How Not to Cut Government Spending

How is it that we have a Republican government – a Republican President, a Republican Senate, and a Republican House of Representatives – that has grown the federal government by over 10% each year Bush has been in office? Who ever heard of Big Government Republicans? Apparently Republicans are only for small government when the Democrats are in power. Give me President Clinton with two Republican Houses of Congress any day, with their 3% growth – which is at least as low as te rate of inflation.

And the notion of "cuts" in Washington is a complete joke. Is it too much to ask that there be true cuts, rather than mere cuts in the rate of growth? When I say cut, I mean that less money is actually spent this year than was spent last year. Is this too much to ask?
If we are going to get true cuts, there are a few things we can do. First, we need a sunset law for all extra-Constitutional laws – for every law passed by the federal government. The Constitution itself would not be under this law (and, indeed, I would recommend making it a part of the Constitution as an Amendment). This would force legislators to have to approve of each and every law every so often (I would recommend every ten years), which would cut out the deadwood and reinforce those laws that are in fact worth keeping. If a law is worth having, it is worth voting for again. This would allow us to get rid of laws that may have had their time and place, but which are no longer relevant to current circumstances.

Second, we need to have earmark reforms. Not everyone needs to have a piece of every single piece of pie passed by Congress. Third, we need rider reform – or, in fact, abolishment. If a law cannot stand on its own, it should not be passed. And that leads me to the final reform – reduction of the size of bills. There need to be fewer laws passed as packages. Again, if a law is worth having, it should be able to stand on its own.

These are the only things that will get Washington spending in check. If the Republicans are serious about reducing the size of government – and the past five years have created very strong doubts in my mind – then you will work to enact reforms such as these. Otherwise, if the government is going to grow more and more anyway, we might as well elect the Democrats – they are at least honest about wanting to increase the size of government.

English Only?

Let assume for a moment that those who are in favor of making English the national language of the United States are racists who only want to make it the national language in order to exclude a certain sector of society from participation in American civil and economic life. Let us make that assumption. Does that mean that they are right about the outcome of such a law, or that it would not be a good idea?

Because English is not the national language, we have many legal documents in both English and Spanish, since many recent immigrants are Spanish-speakers. As a result, these recent immigrants do not have to learn English. They can continue to speak English and still participate in civil life, including vote. Does this actually benefit those Spanish-speakers?

Many argue that it allows these people to vote. I find this doubtful, since people’s names are not either English or Spanish. English speakers do not refer to my fiancee as Ms. Flowers – they call her Ms. Flores. So what is actually going on? One of the benefits of English-only would be that people would again be encouraged to learn English, which would help them to be more easily and rapidly integrated into American society. This would also allow them to have more and better economic opportunities. Even those who do not think people should have to learn English to be either a resident or citizen know this – which only makes me wonder why they want these Sanish-speakers to be deprived of the kinds of economic opportunities they can only get through knowing English.

If we acknowledge that many of those who are in favor of English-only (except, as it turns out, the president of the main group that is pushing for English-only, whose native language is Spanish and who also speaks several other languages) have racist motives, then we have to acknowledge too that those who want people to remain in ignorance at the very least do not have Spanish-only-speakers’ best interests at heart. This is assuming that this latter group are not themselves racists – I suspect they are, only far more clever ones than those English-only supporters who happen to be racist.

If someone really wants immigrants to do well, they would want them to learn English so they can have access to as full a range of economic opportunities as possible. One way of doing this is by making English the official language of the United States. And if someone really wants all our students to do well, they will want those students to learn foreign languages when they can learn them — starting in Kindergarten. There is no conflict between these two positions. We should support the learning of English by all people who come to the United States, and at the same time, we need to be teaching our students as many foreign languages as possible. There is certainly no reason why students should not be learning to speak, read, and write in both English and Spanish in their first few years of school. All linguistic research shows that children can learn languages best at this age, that they do not get confused, and that it only benefits their thinking and future education.

The official position of the U.S. government should then be that English is the official language of the U.S., and that if one wants to be a resident or, especially, a citizen, one has to know English. But the official position of the U.S. government should also be that all students learn at least one foreign language – so that all students will have more economic opportunities in this increasingly globalized world.

Interdisciplinary Education for an Interdisciplinary World

Part of the problem with education is students do not know what relevance many topics they study have for them. I remember throughout grade and high school that I thought math to be utterly unimportant and irrelevant to anything I was ever going to do. And throughout most of my early years I had wanted to be a scientist. How could teachers have allowed me to think that math was not important? I did not really learn math was important until I took chemistry in high school. It was only then that I truly understood fractions for the first time. And, even though I loved to read, I thought literature pointless (it did not help that in high schools they seem to go out of their way to find the most boring literature available – I learned how wonderful literature was in college, when we were made to read books and stories that were actually interesting). Literature had nothing to do with biology, after all, and that was what I was going to go into. This attitude is not unique to me or to high school – it prevails in most students, and through college.

The disciplinary approach to teaching is breaking down. Students are siphoned into what they enjoy, and these same students then ignore everything else, complaining about anything that intrudes on the one thing they want to learn. This kind of hyper-specialized education is fine if all you want to produce is worker bees. But if you want creative thinkers, those who can come up with new things – the kind of people who will make more wealth and produce more value in and for the world – then disciplinary-only educations will not work.

What we need is a truly interdisciplinary education. We need interdisciplinary thinking, interdisciplinary classes, and interdisciplinary education. Only an interdisciplinary education will allow students to see how disciplines are interrelated. Only an interdisciplinary education will create interdisciplinary thinkers who can create more value in and for the world. We need chemists who love Bach, biologists who love Goethe, businessmen who love Aristotle. We need philosophers who love biology and business and artists who love physics and economics. Only with an interdisciplinary education will we have people who think this way, across the disciplines, through the disciplines, complexifying their thought so new things can be thought. What would the world be like if our politicians actually knew and understood the economics of Ludwig von Mises, the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, the plays of Sophocles, the linguistics of Chomski, the novels of Kafka, chaos theory, systems theory, evolutionary theory, the poetry of William Blake, and ancient Greek history? Could interdisciplinary thinking finally give the country great statesmen instead of demagogues? Could an interdisciplinary education create more ethical businessmen, since they would understand that there is not a conflict between ethical action and profit? Imagine a businessman who knew the value of a dollar, of his workers, and of a van Gogh. Imagine what an interdisciplinary education would do for teachers. Wouldn’t it make them – teachers? How can teachers teach when they know nothing? Teachers more than anyone should be interdisciplinary. They should know and understand the reason for having an interdisciplinary education, to understand and know the connections between the disciplines, and be able to help their students understand the importance of all the disciplines for understanding any one of the disciplines.

What is interdisciplinarity? It is not multidisciplinarity, where we have just a hodgepodge. It is not having students doing writing exercises in math class, or quadratic equations in literature class. That does not show students how the disciplines are interrelated. To have an interdisciplinary education, students need to know the value of each of the disciplines, how they relate to each other, the history of the disciplines. Students do not know how modern science arose out of natural philosophy and religion. Misunderstandings of ideas such as entropy make people reject evolution on the argument that more complexity could not arise in an entropic universe, where everything is becoming more random (this is, incidentally, not quite what entropy is about). We need to teach students about systems and complexity and information, so they can see how all disciplines relate to one another. This will give students an interdisciplinary education. And they will need an interdisciplinary education if they want to have an edge in this increasingly interdisciplinary world.

Economic Refugees

Too often we get caught up in the way we think the world "should" work, and forget entirely how it does in fact work, allowing us to make serious errors in judgement – just as the United States did in enacting Prohibition in the early part of the 20th Century. This is precisely why we need a guest worker program.

So long as the United States is capitalist and, as a result, wealthy, while places like Mexico are socialist and, as a result, poor, we will have economic refugees wanting to work here in the United States. Without a rational guest worker program – one that allows everyone who wants to work and can find work in the United States – the influx of economic refugees, and all the problems that brings into the United States, will continue. The only real choice other than a guest worker program is to simply kill on sight everyone who crosses the border. That would certainly discourage anyone from crossing. But aside from the fact that we are (or should be) too moral a country to commit such a brutal, evil act, I am also sure it would result in a war with Mexico. We want neither to be engaged in mass slaughter nor in war with Mexico. That being the case, the only real choice is the guest worker program.

One of the many benefits that a guest worker program would bring would be tax revenues. If economic refugees could come here legally simply by easily getting proper documentation, they would. And documented workers would then have to pay taxes. A black market in labor would come to the light, as would the tax dollars that they could then pay.

Another benefit would be that all those who wished to come to the United States to work would have proper documentation, and would not have to sneak across the border. Thus, we would be more certain that anyone trying to sneak across the border is indeed up to a true crime rather than simply trying to get a job. This is a national security issue. We need to know who is coming into this country. A guest worker program would allow us to do that.

Along with a guest worker program, we need to reform our citizenship laws. This is something I mentioned earlier. Why should someone be a citizen just because they are born in this country? This should continue to remain the case for those born in this country to legal residents and citizens, but not to those who are simply here as guest workers. Again, a guest worker program would allow us to make such clear distinctions, and to thus solve many of the problems associated with economic refugees.

The United States has a history of accepting political refugees from around the world. We should extend this to the acceptance of economic refugees. And we should openly use this term. Only by calling them economic refugees will be be able to make it clear what the real problem is: lack of economic opportunity in countries like Mexico due to corrupt governments, lack of protection of property rights, and socialist policies (the three are deeply intimately connected to each other). Then we can address those problems and hopefully solve the problem of economic refugees at its source. Otherwise, we will not and can not solve the problem.

Human Interactions

There are three basic ways in which humans interact: 1) slavery – the interaction wherein I tell you that "unless you do something good for me, I will do something bad to you"; 2) economic cooperation (profit) – the interaction wherein I tell you that "if you do something good for me, I will do something good for you"; and 3) generosity (gift-giving) – the interaction wherein I tell you that "I will do something good for you, and do not expect you to do something good for me."

These are in what we have historically perceived to be increasing ethical order. Of course, rarely are our interactions purely one of these – nor are they perceived to be. And the interactions are oftentimes very complex. And this can get us into trouble, since 1) is always unethical. But what is happening if I am an employer, and I hire someone? Certainly this is 2), but if I hold the threat of firing the person if they do not do their job properly over them, it is perceived that the interaction is also 1). But is it? Just because I withdraw 2), it does not mean that the interaction I am having with the person is in fact 1). The worst I can do is fire the person from the job that it was mine to give him. And when he ceases to do something good for me (do a good job), then I am under no obligation to continue doing something good for him (keep him employed) under interaction 2). If I were to keep him on, it would be due to 3), which is not the purpose of a place of employment. The purpose of a place of employment is to make everyone working there profit – to make everyone there better off than they were before they entered into interaction 2).

Any time a government interferes with either interaction 2) or 3), it is interacting with people with interaction 1), and thus is acting unjustly. Only when government works to prevent others – including itself, from engaging in interaction 1) does government act justly.

Good, Bad, and Evil in Education

An engineer who is good at building bridges is a good engineer. The steel he uses must be of high enough quality to do the job – it must be good steel. When building begins on the bridge, it can only be done in good weather. A good engineer is good at being an engineer. Good steel is steel that can be depended on to do the job at hand (being dependable to do the job at hand is also a feature of being a good engineer). Good weather is weather that provides favorable conditions for what work the person wants to do – in this definition, rain is good weather for a farmer, but bad for our engineer. A good person is thus a person who is good at being a person. We must work at being good – ethics is work. But ethics is not necessarily what works. One has to keep in mind the end at which one aims. We need an idea of proper ends, a proper target at which to aim. The proper end of our engineer is obvious: to build a bridge that will span the gulf at hand and remain intact. He must design and build a bridge that does the work of a bridge.

From the example above, we can now distinguish between bad and evil. A bad engineer is one who is not able to design a bridge that will do the proper work of a bridge. An evil engineer is one who is able to design a bridge that will do the proper work of a bridge but who chooses instead to design a bridge that will not do the proper work of a bridge. For the bad engineer, the destruction caused by his bad bridge is incidental to his inability to design a good bridge. The bad engineer is bad because he is ignorant. He would build a good bridge if he could. For the evil engineer, the destruction caused by his bad bridge comes about because he chose to make a bad bridge so that it would cause destruction. The evil engineer is evil because he knows the right way to build a bridge, but chooses not to do so. He can build a good bridge, but chooses not to.

When education experts choose to use teaching methods like the look-say method of teaching reading, when it is well-established that it does not and never has worked, over using phonics, which we know is the best way to learn how to read, then which one of these categories do you think America’s educators fall into? And what about our choice not to teach children foreign languages when we know they can learn them – before they reach puberty? Or using the "tally" method to teach "comprehension" (it does the opposite, and we know it does)? Isn’t it time that we started providing our students a good education, rather than the one we have been providing them which has failed both them and this country?

The State of Education

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

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

It is time for a revolution. Tinkering around the edges won’t do it. We don’t need educational reform, we need educational revolution (first, abolish "Education" as a major in college) from top to bottom. Our schools need to get back to teaching grammar and logic and foreign languages (especially Greek and Latin) in elementary school. They need to teach music, so every child can play an instrument, and get all the benefits of music, including better math skills. This will allow each child to discover philosophy and art, truth and beauty, to live fulfilling lives. This is what we need if we want our children to have good educations. With the reforms being proposed now, I have little confidence that anyone actually cares that any child learns how to do anything.

List of Taxes We Pay

Just for fun, a list of all the taxes we pay here in the U.S.:

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Interest Expense (tax on the money)
Inventory Tax I
RS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
Road Usage Taxes (truckers)
Sales Taxes
School Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Toll Bridge Taxes Toll
Tunnel Taxes
Trailer Registration
Tax Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers’ Compensation Tax

So we are taked when we make money, spend money, save money, invest money -- and die.
Ever look at your phone bill (if you have a land line)? Twice the bill is taxes.

Note of Confidence

I received a note from a parent of one of my students. It is always nice to hear someone supporting your position exactly. I post it here to share it with everyone (just like I shared it with the assistant dean of my department).

May 4, 2006


Dear Dr. Camplin,

Thank you for teaching English 1302. It is one of the few classes that has challenged my daughter’s writing abilities. Although the class was difficult, Kristin learned not only to write better but also to pay attention to the words she uses.

I also want to compliment you on the effort you put into the class. Your lectures were very informative and your comments on the papers helpful. However the thing that impressed me the most was how quickly you graded the assignments. You always return the papers the next class period which I find amazing especially when marking every syllable in the iambic measure assignment.

Your teaching style also has renewed my confidence in Richland College. Last semester my daughter had a teacher who rarely lectured and never made any suggestions on her papers. Both Kristin and I felt that the class was a waste of time. This was extremely painful since as a dual credit student, the class counted as her senior year of high school as well as her freshman English. I originally thought Kristin had a poor teacher, however two of her other friends said their classes were also poor (the second teacher was good). We decided to try another English class only because Bonnie Houston stated that you were an excellent teacher and that Kristin would learn something in your class. We have not been disappointed.

I feel the community college is a bridge between high school and four year universities. It is a place where students can be prepared for higher education. If the classes are not challenging, the students will not be able to handle the upper division classes when they transfer into a university. Thank you for not watering down your class to the desires of the students, but instead raising the students to the level they need to be at to succeed in college.

Once again thank you for the time and effort in teaching my daughter. May you continue to help other student in the same way.

Sincerely,

Deborah L. S.

A Poster For Rebellious Teachers

For those out there who are rebellious teachers (and students), who actually think that receiving a true education is important, I offer the following poster, to be put up across college campuses across the country:


ATTENTION STUDENTS!!!

YOU ARE NOT RECEIVING THE BEST EDUCATION YOU COULD BE FROM THIS COLLEGE!

The Administration had determined that, since many students are only interested in receiving a good grade and are not interested in being educated, that everyone must receive CONTENTLESS EDUCATIONS!

The only students who complain are those who do not want to do class work or learn anything, but still want to receive good grades. Rather than giving students what they need – a quality education – the Administration has decided to simply cave in to these irrational demands, and thus deprive you of a good education. Many classes are thus being structured so as to make it possible for students to receive an A without learning anything at all – since content puts students in danger of making something other than an A. They are accommodating those students who do not want to learn and, as a result, are cheating the rest of you of a good education.

THIS MUST STOP!

If you want to receive a good education, if you want to have classes with content, and do not want to just sit in classes that teach you nothing, do not challenge you, and put you together in groups so that other people who do not know anything can waste you could be learning to talk about what they don’t know, you must act now!

Tell the Administration that you want TEACHERS who actually TEACH classes with actual CONTENT

If STUDENTS do no insist on being properly educated, the Administration will continue to take your money while denying you a true EDUCATION

Rebellion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taxation is Not Generosity

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

Taxation

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

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

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

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

Pan

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

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

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

Let me tell a short story of emergence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Informational Ontology

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Regrets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Citizenship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The True State of the Union

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

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

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

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

Time and Space, Rhyme and Place

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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