Ignorance Is Bliss

It must be nice to live in a world where suppressing knowledge and inventing facts are rules, rather than exceptions. How much better it is to go through life ignorant of those things which might upset you or lead you astray. How grand and satisfying it is, conjuring up fallacious tidbits to reinforce your delusional world view. Why surrender to reality, when you can live a life of happiness and joy, ensconced in your cocoon of prevarications and obfuscations?

For some odd reason, a great number of people have either come up bereft of logic and reason, or decided that facts should not get in the way of a good story. In either case, we are seeing, through the media, a wave of tripe that that threatens to engulf our country in a miasma of ignorance. And the media are complicit in allowing it to spread, by eliminating self-censorship for the reward of cheap and easy ratings.

How else can we explain the "birthers" cabal, or the anti-health-care-reform ranters, or the "tea party" crowd, for example? Here we have movements that either a) have incoherent and poorly parsed messages or b) have clear messages based on fabrications, innuendo, and outright lies. In either case, the record is easily set straight, the fabrications are easily debunked, and the messages invalidated by their unreasonableness and illogical frameworks. And yet they persist -- why?

We have methods of communication that span the globe at the speed of light, and ways of conveying this information that allow for individuals to dial in to ideas and data that match their view of the world. Satellite communication, 24-hours news, the Internet -- the scions of the digital revolution -- have made it possible for any idea, no matter how realistic, no matter how logical, no matter how factual, to be disseminated to everywhere on Earth, to be discovered, absorbed, and regurgitated by those who covet such knowledge. It only takes one person to put out a scrap of information, that within hours could be considered gospel.

There is no filter on information, anymore. No peer review. No editor. No oversight. Where those things exist, they are easily bypassed. All one needs is an Internet connection, and a place to deposit the information -- personal web site, social networking site, comment section of any news/entertainment site, etc. -- and through the auspices of "information" providers, web spiders, and re-writers, a "fact" is borne to every machine that can hold it, passed on to every computer that requests it, and lodged on data storage devices everywhere. Even if removed from it source, the information can never truly be erased.

Can it be any wonder, then, that so much unsubstantiated, illogical, and specious knowledge continues to plague us? Were it tucked away in a musty book, on a dusty shelf, in some dingy hall, it might never see the light of day. If the purveyors of such nonsense were still forced to go through others to have their ideas see the light of day, then many of these things would have remained in relative obscurity. They would be nothing more than fables, stories to scare children with, the intellectual equivalent of things that "go bump in the night."

Those of us aligned with the forces of reason, sanity, and logic will continue to rail against the descent into ignorance, but it becomes harder and harder to be heard over the din created by the maunderers and sycophants. The only bright spot in the current maelstrom is that the tools that allow such rubbish to exist and thrive, may ultimately be turned against it. Given time, patience, and the will, we may yet dispel the gray clouds of ignorance, and pull Mankind into brighter light and clearer air.

I Give You, The Do-Nothing President

It is safe to say that nothing of recent note has engendered a firestorm quite like the announcement that President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

You would think, gauging by some reactions, that the announcement disrupted the space-time continuum in a way that the ancient calendar of the Maya had not foreseen.

Much has been said about it at this point. Some people, myself included, applaud the move. Many others are confused, or fail to see how he "earned" it. Some are downright hostile, foaming at the mouth over how the prize has "become a joke," or "definitely went to the wrong guy," or bemoaning the fact that "there are so many more deserving people," or even claiming it is "a slap in the face to President Bush." And at the mention of the fact that the nominations for the award closed February 1st, a scant 11 days after he took office, there was a downright furor stirred up.

Time to take a depth breath, America. Now, let it out.

Much of the hysteria is due to the general atmosphere of anger, hypocrisy, and ill-will generated by the President's election. Nine months in and people still can't get over it. The amount of sheer animus toward a President has not been at this level since President Lincoln's first election, when a large portion of the country seceded, rather than be "ruled over" by someone they saw as an "abolitionist." Then, as now, it was a matter of perception, because Lincoln was nowhere near the abolitionist cause, and was desperate to do anything that would keep the Union together, short of abolishing slavery. Worse, his Presidency got off to a very slow start, as one Union general after another could not bring him the victories he needed to vindicate his efforts to fight a war to make the country whole again. He was pilloried and vilified, not only in the Confederate States of America, but the Union as well, even by members of his own cabinet.

So, President Obama can take comfort in the fact that he is not alone. Mind you, his job is a bit more difficult, fighting two wars overseas, while trying to survive a sluggish economy and create real reform at home. Perhaps even Lincoln would blanch at trying to take on so many things at once. It makes a civil war seem easy by comparison.

I will posit that bestowing the prize on President Obama was unexpected and a curious decision. Certainly, the Nobel committee was under no obligation to take the nomination to heart, but consider it they did, and it should be noted that while the nomination came fairly early in the President's term, the actual decision came some months later. In that time, President Obama had the opportunity to show that he was serious about fostering peace, through actions which sought to reverse the course of American foreign policy, by trying to open up dialogs with potential "enemies," shoring up relationships with friendly nations, restoring diplomacy as a centerpiece of foreign relations, and attempting to strengthen the place of the United States in the United Nations. By making Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State and letting her set the tone, he made it clear that a new breeze would be blowing, and that we would still be tough, but we would try to work with nations, not against them, unless their actions called for it.

Perhaps these do not seem to be accomplishments in concrete terms. Perhaps there is still much to do. Regardless, President Obama is no more a miracle worker than any previous holder of the office. To hold him against a standard that says everything he touches must be "fixed" for him to be successful, or to claim he has "done nothing" is sheer hyperbole. That he has not continued the ruinous policies of the previous administration, has upset the applecart of pomposity and grandiosity that was our foreign policy, and has made attempts to tackle, head-on, as many of the nation's intractable societal problems as he can, speaks volumes about the man.

President Obama has charted a new course, in search of a better America. Not unlike Columbus, who had a vision and pursued it -- despite ill winds, ill fortune, and a crew on the edge of mutiny -- our President is moving us forward, toward clearer air and brighter light. The Nobel Peace Prize should be thought of as a sign that we are on the right course.

The Blood On Our Hands

His name was Derrion Albert. He was 16, by all accounts a bright young man, academically gifted, who was determined to make something of himself some day.

I say "was," because he was subject to a beating, caught on video tape, by other children his age, not far from his school in Chicago, Illinois, a beating which took his life. He was hit repeatedly, kicked repeatedly, and even assaulted by someone with a board. He died later, of his injuries.

The reports are sketchy, as they so often are in such cases. Some think it gang-related. Some say it was a fight between two "factions" at his school, and he was merely an innocent bystander. All agree, that his murder was inexplicable, senseless, and brutal.

Why did this happen? Why must our children be made to suffer?

It would be easy to classify this as "one of those things," or something you see "in a bad part of town," or perhaps a "sign of the times." Have we in America become so lackadaisical, so disconnected from our communities, so inured to violence, that we are simply willing to fob this off as "somebody else's problem?" Would it be easier for us, perhaps, to simply point the finger at the parents, at the school, at the city of Chicago, call them to task for their inadequacies, and go about our business?

Yes it would.

Should we?

No.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of everyone who believes in a free and just America. It is always easier to claim that there is "nothing we can do" and chalk it up to a confluence of events over which we have no control. But as one drop of water does not make a rainstorm, the storm itself does not exist without the contribution of every drop it gathers. While the death of a child in a street in Chicago would seem to have nothing to do with you or I, it has everything to do with what we are allowing our nation to become.

We are becoming a nation of bystanders.

It has been long known by those in the field of psychology as they "bystander effect," wherein, when an event takes place and is witnessed by a large group, only those who are strongly self-motivated will attempt to intervene, the larger portion of the group wanting to do something, but fervently hoping or mistakenly assuming, that someone else will take action. It extends far beyond the moment, for even after the event, people are reluctant to "get involved," which is why so many crimes go unsolved, because those with vital information will not come forward of their own volition, sure that someone else will, or that there bit of information is unimportant.

Derrion Albert's beating was an example of the effect on the small scale, but also symptomatic of the effect on the large, social scale. Whatever the impetus for the event, be it gangs, cliques, or some random incident, the fact remains that such situations develop because we do not engage our neighborhood, our town, our city, our state, our country, on any more than a cursory level. We hand responsibility over to others, heedless of the cost, and then are shocked when events such as this happen. There is always a hew-and-cry, heads roll, and for a while, things are quiet, even as the underlying causes and problems remain, and the pressure builds up again. We stand by, assume someone else will take care of things, and go about our business.

There has been a lot written of late of "angry" Americans are. I posit that Americans are angry for all the wrong reasons. We have reached a point where we have ceded control of our country to special interests, to big money, to those who seek to profit from misery, death, and despair. We act as if there is nothing we can do, as if those in faraway places run the show, and we are but helpless pawns, toys for their amusement. We complain, we bemoan, and yet we do not exercise the power that is ours, to force change and to bring our nation to heel.

It is in the hands of every one of us to make sure that our nation is better than it was the day before. It is we who hold the reins, determining who does and does not speak for us. It is we who can demand more of our public officials, who dictate to them how we wish things to be run. No matter how we try, we cannot shrug off that responsibility, for it is imbued in us, by our Constitution and by our birthright. If we wish to have peace, happiness, and tranquility, it is up to us to ensure that these things are brought about, not simply for us, but for everyone.

There was no reason this boy had to die. There is certainly no reason he and other children like him have to die in such a despicable fashion. If we, as Americans, believe in the ideals set for in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, then it is our responsibility, to see that every American need not fear for their life, that each child is safe, warm, fed, and clothed, that no person should go without when there is plenty to be had. If we leave it up to the handful of people we elect, there is no guarantee that our country will be run as befits a nation that fought so hard for independence. If we listen to the voices that say there is no profit in helping others, we stain the memory of those who fought to give us freedom with the blood of innocents. If we do not demand accountability, reason, and above all, compassion, then we have no right to complain as our liberties are trampled. The rights and liberties we take for granted extend to all Americans, not just a privileged few.

Let the death of this young man not be in vain. Let it be a rallying cry. Let Americans be angry about the senseless death and unnecessary poverty that afflicts this nation, and then let us all, together, do something about it. No American can be, or should be, expendable.

What It Is, Ain't Exactly Clear

Sitting on the beach over the weekend, basking in a late Summer sun, a cool breeze slipping over the sand, surf pounding the shore, I was struck by the thought of how the sand I was digging my toes into, the sand that kept getting on our beach blanket, the sand my daughter was forming into castles, started its life as hard, seemingly unyielding stone, a million or so years ago. The pounding surf, its roar at times physical as well as auditory, even at its weakest, could be seen pushing large stones onto the beach. The sand, the stones... they had been part of mountain ranges or continental shelves at one time, huge expanses of upthrust rock, exposed to the elemental forces of nature, the friction of surging water, scouring wind, burning heat, and bitter cold. The titanic forces which shaped the Earth, gave it the substance and form we know today, were now replaced by the slow and inexorable forces of erosion and decay. No thing, even a thing built by the universe itself, can withstand time and tide.

We triumphantly declare that we have built our homes, our cities, our governments, on "solid ground." We see only the surface, not unlike the metaphoric iceberg. We act as if the ground will never move, never change, will stand for eternity. Nature shows us otherwise. It shows us the true face of the universe: change. Sir Isaac Newton enumerated and outlined the ways of the universe centuries ago, and even though Einstein supplanted some of Newton's knowledge on the scale of the very small, on the scale of the very large, the Laws of Thermodynamics still apply. In essence, they tell us that things will never, truly, stay the same, that everything will run down in the end. Order becomes chaos.

It is, no doubt, why evolution works via the auspices of natural selection, and why those organisms that can adapt to change most readily, tend to survive. Those who adapt, spread. They grow in number, consuming resources until the resources dwindle and natural forces take over, causing the population to decrease, and forcing the organisms to adapt to the new set of environmental circumstances.

What sets Mankind apart from most organisms on Earth is not just our supreme adaptability, but our constant attempts to impose order on our environment. Cities, roads, laws -- these are all products of our desire to make things better, more efficient, safer, more productive. Rather than be subject to the vagaries of natural forces, we seek to mitigate them, block them, or make them work for us rather than against us. We have taken natural selection to a new level, a level of self-selection and self-invention, straining against the limitations imposed on us. We seek to carve order out of the chaos.

While it has created much success, and allowed us to become masters of our globe, perhaps it has also filled us with hubris, believing we are somehow beyond the grip of the mundane world. Every so often, via hurricane, or earthquake, or tsunami, nature reminds us, that it is not so simple.

So, too, is it with our social order. For if we strive to adapt the world to our needs, we also seek to adapt society to our wishes. Some people, some groups, feel that things must be just so. Those groups and people are opposed by others, who wish things to be some other way. Each person, each group, sees the world clearly, through their eyes, tinted by their beliefs, and has the blueprint for success for the whole human race. No matter how well-meaning, inevitably there is conflict, for not everyone believes the same thing, or if they do, they do not necessarily believe it in the same way. Compared to the mountains, human will is even more unyielding.

It is amazing that human society has managed to survive for millennia, given it's propensity for turning on itself. No matter what order we may create, we eventually give in to pandering, proselytizing, fear, and our animal passions, and tear down that which so much effort created. Empires rise and fall. Nations come, and go. Communities live, and die. The cycle goes on, for what is torn down is invariably plowed under, built over, and new things rise from the ashes of the old. Change marches on.

America is currently seeing a swelling of outrage, the like of which has not been evident since the isolationist movement, which intended to keep us out of WWII, or the civil rights movement of the 60's. The ruckus and uproar over changes in government policy, the attempt to reform and build up universal health care, to add new life to the Supreme Court, and handle the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan differently, leads some to believe that their country is somehow being pulled out from under them, a conjurers trick meant to strip them of their liberties and destroy the "American way of life."

This is nothing new.

While some have intimated -- with some degree of truth -- that much of the acrimony is stirred by sour grapes, inherent racism, and partisan politics, the fact is, the over-arching cause is simple: change. Inevitably there is change in America, and Americans don't like it. Presidents come and go. Policies that are upheld by one administration are reversed by another. Things that were considered political suicide gain new life. The ebb and flow of life in America remains the same -- only the details change, as years pass. If many in this country are said to be angry, one only has to look through the past 200 years and more of our history to realize that at every stage, people were angry. Voices have always risen in opposition to change, whether it was women's suffrage, slavery, Indian affairs, the taxes on tea, the prohibition of liquor, the price of gasoline, entry into any one of many wars... the list goes on. When Americans feel that the direction of the country is wrong, they stand up, and they say so.

Whatever you may think of the motivations, the messages, and the actions of those who protest, it is the very fact that they can protest that means this country is doing just fine. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Uncivil War, Redux

It can no longer be considered a fluke -- Representative Joe Wilson has some company.

To be fair, Joe Wilson was never really alone, though his ascension to the highest peak of incivility was well documented. Beyond shouting down and verbally lambasting the President of the United States, the only possibility to eclipse such a moment of indiscretion would be insulting an emissary from an intergalactic species, during a first contact situation.

Subsequent to this, there have been two equally high profile incidents of incivility, which lead me to question the status of the human species as predominant because of our highly-developed cerebral cortex. Now, for sheer power and gall, neither of these incidents compare to Representative Wilson's faux pas, but they do highlight the fact that, at least for the 'American' branch of the human family tree, social civility has gone the way of the dinosaurs:

- Serena William, tennis professional, champion, fashion designer, and media darling, reacted in a most unbecoming manner to a line judge at the U.S. Open, when called for a "foot fault." Her demeanor was less than professional, when she suggested she would a tracheotomy of the judge with her racket (or something to that effect). She has subsequently apologized.

- Kanye West, musician, author, music producer, decided to interrupt the acceptance speech of Taylor Swift during the MTV Video Music Awards (which is odd, since I was unaware MTV played music videos anymore), to lament Beyoncé Knowles not winning that particular award. An apology appeared on his blog after the event.

Apparently, live television has the effect of incapacitating the sensibilities of those susceptible to its effects. Some radiation or magnetism seems to seep into the brains of the unknowing, causing them to blurt out their innermost thoughts. It is the television equivalent of road rage.

Perhaps, in the end, that's what it is: visceral, unfocused, pent up rage. Bottled up in a vessel of human construction, under the right amount of pressure, the vessel cracks and spews forth invective, vitriol, and unmitigated emotion. We cannot know how long it stewed or how much of this foul concoction brewed there, deep in the dark recesses of the brain, before containment could no longer be maintained. We only see the end result: Krakatoa writ on the human scale.

It is easy to pick on these public figures, for they had nowhere to hide, trapped in the baleful glare of the camera eye. With no one or no thing to hide behind, they are now the easy fodder for those who see them as pariahs, or as poor role models, or embarrassing reminders of times past. And yet, who amongst us has not done the same? I mentioned road rage previously, and perhaps these are only the most visible signs that our society has lost its capacity for dealing with the stress of our everyday lives, devolving into a maelstrom of irrational behavior. We all do it, whether it be a full-throated roar or muttering under our breath, in front of associates, or family, or even children.

If we are wont to wonder how our society got here, perhaps we need look no further than our country's past. American society has always been pushing against the strictures and restrictions placed on it by many a legal and/or moral authority; the nation was founded mainly by groups who chafed under the restrictions placed on them by the governments and religious authorities of their original home countries. They came here to establish their own communities, with their own codes, free of the condemnation and scorn they knew at home, only to be forced to endure it again when the Americas were colonized and rules and taxes established by foreign governments. This fomented revolution, a revolution that was stitched together by compromise, because while all agreed that freedom was preferable to tyranny, they also believed that should be allowed to maintain their individual way of life, even under the auspices of a more centralized government of their own creation.

So, while foreign control was replaced by more localized control, there was still the feeling of constriction. The States grappled with the Federal government, claiming their power was inviolate, Constitution or no. This came to a head with the abolitionist movement and The Civil War, when State's rights came into direct conflict with the Constitutional idea that "all men are created equal." Even that war, however, could not quell the feelings of the average American, that somehow others had too much control, too much power over them. This would continue to be an issue, flaring up in the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, McCarthyism, etc. States continued (and do still) to fight the Federal government, keeping the Supreme Court busy, as they tried to define the lines of control.

With each passing year, with every event that transpires, it seems the field widens, the divisions become broader, and civility becomes more watered down. Those who profess peace, compromise, consensus, and integrity, are easy targets for marksmen and for pundits. It is far easier to cling to ones own beliefs, to inveigh against change, to see others as a foe to be defeated, rather than a person with the same rights and privileges as you. It is far easier to throw up barriers to discourse, than to tear down walls of ignorance. It is easier to see the world as solid, unchanging, than it is to realize it is fluid and dynamic.

Perhaps there was never any true civility in this nation, only a grudging respect, tempered by the need to provide and to survive. Maybe, back when the longevity of the United States was not assured, it was easier to put aside differences, rather than show weakness to be exploited by a potential enemy. Given that we are more than two centuries on, maybe the pretense is no longer maintained. Now, the petty squabbles and counter-productive clashes of ideals are able to break out and run, unimpeded, throughout the land, bringing us to a point where we no longer feel bound to the rules of social, civilized society.

In the end, we stand on the brink of watching our peace and tranquility torn asunder, by ego and hubris. If we would see our nation survive another two centuries, we must take these breaches, these lapses of judgment and character, and use them as lessons for future generations. A house divided against itself will not stand -- a nation united by compromise will not fall.