Reflections on A Lorenzian Tale-2021

Reflections on A Lorenzian Tale-2021 The year 2021 is rapidly closing and as I watch the subject lines of my daily emails I am perplexed by the character of pleadings, the altered processes of electioneering,1 the obvious focus upon money and funds, the implication suggesting that election success is in direct proportion to donation: the formula being E (election outcome) =M (money) x D2 (total donations). The interval of 12 years since I penned (!) the essay: A Lorenzian Tale, has been rich with evidence that the world is shifting towards a new dark age. I do not believe that this statement is akin to a Hyde Park orator2 proclaiming the end of the world. And yet when viewed as if I was an alien observer from the planet wahwah, unusual things are occurring.
If the happenings are not unusual, but rather expected, then my understanding of humanity is in serious error. While I am obviously aware that the ‘Aristotelean' first cause of human behavior is the human; we were given our dope slap by Walt Kelly/Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us!"3
I reflect that the most valuable observers of human conduct describe humanity as it is: Henry L. Mencken as a daily glimpse into our foolish behavior–he was a newspaper man and Aldous Huxley's attempt to explain our situation by way of a novel: Brave New World. Huxley favors Pavlovian conditioning as the ‘first cause' of humanity's otherwise baffling actions. I, too, favor that explanation. For when one examines the successes and failures of interventional and self-imposed attempts to alter personhood–to break habits, improve actions, etc.–the commonality of conditioned responses becomes evident. Indeed, the so-called 12 step program for drug and alcohol addiction appears as the only method with successful outcomes.
Not that this process has been ignored by those with evil or financial intent, for we can thank the nephew of Sigmond Freud, Edward Bernays, also known as the father of public relations and clearly the major mover in the realm of propaganda, for his influences upon almost everything we are touched by today. From the lies of Fox news and the mouth of Trump to the vexing pop-ups and ads on our "smart phones" and computers, we must give tribute to a mechanism that apparently works for those who employ it. Religion promoted this process while the world was not looking: repeat a fable often enough and the fabulous becomes reality, a word many thoughtful people have difficulty defining.
If we are the enemy and the battles we fight are unending, is there a solution to any of this? Probably none that would change much. We do have the advantage of owning a spectral view of human nature as theater, essays, novels reaching as far back as one chooses to look. These are human history in plain view. Huxley tells us that "The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different." If there is a learning process in action, the lessons are not learned. Shaw further reminded us that "Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history."
So why this bleat about what is patently inalterable? Perhaps that, too, is part of what humanity is about: those of us who complain in print rather than simply babble away over a coffee with friends should know by now that nothing we write about will alter one line nor our tears wash it away: thank you Omar. Good to be reminded, but not consoling.
As a boy, I was taught that our country is a ‘nation of laws.' The tablet of commandments for our era did not arise from some Moses, rather it arose in the halls of decision, in the meeting places where the politicians choose the rules whereby fellow humans must follow. Back in the early 1970's I discovered that someone had tallied the number of laws, rules and regulations impinging upon Americans at that time. Later I discovered that each state conjures up, through actions of each legislature, many hundreds more each year; almost none of the preceding laws are removed resulting in a staggering tens of millions that exist today. Among these is the law that states ignorance of the law can be no excuse to escape penalty. This condition is obviously crazy. These laws that affect us are either meaningless or meaningful only to those who wish to use them to their advantage. In the view of International law, the United States and specifically George Bush and Dick Cheney are war criminals, yet nothing happens. Trump was the most egregious perpetrator of illegal acts during his presidency and likely during most of his life, yet nothing happens. Millions of men and women are currently incarcerated–presently about 1,800,000. Most of these imprisonments serve no purpose and the methods employed generate no effectively socially valuable changes in the prisoners but do offer opportunities to learn new techniques of lawlessness. You and I can supply each our own explanations for why Donald Trump and his associates remain free, but whatever your ideas might be they will have to explain away the obvious fact that the members of the Republican party completely support him and to seek the reasons underlying that fact is to enter the world of developing Fascism.
Fascistic episodes crowd upon humanity in waves of time and must somehow reflect a human defect. I focus upon the human, for I cannot think of another species in which waves of this form of madness supervenes. Well, perhaps the "army" ants may be one example. The entomologist E. O Wilson suggests this: "Because it is their nature. Ants are the most warlike of all creatures and most species, if they're not at least competing with each other fiercely for resources by first come, first serve, they are at war with one another. And it's quite natural in most species for one colony to wipe out the other if it possibly can." Wilson, who proposed the concepts underlying the then new field of sociobiology in 1975, by way of his book: "Sociobiology, The New Synthesis," has been defending his findings since that time through a variety of experiments, writings and even one novel. His entry into the arena where was taking place the on-going dialectic between nature (genes) and nurture (environment) almost perfectly coincided with most modern forms of feminism. It was unfortunate that the women in the feminist movement interpreted Wilson's assertions as evidence of masculine hegemony, using science (small s) to support male dominance. The problem was that although Wilson's proposals were reasoned and based on experimental (empirical) evidence, the conclusions suggested that men and women were indeed different. While this is obvious to anyone awake, its scientific support was a serious obstacle to overcome by the hope that there might be some way to equate men and women–to give them equal status and behavioral characteristics. I am sorry to say that such a hope was confined to fable and continues to be so. Oh, yes, things are changing, and slowly. Some of the changes are focused and are targets promoted by society and its subsets, and to a degree, slight changes are observed. While I am no reader of social tension, as if, like a miasma, it arises from action of population groups, yet I confess to a hesitancy about the degree to which successful integrity has been so far achieved. There is a continual process wherein those male and female characteristics that appear (!!) to be the manifestation of maleness and femaleness happen. They expose themselves, these characteristics, and because society has become aware of, and wary of them, events occur; people are hurt, careers altered, lawyers are compensated and humanity moves on.
Yet, does one dare to invoke evidence, if you will accept an abbreviated conclusion of sociobiology, of nature's first cause, then it can become a foundation for examining obvious social behaviors of individuals currently occupying the starlight positions generated by the "media." Trump, obviously, and Musk, Bezos or Gates, Ellison, Page or Buffett, the last group based on net worth, Trump an outlier on that score, but so much in the news over the past 5 years that he deserves special handling. Examining from the position of a disinterested alien with the power to oversee, what can any of the six rich guys do with so much money? Is this the essence of capitalism? Is what we are witnessing the message Karl Marx and his students were shouting? Again, using history as an example of nature, if the history is correct, then most of the "leaders" of the historical world were socially pathological. Perhaps it is fabulous history we read when we learn of the Caesars, but more recently we had an opportunity to watch the emergence of Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hirohito and closest to home, Donald Trump. The character defects so easily seen in Hitler and Mussolini are obvious to any watcher of Trump. And yet. Therein lies the problem: and yet. There is something about the ‘nature' of these men, loathsome and repugnant to me, that somehow, through some transmission of qualities, convinced a large proportion of the population of Germany, Italy and the United States to support and promote them. When I ask the question of people I know why they might have voted for Trump, I get a variety of answers, but mainly: "I always vote Republican." Thus one could conclude that Lorenz's shoaling behavior was in action. The individuals do not think, they simply move and follow. Could be. It could be some form of emotional reaction as distinct from intellectual analysis that is guiding the supporters along, something even hidden from the intellect of these persons. We are finding that even a small percentage of the voting population is sufficient to result in imperial or sovereign-like behavior of the winner–30% of Germany supported Hitler and he simply took kingship. The active voters in the Trump victory were in the minority, yet he was proclaimed winner and adopted his own sovereignty.
It can happen here and did.
1. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2020/10/vintage-ads-elections-in-advertising/
2. https://eohoppe.photoshelter.com/image/I0000AyVbUoc9Jno
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_have_met_the_enemy
(c) copyright J.C. Leissring 2021