere, ever since. The reasons have becoming increasingly fuzzy. We're not sure what Korea was really all about; Vietnam certainly didn't go over very well in the end; and that whole Middle East thing has been so messy that in the end, we had to blatantly lie and deceive the American public to get ourselves in there.

And it doesn't look like it's going to get much better any time soon. We've committed to a longer stay in Afghanistan even though we accomplished nothing. The pressure to get those infamous "boots on the ground" in what used to be Iraq is still growing. We're trying hard to ensure IS is the villain, but all those pictures with McCain and their predecessors just won't go away. And, let's not forget the heating up of the old Cold War. After all, someone has to put Putin in his place ... though some of us are wondering why we always think it has to be us.

I for one think we should remember Pearl Harbor, but not as a tragic travesty against America, but as a constant reminder that good, bad, or indifferent, for those who want to wage war, they will always be able to find a reason. Maybe there are good reasons for war, but I doubt it. There may be times when the it's the best bad decision you can make. What haunts me, though, is why America feels so compelled to make the decision so often.

Ooops, I almost forgot. June 1942 was the last time we actually declared war; these days we're apparently just more comfortable going ahead and waging them. At least that keeps you from making bad decisions, or so some must think.

On this day in history

Yes, on this day in history, November 22, 1963, more than half-a-century ago, John F. Kennedy, then President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The assassin was allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald, but the circumstances surrounding this event, the consequences, the actual facts have been long obscured in conspiracy, fantasy, and delusion. We'll never know what really happened and why, and I'm not sure that it really matters in the end. Sure, I was an impressionable adolescent when it happened, and, yes, I think about that day from time to time (and sometimes when the date rolls around again), and, yes, it makes me wonder. (I told you: I wonder a lot; I always have and with each additional year of my life, I am given more reason to as well.)

So what am I wondering about this time? Simple: why do only Americans assassinate their major political figures? Sure, every once in a long while, someone flips out in the Middle East or in Israel and a well-known politician or Prime Minister is killed, but it's almost always someone "from the other side". No, Americans are pretty unique in that they elect someone to the highest office in the land, and then, later, for myriad, stupid reasons, they decide to end their term of office prematurely. Think about it:

• Including the current one, the US has had 44 presidents thus far.
• Four presidents have definitely been assassinated: Lincoln (#16), Garfield (#20), McKinley (#25), and Kennedy (#35).
• Two more presidents are at least rumored to have been assassinated: Taylor (#12) and Harding (#29).
• Two additional presidents were injured in assassination attempts: Roosevelt (#26) and Reagan (#40).
• And, there have been 13 assassination attempts on presidents not mentioned in the points above.

That's a pretty impressive list, if you ask me: 21 of 44 (that's 47%) have been killed, injured, or attempts have been made on their lives. Just how democratic is this? With the exception of Johnson (#36), every single president since Kennedy has been at least threatened with assassination. That doesn't make you wonder? It makes me wonder, I can assure you of that.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to think about that. My first reaction is, "the US is one violent society." Another thought that crosses my mind is, "why is assassination (well, murder, actually) considered a solution to anything?" More generally, "what does this say about the state of American democracy?" And the cynical side of me wants to know why America is held up as an example for anything political? Be honest. Who really wants a job in which almost half the holders have been murdered or someone attempted to murder them? And the country isn't even 300 years old! So young, so reckless, so irresponsible.

Yes, I wonder a lot ... more some days that others ... sometimes merely because the calendar gives reason to.

It's not clear that we know where we've been

The American philosopher George Santayana once noted that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What he failed to note, however, was that when you're doomed, you end up taking a whole lot of others with you. And, that's pretty much the case right now.

There are others who will tell you that history is written by the victors. There is certain more than a grain of truth in that one, even if conscientious historians like Howard Zinn strove to face this truism head-on. In other words, you have to search far and wide for one that isn't.

Taken together, we're faced with something of a dilemma. One reasonable conclusion seems to be that since we're reading a distorted history, we're learning all the wrong lessons (if in fact we're truly learning at all). It is especially problematic when different victors with different histories meet. The confrontation is too often volatile.

This, in turn, should make us aware of at least one thing: we need to be careful with the histories we believe to be true, and when in doubt, it doesn't hurt to do some checking to make sure the one you're using is worthwhile. More often than not, people choose to believe what they want to believe and only use the "documentation", if you will, to "prove" their foregone conclusions. What our friend Wm. James said about thinking in general is just as applicable to histories in particular.

In the course of my life, I have come to discover that most of what I was taught about history in school and those entertaining and dramatic depictions of history that flowed across the TV screen were, almost invariably, not just false, they were downright dishonest. I'm not so naive as to think that there are no dark sides to any nation's history, nor am I gullible enough to believe that what others are pushing as their own official versions might have "conveniently" left out those less savory parts. But, if I have learned one thing from the Germans in my time living here, it's that regardless of how painful it might be, it is absolutely essential to confront your history, to deal with it, to come to terms with it. Some are still struggling with it, to be sure, but at least it's on the table for discussion.

I'm no big fan of the idea that the past is the best predictor of the future for the simple reason that too often the past we are looking at isn't the one we should be looking at. Consequently, I'm making a plea for getting the real one and taking a good, hard look at it. If nothing else, it can provide a view of a whole lot of mistakes that we would do well to avoid in the future.

For example -- and it is only one, of many -- I have searched far and wide but simply can't find that example where waging war was a good thing, that it actually solved a problem or that it lastingly made the world a better place. But, as recent events have shown, it is still an awfully popular "answer" to some as yet not clearly formulated question. I simply don't get why we don't get it. What's worse, instead of coming to the realization of its futility, we're actually expanding it, turning it on ourselves, so to speak. (Or what is all that militarization of police forces all about?)

At bottom, for me, then, is the question: don't we know or don't we want to know?

The 4th of July

Yes, yes, yes, it is that time again. Break out the BBQ, fire up the coals, get ready for the fireworks ... it's time to celebrate. This is a big day for Americans, that's for sure, but what is it exactly they are celebrating? This is not a question that just sprang to mind. I've been asking it for most of my life. Most Americans will tell you, it was on July 4, 1776 that America declared its independence from Britain and became a new nation (though it took a war and 13 more years to establish that fact), signaling a new era in the development of the nation-state and enshrining freedom and liberty as the hallmarks of this new phase of existence.

Now, I really don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but right here at the outset, I find myself confused. Historians agree that the Peace of Westphalia (1648) marks the birth of the modern nation-state. The USA certainly wasn't the first, and as we have seen over the course of the last 366 years, nation-states come and go. Just ask Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, if you don't believe me. There are older people in the Czech Republic who have had three different nationalities in their lifetime and they've never left their village. Just what kind of a role does the nation really play in our lives?

And how is it that these people -- or any of us for that matter -- become citizens? I have an American passport because I was born there. How did I come to be born there? The luck of the draw. There is no rational reason why I couldn't have been born in Sub-Saharan Africa or in China or Tibet, or on some Lapp island above the Artic Circle. We place absolutely no value on chance or coincidence in any other aspect of our lives, but when it comes to which passport you can get, one's place of birth is a really big deal. A mere chance event has everything to say about one's loyalties, one's obligations, and one's commitments. Why is it only applicable in this case?

OK, maybe it's about the ideas of Freedom and Liberty. Well, back there in 1776, only white, male property owners were free. There was still indentured servitude; women were chattel; slavery was not only legal but acceptable, and we were on the threshold of carrying out the systematic and ruthless genocide of all those people who were there before the Europeans came to "settle this savage land". What does freedom and liberty mean to these people? And, how free is a country with a concentration camp in Guantanamo where they can send their own citizens without due process (provisions of the NDAA)? How free is a country which brutally suppresses peace demonstrations (cf. reaction to the Occupy movement)? How free is a country that spies upon and collects data on its citizenry for no other reason than they they can? How free is a country that enslaves its more fortunate young people with life-long debt and which denies opportunites to its less fortunate (read: poor) youth? How free is a country that blatantly expects more for itself than for any other country (say, like Iraq)?

Don't get me wrong: I love holidays as much as the next fellow, maybe even more. I love celebrating and having a good time and being able to spend quality time with family and friends. You will have to excuse me, however, if I don't get all choked up and teary-eyed. I'm saving that for such a time that the USA (or any other country, for that matter) actually makes an honest attempt to live up to the ideals they claim to hold so highly. If you want me on your side, walk the walk, don't just talk the talk.

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?

What's it worth?

Recently I was kicking around some ideas with my daughter who is working on her literature dissertation on the 'lost generation'. One of the topics we were wrestling with was what does or does not belong to the field of literary inquiry or literary scholarship. A day or so later I found myself trying to help my nephew with an assignment from his undergraduate micro-economics course and was vainly coming to terms with the real purpose of the exercise. It was after this that I realized that in both cases, the actual subject of the discussion was the same: what does it mean?

Meaning is one of those words that is some people use too much and others too rarely. For some, it is an ambiguous, not-very-helpful category. For others it is the central issue in their lives. That's quite a range to cover, that's for sure, and is so often the case, the truth most likely lies somewhere in-between.

One point that came up in the literature discussion is that the discipline itself is not really concerned with whether the world is a better place or whether we, as individuals, are any smarter as a result of our pursuing it. Why an author writes something -- so the theory goes -- is irrelevant. All we have is the text in its historical context and we have to deal with what we find. The only meaning worth anything is the textual meaning, that is, the meaning we find in the words as they are strung together in that particular place at that particular time, and perhaps under those particular conditions. It is, let us say, a rather focused view of meaning.

In the economics discussion, it became clear that my nephew isn't studying business and economics so that the world will become a better place. In fact, it became clear to me that the search for and discovery of the so-called 'laws' of economic activity do not concern themselves for any given state of the world. We only have the slope of a given curve, that occurs at a particular place at a particular time, and under a certain set of conditions. The question of meaning ... what does that mean? ... is never even asked.

The philosopher Günther Anders once noted, ""Human beings are ashamed to have been born instead of made." It would seem that literary theorists and economists are ashamed to be only scholars, not scientists. The analogy is not as far-fetched as one might think. Science, in the sense of counting, measuring, and standardizing, but also in the sense of discovering, researching, and studying has become the non plus ultra of intellectual striving. Only what can be counted counts, is the watchword of the day. We find this approach at the heart of most academic disciplines these days, from astrophysics to accounting (whereby I am still having trouble conceiving of accounting as an academic discipline, but that's another story). The human and social sciences have made themselves no exception. They wanted to be sciences, too. The English language, however, keeps them out, for we have taken the word 'science' from its original meaning in Latin and made it into something that it isn't: a way of life. Science, as a term, derives from the Latin sciro, 'I know'. Yes, we've turned a way of knowing into a way of life. The only problem is, what do we know any more?

What we know ... and if you don't believe me, just ask those bright young guys who own Google ... is merely information. We have tons and tons of information, but do we have any knowledge? I can't help but think of Eliot's "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?/Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" (from The Rock, 1934) T.S. was onto something there. (Well, actually, he was on to much, much more, for the line preceding those two is "Where is the Life we have lost in living?", and that puts it all into a much more existential context, but that, too, is a matter for another time). Information is just information. May 8 is just May 8, no more, no less. Even May 8, 1945 is just another day that slipped by in history unless I know (and here is where we come closer to the issue) that it was on that particular day that Germany surrendered ending World War II in Europe. It's still not knowledge, it's just a fact, but it is a piece of knowledge when we use it to make clear to another that terror and fascism of one type was bid halt by its successor. We need to think about what we mean when we use the term 'knowledge'. After all, it is more than just information, it is information in service of a purpose greater than itself.

That terror and fascism were bid halt is obviously a good thing. The part of that sentence about its successor will make some readers uneasy. And that's the very reason that it was added. This isn't a test, don't get me wrong, but while most of us agree on the first part of the statement, there are more than just a few who would accept the second part. Why is that? To me, it is clear: because it expresses a value that some folks may or may not agree is truly a value. The implication in the sentence is that that which followed wasn't all that much better than what came before. How could I possibly compare democracy with fascism? Well, I'm not really. When we consider that fascism is a type of economic organization, then its successor, that is, the system which we chose to replace it was either communism in the East bloc or capitalism in the West. The fact that those eastern economies called themselves democratic this or that has nothing to do with ignorance on their part, rather ignorance on ours, in the West. Democracy can be defined in any number of ways. There is no one, accepted, valid definition of what the term may mean. There are variations on the others (fascism, capitalism and communism), to be sure, but the span of variation is much smaller.

My point is that it is only now that we find ourselves in the sphere of 'knowledge'. Up until now, everything was just information, and it was all stuff that is more or less 'who cares'. The Soviet Union was communist. The United States was capitalist. The fascists had been defeated so we imposed our respective form of economic organization upon the losers (capitalism in West Germany, and communism in East Germany). That is as far as information gets us. The real question is, however, what difference does it make. In reality, not very much at all. For what we have are merely facts. Pure, simple, objective, indisputable, non-arguable facts. When we move to the next level, if you will, to knowledge, we start entering the realm of meaning, the realm where subtle, but important differences are important. Some think communism was a good thing. Some think capitalism is the best thing. In both cases, however, it is a value (judgment) that we have placed upon the fact that makes all the difference. In other words, when it comes to knowledge, values matter.

And here we have the rub. Knowledge is never value-free. Facts are. Knowledge isn't. What makes the difference is the values we associate with what we know. And that brings us full circle to science once again. Science and our modern worldview would like us to think that things are just the way they are, but for all the objectivity that science would like to impose (and other disciplines would like to embrace) in the end, it just isn't there, for science's own view of its non-valueness is, at bottom, just another value. We can't escape values. That things should have not meaning other than their own description is a value. Not wanting to deal with the messiness and fuzziness that values bring with them is something science would like to avoid. It doesn't like it, it avoids it, it thinks it just complicates things ... there are so many ways to describe it ... but in the end, they are just values.

Science, in its desire to free itself of values has really only driven out the Devil with Beelzebub. Their view of the world has brought us a heap of information. There's no question about that at all. But it cannot be the final arbiter of things, for to say it should or it shouldn't requires that one have values. To determine what is preferable or not preferable, what we desire or what we abhor, what is good or what is bad requires us to have values. Describing the world in such an objective way is perhaps value-free, but in the end, it is really just of no value at all: it is worthless.