A Brief History of Western Ideas from an Emergent Complexity Perspective

I. Introduction

Complex systems theory shows that the more elements there are in a given system, the more complex the system’s behavior. New rules evolve that govern the behavior of the system, helping to coordinate activities and make the system work in a better and more complex manner. Further, when complex systems contain different hierarchical levels, such systems act in even more complex ways – fluid hierarchies increase complexity of behavior, while rigid hierarchies and flattened hierarchies decrease the complexity of a system’s behavior. This is true in quantum systems giving rise to chemical/Newtonian physical systems, to chemical systems giving rise to life, to neurons in the brain giving rise to thought and intelligence in animals, including humans, and even to the interactions of human societies.

Claire Graves, Don Beck, and Christopher Cowan theorize that both human thought and human societies develop in a particular way, and in a hierarchical fashion. If we start with animal survivalism, we move into tribalism, and from tribalism into a heroic culture (i.e. Achilles, and the Greek and Roman gods), from heroic culture into aristocratic/theocratic culture, from aristocratic culture to capitalist/scientific culture, from scientific culture into statist culture, and even now a move from all of these into ideas of world confederacy, and even into more complex, more holistic ideas. Thought also follows these patterns: mere survivalism leading to tribalistic thinking leading to conquering, heroic leaders leading to belief in order, law, regulations, and discipline to build character (typically "religious" thinking) leading to belief in the virtue of competition and progress and knowledge leading to egalitarian thinking leading to time-bound, hierarchical, pluralistic thinking leading to holistic thinking. The thinking always precedes the social development, but the thinking itself cannot jump levels any more than can societies, or than biology can leap suddenly out of quantum physics, skipping the chemical level. In other words, to move from tribalism to a culture led by heroic conquering leaders, we have to have people who begin to think in the new way while the culture itself remains in the old form of organization. It is this phenomenon I wish to investigate here, so we can understand why different thinkers were thinking as they were, and what value they have for the present day, and in the future.

We have to recognize, too, that each culture contains elements of the levels below, including people who continue to think this way. The first thing that we should note is that to say a culture or a person is in one of the lower levels is not to say that it or they are inferior to a higher level. We need the lower levels to help hold up the higher levels – this is how nested hierarchies such as emergent reality and evolving cultures can exist at all. If we take capitalist, scientific culture, for example, we can see that it can and should continue to have religious elements to it, that it will continue to have heroic people, such as athletes, in it, and that it will continue to have tribalistic elements in it – primarily as families, friends and clubs. This is most important to point out to those levels that most tend toward communitarian thinking, including tribalism, religious thinking, and secular egalitarian statism, which evolve in reaction to the more individualistic levels (heroic, capitalist/scientific), since the heroic and the capitalist levels consider the communitarian levels below them to still be important. Further, higher level communitarian thinking also tends to reject lower level communitarian thinking – secular egalitarian thinking tends to consider religious thinking as ignorant and something that is best done away with (consider the French attitude toward religion now, starting with the French Revolution). In the worst cases, communitarian thinking is racist and exclusionary – tribes exclude other tribes, religions exclude other religions, communists must eliminate all non-communists or anyone else who does not fit into the world they are trying to create. So it is important that we be aware of this danger, and do what we can to avoid and prevent it.

Overall, the communitarian forms of thinking and social organization tend to be, regardless of the level of complexity, community-minded and, thus, order-oriented, interested in stability, ethics, faith and truth, are fundamentally religious in outlook, centralized and rigidly hierarchical (today, bureaucratic), and have a belief that time is circular, or eternal, and that it will become this way at the end of history, where all progress will end. The individualistic forms of thinking and social organization tend to be, regardless of the level of complexity, individualistic, libertarian, able to deal with change and chaos, pragmatic, fact- and science-oriented, decentralized, and embracing of time and change, having a fundamental belief in some sort of continual progress. As stated above, the communitarians tend to dislike the individualists, but the individualists tend to work to protect the immediately lower level of communitarian thinking and society, while seeing emergent levels of communitarianism as a threat.

We need to move beyond this way of thinking, and into more complex ways of thinking. The way to do this is to understand all the levels, what their values are, and integrate them. That will get us into the next level of thinking and social organization. And from there, we must next understand everything as being part of a single, dynamic system – more than just pluralist, but unified as well, with unity in its variety. In doing so, we must not forget that lower levels simply cannot understand the ideas of higher levels – for example, someone who is a religious thinker would find egalitarian thinking, especially late egalitarian thinking, like postmodernism, to be completely incomprehensible – confusing nonsense in the extreme. To get such a person to the level of the postmoderns, one would have to get that person to first be thinking as a capitalist/scientific thinker, and then move the person into early egalitarian thinking before moving them into postmodernism. Part of the role of the integrationist and holistic thinkers is to help to move all people and cultures into more complex levels, and to integrate the elements of lower complexity into an even more complex whole.

II. The Levels and their Thinkers

All of this is necessary in order to understand the evolution of thought and the history of ideas in their proper context – past and present. It seems that tribalism is associated with pre-literate times, and that the first writing evolved during heroic culture – the oldest story we have is Gilgamesh, and it is a story of heroism. With Homer, we have a heroic thinker in a heroic time. Achilles is an archetypical hero of this sort.

The movement from heroic culture into the next level begins in the Greek culture with the pre-Socratics, who are beginning to think in more orderly, purposeful ways while living in heroic culture – this is typically seen as the beginnings of the movement from archaic into median culture. We have with the Greek tragedies an art form designed to move Greek culture safely and non-violently into the next level – each tragedy starts with a heroic individual who must be destroyed in order for a new level of organization to come into being. The Greek tragedies are art forms that indicate that the culture is going through an emergence into a new level of complexity. Tragedies are how a culture gets safely initiated into a new level of complexity. This is why Nietzsche identified tragedy as being simultaneously Dionysian and Apollonian – Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus identifies Dionysus as the god associated with the madness of initiation and Apollo as the god associated with the madness of prophesy – and Greek tragedies aided in the initiation ritual into a new level of complexity of thinking while prophesying what that new level would be like. Sophocles prophesies the emergence of the emergent median way of Greek thinking, while Shakespeare prophesies the emergence of the scientific/capitalist age to come, though he was writing during a time when Medieval/religious thinking was still going strong. After the initiation into the new level of thinking in ancient Greece, we get both Plato and Aristotle arising as the greatest thinkers within this level of complexity.

But emergence into new levels of complexity is not certain. In the West, we get a backward movement with the rise of the Romans – the Roman Republic and Empire was a heroic culture, and was exemplified by people such as Julius Caesar (consider how similar in character he is to Achilles). With the rise of Christianity, we see the Roman Empire moving into the next level – Jesus was a religious thinker during a heroic time. The Christian Romans and Christian medieval Europe was clearly organized in a rigid religious hierarchy, with the hierarchical Catholic Church and the hierarchical forms of government in serfdom, monarchy, and aristocracy, all supported by the Church. The Christian thinkers St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas found such a strong connection with Plato and Aristotle, respectively, because they recognized in them thinkers on the same level of complexity.

The Renaissance helped move Europe into the next level of complexity – the capitalist/scientific level. We see in Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo some of the first, transitionary scientific thinkers. And the work of Machiavelli and Shakespeare both helped set the stage for capitalism and science. Newton and Descartes moved the West even more into this realm of complexity – and the height of such thinking occurs in people such as Voltaire, John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, and the American Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau. All material and scientific progress occurred precisely because this level of thinking and social organization arose. We also see the abolition of slavery for the first time in human history precisely during this time (it is no coincidence that slavery still exists in regions of the world that have yet to enter this level of complexity). The United States’ form of government is the exemplary of the form of government that arises in and through this way of thinking – which makes it all the more ironic that it was the last of the Western countries to abolish slavery. That is, until you realize that the American South was one of the last places in the West where religious/authority thinking remained (and still remains) strongest. Because the next level was forced on them, the South has taken over a century to recover and get caught up with the rest of the United States – becoming scientific/capitalist just as the Northeast has become egalitarian in its world view. But the religious way of thinking is still strong – which is why the creationism-evolution (and its latest variant, Intelligent Deisgn) debate still goes strong in the United States, particularly in Southern and Midwestern states.

With Rousseau, we get the first of the egalitarian thinkers – and it is his ideas that led, more than anyone else’s, to the French Revolution, which was the first example of the modern State (while it is true that the idea of independent nations arose with the Enlightenment, after the Renaissance, the peculiar institution of the modern State as typically found in Europe arose with the French Revolution). It was based on secularism and egalitarianism, and this example, along with the ideas of Marx, led to the rise of the Soviet Union and other communist states, which combined this way of thinking with religious/authority thinking, while tending to throw in a heroic leader for good measure. Nazi Germany was yet another example of this kind of state, though they combined it with tribalist ideas, leading to the atrocities of WWII. Of course, the Soviet Union’s avoidance of tribalism did not prevent them from killing even more people – the difference simply being that the U.S.S.R was more personal in its murders, while the Nazis liked to kill people in groups. But both are based on the same way of thinking, and were reactions against Enlightenment thinking. This helps us to understand why people who think this way tend to support communist and fascist dictatorships, and cannot see the difference between them and democratic republics (in an egalitarian world, all forms of government are equal – equally bad, and equally good). Further, the tendency to see people of lower levels – especially those still stuck in tribal or heroic thinking and societies – as victims, and modern-day environmentalism are also based on this way of thinking, and the latter is distinguished by the idea of nature as unchanging – notions of the eternal, the end of history, etc. being part of communitarian thinking, both religious and secular. This is why much secular communitarian thinking, like environmentalism and communism, closely resemble religious thinking. But these are not the only forms of egalitarian thinking. Darwin introduced an even more fundamental form of egalitarianism when he suggested that humans evolved from apes, and that all animals were fundamentally related to one another. Thus, humans and animals were put on the same plane of existence – and it is this that creationists object to. The hierarchy between humans and animals, placing humans in a place definitively above animals, was flattened by Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Among the more recent thinkers in this more recent egalitarian tradition include Heidegger (who was, not coincidentally, a Nazi), Sartre (a communist), and various Marxist and postmodern thinkers, including Derrida. Some of these latter, the postmoderns, have come in toward the end of egalitarian, statist thinking, and have thus begun the move into the next level of thinking. This is perhaps because they claim a great deal of influence from Nietzsche, who was perhaps the first thinker in this tradition, in reaction to the German State and socialism. Since most of the philosophers and theorists influenced by Nietzsche have in fact been egalitarian, statist thinkers, they have mostly misunderstood Nietzsche’s ideas. One can understand clearly levels below oneself, but there is difficulty in understanding levels above oneself, unless one is trying to move into that next level oneself. As for societal organization, since this next level of thinking is new, there seems to be but a few societies based on this thinking, including the present-day United States and Great Britain, having gone through a lot of statist thinking, while retaining the essential form of the previous level, making it possible to be more pluralistic and hierarchical and inclusive), with organizations like the U.N., the W.T.O., and the World Bank acting to coordinate the world’s governments in a very loose confederacy. Perhaps because the U.S. and Britain were more solidly democratic republics than other Western countries, which attempted to create egalitarian States, this new form of more complex thinking appears to be most common in these two places, and less so in continental Europe. It is all-inclusive, and considers all the lower levels to be important constituents of society as a whole. It believes that there is a basic human nature, and that humans can nonetheless adapt and evolve in extremely complex ways – that we have instincts, but also highly plastic brains, which allow us to have highly complex ways of thinking. Further, this new level of thinking has so far occurred less often among philosophers, and more often among scientists, such as Victor Turner, E.O. Wilson, Steven Pinker, Jeff Hawkins, Benoit Mandelbrot, and Ilya Prigogine.

The next level, the holistic level, is very new, and includes very few thinkers in it – the only one I know of being the poet-philosopher Frederick Turner. We have yet to see what possible form of social organization will come out of such thinking. Even though we have learned that other communitarian forms of social and government organization have been dictatorial every time, it seems likely, since this is a much more complex level of thinking, that it will be some sort of world federalist democratic republican form of government, where individuals are encouraged to be communitarian thinkers, while the government does not get in the way of people self-organizing into communities of their choice.

III. Implications for Understanding Philosophy and Philosophers

As we can see, there can end up some overlap in thinkers. Just because an egalitarian, communitarian thinker comes along, that does not mean that capitalist/scientific thinkers go away – and most scientists and businesspeople are in fact still thinking this way. And not just the average person, but philosophers and scholars as well. Most of the clergy of the Catholic Church are clearly thinkers in the religious tradition – as well they should be. The Pope should only be a religious thinker, and should not have moved into the capitalist/scientific way of thinking (even if his thinking begins to play on the borderlands, his thinking should mostly be firmly rooted in religious thinking). Do we really want a Pope who is interested in profit? And certainly we should not have a Pope who is a secular humanist. Yet, it has profited the Church considerably to integrate in scientific understandings of the universe, rather than continuing to oppose them. Thus, the Church performs its proper role in maintaining truly religious thinking – and in maintaining it in its best traditions, rather than its worst (which we should have learned from, and learned to avoid, by now).

I am certain, in making these identifications, that I have stepped on some toes regarding peoples’ favorite thinkers and philosophers. We do not like to think that Plato and Aristotle are less complex thinkers than some people are nowadays – or even are less complex thinkers than, say, Machiavelli. Such objections will undoubtedly be made, but they are made precisely because of two errors in thinking: 1) we project our own thinking on the thinkers of the past, and read our own complexities into those past thinkers, and 2) there are inevitably those who themselves think at the level of, say, Plato and Aristotle, and thus consider, say, Machiavelli, to be a highly complex thinker, precisely because their own thinking is only just now becoming as complex as Machiavelli’s was. For these people, someone like Derrida is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible in what they are trying to communicate.

The important thing we must remember is this: Plato is not a thinker. Aristotle is not a thinker. Machiavelli is not a thinker. They were thinkers. They were thinkers of their time, place, and complexity. This does not mean they do not have their values now, in our more complex times, because those levels of thinking still exist, are still relevant, are the base on which higher levels of complexity are built. Machiavelli could not have thought what he thought had Plato and Aristotle not thought what they thought. Machiavelli could not have moved us into a culture and society of capitalism and science from the Platonic/Aristotlean world view without this world view to move from. And each of these thinkers provide excellent basic models from which to build new, more complex self-similar levels. But we must not mistake any of these thinkers from the past for who they are not. They are not present-day thinkers, thinking in present-day complexities – they are thinkers from the past, thinking in their own levels of complexity. Oftentimes we forget this when we talk about them or read them. When we read them, we must remember that, and we must remember that we read into them, we don’t read them for what they meant at the times when they were writing. We interpret them over and over (individually and socially) into the present, making and keeping them relevant for today and the future. The same must be remembered of present-day thinkers. Should I be read in the future, you must remember not to mistake me for someone else. I am a thinker now; I will have been a thinker at some future time. And my thoughts will be relevant for the hierarchical level of thinking I am presently in, which will exist as a lower level in the nested hierarchy of some future level of complexity. I will seem relevant to future scholars who think at my present level of complexity; a mere source and spur of thinking for future thinkers, who will recognize too the relative simplicity of my thoughts compared to theirs, though it occurs as a spur to each higher level that is self-similar to my own.

There are a few things we must remember when considering the history of ideas in this way: 1) each higher level of complexity necessarily needs the lower levels on which to build and rest, while the lower levels do not need the higher levels in the least (this does not mean, however, that within a person, the lower levels are not affected by their own higher levels – family for a tribal thinker is different than family for religious thinker, which is different than family for a capitalist/scientific thinker, or even an egalitarian thinker, though the family unit remains at the same level of complexity-thinking for each) , 2) each level has its own values, benefits, and shortcomings, and 3) there is no upper limit of complexity. Let us consider these in order.
In this model, each of the levels must be traversed in order to reach upper levels. In this, Marx was correct in identifying different levels societies go through, and in realizing one must necessarily go through each lower level to reach upper levels. For example, countries like Germany and France have extensive welfare states that are based on the egalitarian world view. Since these welfare states were built on a solid foundation of capitalism, they have lasted quite a long time without extensive or severe human rights violations (though when Germany adopted a different version of this level in Nazism, they clearly did commit severe human rights violations, as has egalitarian France in is former colonies). If those welfare states are currently on the decline, as they indeed are, it is because those societies have for the most part rejected the levels below them – they are knocking the foundation out from under themselves. But this is a different problem from level-jumping. When the egalitarian/communitarian world view was imposed on an aristocratic society in Russia, we got Soviet-style communism, and thus a mixture of aristocracy and communitarianism, without a capitalist/scientific level (the Soviet rejection of science can be most clearly seen in their acceptance of Lysenko’s biological theories). Thus, a true egalitarian/communitarian society was not reached, while places like France and Germany came closest to accomplishing such a goal. However, one of the problems with each of these levels up to the egalitarian world view is that each also tries to reject the other levels, and the egalitarian world view seems most keen on getting rid of both the capitalist/scientific and religious world views (mostly just capitalism and religion, since it does have its own brand of science in systems science, relativism and probablistic science). When lower levels are rejected, the effect is, as said above, to try to kick the foundation out from under oneself. One of the benefits of those levels above the communitarian level is the recognition of the value of each of the levels, and even the holistic integration of them all. The reason we need the lower levels is the same reason we need lower levels of reality. Atoms give rise to chemicals which give rise to cells which give rise to complex organisms, one of which is humans, with our complex thinking. We can destroy cells without destroying chemicals, and we can destroy chemicals without destroying atoms, but we cannot destroy an atom while keeping the chemical around. The atom, though at the lowest level of complexity, is the vital foundation of each of the emergent levels above it. In the same way, the noosphere, the sphere of emergent human thought, contains the biosphere within it, since the biosphere can get along just fine without humans or human thought, while humans cannot get along without the biosphere (this idea is Ken Wilbur’s, from A Theory of Everything, 98). The relationship may in fact be a more complex feedback loop than even Wilbur admits, since one could also point out that other organisms that are clearly less complex than the biosphere as a whole could also be wiped out, without any real effect on the biosphere as a whole. The important thing here is that human thought is more complex than biology, including the entire biosphere. And more complex levels contain less complex levels, not vice versa. Thus, nature is a part of us even more than we are a part of nature. But I have gone through this to point out that levels of human complexity are also nested hierarchies, self-similar to the nested hierarchies of nature itself. Like atoms to molecules, the higher levels require the lower levels to exist at all.

Thus, we have to remember too that each level has its benefits – as well as its shortcomings. The lowest level is the level of pure existence. We cannot deny our needs for food, drink, sleep, and sex if we are to survive as a species. But this is what animals do, and we are more than mere animals in our cognitive abilities and social organization. Thus, the first fully human level is tribal. This is the level of family and family ritual and, in the present day West, athletic teams. However, this level is fundamentally racist – anything non-self is considered bad by those who stay in this level. The next level, the heroic, is associated with Homer’s heroes, the Greek and Roman gods, and Roman emperors. Here we also find athletic superstars. However, this level is extremely egocentric and can be very destructive (again, consider our athletic superstars). The next level is authoritarian and theocratic. What we now think of as religion – exemplified by Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. – with its emphasis on giving life meaning, direction, and purpose, and a world that is well-ordered by God. However, these codes are so strictly enforced that they result in things like the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials. The backlash to such extreme measures gave rise to the next level, the capitalist/scientific level, which "seeks truth and meaning in individualistic terms" (Wilbur, 10), is rational, believes that the world is knowable through science, gave rise to immense material gains through capitalism, abolished slavery, and developed ideas of human rights. However, due to the fact that this level needed lots of resources, there was perceived exploitation of lower classes both within and without capitalist societies, and Newtonian physics was coming up against quite a few contradictions, both of which led to the next level. The egalitarian/communitarian level insists on the equality of all people, sees the world as a system, and encourages ecological thinking and pluralism. However, this level, even more than the rest, seems determined to destroy every level below it. This is in part due to its opposition to hierarchy and its extreme form of equality. As we can see, each of these levels comes with its own set of benefits – benefits which we need to both acknowledge and embrace. We need stronger families, a healthy sense of self, lives with meaning, direction, and purpose, but with material well-being and a scientific understanding of the world and how its works, and respect for all people regardless of religion, race, or color. Family, heroism, religion, science, economic and ecological thinking, and pluralism all have their place. And should.

Teleological thinking is something humans commonly engage in. In fact, one could go so far as to identify it as one of the human universals. Thus, we should not be surprised if and when people use it with a model such as this. There is no highest level in this model. The holistic level, the highest level of thinking we currently have, is not the highest. Whatever the next level will look like will have to wait until the integrative and even the holistic levels become realized more in social organization. We cannot know exactly what it will look like, only that it will have a family resemblance to the other individualistic levels, since it comes after the communitarian level of holism. And there will be a communitarian level after it, etc. This is another reason why we should not mistake thinkers from the past for being more complex thinkers than they were. It is unlikely that a higher-level thinker will in fact mistake a lower-level thinker for thinking as he or she does, but there are those who may be on the same level as a past thinker, who may mistakenly think, just because he is in a more complex culture, that his thinking is also necessarily of the most complex form, and therefore think that a past thinker – say, Plato, who is an aristocratic thinker – is, say, a holistic thinker. This is particularly true among those who think that holism is necessarily the highest form of thinking possible (it is not – it is only one more rung on the emergent ladder).

Thus, if we take the integrative and holistic approaches, we can begin to see the importance of knowing thinkers from each of the levels of complexity. Plato and Aristotle have their places in helping to give our lives meaning and direction, and to provide an ethical basis for action. They can inform the way we think these issues even today – since it is a level that is necessary for us to live meaningful, ethical lives. The next level, the capitalist/scientific level, allowed us to individualize those ethics, to consider the origins of ethics and the justification for them, and develop ideas of individual rights and personal responsibility. At the same time, the pluralism of the egalitarian level allows us to apply those ethics to more and more people in our ever-expanding tribe. This is admittedly a utilitarian approach to understanding the great thinkers of the past – but if we are honest with ourselves, we are already utilitarian with them, studying them to write essays and to develop our own philosophies for our own times. In the latter case, we have to know where we’ve been in order to know what’s already been done, and what still needs to be done. And for the integrationist and holistic world views, knowing each level is vital to understanding how each level should relate to each other, and be used to develop more complex levels of thinking and social organization. As we become more and more self-aware (the dictum to "know yourself" applied in a larger and larger sense), we will come to understand how important it is to integrate the levels and to appreciate and affirm each level for the benefits they bestow – for both the development of new levels, and scholarship to understand each of the levels, particularly in how they relate to one another, and lead into new levels.

Another way we can come to understand these levels is suggested by Ken Wilbur: I-we-it-its. He talks about how we need to integrate all these aspects together – but we can also come to understand each of the levels through these four aspects. The tribalist level contains none of these in any real sense. There is not yet a real sense of individual identity, or the difference between individual and group – and technology is very primitive, and is not seen as really separate from the tribe. With the development of heroic culture, we get "I" culture. With the development of the authoritarian culture of Plato and Aristotle, Christianity and Islam, we get "we" culture. With the development of capitalist/scientific culture, we get "it" culture. And with the development of egalitarian culture, we get "its" culture (with systems theory, etc.). Wilbur argues that I-we-it also corresponds to beauty(aesthetics)-ethics-truth. Thus we can begin to understand what is happening when Aristotle says ethics aims at to kalon, which can be translated as either "the beautiful" or "the good," since Aristotle has an ethical "we" philosophy that is also strongly "I". Also, we can begin to understand John Keats’ equation: "beauty is truth – truth, beauty," since Keats is an individualist living in scientific culture (romanticism was an attempt to recover aspects of heroic culture). And we can also begin, with more integrationist thinking, to understand that beauty, the good, and truth are all one and the same thing – and with the systems science of "its," we can also begin to really understand for the first time how deeply embedded all of these are in time. And if we include the idea developed by J. T. Fraser of time as a nested hierarchy, we can begin to understand more and more deeply how everything is related.

IV. Conclusion

Obviously these ideas need to be further expanded – but that is the topic of a full-length book, not an essay introducing the idea. With the idea of emergent complexity that contains the lower levels in a nested hierarchy, we can include too the I-we-it-its as well. We get a new idea of "I" when we move into the "we" of the authoritarian level, and a new idea of each as we move into both the "it" and "its" levels as well. And each of these aspects will change as we move into the intregrationist and holistic levels – change, while at the same time containing their original meanings. The "I" investigated by Homer and Socrates influenced Freud, but the "I" developed by Freud is clearly of a different kind, emergent and more complex. And the "we" developed by Plato and Aristotle influenced Heidegger, but the "we" of Heidegger is clearly of a different kind as well – influencing the "we" of postmodernism, including its worst aspects, such as political correctness. And while the ancient Greeks did have science and technology, it is clear that the science and technology of the scientific culture is of a different kind, emergent and more complex. And the highly complex systems science that has since developed and become more dominant had its origins in some of the thoughts of Goethe, and even Aristotle.

One might ask, "If Aristotle were alive today, would he still be an authority thinker?" Naturally, this is impossible to say. That may have been his natural disposition to such an extent that it would still be his disposition today. However, it is also just as likely that Aristotle, being the genius he was, and the most complex thinker of his day, would be among the most complex thinkers of today. There is nothing in Aristotle that makes him inherently incapable of our level of complex thinking – what made him incapable of it was his living and thinking in the time and culture in which he actually lived. In fact, every person living today, no matter what level they may currently be in, can also think in each of these levels – though if they are at a lower level, they would of course have to move through each level, in order. Level jumps in complexity of thought are just as impossible as atoms skipping molecules to create life.

Dissertation Online

For those who are interested, my dissertation, "Evolutionary Aesthetics," which is really about the emergence of everything, with specific focus on literature, can be found in its entirety online at: http://epublish.utdallas.edu/dissertations/AAI3138685/

Many of the ideas on this blog can be found in it in much more detail, and the origins of some other ideas found here have their seeds in this dissertation.

Constitutional Carnage

So apparently the Supreme Court has decided that the intent of the Founding Fathers (one of the most important considerations in things Constitutional to date) is no longer relevant. I am refering to the recent Supreme Court decision that essentially allows the government to seize anybody's property for anything they want to do -- including for corporate interests. Not surprising (to me, at least) is that it was all the liberal judges (and a few conservatives who are just as villanous here) who supported government being able to take land to hand over to corporations. It does not matter if the government forces you to sell to build a stadium or to build an industrial park -- these are corporate interests, and are typically used only so that the government can get more tax revenues. Who cares if poor or middle classed people are thrown off their land?

The Constitution allows for Immanent Domain, which means that the government can use any land it needs to for public works -- though they do have to pay fair market price for it. Of course, that "fair market price" is typically below what you could actually get for a given piece of land. The Founding Fathers did this to ensure that the government could not just seize land whenever it wanted to -- that it had to have very pressing reasons to do so, and that there was no other option but to do it. This was meant to ensure that property rights were secured against the government. But now, with this ruling, the government is essentially allowed to take any land it wants at any time for any reason -- and business can now threaten people with going the government route in order to get any land they want at low, low prices. Quite a discount the Supreme Court is giving corporations! Of course, this ruling is in the fine tradition of interpreting the Interstate Commerce clause, which was intended to prevent states from erecting trade barriers against other states and thus to create a free trade zone within the country, to say that the federal government had control over the national economy and all trade between states. Now, they not only have control over commerce between states (meaning, the entire economy for all intents and purposes), but they can just take your land whenever they want, and hand it over to their corporate buddies. This should make things even more corrupt. It was bad enough that elitist liberals have been moving the poor out of their neighborhoods and into public housing, where they can finally be culturally and morally destroyed (all in order for those same elites to have a more pleasant city-living experience), and have a tendency to decide to build roads through poor neighborhoods (this is happening in a town in Maine) just to get rid of the neighborhoods (the road could be built around the neighborhood). But now, they can take poor people's land and give it to corporations. True, this will result in more tax money, meaning these same liberals will now have more money to help the poor they have displaced -- but the poor will still be far worse off than they were before the liberals had them kicked off their land. But of course, poor people with land clearly don't need help, so it is necessary to put them in a situation where they will need help.

And beyond all this, this is a situation that is ripe for corrpution. If people have a problem with corporations giving money to politicians now, just wait. What could be a bigger favor than taking land away from people for "the public good" -- in this case, meaning, for corporate interests? I've had several people tell me that the United States is doe for a hard fall. They have typically been talking about our foreign policy -- but with this ruling by the Supreme Court, I know they are right, if for the wrong reasons. This is a move into fascism -- something liberals have been trying to do for years, with their economic policies and political correctness codes. And it is something the American people should not put up with. Several years ago, Milton Friedman came up with an Economic Bill of Rights for the Constitution. I think it is now time we adopted it, before the Supreme Court decides to interpret more or the Constitution in the opposite way it was intended by the Founding Fathers. Unless we do, we will continue to lose our freedoms. Because unless we have the right to own property and have that property protected from seizure from others, including the government, then we have no rights at all. Because then if the government does not like what we say or do, they can just take our homes under the auspices of "public use," and pay us next to nothing for it. And with things like property taxes, they can raise them so much, that they can run us off our property anyway, seizing it without paying because we could not pay our taxes. Quite the corrupt system we are developing here. Soon, the only ones with any rights will be those who could pay off the right politicians. And of course, all of this "campaign finance reform" has done nothing more than ensure that corruption get worse and worse (we need to return to the old system of anyone being able to donate anything they want -- but it is all open and transparent who is donating to whom).

Either way, we need to stop the Supreme Court from making these kinds of decisions. IF that takes some Amendments to make it clear what the Constitution actually means, then that's what we should do. Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold my breath on the government trying to restrict any power it's given. Every other government in the world stopped gaining power over the people only after a war or a revolution. It is too much to hope that we can do it more peacefully than that?

Spiral Dynamics

It seems that conservatives, libertarians, and liberals are all talking past each other. It is as if each group has their own way of thinking that excludes the others – whether it is because they consider one of the others less complex, more interested in feeling than thinking, or they consider what the others believe to be complete nonsense. If this is the case, is it possible for these groups to be able to talk to each other at all?

Don Beck and Christopher Cowan in their book "Spiral Dynamics" lay out a hierarchical theory of psycho-social development that may perhaps explain why these groups are talking past each other. In other words, they develop a theory that explains both the psychologies of individuals and the social structures of individual societies – and show that different people, and different societies, think in particular ways for particular reasons.

What they – and I, with some modifications – propose is that human societies go through spiraling cycles of new levels of complexity, switching between individualistic and collectivist forms of social organization. This is often preceded by individuals who lay the groundwork for the new social organization. And even when one form of social organization is left behind, there are people who continue to think that way. And, to make the situation even more complex, we continue to have aspects of the lower levels holding up the new levels of complexity.

But that is all very abstract. What we need are details. Basically, Beck and Cowan suggest that we start off in survivalist mode – what helps the individual survive is what we do. This is really the level of purely animal survival: food, drink, sleep, and sex. Next we develop into the roving bands/tribal mode – this is in the present day both athletic teams and the family unit, and is the kind of thinking we mean by "family values." This is the level of ritual, traditions and symbols. At its worst, it is the level of racism, superstition, and fear of change. Once this level becomes repressive, we get development of the powerful individual mode – this is in the present day in rock stars and rebellious teens in general, as well as in gang members. In the past, this was ancient Greece during the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Rome during the Roman Empire. This is the time of heroes and strong leadership, storytellers and mythology. To the extent that these two groups exist in the modern world, liberals have a tendency to label them as victims and to try to leap them – and sometimes those in the next level – into their kinds of societies. Since you cannot skip levels, since each level develops naturally out of previous levels, this is inevitably disastrous.

The next level is the level of authority and order. This is the realm of modern-day conservatives and those on the Right. At this level, it is believed that the world gains meaning from doing your duty, respecting traditions and heritage, and obeying the religious laws. Conservatives believe in good and evil, right and wrong, in sacrificing now for the future, love and charity, and in patriotism. At their worst, they fear trespassing upon the ordained order, are nationalistic and tend toward theocracy and authoritarianism. Many are royalists and, in the United States, have Puritan tendencies. Historically, this was medieval Christianity and the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.

Following this is the development of capitalism and science – the realm of the modern-day libertarian, or classical liberal. There is strong support for reason and science. Such people and societies are optimistic and willing to take risks and are highly pragmatic in dealing with the world, even if they are idealistically pro-freedom in political issues. Such people and societies support personal rights and liberties, and were responsible for abolishing slavery – the irony of the most capitalist country in the world being the last to abolish slavery does not negate this fact. In fact, Emerson, whose thinking exemplifies this level of thinking, was a staunch abolitionist. Other thinkers at this level include Adam Smith, John Locke, Lord Acton, Voltaire, Machiavelli, and Descartes. At its worst, it promotes deterministic thinking and results in alienation.

Next is the development of egalitarian thinking – the realm of the modern-day Left. In fact, it was in the first expression of this level in the French Revolution that the terms Left and Right were first developed. It is equally interesting that the Left represented a new level of collectivist thinking beyond capitalist thinking, and the Right represented the old form of collectivist thinking in the Royalists and religious thinkers. At its best, liberalism emphasizes being socially responsible, caring for all people, finding ourselves, and treating workers well. It promotes pluralism and relativistic, postmodern, multidisciplinary thinking. At its worst, like all collectivist thinking, it promotes feeling over reasoning. And more, having much of its thought based in Marx, it leads to welfare states, socialism, communism, and even fascism, is anti-hierarchy, and is redistributionary. It is in fact deeply conservative of the status quo, and supports anti-free speech codes like political correctness. In opposing free speech and other individual liberties, people at this level tend to be in agreement with conservatives more than they are willing to admit.

Now, each of these levels tend to be exclusionary, rejecting each other. Those above reject those below as being too simplistic, and those below are just plain confused about what is going on at higher levels. But there are two levels (so far – more will emerge over time) above the egalitarian level – the integrationist and the holistic. The integrationist is a return to individualism, but it also sees the values of each of the levels below it. People at this level attempt to create a society were all of these levels can work together – both the individual psychologies and to develop a more integrated society. Thus, it tries to promote environmentalism, capitalism, religion, heroic individualism, and families simultaneously. Beauty, truth, and ethics are united into one way of thinking. Knowledge and competency are emphasized, as are fluid, nested hierarchies and interdisciplinary, chaotic, fractal thinking. This level is the first truly self-aware level, and there is no longer any fear of yourself or the world. Nietzsche may not have been the first of such thinkers, but he’s the transitional figure that allowed for this kind of thinking to emerge. And as for holistic thinking, which is only just beginning to emerge, we have such thinkers as Frederick Turner. Everything is understood to be connected to everything else, there is interest in wholeness of existence, and patterns and living systems are emphasized. Such thinkers are interested in bringing holistic order to the entire society – and thus supports a kind of holistic hierarchy, or holarchy.

This is but a brief outline of how the different forms of thinking evolved. I think if we come to understand how different forms of thinking emerge, we can stop speaking at cross-purposes to each other. The lower levels are all necessary parts of our thinking, and each level is needed to help us develop a more complex and just society. But conservatives, libertarians, and liberals won’t be able to do it. That is up to the integrationist and holistic thinkers, whose thinking is more complex, and who understand the value of each of the different levels.

Greetings from Greece

At the present time, I am sitting in my apartment inAthens, Greece. Now, for those of you reading this who don't know, I don't live in Greece -- I live in Dallas, TX, USA. But I am a week into my month-long vacation in Greece. So far I have seen the Agora with the Temple of Hephaestus, the Acropolis and Erecthion, the Temple of Zeus, and the Theater of Dionysus. The latter has impressed me the most -- but perhaps that is because of all the work I have done on tragedy.

Coming to Athens, one immediately comes to understand the ancient Greeks better. The sun is very intense -- far more intense than it is even in Texas. It is hot in Texas, but the sun is not really all that intense -- especially after you experience a truly intense sun. It is comfortable in the shade -- neither too hot nor too cool -- but the sun's intensity heats you up quickly. The sky is an intense blue, and the sunlight reflects off of everything. It is worst in places with shiny white marble -- which the ancients would have experiences quite a bit, with all their temples and important buildings being build of white marble. So you get a combination of intensely bright light and intense sunshine on your shoulders, neck, and head. Further, you do not realize until you come here just how steep the hills are. The Acropolis is on an extremely steep, tall hill. The Athenians had no choice but to be in shape, having built their city here.

It is strange how comfortable I feel here in Greece. I don't speak the language -- so grocery shopping has been very interesting, to say the least. Fortunately about a third of everything in Greece is in English, so I've been able to get by. The only thing missing in Greece is my beautiful girlfriend, Anna. I wish she could have come with me -- but I had already planned and made all the arrangements for this before I even met her. But from now on I'm most certainly taking her with me wherever I go.

The Power(lessness) of Imagination

When I was taking tai chi classes (something I should perhaps start doing again), my sifu told a visiting sifu that I had an extremely powerful imagination. He was asking us to imagine a tornado that spun down to our feet, then up to our hands in order to do a push-hands. So I did. The sifu I was practicing with was very surprised by what he felt from me, and said so. Thus, the comment. ANd it's true. Of course, as a poet, fiction-writer, and artist -- and philosopher -- I have to have a strong imagination. Wouldn't be able to do the work I do if I did not.

Thus, it is currently torture for me. I am on my way to Athens, Greece, where I will be spending a month away from my girlfriend, who I am very much in love with. I think of her all the time. I imagine her face before mine all the time. I feel like I can almost conjure her -- I wish I could conjure her -- but there is precisely where imagination ends. AH, what I wouldn't do to be able to actually comjure her to me with my imagination! Imagination can move the body, help you to control it, create new things in the world... but my beloved must stay in Texas while I go to Athens... If only I could imagine her with me, and not have to just imagine her with me.

Responsible Journalism

For those who have been reading my blog, you know that I have not typically discussed topical issues. However, the short article in Newsweek compels me to say something about responsible journalism.

Since when did journalism consider one uncorroborated source as sufficient to run a story? And, more, what on earth was Newsweek thinking? Do they not realize that there are consequences to the kind of story they ran?

The Koran is the holy book of Islam. Every copy is considered to be completely holy, and cannot be destroyed or disrespected. We in the West do not truly understand this, since the Bible, the Christian holy book, is not considered holy in quite the same way. It is the ideas, not the book proper, that is holy for Christians. For Moslems, it is the very book itself that is holy, because it contains the word of God. This is something we need to be aware of, so we do not do anything disrespectful to the Koran. We cannot be ignorant of others' cultures. We are not alone in the world.

Thus, anyone in the military caught desecrating the Koran should be punished. Our government, precisely because of the First Amendment, should show nothing but the utmost respect for all religions, religious practices, and religious objects. Our military has had a history of respecting historical and religious sites and has typically gone out of its way not to even damage these sites during a war. At the same time, while those of high military rank have tried to respect such sites, we need to make sure that all of our troops understand this policy.

At the same time, Newsweek acted highly irresponsibly on several levels -- not just the level of reporting something given to them by one source. The editors of Newsweek also acted irresponsibly in reporting the incident at all, since reporting such an incident was bound to have at minimum the outcome it has actually had so far -- riots in some Islamic countries. If we assume the best, this means that the editors at Newsweek were completely ignorant of the importance of the Koran to Islam -- meaning they had no idea what the consequences of their actions would be. If we are considerably less generous, and propose that it was reported in order to harm the President's image in the world, then the editors of Newsweek are responsible for purposefully putting the U.S. in danger of going to war with all 1.5 billion Moslems. I propose both extremes, since it is difficult to say if either, or something inbetween, is the truth of the matter.

While Newsweek and every other news outlet has the First Amendment right to publish anything they want, without legal consequences, they need to be more responsible in what they choose to publish, since what they publish could result in hundred, thousands, or -- if what they reported were to result in a war with all of Islam -- millions of people dying. And if the U.S. system were to collapse because of a sustained war with 1.5 billion people, then Newsweek and other news outlets would most likely find themselves in a system where it would be illegal to publish certain things -- as is the case in most countries in the world. The freedom to do something does not mean that you always SHOULD do something. When a news outlet considers publishing something, they should consider the outcome of what they report. It is no conincident that when the news reports high school shootings, that more high school shootings occur -- when they report child abductions, more abductions occur. Reporting crimes results in copycat crimes. Does this mean that we should remain blissfully ignorant of the world? Of course not. The news does have a responsiblity to report newsworthy events. But the fact is, we are ignorant of the world -- and when the kind of ignorance the editors at Newsweek exhibited occurs, the outcome is anything put blissful. The news outlets need to become less ignorant of the world before they go around reporting on it. When they do, their reporting will become more responsible -- and more coherent -- than it is. And perhaps they will even report on the things that matter -- international news -- rather than on much of the irrelevancies that happen in the U.S. (Michael Jackson, the crime de jour that gets extended to several weeks or months, etc.). And we would also not have ignorant people like Lou Dobbs on CNN spreading his complete ignorance of economics to the U.S. as if he were an expert in the field. He isn't. And CNN is equally irresponsible for giving such a person his own show to talk about a field he clearly knows nothing about.

Hades

What do I need to do to get what I want? What do I want? I... What do I want? I feel driven toward... what? Art? For certain. Philosophy? It seems more and more to be a drive. A poet philosopher? A philosopher poet? I am the incarnation of transference. I want to transfer my ideas to others. I want to transfer my vision to others. I want to transfer my self to others. I want to carry myself across into others so I never die, in mind or material. I have a strong sex drive. I feel a drive to make art. I feel a drive to philosophize. I am ruled by the madness of Eros and the Muses. As Socrates says in Phaedrus, philosophy comes from the Muses of Astronomy – and thus of the sciences – and of epic poetry. How many more Muses can I combine? What drive is that, to merge the Muses, make them one? And what of Eros? That I have far fewer visitations from. Well, that’s not true. He seems to visit me while neglecting those he has helped me fall in love with. Where is Aphrodite when I need her? The two need to team up with each other when it comes to me, so Eros doesn’t continue to drive me mad, as he’s driven me mad before.

How many have been guided to Hades by Eros? And how many were brought back up by the Muses? Ah, the Muses, who have helped me maintain my madness in a more productive way than when I was driven into Hades by Eros. Did he guide or drive me? The way up and the way down are the same. He drove me by guiding me there. And the Muses carried me up, out of the dark pit Eros brought me to. And yet, I miss the madness of Eros. I am lonely for Eros, for the chemicals my body emits with the repeated long touch of someone, that make me feel warm. Lovely chocolate has helped me through the early and worst parts, but now I feel chocolate is hardly substitute. I have tried substitutes, and none compare or can even add up to in any way to two nude bodies embraced in pleasure, as Eros and Aphrodite mean for us to be. I can only control Eros so much, for so long, before I feel more and more like giving in. Abstinence is not moderation – I am not interested in asceticism. There is no virtue in that. Yet I have shown that I have virtue enough to not give in as much as my drives desire – but where is the balance? I want a war between overindulgence and asceticism that will bring a balance of Eros in my life. I want a return to a life of erotic play. Only then can I not drown in the obsession of Eros, so I can spend more time and drive with the Muses.

Can I chose my madness, or have those who make us mad chosen me? Eros chose me, of that I am certain. The Muses have certainly chosen me. The madness of initiation? To what have I or need I be initiated into to require Dionysus? Nor do I think I have the madness of prophesy – so Apollo too has not chosen me. Eros and the Muses – those two have been enough and seem to be sufficient. I chose the madness of Eros. Only one of these who rule over madness is not enough to make us take the complete trip to and through and out of Hades. Does it take one to drive us there, another to free us? And how often is it Eros or Aphrodite who drive us there? Dante said it was Virgil who led him through Hell, but it was his love for Beatrice that drove him there. Odysseus even went to Hades so he could get home to his wife. And Orpheus, the most beautiful singer and poet in Greek myth, went down to Hades to bring back his beloved Eurydice. I too was driven into Hades by a woman – each time I was driven there. But it was the Muses who, again, brought me back, though my weeping and wails fed Hades well.

But why speak of traveling to Hades and being brought up by art? These myths are part of our deep archetypes and have gone on to become cliches. Among some people, anyway. But in a real sense, they can never become cliches, because we are always forever forgetting their lessons. We keep telling stories of descents into Hades because we forget the old ones, and feel we need to retell them using our own myths – this is what renews the stories. This is why the stories of Orestes and Dante are both so interesting and so different. Cliches are those things we say that we know and never forget. Romance books are all cliches. True novels never are. We all live chiched lives, those lives that are forgettable because they are so easily remembered. An uncliched life is lived in such a way that we cannot forget it, though we inevitably forget the lessons it could have taught us. This is the soul of great art, and why we come at it anew each time. Artists live such lives that would seem new each time through, sometimes in their actual lives, and always in the lives of their art. This is the mark of a true artist, and why a true artist can never, himself, know if he really is a true artist – and among readers, viewers, listeners of the works there will always be endless debate about their value, level of value, reasons for their value. So I cannot say that I myself am or will ever be one of these artists – yet I feel the call of the Muses. I feel their call, and can never know if I have or will ever measure up. And yet, I serve under their rule. And I chose to serve, though the Muses have equally chosen me. It is healthier to chose one’s fate – rejecting it can lead one into sorrow or madness of the worst kind. But it is a fate that is indeed chooseable. Fate, like the world, is not deterministic. By choosing to abide by the rule of the Muses, I have chosen to try to measure up to that choice. It is a great honor to be chosen by the Muses, and it requires much work to live up to that honor.

Ah, the likelihood of life. We do not know that for which any of us are chosen. I started off with the certainty I would become a scientist. I majored in molecular biology in college and worked on a Master’s degree in molecular biology for two years. And then Eros drove me mad, and the Muses brought me back. And now I am a poet because I cannot stop writing poetry. I am a short story writer because I cannot stop writing short stories. I am a novelist because I cannot stop writing novels. I am a lover of beauty because beauty called me forth to reproduce it in art. I am a lover of the arts, especially of literature, because the arts are the beautiful creations of the mind of man, and as such are the most beautiful of objects, more beautiful even than their creators. And, once the doors of perception are cleansed, we will see the world as it truly is: beautiful. This is what I was able to see by descending into the depths – I was able to see beauty in all its manifestations, to understand the beautiful nature of the world, and that drove me to want to make it more beautiful by adding more beauty to it, deepening and complexifying the beauty of the world. The tragedy is that there is no certainty that it will last – or that anything will last. In the end, will we all be swallowed up in the sun’s expansion? And even personally, will my work survive beyond my life? Will my genetic material? At the moment, my work looks to be the likeliest candidate for a kind of immortality. But I will take it – my work can pass my energy on into the future, and I will not complain. My work is myself at the moment of creation. It is a gift I hope is worthy of giving. I have had a difficult time getting others to accept my gifts. Perhaps they are not (yet? I hope) worthy of being given. Yet, I will continue to offer them.

Perhaps calling my work a gift seems narcissistic? There is a reason the narcissus is holy to Hades. It is narcissistic to believe that the gift of art we who have been to Hades have received should then be passed on, through us, to others. It is narcissistic to believe that anyone should care how we view the world, what we think, or what we feel. Yet that is the role of every teacher: every teacher has proclaimed that they have knowledge that you should have, and that they should teach it to you. The artist too is a teacher, as is the philosopher, and the preacher too. Who am I to offer a gift? The gift has first been given to me – and now I must, now I am compelled to give it to others. I have taken on the role of teaching others of the gift of beauty through the works that I am compelled to create. It is the gift of me that I hope others will take – my art if not my body. The drive given me by the Muses, even if no one will allow me to fulfill the drive given me by Eros. Are the Muses enough? I hope they are, and fear they are not. Eros will have to be placated, or other trips to Hades could occur – will the Muses always be able to rescue me?

Models for Thinking

In the Phaedrus, Plato says that he likes dividing things up into categories because it aides in thinking. Nietzsche came along 2300 years later to remind us that conceptual categories are, ultimately, artificial, and that we need to challenge them periodically, and remember that the divisions among things are not really so clear-cut.

That having been said, let me lay out several models I am using that determine my thinking.

1) information theory. I support an ontology of information. If something is inform, it has no form. If something informs, it gives form. Thus, information is that which is without form, yet gives form. All things in the universe are information, and the universe itself began as information and continues to exist as information.

2) chaos theory and fractal gemoetry. All things in the universe are self-similar regardless of scale, in several different fractal gemoetries.

3) emergence. All laws of the universe evolved from separate entities interacting to give rise ot those laws. These laws are called strange attractors.

4) nested hierarchies. Everything in the universe evolved into its level of complexity from lower levels of complexity. Biology evolved from chemistry which evolved from quantum physics (atoms), and atoms evolved from quantum strings. New levels of complexity arise naturally from lower levels of complexity as the entities of that lower level interact as a complex, dynamic system.

The idea of nested hierarchies comes in several flavors:

1) the physical model exemplified by J.T. Fraser's umwelt theory of time. With his model, the timeless level of pure chaos evolved into the probablistic time of quantum physics, whihc evolved into the deterministic time of chemistry (Newtonian physics), which evolved into the weakly forward direction of biotemporality (biological time), which evolved into the strongly forward direction of nootemporality (human time). Each level contains more and more time. And, I would argue, each new level becomes increasingly fractal in nature.

2) the human cognitive and social model developed by Don Beck. WIth his model, the pure survialism of animal life evolved into the weak communitarian structures of tribalism, which evolved into the weak individualism of Achilles-type heroism/belief in power gods, which evolved into the stronger communitarianism of authoritarian-religious systems (like Medieval Christianity of modern-day Islam), which evolved into the stronger individualism of the capitalist/scientific social system (the Modern Era in Europe and America), which evolved into the stronger communitarianism of secular egalitarianism (Marxism/Communism, environmentalism, postmodernism), which evolved into integralism, which recognizes the value of each of the lower levels (lower in the sense of being less complex, as each level is more complex than the lower levels), which evolved into holism, which attempts to more smoothly unify all the lower levels. The last two levels recognize the value of complex, fluid, nested hierarchies, as opposed to the egalitarian level, which rejects all hierarchies, and the authoritarian level, which tries to impose rigid hierarchies on everyone.

To have an even more integrationist way of thinking, we cannot forget these four things: I-we-it-its : individualism-communitarianism-traditional science-systems science. And these must be fully integrated into the two forms of nested hierarchy mentioned above (as those two ideas must themselves be integrated).

These are a few of the models with which I am thinking. Which should help to make sense of much of what I have said and will say from now on in the blog.

Pointless Political Conversations

It has become pointless to have political conversations lately. Especially among what are otherwise intelligent people. And I am including people who, on many specific issues, agree with me. I am talking about the blind, knee-jerk anti-Bush people.
Now let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not pro-Bush. I opposed his support for increased social spending, his support for subsidies, his educational reforms . . . I could go on and on. But this opposition is substantive – it is opposition to particular things. And it does not prevent me from supporting Bush on things I do agree with him on, like his explicitly changing the policy of the United States regarding our support of dictatorships. Does this mean we have in fact stopped supporting dictators? Of course not. If it requires supporting the current government in Tajikistan in order to have permanent bases to fight al Qaida in Afghanistan and to support the new democratic government there, obviously we will. What should be at issue is whether or not we work to democratize Tajikistan once we are there. But this is not the issue with the anti-Bush people. No evidence of Bush putting democratic governments in Afghanistan or Iraq (or suggestions that this is the first time we have in fact installed a democratic government rather than a dictator of our own choosing since WWII) will suffice. What matters is that in this one instance (and ignoring any contingent reasons why) is that we are in some way supporting a dictator by having a base in his country rather than immediately overthrowing that government – which itself ignores the fact that it would greatly weaken our current position in the region where we are hunting for Osama bin Laden. But practical concerns fall on deaf ears when it comes to the Bush haters. If he is doing it, it must be wrong.
Of course, the anti-Bush people also argue against any military action Bush undertakes. They claim concern for the number of troop deaths, though their every solution would likely (if history is any indication) incur more American deaths. But they only come up with these ideas because they are against Bush’s actions. If they were Al Gore’s actions (ignoring the fact that it is highly unlikely Gore would have pursued any pro-democracy foreign policy – though he would have likely still had bases in Tajikistan to support our actions in Afghanistan), there would be no opposition. It would be "clear" to the anti-Bush people that Gore was doing what was right and just and good. It is only because it is Bush who is doing it that it is seen as bad and wrong and insidious regarding his motives.
Much of this comes from a non-skeptical reading of a lot of anti-Bush literature. Now, every four years, we get a plethora of books praising or condemning the candidates and the newly elected leader. The difference seems to be that now people are accepting all they read at face value – even otherwise intelligent people. It was a former CIA agent who wrote this or that anti-Bush book, so it must be true. Why is there no questioning of motives? At a time when the CIA is under question for its failures leading up to 9-11, is being massively reformed, and is even having much of its power taken away and put into the hands of a new cabinet position – all of which was supported in one way or another by Bush – is it unreasonable to question the motives of a CIA agent who writes an anti-Bush book? Certainly it is better for the agent to attack the President than it is to admit to his, and his organization’s, massive failings. This is pure and simple loyalty to the CIA. Yet too many people (actually, almost everyone) only read what supports what they already believe, what will present them with the kinds of facts that will support what they want to believe, accept it at face value, without question, and will not hear contrary facts, let alone seek them out.
If for no other reason, I cannot wait for Bush to leave office so perhaps a semblance of intelligent political discussion can return. I am tired of people excusing one person or party for all of their idiocies, while hating another for all of the same idiocies. And I am equally tired of people attacking or opposing something a person or a party supports just because that person or party supports it. Bush proposes the same exact social security reforms some Democrats had proposed under Clinton, and now those same Democrats oppose the reforms. Anyone who switches positions just because someone in the other party supports it should be thrown out of office. All they want to do is oppose – they are for nothing. And they are also good for nothing. Least of all actual dialogue.

On Adam Smith

I recently found a book by James R. Otteson titled Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life, the goal of which is to synthesize Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which argues for people acting in their own rational self-interest so that everyone may be better off, and his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which argues for mutual sympathy and community as the sources of morality. In modern American politics, the liberals reject this connection entirely, while the conservatives don’t see any point in even making the connection.
But the connection is there, and it is important to make this connection. Smith was writing in the Scottish philosophical tradition, which developed a much different theory of human nature, including theories of equality and individualism, than did the Continental European philosophical tradition, which included Decartes, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger.

Before I continue, let me introduce a concept: the world can be viewed as digital, analog, or both. Digital comes from the Latin digitus, for finger. It is countable and separable – a digit is a number. Number comes from the Latin numerus, meaning number and division, and numerus comes from nom-eso, which also gives rise to the Greek nomos, meaning portion, custom, law, division, and melody. Nom comes from gno, which gives rise to knowledge and noble, and "noble" is one way to translate the Greek to kalon, which means not only noble, but also beautiful, just, and fair. Analog comes from analogous, meaning alike. Analog comes from the Greek ana-, complete, and logos, meaning explanation, collection, discourse, or account. A digital view of the world sees the world as divided, pluralistic; an analog view of the world sees the world as one, unified. As Heraclitus says, "It is wise, listening not to me but to the report [logos], to agree [homologein] that all things are one" (K. XXXVI). The view I am propounding agrees with Heraclitus that physis, logos, and nomos are intimately connected. If dynamic systems such as cultures and economies are both analog and digital, we again have an agonal unity of opposites, a complete account explainable only as parts, giving rise to greater complexity in the dynamic system arising out of their interaction. It is important to understand that the world is neither merely digital/fragmented nor merely analog/continuous in order to both have a clearer, more accurate understanding of the scientifically explainable parts of the world, and for aesthetic, ethical, and political reasons (as suggested by the connection of "digital" to to kalon and nomos). There are important consequences for our aesthetics, ethics, and politics if we hold to this (or any) particular (meta)physical view.

If the world is merely digital, the parts cannot interact. If the world is merely analog, it is indistinct. If it is both simultaneously – analog-unified and digital-plural – it has communication, coordination, cooperation, and co-action among its parts. It has unity in variety, and is thus beautiful.

In Individualism and Economic Order, F. A. Hayek points out the dangers of the digital-exclusive view – showing it can and usually does lead to the analogical view (too fine a texture looks like a solid color). The digital-exclusive view leads to bad games (social systems, economic systems, government), since information cannot be shared among players. A good game-system is one where communication – thus, community – is possible. Hayek says there are two kinds of individualism. One is based on rational philosophy, which started with René Descartes and was further developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Emmanuel Kant, Georg W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, and the existentialists, including Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir (I am sure the last three would object to being put in the "rationalist" tradition, but their ideas did not really deviate much from Kant’s). I will call this Cartesian Individualism (the digital-exclusive view). The other is in the Scottish tradition of David Hume, Bernard Mandeville, Josiah Tucker, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, and John Locke, and further developed by Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Acton (the digital-analog agonal view). Cartesian Individualism sees man as rational; the Scottish tradition does not see man as fully rational, but also, perhaps primarily, influenced by his drives, wants and needs of the moment. These different views give rise to different forms of individualism. Perhaps the best way to show the differences would be to put the two traditions side by side in a table showing the difference Hayek sees between the two, and the consequences of each of these, traditions:

COMPARISONS OF TWO PHILOSOPHIES OF INDIVIDUALISM

SCOTTISH (DIGITAL-ANALOG)

the individual is found within the social, leading to free markets
man is not always rational, or even capable of always being rational – man also has impulses and instincts
since man is not rational, he cannot design or plan something like a society or economy
the individual participates in the social (cooperates) through being selfish
"If left free, men will often achieve more than individual human reason could design or foresee" (11).
It is not necessary to find good men to run the society, meaning anyone can play
it is not necessary for us to become better than we already are, making it easy to enter the game to play it
freedom is granted to all
no one group never always wins, which keeps people playing
reason is seen "as an interpersonal process in which anyone’s contribution is tested and corrected by others" (15)
inherently unequal people are treated equally
inherent inequality allows diversity
hierarchical – intermediates encouraged

CARTESIAN (DIGITAL-EXCLUSIVE)

radical individualism, leading (ironically (?)) to socialism
man is rational and has no instincts and can always control his impulses
since man is rational, he can create through planning the ideal society or economy
individual vs. the social – i.e., selfishness vs. cooperation – therefore need coercion
"social processes can be made to serve human ends only if they are subjected to the control of individual human reason" (10)
only the best can or should run society and make economic decisions – few can play
men need to be improved (presumably made more rational) before a good economy or society can be created – hard to play
freedom granted only to the good and wise
the "good and wise," "rational" rulers always win – no reason to play the game
reason found in the individual, especially in certain "good and wise" individuals
people are made equal in actuality – thus, have to arbitrarily assign tasks
only State and Individual, thus flattening society – intermediates suppressed


The Scottish form of individualism, by being digital-analogical, provides us with a broader, more inclusive set of game rules. Anyone can play the social and economic games – making these systems more complex by containing more parts acting in coordination and cooperation. Man does not have to be "improved" for systems set up using Scottish principles to work as he does for those using Cartesian principles (historical examples of attempts to "improve" man to make him more suitable for "rationally" designed societies include the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, the Terror of Revolutionary France, and the slaughters of millions in the Marxist states of the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Cambodia). In the Cartesian view, there is one rationality; but in the Scottish view, there are many, which can often come into conflict.

The field in which we operate is our democratic society. The ideal democratic system includes, of course, the various levels of government, but it also encompasses every other organized part of society, including the neighborhood, family, workplace, political party, voluntary or nongovernmental organization, transnational corporation, Internet, and a variety of multilateral organizations. Operating within such a spectrum of responsibility progressively demands the most that individuals can give. Instead of requiring full mastery at the outset, this system establishes conditions under which human beings can achieve their full potential, through their participation, their education, and their receipt of the benefits which the system can produce. ( Craig Eisendrath, At War With Time, 277)

One can make a rational decision about an immediate individualistic concern, one about a long-term individualistic concern, one about one’s family, one for social organizations (i.e., churches, schools, businesses), one for one’s city, county, state, and/or country, one for one’s friends, one for strangers, etc. – all of which could come into conflict (something could be rational for the individual, but not for the family, etc.). This recognizes that individual decisions can and often do effect and affect others through the different levels of society between the individual and the state.

If we take the Scottish view that a person’s knowledge and interests are limited, making our actions limited to a tiny sphere of influence – our family and friends, our churches, schools and businesses, the intermediate social groups the rationalists suppress and the Scottish encourage – we see a highly complex society emerging: the individual influences small social groups, the small social groups influence the individual, and both interact to influence larger social groups, which feeds back to the smaller groups. There is a series of nested hierarchies where each person acts as a digital element, acting in a digital-analogical way, communicating information to other digital elements to create smaller cultural subsystems – the digital elements – of the larger culture. The same individual can have an effect on a school, a church, a business, and a local government, each of which will have larger effects on society at large. More people have more influence over society. And man does not have to be "improved" – the worst can be canceled out by the best. In what other country than the United States and other Western-style democratic republics does it really not matter who the President or Prime Minister is? – any mischief the American President may want to make is more often than not counterbalanced by two houses of Congress, a Supreme Court, and the voters’ opinions (these same voters who can vote the President out after four years if worse comes to worse, or vote in a different party during midterm elections). These principles, upon which the free market is based, are "an effective way of making man take part in a process more complex and extended than he could comprehend" (Hayek, 14-5). Perfect knowledge is not needed to participate. One can have a considerable amount of uncertainty, and still do well. We can reduce uncertainty through education, increasing our own individual knowledge, but we are still left with a plethora of things which we will never have the time to learn.

There needs to be a way for individuals, with their limited information, knowledge, etc., to enter into a highly complex game, to be able to participate in the game itself. The way to allow someone into a highly complex game is by not having barriers to their entering and playing the game in the first place. And, if you do choose to play, and take large risks while playing, you should be able to reap a correspondingly larger reward. To have a good game,
any workable individualist order must be so framed not only so that the relative remunerations the individual can expect from the different uses of his abilities and resources correspond to the relative utility of the result of his efforts to others but also that these remunerations correspond to the objective results of his efforts rather than to their subjective merits. (21)

And the game must not be constructed of iron-clad laws, but of flexible rules (not too flexible, as those of pragmatism, nor too rigid, as those of absolute principles, both of which, as opposed to the idea of general principles, cannot create a system, since principles are the strange attractors, and neither pragmatism nor iron-clad absolutes create attractors). These are also good guidelines for creating works of art and literature, and for writing works of philosophy, theory, and criticism.

An example of good game rules are our "traditions and conventions . . . [which] evolve in a free society and . . . , without being enforceable, establish flexible but normally deserved rules that make the behavior of other people predictable in a high degree" (Hayek, 23). Most social rules should be those agreed upon and practiced by most of the people most of the time, enforced by subtle social pressures, not the use and threat of physical force. "In the social sciences the things are what people think they are. Money is money, a word is a word, a cosmetic is a cosmetic, if and because somebody thinks they are" (Hayek, 60). They are rules because we agree they are – they are socially constructed. With these kinds of rules, those we find in the free market, we have various choices – while with orders or iron-clad laws, we get no real choices. Any choice is better than none. "It is better to have a choice between several unpleasant alternatives than being coerced into one" (Hayek 24).

A word of caution: just because the world has a socially constructed element, it does not follow that all the world is socially constructed. To claim it is brings us to the problems with pragmatism, where no system at all can be constructed. Hayek says pragmatism is "the preference for proceeding from particular instance to particular instance," where the rule-maker "decides each question "on its merits""(1). With pragmatism, expediency and compromise lead us "to a system in which order is created by direct commands" (1). "Without principles we drift," and we are led "to a state of affairs which nobody wanted" (2). Pragmatism makes it possible to change the rules with each move in the game – imagine a game master watching a game being played between two people, and changing the rules whenever he wished. This would lead to the players in each move trying to gain the game master’s favor. They would try to bribe the game master rather than play the game. If this sounds like how big business is conducted, with the government as the game master, we can see why. How much money do businesses waste trying to influence "pragmatic" government officials? With basic principles, everyone is clear what the rules are and that they cannot – or are very difficult to – change. The game players concentrate on the playing of the game itself rather than coming up with strategies to influence some game master. With the use of general principles, the game master can all but be done away with.

The world Adam Smith envisioned was thus one where people cooperated because they worked in their own self-interest – but not exploitatively. Free market systems work because we have sympathy for others, and we want to engage in actions where "if you do something good for me, I will do something good for you," versus the way governments necessarily act: "unless you do something good for me, I will do something bad to you." Governments only help foster community when they prevent individuals and groups from engaging in the latter type of behavior. Those who try to dissolve community bonds and flatten out the natural hierarchies that develop in a culture only seek to create a situation where people are loyal only to them, and not to the series of smaller groups to which they belong. Those who adopt the Cartesian view of humankind are interested only in ruling others. That is why they oppose free markets and the creation of true communities.

Some Comments on Postmodernism

The exclusively digital approach to aesthetics, ethics, and politics is better known as postmodernism, pluralism, and multiculturalism. While this approach has been a necessary corrective to the analogical world view, if we take the digital view to its logical conclusion, and reject the analogical as a constituent part of the world, all it can do is create alienation – among different races, different cultures, between men and women, and, if we take Quine’s view that we never actually understand one another, among each and every individual. If we take what Quine says in a very limited way, he has a point, but an extreme view makes the mistake of thinking that if there is any noise – ambiguity – in communication, we cannot communicate; whereas information theory says we need noise if we are going to have any communication at all.

An analogical view may lead us to collectivism, including communism, but an exclusively digital view leads to the alienation found in postmodern radical individualism. The consequence of this digital world view is postmodernists telling us we cannot understand one another. Men cannot understand women, and vice versa. Different races and cultures cannot understand each other, we cannot understand anything that happened in the past, and there is the suggestion that we cannot really understand each other. The consequence of this is an increasing fragmentation of society, creating warring factions (men vs. women, minorities vs. majorities, secular vs. religion), and increasing distrust among people.

Many postmodern theorists have observed that one of the features of modern Western culture is its increasing fragmentation and alienation, a favorite theme of many Marxists. It is ironic that some of these same critics are the very people making the problem worse. If we cannot understand one another, we are incapable of projecting ourselves into another’s situation. While this is literally true in a factual sense, it is in another sense not true at all. We can and do have empathy for others, basing that empathy on related experiences. While I may not understand perfectly an intellectual woman’s complaint that most men do not take her seriously as a thinker, I do understand the sting of not being taken seriously, especially when I know I know more about a subject than the person who is not taking me seriously as a thinker. Only if we can place ourselves in another person’s situation can we develop the empathy needed to be moral or to effect any sort of positive social change.

Studies show orangutans, a distant cousin, can putting themselves into others’ minds. If food is placed out of reach of a caged orangutan, and a person is brought in with a bucket on his head and placed near the orangutan’s cage, without hesitation the orangutan will take the bucket off the person’s head and physically point the person in the direction of the food. The orangutan knows the person cannot see the food if he has a bucket on his head. How could the orangutan know this if it could not project itself into the mind of the person with the bucket on his head? This is a cognitive feature of the great apes, including humans, whose ability to do this developed even more with the advent of language. "One of the common ancestor species of all the living great apes and humans was the first in which individuals realized that others had viewpoints and knowledge different from their own, and could build up novel sequences of actions" (Richard W. Byrne, Tree of Origin, 169).

This ability is why were are capable of telling stories – including fiction. To say we cannot (or should not) do this is to say we are (or should be) cognitively less complex than the other great apes and place us on the cognitive level of monkeys. This attitude goes beyond being merely anti-human, to being anti-great ape. It is anti-language since "Evolution of language would be impossible in a species in which individuals could not imagine that other individuals know things that they do not know themselves" (Byrne, 172). The consequence of this anti-theory-of-mind view for literature has been the creation of a shallow sort of minimalism that avoids letting the reader know about anything more than the actions of the characters, on this theory that we cannot know what others think – so the author should not bother to tell us what his characters think, since he cannot even know. If they think at all.

Postmodernism creates social ruptures – it is anti-social in nature. It puts up barriers between men and women. Postmodernism’s radical individualism says there is an abyss of difference between men and women. The collectivism inherent in the Franco-German individualist tradition, whose egalitarian individualism attempts to eliminate all difference, suggests there is no difference between men and women. Specifically, women have been told they should be more like men. This has created an identity crisis in many women. They are told by their culture (which has been influenced by the pro-masculinizing gender feminists) they should be one thing, and by their biology and psychology they should be something else. I fear American women will soon face a tragic crisis, which can only be headed off if women are allowed by this culture to be women in the fullest sense, and not made into either men or relegated into some sort of submissive role, as we had in the past, and as we still find in many cultures around the world.

Postmodernism, far from being a solution to this crisis, only makes the problem worse. And gender feminism, by insisting that there are no fundamental behavioral differences between men and women, only reinforces the prejudice that differences are inherently bad and unequal. It is those feminists who perpetuate the belief that femininity is inferior. Despite what they think, it is not. American culture in particular is sorely lacking in femininity – not the cultural myths we once held about how women should act, but natural femininity, which can come about in a more inclusive, open culture – this lack is primarily the fault of the gender feminists, who insist that our genetic differences make no difference. This is creating the groundwork for a tragic situation, where women are pushed by culture to go beyond their own physis without even trying to understand their physis (vs. the myths of their physis). One hopes we learn the outcome through works of literature, including plays and film, rather than within society itself.

This anti-social element is found not only in relations among men and women, but among races and cultures too. I welcome the emphasis on multiculturalism, as it creates the potential for a much richer, more complex American (and world) culture, but the way postmodernism practices it creates a number of problems. What are we to do with a culture that practices clitorectomy? Or oppresses women? Or practices genocide? Are we to just consider these a legitimate part of the rich tapestry of humanity? Postmodernism’s insistence that we cannot judge anyone – particularly other cultures – puts us in a serious dilemma in considering these situations. I think there are few who support genocide, but how can one come to say genocide is wrong if one does not make some sort of judgement, or insist there is some sort of universal we should be guided by? I asked Cynthia Haynes (a self-identified postmodernist) this question, and she told me the only thing she does not tolerate is intolerance. But isn’t the intolerance of intolerance itself a universalizing view? One assumes she (and other postmodernists) wishes everyone was intolerant of intolerance. But if one wishes for such an overarching view, one’s entire postmodern world view collapses (of course, the very fact that postmodernism is a world view and, thus, a grand narrative, makes it collapse, imploded by its own hypocrisy).

Postmodern multiculturalism will not work. But we should not return to a "melting pot" view either. Why not a mixture of the two, maintaining cultural identity while integrating everyone into, for example, the American (or, better, world) culture? This view presumes there are more than two societal levels – the individual and the culture/state – which goes against the Franco-German philosophical tradition leading to postmodernism. It is possible – I would say preferable – that there is more than just the individual and her culture. Why can’t a person be an individual, a member of a family (nuclear and extended), a member of a community, a subculture, an organization (if not several), including churches, clubs, schools, etc., an overarching culture, and a citizen of a state, a country, and the world? If there are this many levels between an individual and the government, the government’s power over that individual is weakened, and the influence of that government (and any who wish to influence that government, the culture of a country through the government, etc.), is greatly weakened – which may explain why many pro-statist postmodernists oppose this view.

Postmodernism’s anti-social view of humanity makes it anti-human. Humans are a social species, like all the great apes (even the apparently solitary orangutan will socialize when food is abundant), most monkeys, lions, elephants, dolphins, and wolves. Social species are different from and have more complex behavior than herd or schooling species, like antelope, sheep, or sardines, in that there is little to no bonding among the members of the herd. Individual members are less likely than social animals to aid unrelated or distantly related members of the herd. It seems postmodernists wish to make us act more like herd than social animals.

Review of Richard Wolin's "The Seduction of Unreason"

Calling someone a "fascist" or a "Nazi" is beginning to become meaningless. All you have to do is disagree with anything a leftist believes, and you are immediately slapped by them with one of those labels. However, this is not what Richard Wolin is doing in his book "The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism."
In this book Wolin is looking at historical fascism, and the influence of fascism on much of what passes as philosophy nowadays. He identifies fascism with counter-enlightenment thinking. Since Wolin is clearly a scholar of Continental philosophy, Enlightenment philosophy is for him primarily that of Voltaire, Diderot, and the other thinkers of the French Enlightenment. The reaction to the Enlightenment came in several forms, from Romanticism to various forms of racism and nationalism. It is when the Nietzschean form of Romanticism (or, at least, sections taken out of context) was combined with ideas of racism and nationalism (one cannot really object on the grounds of reason that this is a contradiction, since Nietzsche both hated anti-Semites and nationalism, since the people who combined them were enemies of reason) that the various forms of fascism were born – the most commonly known being Italian fascism and Nazism. The author does an excellent reading of Nietzsche as the 20th century thinkers have misread him, noting only at the end of his chapter on Nietzsche that they were in fact misreading him.
Wolin spends each chapter covering different thinkers. But before we get to the ones he does cover, I think I should mention the one thinker he does not cover at all in his own chapter: Martin Heidegger. It may seem odd that Heidegger, who said that reason was an adversary to thought, was an actual member of the Nazi party, and who never recanted his Nazism nor apologized for what the Nazis did, should be left out, especially considering the fact that it is Heidegger’s ideas that have influenced postmodern thinking more than any others – including perhaps Nietzsche’s. However, Wolin is interested in exposing those we do not normally see as fascists. And besides, Heidegger’s associations with the Nazis are well documented – most recently in Charles Bambach’s book "Heidegger’s Roots."
So let us talk about those Wolin does talk about.
The first unexpected name to arise is Carl Jung. It may seem odd as first glance to include Jung, who was, after all, Freud’s handpicked successor at one time. However, Wolin shows several of Jung’s writings that were explicitly anti-Semitic. Further, Jung had a 10% quota on the number of Jewish psychologists who could join his Analytical Psychology Club of Zurich as regular members, only doing away with it in 1950. Jung also apparently thought of his famous ideas of the archetypes as being specifically Aryan in nature, and that Jews especially do not have them, or at least have them only weakly. The reason for this was that Jung saw the archetypes as essentially pagan in origin. Further, Wolin points out that "Jung eagerly cooperated with the Goring Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy, accepting the presidency of the Nazi-run General Medical Society for Psychotherapy and serving as editor for its journal, the Zentralblatt fur Psychotherapie" (74). The fact that Jung headed a Nazi society for psychotherapy and cooperated with Nazi psychological research should concern anybody. It’s no wonder he was considered for war crimes after World War II.
The next surprise – and even more surprising – is the case of Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose mentor was none other than Heidegger. Certainly, this association is hardly enough. Karl Jaspers was a friend of Heidegger, but did not join the Nazis in any way. But Gadamer apparently decided to associate himself with the Nazis just to further his career (which only raises the question of who should be condemned more – Heidegger for actually believing in Nazism, or Gadamer for using what the Nazis were doing to further his own career), by signing pro-Hitler petitions, voluntarily enrolling in a Nazi political reeducation camp, joining the National Socialist Teacher’s Association, and volunteering to give lectures in Nazi-held Paris in order to help convert the French intellectuals (who were not given any other choice but to attend). This is most damning when we consider the fact that one did not have to become a member of the Nazi party, or associate with them at all, to work in the universities.
Wolin begins his section on the French thinkers’ associations with fascism with a chapter titled "Left Fascism," which deals with the ideas of Georges Bataille. Bataille, whose influences included Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade, is considered by many to be the father of poststructuralism, out of which we get postmodernism. Bataille was closely associated with Left Fascism, which he identified as his ideology, and which seeked to unify fascism with an even stronger version of socialism. He was anti-reason, anti-civilization, anti-ethics, pro-violence, and promoted the most perverse, unreproductive sexuality (these things are not hidden or hinted at, but are explicitly stated by Bataille, or explicitly shown in his fictional works).
The next two figures Wolin covers are less clearly associated with fascism.
Maurice Blanchot was a writer, who wrote articles against what he called the "inhuman Declaration of the Rights of Man," and who saw the "only solution to a dysfunctional republicanism" as a "fascist-type insurrection" (192). He also thought there was an "international conspiracy of communists, Jews, and capitalists" (Heidegger said that Germany was caught in the pincers of capitalism on one side, and communism on the other, both of which he said were metaphysically identical). His literary theories also became one of the cornerstones of poststructuralism – joining him with Bataille.
The most interesting person included in this work is Jacques Derrida, whose idea of deconstruction has led us into the postmodern era. Leaving aside Derrida’s attempts to deconstruct the Nazism of both Heidegger and Paul de Mann (to show they weren’t really all that fascist after all), and the fact that Derrida’s primary intellectual influences are Nietzsche and Heidegger, the connection to fascism seems, at first glance, weak. Certainly, Derrida is anti-reason. But for a long time, deconstruction was accused of being nonpolitical. Derrida’s response to this is what is interesting. He first responded by saying that deconstruction is in fact "hyper-political," particularly in its critique of democracy. His attacks on natural law also undermine the very foundations of democracy, on which democracy is founded. He also opposed the ideas of Law and Justice, saying that "justice, as opposed to law, always pertains to the case at hand in its irreducible individuality" (234). While there may be something to this, this should not, as Derrida suggests, mean we should do away with law. What is most interesting is that Derrida gets this idea form the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, who proclaimed that "the exception is more interesting than the rule" in his book Political Theology. He wants justice that is not grounded in law – which means he wants the rule of man, not the rule of law. Another problem with dealing with justice through the lens of the exceptional is that what we end up with is crisis "justice," which allows precisely for dictatorial decrees.
Wolin ends his book with a chapter on anti-Americanism, which he identifies precisely with anti-Enlightenment thinking. America is everything Europe was not: it has no racial foundations, the laws are based in reason rather than tradition, there is no nation to speak of, but rather federation with a fluid hierarchy (as opposed to the strict egalitarianism supported on the Continent, which has resulted in the periodic desire to eliminate those who will not fit into the egalitarian ideal state), it is a liberal capitalist state, individualistic, and free. Some of these things are still true. Wolin identifies current anti-Americanism in Europe with Heidegger’s, whose ideas on America were so purely intellectual, that they had no basis in reality. Certainly, Heidegger never traveled to America to learn anything about it. And because America is capitalist, and in Europe Jews are associated with capitalism, the anti-Semitism that still runs through Europe contributes to anti-Americanism. We see anti-Americanism in the present day, among postmodern thinkers such as Baudrillard, who claims that in America we believe in a "hyperreality" made up entirely of media-generated images, which have replaced reality. He sees America as a negative utopia. He has also expressed a great deal of joy over 9-11, and he is joined in this sentiment by Slavoj Zizek, who claimed in his book "The Desert of the Real" that "America got what it fantasized about," in our movies. In other words, we got what we had coming. Neither is concerned with morality in their commentaries – only with their interpretations of things. Which all too often have nothing to do with reality – and almost never have anything to do with reason. Anti-Enlightenment thought, which reached its worse manifestations in Nazi Germany, continue on – but with Wolin, it is no longer unchecked or unchallenged.

Critical Positions

First, all criticism must be done with love, can only be done from love. This is true in both arts criticism and critical art – or criticism of any kind. Criticism without love is spite. Those who criticize without loving what they criticize do so out of spite – too often because what they are criticizing is good, and they hate it for that very reason. Their only purpose is to tear down what they criticize. There are, of course, bad things that must be torn down, but one does not criticize these things – one attacks them.
We must criticize the arts or criticize through the arts as a parent criticizes a child (I use the word "criticize" here in the most positive way possible – as loving correction) – with the loving hope of bringing out what we know to be the best that child has to offer. But the child must know it is loved, must feel loved, before it can withstand criticism. Children who know they are loved can take loving criticism and use it to improve himself. Children who are not loved, who do not see the criticism as coming from love, will receive the criticism with resentment – and rightfully so. He will see criticism as something harmful, something meant to tear him down rather than lift him up. This lifting up, this is and should be the goal of all criticism.
My own particular field is literature, and so I shall use it as an example. In choosing a novel to critique, I would – and should – pick a novel I love, while avoiding novels I hate. There is an element of logic here – why would I want to spend more time with a novel I disliked and whose artistry I do not respect? Thus, I would never do a criticism of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, which I consider to be the single worst novel I have ever read. Instead, I would rather do a criticism of, say, Don DeLillo’s Underworld (to pick another contemporary novelist), which I love immensely and, in my love of it, am able to see both what is good about the novel, as well as what does not quite work, in my opinion. I can do this because I am approaching the novel from a position of love.
Now some may object that a better position is that of neutrality. But neutrality is the same as saying indifference, and you are certainly unable to say anything either positive or negative, or constructive in any way, if you are indifferent. Only someone who loves something or someone will want to take the time and make the effort to critique it. Only someone who loves something or someone will want what is best for it. Even hatred is preferable to indifference – one can gain something from it, if one views such criticism with a cool eye. With hatred, at least some emotion was involved – they cared enough to hate. With indifference, nothing is accomplished – it is the true opposite of love (and love’s twin, hatred).
A good example of a loving critique is the creation of new art in response to the work(s) in question. I would never write a novel in response to Blood Meridian – to do so would be to acknowledge value where, in fact, I find none. But even though I have various philosophical problems with DeLillo’s paranoia, conspiracy-mentality, and apocalysm, all of which I reject, I do consider him worthy of emulating and of responding to artistically and philosophically. I am even now working on a novel that does just that – respond to DeLillo (and postmodernism in general) philosophically. Indeed, my novel would have been impossible without my having read Underworld.
So criticism must be done from love. Criticizing from hatred will not work because those being criticized will refuse to listen, meaning it cannot be constructive – and, in the end, what is criticism meant to be if not constructive? Criticizing from hatred will not work because we are blinded by that hatred to whatever value there is in the thing or person in question. And whose who are being critiqued will not listen to anything we have to say, because they know we do not have their best interests at heart. Thus, my position on not doing any criticism of Blood Meridian – lovers of the book will gain nothing from anything I have to say about it. But hopefully lovers of Underworld would be able to read a critique I wrote of it and be able to see it in a new light, uncover new beauties in it that had previously gone unseen, understand what I have a problem with in the book and why, and investigate with me the possible reasons for DeLillo’s choices. They will listen because they know I love the book.
The same is true of children – and of countries. Each must know the one being critical is only doing it out of love and only wants what is best – only wants to lift them up to greater heights, to make them a better person or a better country. Criticism from hatred is only meant to tear down, to destroy, not to build up – and the one who is being criticized knows this, no matter the objections of the one who criticizes from hatred. Everyone, from the time they were a small child, knows the difference. That is why criticism must always be done only from a position of love.

On the Oscars and Satire in Film

This year in film, what is perhaps most noticeable is what the Oscars and the Golden Globes both failed to notice – or, more accurately, recognize.
In 2004, we saw three different kinds of political movies: The Passion of the Christ, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Team America. The first thing to notice about these three movies is that they are each completely different from the others. The first is at first glance not a political movie at all – only an expression of faith. The second is a work of propaganda. The third is a work of satire.
Western civilization can be summed up as the tension between Athens and Jerusalem. Between free inquiry and obedient love – or, philosophy and faith. Since Descartes, we have been moving away from Jerusalem and toward Athens. The Passion was a reaffirmation of the increasingly neglected half of our civilization. As such, it is eminently political – and not just because a few people cannot tell the difference between the negative portrayal of a few historical Jewish people and true anti-Semitism (such critics ignore the fact that 1) many Jews in the film were portrayed positively, 2) Jesus was a Jew, and 3) Jesus’ crucifixion is not a negative thing for Christians – for without that death, there would be so salvation), which is only political in the most superficial sense of the word. In the truest sense of the political, it was meant to pull together those who share faith in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. This is why the movie upset so many people.
In the second half of the 20th century, philosophy increasingly gave way to pure rhetoric – and thus to postmodernism, which emphasizes propaganda by insisting that all communication is propaganda, since there is no truth. Its ultimate expression is in movies such as Fahrenheit 9/11, where the argument is made by clever editing (postmodern theory points out that you can create causal relationships in the minds of one’s audience by simply placing two things next to each other, or sandwiching, say, one news clip between two others, so that the two related clips create an association with the inserted, unrelated, clip in the minds of the viewers). Through editing, one can manipulate an audience to believe falsehoods, while also claiming (correctly) that everything you showed was factual. And it was, technically, based in fact. The facts were carefully selected and organized to make the particular argument he wished. And Michael Moore is not the only one doing this – pollsters have been doing this for years, since the way one asks the questions typically determines the answers. And the answers you want determines the way you word the questions. Thus, we get in the postmodern era the complete separation of truth and facts – so that facts do not have to have anything to do with the truth at all.
Satire does not try to provide answers, so it is a different kind of thing yet. Satire laughs at faith believed blindly, at people who support immoral things in the name or morality, at all the things we do that make us fall short of excellence. In Team America, nationalistic fervor and overenthusiasm, the tacit support of dictators by people on the Left, and poorly written and acted movies are all satirized. The topics range from art to politics – from Right to Left. Michael Moore is made to kill himself as a suicide bomber precisely because he’s a postmodern propagandist.
What is missing – and what, ironically, it is a movie like Team America that points out indirectly is missing – is philosophy. No one is engaging in free enquiry. We have religious faith only, or believe in cleverly edited propaganda pieces. Team America satirizes the fact that none of the characters in the movie – and none of the people the characters are satires of – care a thing about the truth (this is also why they satirize bad movies – since if "art tells the truth in the general form of a lie" as Nietzsche says, then bad art is equally far from the truth), which can only be discovered by truly free inquiry. It is ironic that it is a film described by someone as an "obscene puppet movie" that is trying to point out what is missing.
It is not surprising, perhaps, that Team America was ignored by the Oscars – satires are rarely recognized as art until decades, or even centuries, later. I doubt Team America crossed the minds of anybody when choosing Oscar nominees. And Hollywood is not religious enough to nominate The Passion. The surprise is the snubbing of Fahrenheit 9/11, which did, after all, win a People’s Choice Award. Perhaps even Hollywood is growing tired of Michael Moore. Self-righteous propaganda preferring dictators to democrats may involve good editing, b ut it does not equal good art.

An Apology for “Tumbling Woman”

With plans for the 9-11 site moving forward, I would like to make a suggestion for a centerpiece in the memorial section. One thing I wanted to happen to the site is already in the works: I felt the only proper response to the terrorist attacks was to build a new building that was even bigger than the twin towers – bigger than any building in the world. The 1776 foot (what a poetic height) tower designed to replace the twin towers fits the bill beautifully. The second thing I felt we needed to do was to have some sort of work of art that would forever remind us of what happened there. That has already been made – in 2002.
I have only seen Eric Fischl's "Tumbling Woman" statue on T.V., but I was astonished by it nonetheless. It is one of the most beautiful, moving, and appropriate works of art one could make in tribute to the victims of the twin towers. It is beautiful, moving, and appropriate because it is tragic. And tragic art is the only form of art that is appropriate in dealing with what happened on September 11th.
We Americans are used to thinking that good necessarily leads to good, and bad necessarily leads to bad. The good guy always wins, because he is good and does good. The villain always loses because he is evil and does evil. But what happens when good deeds, intentions, ideas, or decisions lead to bad consequences? Or what if you are not presented with a good decision at all? What happens when good people have to, due to the circumstances, make bad choices? We get tragedy. Such was the decision of those who jumped from the Trade Center towers. Faced with burning to death or falling to their deaths, many chose to fall. "Tumbling Woman" is a tribute to that terrible choice too many were forced to make.
The main objection people have made about the sculpture is that it is upsetting, that it disturbs those who see it. Good. That, after all, is what tragic art is supposed to do. It is meant to make us live (or, in this case, relive) strong emotions in a safe place so, in the future, should we be faced with such strong emotions (again), we will have learned how to more properly and appropriately deal with them. Tragedy is one of the strongest ways art can help us develop ourselves emotionally. By being exposed to this sculpture, we could be reminded of those emotions we felt when we saw the attacks and their aftermath unfolding, in a safe and healthy manner. It provides us with an emotional education, which will make us react to such emotions in the future in a more healthy manner. It will make us better people, stronger and healthier people. More heroic even than many were in the midst of the attacks. We cannot make what happened go away by getting rid of or hiding this sculpture. By even wanting to do so, we are in open denial. We are trying to suppress these feelings that we should feel, and that is unhealthy. We are trying to forget, and we should not.
I understand why people are upset over this sculpture. You should be. Actually, it should not be the sculpture that you should be upset at, but everything it manages to so beautifully represent. You should be upset at people being forced to choose between burning to death in an inferno caused by bad men flying planes into our tallest buildings, and jumping to their deaths. But denying those emotions is unhealthy. What "Tumbling Woman" manages to do, using the beauty and magnificence of tragedy, is allow us to deal with these emotions in an open, healthy manner. If it were possible, everyone should see it, gaze at it, contemplate it. Perhaps the 9-11 Memorial at the former World Trade Center site would be a good home for it. That way, we could all take it into our hearts and souls and learn, through it, the life lessons it can teach us, that tragedy alone can teach us about the world.

The Cure For AIDS

There are two reasons why we will not be finding a cure for AIDS anytime in the near future. And one of them is not the fact that we have never developed a cure for any virus before. We have vaccinated against viruses before (polio and smallpox being the most famously wiped out by vaccination – but why has it been so long since we had at minimum a vaccination cure?), but we have never developed a cure for one. Yet this is not the reason I am pessimistic.
I am fully confident that we will have the technological ability to wipe out AIDS. HIV has some features that make it one of the best candidates for being the first virus to be cured – even if it has other features that make a vaccine of it impossible. But technology is not the problem here. The problem is inherent in the social-political system. Nobody who could cure AIDS wants to.
This is not as insidious as it sounds. We are merely talking about incentives here. As comedian Chris Rock once said, they will never cure AIDS – the money’s not in the cure, it’s in the treatment. The money’s in the comeback. And he’s right. If a pharmaceutical company can keep you alive with AIDS for 50 years, they will. That’s 50 years of profits from treating you. This is in their best interests as a company. If they came up with a cure, there would be a short-term profit from selling it to everyone (assuming the government did not figure out a way to nationalize the cure, in the "best interest" of mankind), and then that would be the end of it. Once everyone was cured of AIDS, there would be no more HIV infections, and the cure would be useless. No company CEO in his right mind would want a product that eliminated its own need to be used.
The second reason why we will not be finding a cure for AIDS anytime in the near future is because of the way we fund AIDS research. There are university labs out there who are actively looking for a cure for AIDS – they are not tied into the company profit motive, so one could argue that they are more likely to find a cure. However, we have a similar problem here was we have with the companies. These labs get grants to look for a cure for AIDS. Please note my wording here: they get money to LOOK for a cure, not to FIND one. IF you know that so long as you are looking for something, you will continue to get millions of dollars, wouldn’t you continue to look, without bothering to find what you are looking for? Again, I don’t think this is a conscious choice. But the fact of the matter is that there are labs across the U.S. that would cease to get money year after year if a cure for AIDS were found. Thus, it is not in these labs’ best interest to find a cure – only to continue looking for one.
I’m sure there are a few people out there who sincerely want to find a cure for AIDS. Unfortunately, they are not numerous enough to increase the odds of actually finding a cure. We need to change the incentive structure. We need to stop paying people to look for a cure for AIDS, and instead pay them to find one. What this means is that we should at the very least create an award – perhaps a combination of government and private funding – for the person who finds a cure for AIDS. Various governments from around the world could contribute to it, as well as private individuals. And people could continue contributing to it over time. I would think that the award should be at least in the billions of dollars. It should be such a big award that any incentive not to find a cure is wiped out. And this award should be in addition to the money made from the cure itself being used.
We need to stop being romantic about somebody coming up with a cure out of the goodness of their hearts. A cure will only come about when a sufficiently large carrot is dangled in front of those who have the ability to develop a cure. None of this nonsense about what people "should" be doing, that they "should" find a cure because it’s the "right thing to do." If we want actual results (and the people who speak such nonsense do not want actual results, only to feel good about themselves having judged others for doing things for the "wrong" reasons), we have to change the structure of our incentives. This is the only way we will actually ever find a cure for AIDS. And once this works, we can move on to cancer and any of a number of other diseases. Cures will come only when we reward the finding of cures rather than the looking for them.