Rebellion

As a father-to-be, I probably should not be contemplating fostering rebellion at work. I am not so much concerned with the immediate outcome – the possibility of being fired – as I am with the long-term outcome. Do I really want my current supervisor to give me a bad recommendation? Do I really want to be known as someone who fosters rebellion at work? Certainly, these could affect future employment in my field – and I do have a child coming.
And that is where the problem lies. If I foster rebellion, that could put my career at stake. If I do not, I may be abandoning the future – a future my child will have to live in. Many, when faced with such a dilemma, decide to be practical and try to do what is best for their child now. As a result, many abandon principled action in favor for playing along, in order to ensure job security. Others are so busy being out there, fighting the good fight, that they forget to raise their children, and so their children end up being sacrificed for the future. The irony there being that often these parents were working to make this future for those same children, who would have been better off if they had had their parents home, raising them properly. It seems to me that we have to know when to pick our fights. When is an issue big enough that you have to fight it? Well, in my case, the fight involves education.

I am currently an adjunct faculty member of a community college in Dallas, Texas. Money-wise, that amounts to very little – but I do it to refine my teaching skills and get teaching experience, so I can one day get a university job. Recently my supervisor sat in on one of my classes, and critiqued the job I did. Now, while I will be the first to admit that there is room for improvement, much of the critique bothered me greatly. The reason I was so bothered was because the assistant dean told me I needed to dumb down my classes. Well, to be honest, she said, "Now I don’t want you to dumb down your classes, but . . ." and then she proceeded to tell me I needed to dumb down my classes. The reason? Because she did not want students coming to her to complain that they did not get an "A", though they had not done the work to get an "A". She told me that since community college students typically did not come to community college to learn anything, but rather to receive an "A" and credit for the class, that I should teach in such a way that the students would not have to learn anything, but could rather just be granted their "A" and their credit. Further, she proposed that I attend a workshop the community college offered that would teach me the best way to provide my students with this kind of contentless education.

Here is the crisis in education. Administrators do not want students to fail, because if they do fail (or if they do not get an "A" even), the school loses money. So students get passed, even though they learn nothing. In community college, the threat is more direct, since if students fail, they will not want to come back to that community college, complaining that "it’s too hard there." And fewer students also equates to fewer government dollars as well. In our elementary, middle, and high schools, student failure also results in fewer government dollars – so, again, teachers are encouraged by administrators to make sure every student passes. If that meant that more learning occurred, that would be great. The reality is that teachers, who are encouraged to teach reading using the least effective method of learning how to read ever devised, the look-say method, now have developed the tally-method, where the student counts all the words in a text, and then uses that information to figure out what the passage "means." Rather than being taught how to read with comprehension, students are being taught methods to pass the standardized tests. You do not have to read at all to determine what a passage is about if you use the tally method. All you have to do is count all the symbols, find out which symbol you have the largest number of, then compare that symbol with the symbols on the multiple choice test, and mark that dot.

Since I am not an elementary school teacher, I cannot fight against such methods there, directly. But I can fight them at the community college level. I am being told by the administrators that they want me to adopt the college version of this kind of education. While now I am using grammar, rhetoric, poetics, and logic to teach my students how to read, write, and think, I am told that I have to use a textbook that ignores all of these things, except its very superficial discussion of rhetoric. But then, how deeply can you cover rhetoric if you do not cover grammar, poetics, and logic? The book, The Aims of Argument, only teaches students about different kinds of arguments. You do not have to learn how to construct good sentences, you do not have to know logic, you do not have to write it well at all. All you have to do is be persuasive. Though the protagonist of "Thank You For Smoking" is a rhetorician’s rhetorician, he does at least know what the truth is. The community college I teach at want me to make my students unable to even be able to do that. I am not to challenge my students’ opinions, but only consider whether or not they have an argument. It is no wonder that one of my students told me that she loved my class because I did something the teacher in the English class she had before mine had never done: critique her writing for errors in grammar, facts, and reasoning.

So what do I intend to do about this problem? If the administration is only concerned about students who complain, I decided that we need to get the students who want a good education to complain. I will be putting up posters around the college, telling the students about what kind of education their college thinks they deserve, and why. Hopefully, that will get the students who want a good education to stop being silent, and to speak up more, like their lazier fellow-students have done. The lazier students, in trying to get something for nothing, are depriving other students who do want to learn of an education. Since the students do not know this, they need to be told.

My trepidation comes in the potential of being caught. What will happen if someone learned that I was the one who put up the posters? Since I am just an adjunct, the school does not have to re-hire me, and I have no recourse, no ability to challenge that decision. And since I am looking for a university job, there are likely to be inquiries by search committees regarding my teaching skills and behavior. What do you think the administration would say about me? Like I said, I do have a child coming. I do need to work. And I would prefer to work doing what I love: teaching students and scholarship. Should I just suck it up, since I do have a baby to pay for and support? Or should I fight to change the educational system, so that my child will have an opportunity to receive a good education? The pile of posters sit on my desk, staring at me. Especially now that I have a child coming, how can I abandon the future?

Taxation is Not Generosity

It is unethical to use taxation to be generous, as happens when we are taxed to help others – which means we are not actually being generous. Why is it acceptable for a large group of people (like a government) to do something it would be illegal for an individual to do? I cannot force people to give me money so I can give it to other people whom I prefer to have the money, under threat of taking them by force and locking them up in my basement. But a government can do just that – it just replaces the basement with prison. How easy it is to be generous with other peoples’ money! And what is worse, when government is generous with your money, you do not feel obliged to help others – why give when it is taken from you? So now people are acting less generous and charitable than they would otherwise. And money that could have been used to either lower prices of goods (making them cheaper for the poor to buy), hire more people (including the people "helped" by the government), or buy things that would have resulted in other businesses having to make more product, resulting in a need for more hiring, is taken away, filtered through people who are overpaid do an hour of work for eight hours at work, so that the poor get a very minuscule portion of the money anyway. The latter problem could be solved with a simple negative income tax that neither rewards people for not working nor punishes people for getting even a minimum wage job replacing all forms of welfare. The larger problem of being generous with other people’s money requires a change in overall philosophy in the country at large, and in Washington in particular. While that is more difficult, it can be done with a strong bully pulpit. Only when someone important publically and consistently talks about the right will it get realized in the world.

Taxation

If I were to approach someone and tell them that if they did not give me some money, that I would take them by force and lock them in my basement, I would be arrested for extortion. If they refused to pay and I followed through on my threat, I would be guilty of kidnaping. It is unjust for me, a private individual, to earn my money in such a way, even if I then turned around and gave that money to the poor. Which is why it is both immoral and illegal in every society.

But if the government approaches someone and tells them that if they do not give the government their money, that it would take them by force and lock them in jail, it is called taxation. If they refuse to pay and the government follows through on its threat, it is called arrest and imprisonment. This is considered by many to be a just and proper way for the government to make its money.

Why is something that is unjust for an individual to do to another just for one group to do to others, so long as that first group is larger, stronger, and called a government? If something is unjust and immoral for an individual, then it is unjust and immoral for a group, even if that group calls itself a government. A change in terminology does not justify unjust behavior. Theft is theft, no matter if you call it by its proper names of theft and extortion, or by the evasive term taxation. To tax is to steal. And that is what any government does whenever it taxes. A free and just society is based on the concept of free trade. Free trade is based on the premise that "if you do something good for me, I’ll do something good for you." The opposite of free trade is extortion, or "unless you do something good for me, I’ll do something bad to you." Any government or society based on free trade is just. Any government or society based on extortion is unjust.

Whenever the concept that taxation is theft is brought up, the response is always that the government has to make money somehow. Which is true. But so do I. Yet this is clearly not enough for me to engage in extortion. So why is it a legitimate reason for the government to do so? Anything immoral for an individual is immoral for a group, whether they call themselves a gang or a government. Anything illegal for a private individual or group should be illegal for the government. It is no better than anyone else simply because it is called a government. It does not know more, is not wiser, it is not more intelligent. And even if they did have these attributes, that would still not give government the right to steal - which is the right to take away another’s rights to their life, liberty, and property - a right no man ever has, least of all in a free, civilized society.

Pan

Suppose you were a conscious amino acid. The material world consists, for you, of fellow biochemicals, and you know too that you are made up of atoms, and that those atoms are made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. You go about your business, acting as an individual amino acid, sometimes joining into larger groups (proteins), and then separating out from them. You wander around your society of biochemicals, imagining that this is all there is.

And then one day, a nucleic acid comes to you and tells you that you are part of this larger entity, that your mind is not entirely your own, but that there is this thing out there, this "cell" of which you are a part, that comes in and influences your actions. All that you thought were your choices or merely random events is in fact run by this higher intelligence known as the "cell." It is not that you don't have choices -- you can be in this or that part of the cell, you may attach yourself to a tRNA, to a protein, to a short polypeptide, etc. -- but you are now informed that there is a greater purpose involved, that you are part of this larger cell, and that your actions help to keep this cell alive.

Now, from the point of view of the amino acid, the cell will seem, in relation to you, "immaterial." It will make no sense from your material point of view. It will seem very strange indeed. You may believe in the cell, or not (and be an atheist). There will be discussions among your fellow biochemicals regarding the nature of the cell. Is it material? That is, if it even exists. The "cell" theory does seem to make a lot of things make more sense -- but it is nonetheless troubling. If it is not material in the same sense as a biochemical, is it really material? From our more complex, emergent human perspective, the cell seems to be just as material as as its constituent biochemicals. While, on the other hand, our "mind" appears to be just as immaterial as the cell is to the biochemical.

Let me tell a short story of emergence.

In the beginning was pure information, or pure energy. Information is inform, yet gives form. It is the foundation of all things. (In the beginning (archae) was the word (logos).)

As the universe expanded and cooled, that pure energy crystalized out into quantum particle-waves. It became more material.

Some of those quantum particle-waves combined to form emergent atoms with greater complexity. These atoms were more material than their constituent particle-waves.

Some of those atoms combined to form chemicals (more material than atoms) --- and some of those chemicals were able to interact in complex cycles to give rise to cells with emergent complexity. These cells were more material than their constituent chemicals.

Some cells were able to develop complex interactions such that multicellular organisms were able to emerge, giving rise to greater complexity and more complex interactions. These multicellular organisms were even more material than their constituent cells.

One species of animal evolved a highly complex brain with an emergent intelligence. This brain resulted in more complex social behaviors, the evolution of language, and the emergence of complex culture and religion. It was so complex that it was able to contemplate itself and the universe (thus, the universe became complex enough to become self-aware, to be able to contemplate itself). It seems that there will soon be 10 billion members of that species, with brains so complex that the minding function of that brain has given rise to the appearance of permanence (the same way that while each of the lower levels that constitute it are in fact always in flux, always in time, they nonetheless gain more appearance of permanency). This species has more time and more time experience, more material being, than do all the levels below it that constitute it (there is a nested hierarchy -- a new Great Chain of Being). And that mind is much more material than the brain that gave rise to it.

Humans are not the end of the line. New levels of complexity have emerged in the past, and they will continue to do so in the future. And there will be fewer examples of those more complex levels that emerge (the same way that there is more energy than quantum particle-waves, more particle-waves than atoms, more atoms than chemicals, more chemicals than cells, more cells than organisms, and more organisms than humans). The emergentist evolutionary world view thus gives you emergence of tue universe to God -- who is the most complex, highest level of emergence, with the most time. Thus, God is also the most material.

This story derives from Darwinian evolutionary thoery, combined with information theory, complexity theory, chaos theory and fractal geometry, the theory of emergence, and self-organization theory. This combination is able to give rise to both ethics and God.

Informational Ontology

I do not ascribe to a materialist ontology nor an idealist one, but rather, an ontology of information. In other words, I take the following from John 1:1 seriously:

en arche hn o logos
"the foundation of all things is information"

Admittedly, this is a definition that comes about in light of information theory -- but if you truly understand both what information is, and all the meanings of logos, you can see that "information" is a good translation of "logos." Certainly a far, far, far, far, far better choice than "word," which is such a peripheral meaning of logos as to be almost completely inaccurate. When we "Logos," we communicate information one to another, process that information, and pass on that information. All things are information at different levels of complexity -- information processors, which all communicate different kinds of information at different levels. For biological organisms, the vehicle of communication tends to be chemical, though also photons and sound waves. Humans communicate using more complex information-carriers, particularly through grammatical, syntactical language. If we look at the ways to define information -- as a noun, it is that which is without form; as a verb, it is that which gives form to another. Thus, pure information is that which is without form, which gives form.

"The foundation of all things was information, and the information was 1) to the advantage of 2) at, near, by 3) to, towards, with, with regard to (the word translated as "with") God, and God was information."

That is the most literal translation of John 1:1 I can render. The story of the universe is one of foundation on information, and the increasing complexity of that information over time in the universe. Atoms have less complex forms of information than do chemicals and especially chemical cycles and systems. Biology is a set of highly complex chemical systems. The human brain is a highly complex neural system in complex interaction with other humans through complex social systems. That information is communicated through language, which itself must be highly complex in order to communicate most efficiently. God is the most complex of the universe, and thus has all the information. This is how God is both the Alpha (the inform information that gives form at the beginning of the universe) and the Omega (the most complex, most informed).

All the other theories I use in my philosophy -- evolutionary theory, game theory, chaos theory, complexity theory, emergence theory, etc. -- explain the ways in which information interacts to create more complex things and how those complex things engage in complex interactions. Information theory is the foundation of all these things. Information is the foundation of all things.

No Regrets

Aphorism 341 -- from Nietzsche's "The Joyful Wisdom"

The greatest weight. — What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life you will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question is each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
* * * * *
When I first encountered this aphorism, it was in R. J. Hollingdale’s introduction to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where it became associated forever in my mind with part of part 10 of "The Intoxicated Song":

"Did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you said Yes to all woes as well. All things are chained and entwined together, all things are in love;
if ever you wanted one moment twice, if ever you said: ‘You please me, happiness, instant, moment!’ then you wanted everything to return!
you wanted everything anew, everything eternal, everything chained, entwined together, everything in love, O that is how you loved the world,
you everlasting men, loved it eternally and for all time: and you say even to woe: ‘Go, but return!’ For all joy wants – eternity!

The typical scholar would first point out that the aphorism from The Gay Science is a response to Schopenhauer’s view that no rational person would wish to relive their lives over exactly as it was (World as Will and Representation, 324), and that the section from Thus Spoke Zarathustra was in response to Goethe’s Faust, and Faust’s inability to want one moment twice. But these things are not what I want to focus on. At least, not right away. I wish instead to discuss how these two passages came together for me, to affect me as they did.
* * * * *
While aphorism 341 gives us the demon’s offer, it is the section from Thus Spoke Zarathustra that gave me the reason why I should accept it. I was reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra in 1995, in the summer after I had finished the classes for my Master’s degree in biology. All I had to do was do the research for my thesis, and write and defend my thesis. Instead, I moved an hour and a half away from the campus to live with my parents. While living with them, a friend of mine got me a job as a security guard, which I thought was a great idea, because it would give me the time to read and write – I was starting to become increasingly interested in writing fiction and reading philosophy. Nietzsche in particular. Thus I read Thus Spoke Zarathustra while guarding a coal mine entrance. And it is here that I encountered this question: was I living my life in such a way that I would want to live it over and over? And further: Was I living such a life that I would want the moment I was living in to eternally return to me? Was I so happy with my life, with who I was, that I would want to become the person I was at that moment? In other words, did I have any regrets? And was I living my life at that moment in such a way that I would want to relive it, to come back to that moment? And what of other moments, future moments? Every decision I would make, every action I would take, were they going to be decisions and actions I would want to repeat? I was working as a security guard at a coal mine, and I had finished two years of graduate classes in molecular biology, a field I had grown bored with. Was I living a life I would want to live over again?

The thought crushed me. Under the weight of such a thought, I collapsed – not once, but twice. I had two nervous breakdowns – one in the summer, the other in the winter, almost six months later. The first while I was working as a security guard, the second after they fired me for applying for another job. I could not take the weight of this thought, that I should be living life in such a way that I would want to relive that life. I would not want to relive the life I was living at the time. It was a terrible life, filled with psychological pain I would not talk to anybody about – and I was getting a degree in a field that I enjoyed learning new things in, but did not actually like doing, and I was working at a job that I felt at the time to be degrading. I had a college degree in recombinant gene technology! How could I be working as a security guard at a coal mine in rural Kentucky? I had to make a change. The first change I made was to get a job as a substitute teacher, so I could at least do something with my education. And that caused me to get fired from the job I felt to be degrading. My world was out of control. And then my grandfather and my uncle both had strokes. There was nothing I could do. The world was out of my control.

One of the things Nietzsche is trying to do with aphorism 341 is get us to affirm the possibility that the world is completely determined, that everything that will happen will happen in a predetermined way, because of the way Newtonian physics saw the world. The world was determined because of its past. If that was the case (we now know, through chaos theory, that it is not – the past is postdictable, but the future is not predictable any further out than the weather is), we could either despair, or we could affirm it and find joy in it. The demon’s offer is an offering of a completely determined world. Your life would turn out the same way over and over, for eternity. And there was nothing you could do about it. If you came to realize that you lived in a world that you could not control, that would turn out the way it would turn out, no matter what you did – that, in fact, everything you did was itself determined, and would turn out the way it would turn out, no matter what – how would you react? One could argue that you would react the way you were determined to act, but this is a thought experiment. And history has shown us how people have reacted to this idea. The Romantics and the Existentialists both rebelled against the idea, and tried to assert human freedom despite our living in a deterministic world. The German philosopher Kant even went so far as to say that there were two worlds: one of Newtonian determinism, the other of human freedom. Nietzsche chose instead to affirm the Newtonian world. If that was the way the world was, we should rejoice in it, not despair. What, after all, could we do about it? So why not rejoice in the world as it is?

As it turns out, the world is not how Newton, the Romantics, Kant, and the Existentialists thought it was. Chaos theory shows us that the world is both determined and free, simultaneously. Thus, freedom of choice is real. But that does not negate the fact that we do live in a world full of things that happen that are outside of our ability to affect or change. If my grandfather and my uncle both have strokes, what can I do about it? Nothing. No more than a doctor could directly do anything about their having strokes. And I was not even a doctor. But at the time, I could not see that. I raged against the universe: Why couldn’t I do something? How dare the universe present me with anything that I could not affect! But dare it did, and there was nothing I could do about it. The world around me was doing what it was going to do, and there was little I could do to change it. The world was crushing me every bit as much as the greatest weight.

After the school year was over, I decided to put my life back into my own hands. At the same time, I came to realize that I could not control everything. And I became reconciled to that thought. Most of the world was outside of my direct control. And that was okay. What was in my control was how I would react to the world, and what I did with my own life. So I moved back to Bowling Green, lived with some friends, worked odd jobs over the summer, realized as I was working on two novel manuscripts that I wanted to write fiction for the rest of my life, looked into English graduate programs, realized I needed at least a minor in English, and signed up for a full load of English classes that Fall, deciding at the same time that I was not going to finish my thesis for my master’s in biology. And I made all of these decisions knowing I would not ever regret having made a single one of them.
* * * * *
To affirm your life as it is, you have to live it without regrets. To regret something is to say that you wish what happened had happened differently than it did. And that means that you wish that everything that had happened subsequent to that action had happened differently. Take a look again at the section from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. To will your greatest moments, you have to have willed everything that happened up to that point. To reach the point you are now at, everything that happened to you had to have happened to you exactly the way it did, at the time it did, with all of the ramifications, or else you would not be at the point you are at now. To say that you regret any part of your life is to say that you wish that your life were other than what it is. To regret any part of your past is to admit to self-hatred, to self-loathing. So you need to ask yourself what I asked myself: is your life one that you would want to relive it, so that you could come back to the present moment, or even some moment from your past? And are you living life in such a way that you would want to relive it? Or are you one of those people that Schopenhauer said would not wish to relive their lives?

I made my decision. I wanted to live a life I would want to repeat. I wanted to live such a life that the very thought of reliving it brought me joy. I wanted moments that I would want to repeat forever into eternity. I could not imagine working in a molecular biology lab forever into eternity. Lab work bored me, and the thought of being bored forever was much too great a weight. But I was doing something that I could imagine doing over and over, for all of eternity. I was writing. I loved writing – the very process of writing, the creation of characters and the weaving of stories, developing pictures and ideas in words. And when I finished my first novel manuscript, it brought me such joy and clarity as to what it was I should be doing with my life that there was little question as to what I should be doing with the rest of my life. I should be writing. I have loved reading from a very young age – whether it be science or literature. I had loved nature so much, science seemed an obvious choice. But now it became clear that I love the word even more. I loved reading fiction, reading philosophy, reading everything. I still loved reading about molecular biology, but that was all. I had been told that I was good at explaining complex ideas in simple ways – and I brought that to my writing. I was taking creative writing classes to help me with my fiction, and I was applying to graduate schools in creative writing so further help me with my fiction. And I had, in one of my undergraduate short story writing classes written a short story that I was immensely proud of. It was a story I knew was the best thing I had ever written, and, as I continued to write, it became clear that it was a benchmark I would need to work on reaching again. That story was one of those moments of joy – it was a moment of creation I wanted to relive. And each new short story was an attempt to repeat what I had experienced in creating that story. It did not matter that it was several years before I could write another story that good. And it did not matter if I ever wrote another one that good. I had done it once, and that moment made it worth repeating my life. It was at that moment that I regretted nothing in my life – nothing that had ever happened to me, good and bad, nothing that I had ever done, thought, or had not done. Everything was affirmed in that one moment of creation.
* * * * *
To say that I do not regret anything in my life, anything that ever happened to me, is not to say that I live my life without learning from it. To refuse to regret anything from one’s life is different from recognizing that one has made poor decisions in the past that one can then learn from, and not repeat in the future. What this does prevent one from doing is worrying over something that happened in the past. There are no more "I wish I’d never done that." Instead, there is "Well, I did it, and I have seen the repercussions from it, and I don’t want to do that again in the future." The first one is negative, the second one is positive. The first one denies the value of the experience. The second one affirms the value of the experience – and properly treats it as a learning experience.

Yet, when I have told people that I regret nothing from my life, I have gotten looks of terror. I do not exaggerate. People have looked at me as if I were some terrible, terrifying monster. How could you not have any regrets? Do you not have a conscience? Of course I have a conscience. This is not an issue of conscience. This is an issue of what attitude one has toward one’s life – which is to say that it is an issue of what attitude one has toward life. Do you affirm or deny life? Your life? Do you live a life of "quiet desperation" as Thoreau would have it? Or do you live a life of quiet joy? I choose joy over desperation. When faced with such a person, how would you expect them to react? I am no monster, but having once been the person they now are, I can understand why they may misunderstand and think that someone who lives a life with no regrets could be a monster. People are filled with awe at both the awesome and the awful. I claim to be neither, but I do understand how someone who does not know me can think of me as being potentially awful for living a life of no regrets.
* * * * *
There is a correlation to having no personal regrets, and that is not regretting another person’s past. My decision to drop out of graduate school in molecular biology to pursue graduate programs in English and in Arts and Humanities is one of the best decisions I made in my entire life. My decision to major in recombinant gene technology and minor in chemistry and do two years of graduate classes in molecular biology is equally important and positive. I could not have done any of the things I have done, thought the things I have thought, done the scholarship I have done, or written the stories or poems I have written if it were not for the education I have received in biology and chemistry. Every decision I have made in regards to my education have been good decisions, they have been exactly what I needed to make me who I have become. How do I know this? Because I did have this education, and I have become the person I have become. Had I made any change – any change – I would not now be the person I am right now. And I would not want that. However, my own father cannot see this.

I have had several discussions with my father about this issue. He has asked me if I regretted not getting my Master’s in molecular biology. And I have told him that I do not. He has claimed that I wasted my time doing biology when I could have been concentrating on what I am now doing. Which is ridiculous on the face of it. I could not have decided to go into the arts and humanities until the crisis that led me to start writing as much as I was. Further, the first novel manuscript was based on an idea I developed in molecular biology – so I would not have even started, let alone finished (and, later, destroyed) the manuscript that put me on the path to writing fiction in the first place. Everything had to happen exactly as it happened in order for me to be in the exact place I am at the present time. For him to say that I should have done something different is the same as him saying that he wishes that I was a different person than I am. To object to someone doing something in the past is to object to who that person is. Remember that the next time you say that someone should have done this or that different. You are objecting to that person being who they are. What we should do instead is discuss past episodes as learning experiences. We should only criticize those we love for not learning from their past mistakes (though in my case, I reject the idea that what I did was even a mistake). If that person has clearly learned from what they did, then there should be no criticism. In my case, it would be just to criticize my dropping out of graduate school the first time if I repeated that pattern in getting my MA in English, or if it seemed as though I were going to not finish my dissertation for my PhD. It is ridiculous to criticize someone for dropping out of graduate school seven years before when they have 323 pages of a dissertation sitting on a dresser in the house. The product is there to look at. How can you wonder if what is clearly almost done will get finished? And there are several more reasons why this is a ridiculous complaint, aside from my having already finished a Master’s thesis before: I am a completely different person now than I was seven years ago, and I am doing a completely different kind of project for my dissertation, in a completely different field of study. In other words, there is almost nothing similar to compare.

What my father cannot seem to understand is that I am a completely different person now than I was when I dropped out of a graduate program in molecular biology, and he cannot understand the fact that I do not regret any of the decisions that I made, and that I would make those same exact decisions over again if I could somehow go back in time and change them. Of course, to say that I have no regrets and that I would not go back in time to change anything is to say exactly the same thing.
* * * * *
In aphorism 341 of The Joyful Wisdom (also known as The Gay Science), Nietzsche gives us in the demon’s offer a chance to affirm life as such through affirming our lives in particular. In other words, he asks us how we would react if a demon should offer us eternal recurrence. How would you respond? Would you be crushed by the idea? Would you curse the demon? Or has there ever been something in your life so wonderful that you would want to repeat your life in every detail so you could relive that moment – and become the person you are at the moment of the offering – over and over again? For those who would reject the offer – thus accepting Schopenhauer’s view that no rational person would wish to relive their lives over exactly as it was (World as Will and Representation, 324) – Nietzsche has nothing more to say. But for those who would accept it, Nietzsche offers, "Incipit tragoedia" and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the further development of the tragic, recursive geometry of time introduced in the demon’s offer – an offer which Oedipus accepted at the end of "Oedipus tyrannus," providing the model for the tragic view of time. Only those who can say "Yes" to the offer are ready to hear what is to follow – Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera shows the consequences of this Schopenhauerean rejection, with the fictional example of Mirek (the individual) and the nonfiction example of communist Czechoslovakia (the country/society/culture) of attempting to erase their pasts – the most active rejection of Nietzsche’s demon’s offer one can undertake. Mirek thought he could control his destiny by erasing (forgetting) his past – just as the Communists thought they could do the same for the destiny of Communism. He wanted to "destroy his own hated youth" just as the people of Bohemia "rebelled against their own youth" (18), resulting in Prague Spring, which, as a "bad memory" is not even remembered, having been "carefully erased from the country’s memory" (19).

By attempting to erase people "from the country’s memory," the Communists showed us how dangerous is the desire to forge, to erase our memory and our youth. But this is only a natural response, as Schopenhauer recognized, when he said "perhaps at the end of his life, no man, if he be sincere and at the same time in possession of his faculties, will ever wish to go through it again," since "everything excellent or admirable is always only an exception," and "as regards the life of the individual, every life-history is a history of suffering, for, as a rule, every life is a continual series of mishaps great and small" (WWPI, 324). But, natural as this response may be, we can see that it is also a tragic response, resulting in people being imprisoned or killed and erased from photographs and history books. Those who would refuse to go through it again are saying No to their lives – and if they are in power, this No-saying can turn deadly.

Unless we affirm our lives, whether that be our own individual lives, or the life (history) of a nation or a people, the consequences can be tragic. This is, in one sense, ironic, considering that Oedipus’ life is precisely terrible and, therefore, tragic, because Oedipus, in the end, would have accepted the demon’s offer, knowing full well what that would entail. This is what makes Oedipus both wonderful and terrible, truly awe-ful. But at the same time, this is what makes one’s life beautiful, this affirmation, as it now gains a certain depth – of time. Since it is unlikely one is going to actually encounter such a demon, one can take this idea metaphorically, and chose memory over forgetting. Of course, this too is tragic, though perhaps a considerably less bloody tragedy, at least for people other than oneself, as we see with Hölderlin’s idea of tragedy being connected to memory, with memory’s failure over time. As Dennis Schmidt points out in On Germans and Other Greeks, in discussing Hölderlin’s novel Hyperion for Hölderlin, "A separation in time cannot be overcome . . . since such a separation is the province only of the past. . . . Separation in time can only be suffered" (131).

The problem with forgetting is that it is "absolute injustice and absolute solace at the same time" (Kundera, The Art of the Novel, 130) – and often the former is used in hopes it will lead to the latter. But both of these point to precisely why forgetting is tragic – it is an attempt by a finite creature to attain infinity (the absolute). In attempting to forget, we attempt to overstep our bounds, as defined by physis (we are a remembering being, and as such, we overstep out bounds by trying to make ourselves forget – we try to make ourselves other than human). The attempt to deny the past is the attempt to deny tragedy. And it is the attempt to deny ourselves.
* * * * *
Heraclitus says that "to God all things are beautiful and good and just, though men suppose that some are just and others unjust." Do you understand what this means? The affirmation of your life also means the affirmation of all of life – of everything that ever happened in the world. If your life as it is could not be where it now is without everything that happened in it, then this is equally true of everything in the world – even of the universe. Think about it: everything had to have happened exactly as it did in the world in order for you to have even been born. Thus, to affirm your own existence, you have to – to take an extreme example – affirm the existence of Hitler and the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust. That does not mean you have to like, approve, or promote such behavior – but it does mean you have to recognize that the world as a whole – all things – are beautiful and good and just. If you have ever had a great moment you would want to experience once more, then you have affirmed the existence of Hitler. And rather than denying what he did, or pretending that what he did was another generation’s fault or problem, we have to come to terms with what happened, and learn from it, and learn how to avoid something like it happening again. We have to also come to recognize all the good that came out of what happened. Good? you ask? If you cannot see the good, you are refusing to look hard enough – and you are negating your very existence, and the beauty of life itself. In other words, we have to do something eminently Christian: we have to forgive Hitler. That’s right, we have to forgive him. For only in forgiving him can we heal ourselves. Only in forgiving him can we affirm our lives, our existence, and life itself.
* * * * *
In an odd sort of way, many will find it easier to forgive Hitler than to forgive those closest to them – those we have to forgive the most. Our lives are full of resentment toward others – and the easier our lives have been, it seems the more resentment we build up against others. Especially those closest to us. People just barely surviving do not have the luxury of resentment -- they actually have to live physically. Resentment is a luxury. It comes from idleness and boredom. And there is nothing more destructive to ourselves than resentment. With it we separate ourselves from others, especially those closest to us, and barricade ourselves not just from them, but from others. We sever social bonds, and in severing such bonds, we sever ourselves from much happiness. We are a social species, and our bonds of family and friends are so very important to us for us to live healthy lives. Resentment cuts those bonds. Resentment only makes us bleed – it does little if any harm to those we resent. Resentment is the knife we use to cut ourselves, to watch ourselves bleed. It fogs our sight as the blood runs in our eyes. We stumble and fall, and then blame those we resent.

Resentment is the world’s greatest poison. A slow poison eating away at our lives, at our selves, killing us slowly. Do you think that your slow dying will harm those you resent? Why hurt yourself to harm others? But if you are not big enough to avoid resentment, you are not big enough to refuse to harm others, you are certainly not big enough to forgive. And thus your life is poisoned, and the lives of everyone around you is poisoned. Almost every sin against others comes directly from the sin of resentment. Hatred, including self-hatred, and all the self-destructive things that come with it, and racism, theft, lying, true sadism, true masochism – all of these have their sources in resentment. Let go of your resentment – affirm life – these are the same things, the same things that will make life not just worth living, but a true joy.

On Citizenship

What I am going to propose will undoubtedly be objected to on the basis that it is elitist, exclusionist, and possibly even racist. Well, it is certainly the first two, by my own admission. The fact that something is elitist and exclusionist, and even creating of a new kind of hierarchy, is no argument against something. In fact, for all too long, there have been arguments for too many things on this basis, particularly in the arts, that are in fact elitist. Picasso is not appreciated by the vast majority of people in the world, but only by those properly educated to understand him and appreciate what he did. That makes Picasso an elitist artist – which is no argument either for or against his work.

But this is not an essay on art, but on citizenship, on what citizenship is and should be. Presently, we have an egalitarian view of citizenship – all you have to be is born in the United States, and you are automatically a citizen, with all the freedoms our country recognizes and privileges it bestows. Everyone is automatically a citizen – and as a result, we have a country full of very bad citizens. We do not appreciate those things which we do not earn. An artist who gives his art away will soon discover that his art is not appreciated in the least – the artist who sells his art finds that those who are willing to pay for it appreciate it greatly, and display it proudly and prominently. The same is true of citizenship. Since we get it without earning it, we do not appreciate what we have. The percentage of people who vote – one of the few duties of being a citizen of the United States, a duty which is entirely voluntary – drops each year. It is argued that the reason is due to the lack of worthy men and women to vote for. But rather, it is due to the fact that no one takes seriously something that is not appreciated, something you are born into – the same way a person born into wealth is less likely to appreciate his riches than is someone who earn that wealth during their lifetime, through hard work.

When someone immigrates to the United States, they have to live here for a while, and then take a citizenship test to become a citizen. To pass this test, they have to prove fluency in the language, and a knowledge of both our political system, and our history. But if they were born in this country, they would not have to know any of these things to become a citizen. Some may make the egalitarian argument that we should thus eliminate this requirement for naturalization – but this would be a terrible idea. People should know the language, political system, and history of the country they are a citizen of. That being the case, we should rather require that all residents of the United States pass a citizenship test in order to become a full citizen.
Naturally, this requirement should only be implemented for those who are getting ready to become full citizens: eighteen year olds, who are now of the age to vote. I pick this age precisely because it is the age at which we are first able to vote. We can either allow seniors in high school to take their citizenship test when they turn eighteen, or have them take it toward the end of their senior years, making them eligible, if they pass, to vote in the Fall election, if it is an election year. By passing the citizenship test, they will earn the right to vote, having proven that they know enough about our history and political structures to make educated, intelligent choices. Further, as citizens, they will also have certain duties. But before we discuss those, we need to differentiate between a citizen and a resident, since those who either choose not to take the test, or happen to fail the test, will only remain a resident of the United States, and will not be a citizen.

Under such a system, the resident would not have the right to vote, though they would still have to pay taxes, since they would necessarily be receiving many of the services of the country, such as roads and schools. It is only logical that all residents should be able to receive public education, since all students younger than eighteen are by definition only residents, and cannot be citizens. However, there would be certain services that would not be available to residents, as they would be privileges earned by being a citizen – such things as welfare and food stamps, which are by definition not available to everyone equally anyway (those who make too much money can get neither service). Residents would of course be able to receive any service they pay for, and receive the kinds of government services that are available to everyone equally, such as miliary protection, police protection, and fire department services. However, only citizens could fill these jobs, since only citizens could hold civic jobs.

One of the benefits of only being a resident, however, is that you would not have to fulfill your civic duties as a citizen. With this model of citizenship, the citizen would have to volunteer two years to the state, whether it be in the miliary or what would essentially be a militarized peace corps, in order to fulfill a requirement of the citizen serving his country for a year overseas. There would be a year’s training, followed by a year serving the country in either a miliary or service capacity overseas. The reason for this is that a good citizen should have a broader awareness and understanding of the world, which can only be achieved through experiencing the world in person. Thus, the citizen understand both his own place, and the place of his country, in the world. The citizen would also then be able to see what does, and what does not, work in other countries – and thus be able to take those lessons back to his home country. After this, the citizen would then be required to serve his country for a year at home through policing, the fire department, or social work, to help his fellow citizens and residents. Having fulfilled that civic duty, he would then be free to pursue his own interests, which may include work, college, or even civic careers, such as the military, police work, etc. For fulfilling the duties of the citizen, the citizen would also have the privileges of the citizen, in being able to vote, run for office, or even receive public benefits, should they run into hard times. Things such as unemployment benefits could be done separately, in conjunction with businesses, to help the temporarily unemployed resident.

But what about people who choose not to become a citizen when they are eighteen, but then change their minds when they are, say, seventy? Such a person should still have to fulfill the duties of being a citizen, even if it is in a reduced capacity. The laws should reflect the fact that people of different ages will become citizens, and the requirements should be different for people of different ages and with differing abilities. But this does not change the general idea, that each of these groups of people should nonetheless fulfill some sort of civic duty in order to gain the privileges of citizenship. Retired people can work at soup kitchens.

I am certain there are those who would object that this sounds like the kinds of tests that kept African-Americans from voting in the South prior to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The first thing I would note is that this is a completely different time and culture, with completely different attitudes. If we cannot acknowledge that there has been a great deal of change since then, then there is nothing we can discuss rationally, anyway. But more, this is designed to ensure that our schools teach our children how to be good citizens, no matter what those students’ race, creed, or color. And this would be a federal program, since it would allow people to become citizens of the United States, and not of individual states. Thus, the federal government would ensure that the tests are administered freely and fairly. And more, it would allow minority groups to be truly included, as anyone who passed the citizenship test would be a citizen, no matter their race, creed, color, religion, etc. A citizen would have pride of place, they would be the kind of people who have decided that they want to make a civic difference. And they would have earned their place. They would not have been born into it – and thus would not be an aristocracy – but rather, having earned it, they would be part of a meritocracy. Having earned their citizenship, they will have earned the right to complain – but also, they will have taken on the duty to enact change themselves. It will be their civic duty to do so.

The True State of the Union

The state of the Union is mediocre at best. We have a Republican government that has grown the federal government by over 10% each year Bush has been in office. Big Government Republicans? Apparently. Give me President Clinton with two Republican Houses of Congress any day, with their 3% growth – which is at least as low as the rate of inflation. It is apparently too much to ask that there be true cuts, rather than mere cuts in the rate of growth.
Health care is only a problem because the Federal government keeps getting more and more involved in it. And as for those who do not have health insurance? Well, the truth is, most of us who do not have health insurance are in fact very young and very healthy, and that is why we don’t have it. The poorest are all covered by the Federal government.

Education is in truly pathetic condition. My fiancee is a pre-K teacher, and she has her 4 year olds counting up to 100, knowing all their letters and sounds (yes, sounds – even though they are discouraged from using phonics, which is the ONLY way students learn how to read), and some are even reading. In fact, she has them so advanced, the kindergarten teachers are complaining that they won’t have anything to teach them. Rather than using phonics to teach children how to read, they are using the completely useless look-say method, which requires that students memorize thousands of words without recognizing any connections among them. Students are pushed to read fast, but these same students don’t understand a thing they read. Rather than having students read and re-read until they understand, there is now a ridiculous tally method where students count up words and use the number of words to determine what a story is about or what its theme is. Mere numbers of words does not tell one anything about meaning or content, as research I have done on fictional texts shows. If we were to do a tally, we would say that Jude the Obscure is about church rather than friendship. Further, 3rd grade students don’t even know what a noun or a verb is, and thus do not know what makes up a complete sentence. And I could go on and on...

Basically, the state of the Union is pathetic when it comes to foundations. We are undermining our students left and right, using tests to determine how many prison cells to make for future inmates rather than to educate. We do not teach concepts, we discourage students from math and science, we teach our children to hate poetry, literature, and the arts. There is a crumbling of philosophical foundations throughout our country. For many, it is too late once they get to college – for those who get to college. If they are fortunate enough to have professors who challenge them and provide those foundations.

It is time for a revolution. Tinkering around the edges won’t do it. We don’t need educational reform, we need educational revolution (first, abolish "Education" as a major in college). We don’t need health care reform, we need health care revolution. We don’t need cuts in the increase in spending, we need radical, revolutionary reductions to remove the scourge of the federal government from our lives. Government is not reason, it is force (to paraphrase George Washington), and that is all we can ever expect from it. That is why (to paraphrase Thoreau), we need a government that does not govern at all. And each of us need to discover philosophy and art, truth and beauty. That is what is needed first for there to be true transformation. It is time for a revolution.

Time and Space, Rhyme and Place

I wander in search of a time after time,
Refusing to abort this dangerous climb
Into a space of great complexity --
The towers rise above this great city.
Can a place have a spirit? What about me?
Mine's just more complex than a towering tree.
Spirit arises with great density
Of space and of time. What propensity
For love of music's attracting chime
Has led me to unfolding out this new rhyme?

How to Get Something (in Fact, an Entire Universe) From Nothing

S. Kauffman gives us a set of equations that help us see the relationship between the number of types of parts of a system and the number of rules (strange attractors) generated by those parts, as well as the number of possible expressions a system can generate from those rules. Using these simple equations, we can get the level of complexity we find in the universe, starting from perfect symmetry (nothing).

Kauffman shows that for any system with a certain number of components (N), that system will have 2^(n/2) (or, 2 raised to the n/2 power) possible states within the system, but only N/e number of cycles, or possible basins of attraction, where e is the inverse natural logarithm (e=2.718281828449...)

Thus a system containing 200 elements would have only about 74 alternative asymptotic patterns of behavior. More strikingly, a system containing 10,000 elements and chaotic attractors with median lengths on the order of 25000 would harbor only about 3700 alternative attractors. This is already an interesting intimation of order even in extremely complex disordered systems (S. Kauffman, 194).

Kauffman then shows that such systems are even more organized, since for a complex system:
The expected median state cycle length is about pN. That is, the number of states on an attractor scales as the square root of the number of elements. A Boolean network with 10,000 elements which was utterly random within the constraint that each element is regulated by only two elements would therefore have a state space of 210,000 = 103000 but would settle down and cycle recurrently among a mere p10,000 = 100 states. . . . A system of 10,000 elements which localizes its dynamical behavior to 100 states has restricted itself to 10-2998 parts of its entire state space. Here is spontaneous order indeed. . . . The number of state cycle attractors is also about pN. Therefore, a random Boolean network with 10,000 elements would be expected to have on the order of 100 alternative attractors. A system with 100,000 elements, comparable to the human genome, would have about 317 alternative asymptotic attractors (201).

This is about how many kinds of cells one finds in the human body. More importantly, systems with very large numbers of elements can and do have a very small number of ways of organizing themselves, though the number of ways of expressing those rules may be astronomical. For a system with N=200, the median cycle length, or possible states per system, is 2100 –1030, "At a microsecond per state transition, it would require about a billion times the age of the universe to traverse the attractor" (Kauffman, 194). And that is for a tiny system with only 200 elements. Yet the actual different ways such a system would be expressed would be only 47. There would be 47 general forms, with 1030 specific forms. These strange attractors (though not the specific numbers I have used as examples, of course) are the different species of animals the "zoological system" can create; the median cycle length is the number of particular individuals that could be generated. But let us now use these equations as promised. If I am correct in identifying the universe and everything in the universe as complex fractal systems of these sorts, then Kauffman’s equations should be able to give us the complexity found in the universe, starting with nothing.

With:
N = dimensions = elements of a system
2^(N/2) = median cycle length (MCL) = possible states per system
N/e = number of attractors
N^(1/2) = median state cycle (MSC) = local dynamic behavior

And, for each new emergent system, constituting all the elements of the previous system:
Nnext = MCL + number of attractors, as MCL and attractors constitute the combination of elements, both the physical components and the rules that made that system.

For systems that do not use all of the elements from a previous system, such as biology, which only uses certain kinds of chemicals (thought admittedly at least trace amount of most), and emergent human intelligence, which does not use all organisms, but only uses its own cells (and not all of them; though, like all organisms, it needs a full body in which to function, and the body needs a full ecosystem in which to live), N would necessarily be smaller than suggested above. Nnext would work starting from the big bang, up through the creation of strings, while N would have to be derived in other ways for life, human intelligence, and the arts and humanities. But let us see if we can get to either 10 or 11 dimensional strings from N = 0, at the big bang.

For N = 0,
MCL = 2^(0/2) = 1 = singularity of the big bang (so far so good)
# attractors = 0/e = 0

N= 1
MCL = 2^(1/2) = p2 =1.41
# attractors = 1/e =0.37 (a fraction, which we would expect in a fractal)
MSC = 1^(1/2) = 1

N = MCL + # attractors = 1.4 + 0.37 = 1.78
MCL = 2^(1.77/2) =1.85
# attractors = 1.78/e =0.65
MSC = 1.77^(1/2) =1.3

N = 1.85 + 0.65 =2.50
MCL = 2^(2.5/2) =2.38
# attractors = 2.5/e =0.92
MSC = 2.5^(1/2) =1.58

N =3.30
MCL = 2^(3.3/2) = 3.14
# attractors = 3.3/e =1.21
MSC = 3.3^(1/2) =1.82

N =4.35
MCL = 2^(4.35/2) = 4.52
# attractors = 4.35/e –1.61
MSC = 4.35^(1/2) =2.09

N =6.12 = 4-D space, time
MCL = 2^(6.12/2) =8.34
# attractors = 6/e =2.25
MSC = 6^(1/2) = 2.47


N =10.59 = fractal dimensions 10 and 11 dimensions for quantum strings
MCL = 2^10.59/2 =39.26 =number of potential string combinations (strange quarks, etc.)
# attractors = 10/e =3.9 =Bosons, or forces (graviton, gluon, photon, bosons)
MSC = 10^1/2 =3.16

By this point, not all possible states are realized – they become increasingly unstable at increasing distance from the stabilizing attractors. So we should expect, as we in fact find, that only some of the MCL of the last set of equations are stable -- electrons, electron neurtrinos, up and down quarks, gravitons, photons (electromagnetism), gluons (strong nuclear force), and the bosons (weak nuclear force), versus the unstable muon, muon neutrino, tau, tau neutrino, and charm, strange, top, and bottom quarks. Using only these simple equations, we get emergence all the way to strings having between ten and eleven dimensions. We can reconcile the 10-D and the 11-D theories, since these calculations give strings with fractal dimensions – which we would expect in a fractal universe. Theories that see dimensions as whole numbers would naturally give either ten or eleven dimensions. This latter aspect of strings created a great deal of trouble. But those dimensions arise naturally from these calculations, once one sees a dimension as being an interactive element of a system. A system with 100 different elements is a system with 100 dimensions. This suggests that one could see quantum strings as systems containing and creating around 43.5 elements – with these elements being such things as length, width, height, time, bosons, fermions, and various constants. And one might in fact include constants such as Planck’s constant (h=6.6 x 10-34 joule second = a constant action, making it a good candidate) and perhaps pi, since in quantum physics h-cross = h/2B. But these are details for the quantum physicists.

In Time, Conflict, and Human Values, J.T. Fraser proposes that there have been 10^1000 organisms through the history of life on earth (he also suggests we would get a complexity of 10 at the quantum level, which we have shown to be the case in the above calculations). This would mean the MCL for biology would be (to use these very rough numbers) 10^1000 = 2^3000. N =6000, which would be about the number of kinds of generic genes, giving rise to 6000/e patterns of behavior, or over 2000 different kinds of organism, which would itself be contained within MSC > 6000^(1/2) =80 different types. Naturally, at this point, we are being highly approximate. However, if we further use Fraser’s numbers, where the MCL for humans = 10^10,000, for the number of possible brain states, we get N = 60,000, # of strange attractors = 2200, which would include all the elements that constitute human behavior, including the number of emotions, universals of human behavior, etc., and MSC = 250, which appears to be approximately the number of human cultural universals.

Enemies

Recently I went to a talk at the Dallas Philosopher's Forum, and the speaker spoke about enemies -- why we make them, and why we keep them. I also recently finished reading Lee Harris' "Civilization and Its Enemies," which talks about the existence of enemies, and the consequences for a society that denies their existence (in short: they don't last long). The speaker at the DPF was a psychologist, and claimed that making enemies was learned, and had no biological context at all. This both ignores the fact that all social animals treat members of the same species, but different groups, as enemies, as well as ignores the fact that if the idea of having enemies is merely learned, then it begs the question of how such an idea could have come about in the first place. The only explanation could be that it just came out of nothing at all, or perhaps that it comes about when people got together into groups. Of course, this accepts the completely discredited anthropological theories of Rousseau -- but his ideas are unfortunately still believed by most liberals, either overtly or implicitly.

Enemies came about when the first creature defended its territory against another. This goes as far back at least to the lobe-finned fish, from which evolved all the land vertebrates -- amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Modern-day male gobies are brightly colored in order to advertise to other gobies that they are healthy, in order to avoid a fight with other male gobies. But when you have two equally-mathced gobies, you will get a fight. But the bright colors -- and the dances of the gobies -- are much more often used in a ritualistic manner, to avoid violence. This prevents the gobies from getting hurt, while maintaining their territories. And when used with females, it allows the females access to the males so that breeding can occur. Thus, this ritual both avoids violence, and allows for breeding. It is no coincidence that the colors and the dances of the gobies are beautiful.

What we can learn from this is that enemies came first, and then the ability to deflect enemies through ritual came later. It also shows that the concept of an enemy has its origins in or most ancient of ancestors. But the ability to avoid violence among enemies also evolved only shortly after. Only when we acknowledge these facts will we be able to do something about the problem.

The ancient Greeks understood that ritual was needed in order to create great cities and cultures. How else can you get over 100,000 people to live together, except you create some sorts of bonds among them beyond those of the family? Thus, the Greeks creates athletics -- competition -- in order to maintain order. By deflecting the need to have an enemy onto a ritual scapegoat -- an opposing player or team from the one you are rooting for -- you both fulfill our need to have an enemy, while deflecting that need into something less destructive, and in fact downright productive. The Greeks too invented the Olympics, maintaining peaceful competition among the city-states.

Here in the United States, sports manages to do the same thing. If you live in Dallas, you can support the Dallas sports teams. Thus, if Dallas plays, say, Pittsburg, in football, then the Dallas fan can ritualistically hate Pittsburg, the enemy. But when the game is over, the hatred is over too. The hatred occured in a safe play space, and is appropriate only within that play-space of the watching of the game. Before the game, or when the game is over, nobody from Dallas is hating Pittsburg, or fighting with people who are. Thus, a country of almost 300 million people is able to live together, cooperating and competing with each other. Now, this is still not a perfect system -- it works very well in the U.S., but it is not uncommon for English soccer fans as a game to yell to German soccer fans that it was they, the British, who won the war. And soccer fans are infamous for getting into fights with fans of the opposing team. This is a general breakdown of the ritual system, and needs to be repaired to make sure it continues to perform its proper function. But still, World Cup Soccer and the Olympics have helped to maintain a certain level of peace among nations. We may find that hard to believe, with what has happened in the West in the 20th Century, and even now with the War on Terror, but the fact of the matter is that as a percentage of deaths in the West by war, the West is a far, far less violent place than any tribal situation -- tribes in South America and New Guinea typically lose 40-60% of their young men a year to war. The West only lost 2% of the same population throughout the 20th century. This is in no small part due to the civilizing effects of athletics.

Katrina's Aftermath

I wrote the following on Wednesday, Sept. 7, but only publish it now:

One of the blessings of living in Dallas was that I got to volunteer to help those residents of New Orleans who have been brought to this city. I went to the Dallas Convention Center, and was directed quickly to where I needed to volunteer -- in this case, with the Salvation Army. Once I checked in, I was brought to where everyone was, so I could go to where the Salvation Army was getting ready to serve lunch.

It was a sea of people I walked through. The television is a liar -- it cannot show what it is really like. I am not typically an overly emotional person, but I fought back welling tears at seeing everyone there. What I felt was love -- the kind the ancient Greeks called "agape" -- and sympathy, another Greek word, that means "to suffer with." What I did not feel was partisan. What I did feel was outrage at the partisans. I was angry at those who complained that the President was on vacation -- as though he vacationed like everyone else, and didn't continue doing the work of the President, as any President ever does when he is on "vacation." I was angry at the incompetence of the director of FEMA -- appointing him is something we should justly blame Bush for. I was angry at the deep corruption of Louisiana politics and politicians, a system and people who created this situation because they are more interested in lining their pockets than in serving the people. This is a group of people who rob from the poor to feed the rich -- themselves. And in Louisiana, it's not a Democrat or a Republican thing -- they are all corrupt. And it is they who should have forced the evacuation of New Orleans. But they didn't. And it is they who had to request the aid of FEMA. But they didn't. And it was FEMA who had to request the help of the U.S. military. But they didn't. Everyone is trying to blame everyone else, when in fact every single one of them should be ashamed of their actions, and lack of actions.

I am angry too with the likes of Kanye West, who has chosen to turn a terrible situation into a platform for himself. When he should have been trying to help people, he chose to seize the situation and make the issue all about him. He did this under the guise of attacking the federal government for being "racist" -- but it is Kanye West who is guilty of racializing things. To racialize is to "To impose a racial character or context on," or to "perceive or experience in racial terms." This was a human calamity, and Kanye West chose to make it a racial one. But when I went to the Dallas Convention Center, I did not see races there -- I saw humans there. If racists are those who insist on seeing everything in racial terms, then Kanye West, and everyone else who echoes his sentiments, are avowedly racist. He should get out of his privileged position and actually try to help people -- when you see these people, if you are a human being at all, and not a racializer, then you will not see a sea of race, but a sea of people. A sea of people who, like people everywhere, need help in times of crisis.

All I did today was stand there and make sure everyone could find the exit to area where they were getting their lunch, but I was blessed nonetheless just because I was there. I cannot tell you how many times I was thanked and God-blessed. And I felt slightly ashamed. I had done nothing. I was standing there, showing these people the exit, and all so many wanted to do was thank me. The people there were so grateful, that when they asked if there was any mustard for the sandwiches, and I told them, no, the people who had brought the sandwiches had forgotten to bring the mustard, the people who had asked all apologized for even asking. And my heart broke all over again. Everyone who is trying to turn this to their political advantage should be terribly, terribly ashamed of themselves.

Happiness in Slavery

Slavery should be reintroduced in America. Perhaps the whole world. Now before you jump to conclusions, please be patient and hear me out. I am certain many will agree with me when I finish. Many already do.

The institution of slavery has been prevalent through most of human history. From that perspective, opposition to slavery is unnatural. Alexis de Tocqueville recognized in Democracy in America, "the most profound and capacious minds of Rome and Greece were never able to reach the idea, at once so general and so simple, of the common likeness of men and of the common birthright of each to freedom; they tried to prove that slavery was in the order of nature and that it would always exist. Nay, more, everything shows that those of the ancients who had been slaves before they became free, many of whom have left us excellent writings, themselves regarded servitude in no other light." So the ancient Greeks and Romans recognized, both freemen and slaves alike, that slavery was natural and should not be questioned. But we have arrogantly questioned it and foolishly disposed of it, despite the wisdom of the ancients. After all, who are we to question the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose ideas have been around much longer than the foolish notion that all men should be free? Do modern ideas hold up to such ancient wisdom? I think not. So let us do away with this silly notion that slavery is unnatural. Our ancient forefathers believed slavery was natural and so should we. The question then arrises as to why we ever got rid of such a wonderful system.

One reason we got rid of slavery is it did not work very well in the past. Ludwig von Mises claimed in Human Action that "Servile labor disappeared because it could not stand the competition of free labor; its unprofitability sealed its doom in the market economy." He then says slavery survived in the American South only because of laws restricting free labor. I would disagree. Obviously such a wonderful system is perfectly capable of surviving, regardless of the laws. It seems to me there are other reasons why slavery did not work. For one, slavery was obviously not tried by the right people. If slavery is to work, it must be carried out by the right people. These people clearly were not the American Southerners, who became too lazy. Nor apparently were the ancient Greeks or Romans, as slavery did not survive much past them. If the right people were to try slavery and be the slave masters, then slavery would work spectacularly well despite the objections of people such as Mises.

Then there is the possibility that we were simply not ready for slavery when we tried it. I do not know if we are ready for it even now. One can only dream we will be in the future. The problems we had with slavery were with the philosophical ideology and psychological conditions of both slaves and slavemasters. This was especially prevalent among slaves in the American South, but less of a problem with Greek and Roman slaves. We could look to them for many reasons and examples of how slavery worked for the slaves. But perhaps we do not have to look as far back as ancient Greece and Rome; especially when all we have to do is look back to the mid-1700's for a philosophy perfect for slaves, perfect in making them better slaves; and not only better slaves but even enjoy their slavery.

Immanuel Kant's moral system is perfect for the slave of the future to adopt and for the future slavemaster to reinforce among his slaves. Kant says an action can only be considered moral if one has absolutely no desire to do it, but does it anyway out of a sense of duty. Not only this, but he must derive absolutely no benefit from it whatsoever, either material or spiritual, since the benefit would destroy any moral value of the action. What could be a better moral philosophy for slaves? What action would a slave want to do as a slave? None. Therefore his actions would be moral. And what would be better to ensure the slave does his work than because he has a moral duty to do so? And what benefit does a slave garnish from his actions as a slave? Why none, of course. So a slave’s actions would be the epitome of morality! Once we convince our slaves to believe this, they will be happy and dutiful slaves, since they would believe their slavery to be the height of morality. Not only this, but they would see any desire to be free as at best nonmoral, and so would not desire freedom. Kant's suggestion that the only standard of virtue is duty, and that to receive any reward for doing something would erase the morality of the action would further strengthen the philosophical binds of the slave, since one of the distinctions of slavery is that there are no rewards, only punishment. The suffering of the slave would be seen as the ideal state by the slave when he adopted this morality, creating the ideal philosophical and psychological conditions for slavery. The use of reason is so disparaged by the condition of slavery that any ounce of freedom would be such a heavier burden on the new slave that he would greatly prefer his slavery to any suggestion of freedom. This further strengthens the perception that slavery is moral, which is used to ensure their slavery. Since they disparage reason, this view that morality lies outside reason would again be most beneficial. The less they use reason, the more moral they are. Thus, slaves would see themselves in the most moral position in their slavery. They would love their slavery and would never try to escape it.

But slaves cannot exist without slavemasters. For that reason, we would next have to ensure our slavemasters too have the right philosophy and psychological conditions. They must be prepared to be slavemasters, and so should not consider their slaves to be on any equal footing whatsoever. They must not only consider themselves superior, but must be prepared to take care of all their slaves' needs. The slavemasters would be, after all, more able to take care of the slaves than the slaves would be to take care of themselves by the very fact that they are the masters. They would take what the slaves produced and distribute it properly, making sure none of their slaves were without needs. Thus the slavemaster must believe that it is he who is morally superior, while being capable of convincing his slaves that they are.

But how can we determine what a slave needs if we do not first know exactly what a slave is. A slave is someone who does not have a right to exist for his own sake. He exists only for the slavemaster, and his work and life must belong to the master exclusively. He exists only for his master, who may do with him as he wishes. The essential characteristic of slavery is the complete denial of the slave's property rights. All property must belong to the master, from the slave's clothes to the house he lives in. Thus, the right to property (to its use and disposal) is vested in the slavemaster alone. Since all the slave's property belongs to the master, the slave himself belongs to the master, as he properly should. Since nothing the slave produces belongs to him, but to the master, his very life belongs to the master. Since a slave's property rights are denied, the slave is of course turned into property himself.

The problem then arises as to who should be slaves. There are many problems inherent in making any one race a slave race, so we should again look to the Greeks and Romans for the best way to institute slavery. They made it a practice to enslave all races, and so could relate to their slaves better, since technically anybody could be a slave. This would mean we would likely have the same percentage of black, white, and Oriental slavemasters as there would be slaves. But where would we get the slaves? Who would want to become a slave? That is easy enough. There are millions of people worldwide who would consider a state of slavery better than their current conditions, especially those who could have whatever pressing debts they had accumulated eliminated, and so would elect to become slaves. As previously stated, though, once they become slaves, the masters would have to be careful to ensure they were properly indoctrinated with the right philosophy so they would not desire their freedom in the future.

The voluntary choice to enslavement would answer the arguments against slavery because many past slaves were made so by force. I am certainly against that. No, if a person elects to make himself a slave, he certainly has the right to do so. I also believe that once everyone begins to see how much better the slave's life is, more and more people will want to become slaves. We could even have entire slave states, with a single master or a small group of masters working together to reside over their slaves. In these larger groups, the slaves would be even happier than their free counterparts, since they would not only see their slavery as moral, but would be happy in the knowledge that his fellow man's slavery makes them all equals. What could be a fairer social system than to have most of the population as slaves, where they would all be equal in their servitude?

Slavery has even more advantages other than equality among the slaves. Slavery would also greatly order peoples' lives, making it easier for them to be happier. It is after all the unknowns in life that make this world an unhappy place to live in. Under slavery, everyone would know their place, what time to wake, to eat, to sleep, and even when to have sex. Ridiculous emotional relationships would be unnecessary, so much psychological suffering would be alleviated. The masters would decide who breeds with whom, making emotions unnecessary and useless. Everything would be perfectly organized. It would be beautiful.

I hope I have convinced you that slavery is the ideal social system of the future. While slavery has had an unsavory past, that is no reason to do away with it outright. Not when so many good things could come about through it. Once we realize the problems we had were simply because the wrong people had tried it and because we were not ready for slavery, we can move on to reintroducing slavery and making it the ideal system it promises to be. I am certain if my outline were followed, this ideal system could be realized. It's a wonderful system that has gotten a bad name because the wrong people did it in the past. Why don't we give this system another chance? If you do not like it, you may certainly feel free to not participate. But let the rest of us who believe in the beauty of such a system go forward into the bright light slavery's future holds for humanity. Once we have shown how wonderful a system slavery is, I am certain you too will want to join it for the greater good of humanity.

HIV Cure Proposal

Those searching for a cure for HIV should perhaps take a look a current methods of transferring products into target cells. This approach is ideal for HIV, due to the way it infects CD4+ T-cells. I am of course refering to the fact that the surface proteins imbedded in the envelope attach to the CD4 and cause the envelope to fuse with the cell. Even more interesting is the fact that an infected cell with envelope proteins imbedded in the cell membrane can attach themselves to the CD4 of uninfected cells, causing the two cells to fuse. It was this that caused me to think this feature could be utilized against HIV-infected cells.

It seems that it would be simple to construct phosopholipid vesicles in which CD4 is imbedded, creating a CD4 proteoliposome, which would make it so when it came into contact with HIV+ T-cells, the vessicle would fuse with it and dump its contents into the cell. This vesicle could be used to package a weak cytotoxin that would kill the cell, but not be strong enough to kill any cells it was not directly injected into, or perhaps a ribozyme could be constructed that would destroy the RNA or perhaps even remove a section of the HIV cDNA, thus removing the problem entirely without causing any DNA damage, considering the extreme specificity of ribozymes.

Either way, the CD4+ vesicles would be a good way of transporting and drugs directly into the infected T-cells. Realisitically this may or may not be able to act as a cure, but it would be able to at least extend the lives of HIV+ patients and likely improve their quality of life, considering the likelihood of reduced side effects by first packaging the drug and sending it directly to the infected cells.

In Defense of Madness

Insanity, I think, has been given a bad rap. There is little difference between insanity and genius; indeed many great men have danced on the line their entire heroic, productive lives. New ideas, new theories, art, science, beauty are all the realms of the insane! Their greatest proponents, producers, heroes have all been utterly mad! The common man considers all the new to be the products of insanity. How utterly boring is the common man, the normal life. Give me my madness! Forever new, forever creative! Push out of your bindings of commonness, or repressive normalcy! If to be me is to be mad, give me my madness. Normalcy is drudgery; commonness is boredom; the average man will never create a single poem, compose a single symphony, paint a single picture, develop a single creative thought. Art and creativity require insanity as clearly we artists, philosophers, and theoreticians must have in copious amounts. To go against the current must require a madness, as any average, normal person will tell you. `We disagree! We do not understand!' they yell. `Stop what you are doing! I am not ready to go where you lead!' The madman of his time has always dragged humanity kicking and screaming into the future, only to be regarded by that future as a man of genius and progress. The great German philosopher Nietzsche eventually went completely insane; Mozart was almost completely mad; Van Gogh, the great Dutch artist, cut his ear off and sent it to a woman he was in love with; Einstein bordered on the edge of insanity all his life. Each were the great men of their times. Each is held in high esteem today. Today's genius was yesterday's madman. Today's insanity is tomorrow's genius. But why wait? Take a look around at your madmen! Do not disregard their genius as insanity simply because you do not understand it! Is genius to be understood by humanity? By the average, dull human being? Embrace insanity! Embrace your insanity! Poetry and science, music and philosophy, all creativity is impossible without it! No one understands you? Let them! Can they possibly understand your genius, your madness? The average man cannot, dare not! understand. You say you feel lonely in your genius? It cannot be helped. The genius and the madman are the ultimate individuals. Mediocrity is the same among all men, but each genius is brilliant in his own way; each madman is insane unlike any other. Genius is not a curse, but a blessing! Embrace your genius, embrace your insanity! Make, do, create! Be the man you know you are! Let everyone declare you mad! Pride yourself in your madness! They declare you mad because they do not understand; they cannot understand. Revel in it! They may not follow today, but it matters not at all, as you do not need followers, you do not need their approval, to produce, to be the greatness that you are. Madness is only temporary; genius is timeless. Embrace the madness within you. Harness it. Use it. Do not waste it because people may not approve. Of course they won't approve! Mediocrity has never approved of genius. Ignore the cult of mediocrity and indulge yourself in the madness of your genius. Be the great individual only you can be! Do not fear your genius! Do not hold back! To prevent the expression of your own genius; to allow others to prevent its expression - is the only true form of madness!

An Introduction to Frederick Feirstein

For those who have a just complaint against inaccessible, unpoetic, navel-gazing, hyper-academic l’art-pour-l’art postmodern poetry, I give you the poetry of Frederick Feirstein. Just knowing he edited the anthology Expansive Poetry: Essays on the New Narrative and the New Formalism gives one an idea of what kind of poet Feirstein is. His poems tend to be longer, more narrative in structure, always formal, and occasionally rhyme. He is strongest in his rhyming poetry, where he is more apt to give us something unexpected in the poem. In each poem we get a little story about people, characters we can recognize and relate to. These characters, always interesting, are heroic – most often in defeat, or despite defeat. A fine example of this can be seen in the last four lines of his poem "The Hero":

His business ventures always somehow failed
Either from moral niceties or luck.
Yet he died a hero when his train derailed.
His body cushioned someone when it struck.

Feirstein is Jewish and from New York, and his poems are very much reflective of these facts – but for that very reason are resonant even for those who are neither. His poems are the very image of being universal in the particular. Consider the following lines from "The Street":

We’d be so bored, we’d learn to talk to ducks
—And they would say we were a pair of schmucks
To leave Manhattan Island as we know it.
Island? Thank God the concrete doesn’t show it.

Could anyone other than a Jewish New Yorker write lines such as these? And yet, who has not felt such boredom? Who has not felt that, if there were someone else out there who could talk to us about what we, as humans, do, that we would be called foolish? And who has not felt glad that reality is sometimes masked? The grayness of the world comes through in his images of New York, the endless images of concrete in his poems, the gray images, the constant concern with aging and death. There is a concern with dirt and cleanliness – images of washing and water abound. And no one in these poems are resigned to their fate. They are always on the move, legs are always moving. The city, for Feirstein, indeed never sleeps. But this is not a city of unknown and unknowable people. This is a city of individual characters, who love and hate, give birth to and raise children, who have parents themselves who are aging and dying. These are not soulless New Yorkers – these are New Yorkers who go to Temple or Church, who seek the infinite in the quite finite lives they live. His city imagery, the choices he makes, his ability to see the city as he does in "Mark Stern Wakes Up":

My eye is like a child’s; the smog is pot.
Shining cratefuls of plum, peach, apricot
Are flung out of the fruit man’s tiny store.
Behind the supermarket glass next door:
Landslides of grapefruit, orange, tangerine,
Persimmon, boysenberry, nectarine.
The florist tilts his giant crayon box
Of yellow roses, daffodils, and phlox.
A Disney sun breaks through, makes toys of trucks
And waddling movers looks like Donald Ducks
And joke book captions out of storefront signs:
Café du Soir, Austrian Village, Wines.
Pedestrians in olive drabs and grays
Are startled by the sun’s kinetic rays,
Then mottled into pointillistic patches.
The light turns green, cars passing hurl out snatches
Of rock-and-roll and Mozart and the weather.

The light turns red. Why aren’t we together?
create a strong sense of New York that is nonetheless a new vision of the city. Yet it is also a city we all belong to, seen through the eyes of a narrator who is just like us.

I do not wish to suggest that Feirstein only writes narrative poetry, or that it is exclusively, even if it is, more often than not, formalist. Consider his poem "Artificial Light":

Heavy rain
Darkening
The wysteria.
I draw the blind
And with a flashlight
Show David
How God
Once amused his soul.
After a while
He scribbles
His reflections
On the ceiling.
On the other hand
My father
Who sold coal
And has no energy
Except, I pray,
His soul’s
Lies in the
Dark
Like a fossil.

Here we have a free verse poem that is more reflective than narrative. But whether the poem is the rare free verse or the more usual formalist poem, the emotional power, the ability to create strong moods, is there.

And Feirstein is a master of imagery. Consider, for a moment, Feirstein’s use of water imagery. He gives us "the wet sun, the bluejay / Splashing among the branches." (New and Selected Poems, 3) We get cold and yellow sweats, falling snow (lots of snow, apropos New York), sitting by the water’s edge, "The wind taking shape from my face / As water takes shape from a fish;" (12), "slush soaking his shoes" (15) – here, the alliteration creating the sound –, April rain, spraying water, swimming pools, water hoses, ponds, toy boats and rafts, etc. Water is exploded and made interesting and new throughout Feirstein’s collection of poems, as are the color gray, the images of the city, including concrete, and human relations, especially among family and lovers (past and present).

In his poems, Feirstein has brought new life to New York, to being Jewish, to family life, and to the art of poetry. By being a formalist poet, whether in blank verse or in rhyme, whether with his narrative or his lyric verse, Feirstein has renewed the art of poetry, given it back to the people by giving them something they can understand and relate to, without sacrificing in the least his intelligence. He does not insult his readers by being either too simplistic or too obtuse and hyper-academic. His poems have a beauty and depth to them that had been lost among the more well-known poets, whose poetry only leave you unsatisfied once you manage to figure out what simplistic ideas are hiding under the obscurity. Anybody can read and enjoy Feirstein’s poems. Those who do not typically study poetry can read and enjoy his poems and get a great deal out of them. And those who do study poetry can find an endless depth of meaning in the poems, rich as they are in imagery and connections.

Cultural Universals

Frederick Turner points out that the forty-seven cultural universals (to which he adds combat, gifts, mime, friendship, lying, love, storytelling, murder taboos, and poetic meter) make it "tempting to propose that a work of literary art can be fairly accurately gauged for greatness of quality by the number of these items it contains, embodies, and thematizes" (The Culture of Hope, 26), since "it is the function of [literature] to preserve, integrate and continually renew this deep syntax and lexicon [of cultural universals], while using it to construct coherent world-hypotheses" (26).

We have, according to Wilson (actually, George P. Murdock, who Wilson is quoting), sixty-seven cultural universals (On Human Nature, 160):

age-grading, athletic sports, bodily adornment, calendar, cleanliness training, community organization, cooking, cooperative labor, cosmology, courtship, dancing, decorative art, divination, division of labor, dream interpretation, education, eschatology, ethics, ethno-botany, etiquette, faith healing, family feasting, fire-making, folklore, food taboos, funeral rites, games, gestures, gift-giving, government, greetings, hair styles, hospitality, housing, hygiene, incest taboos, inheritance rules, joking, kin groups, kinship nomenclature, language, law, luck superstitions, magic, marriage, mealtimes, medicine, obstetrics, penal sanctions, personal names, population policy, postnatal care, pregnancy usages, property rights, propitiation of supernatural beings, puberty customs, religious ritual, residence rules, sexual restrictions, soul concepts, status differentiation, surgery, tool-making, trade, visiting, weather control, and weaving

Whereas I could identify in that list only twenty which chimpanzees share with humans: bodily adornment, cleanliness training (in some), community organization, cooperative labor (i.e., when they hunt), education (active teaching), family feasting (a true ritual in chimpanzees), games, gestures, gift-giving, greetings, hygiene (in cleaning each other of parasites), incest taboos (admittedly a questionable one, since it is clear the Westermarck effect is in effect, but not yet clear that it is also socially transmitted), kin groups, medicine (Frans de Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master, 254-255), postnatal care, property rights (chimpanzees are very territorial), ritual (see family feasting, above), status differentiation, tool-making, and visiting. And this does not include the cultural differences found among chimpanzee troupes. I say there are only twenty, but look at those twenty. Are we really so much better because we have developed calendars when chimpanzees have managed to develop medicine (albeit far more primitive than human medicine, to say the least, but quite impressive all the same). Many of those uniquely human cultural traits can be traced logically from this pool of twenty we share with our closest relatives. I have already mentioned religion rising from power (status differentiation, above), which would then naturally lead to things like divination and religious ritual (combining power with feeding rituals could do this). Government too would naturally arise in a species that has status differentiation and the need for rules. I could go on and on, but I think we can see how much of what we consider uniquely human is either shared by chimpanzees and bonobos or could arise quite naturally from a specialist species like chimpanzees to become a variety of things in a generalist species like humans.