#304 / Another Hopeful Thought

 

About a week ago, I mentioned Russka, a 1,000-page novel about Russia. That's a pretty long book, but I enjoyed it, and I certainly feel good about recommending it to friends.

 

The story told in the novel begins in 180 A.D., and ends in 1992, so Lenin didn't show up until rather late in the narrative. In my earlier blog posting, "What Lenin Said," I suggested that the following statement, by Lenin, is a rather "hopeful thought."

 

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.

 

What I was counting as "hopeful," of course, is the idea that things can change, and change dramatically for the better, in a rather short period of time. Naturally, there is no guarantee that things will change for the better. That will actually depend on what we do. As we observe our current circumstances, however, and perhaps despair about the possibility of positive change, the idea that we might be able to accomplish positive changes in a short time does count as a "hopeful thought," at least for me.

There is a short passage in Russka, starting on page 665, that has nothing to do with politics - my normal topic - but it is a passage that has stuck with me. It, too, seems very hopeful. 

 

Father Basil, an Orthodox priest, is talking to Tatiana, a character whose role in the novel far eclipses that of Lenin. Tatiana has begun to suspect that she will shortly die, and so she seeks out Father Basil in an isolated hermitage in the woods: 

Father Basil resumed his seat and indicated that she should do the same. Then, without asking her any questions, he began to speak quietly, in a deep, firm voice. 

"On the subject of our life after death, the Orthodox faith is very clear and quite explicit. You must not think that, at the moment of death, you suffer any loss of consciousness, for this is not the case. Indeed, quite the opposite. Not for an instant do we cease our existence. You will see the familiar world around you but be unable to communicate with it. At the same time, you will encounter the spirits of those who have departed, probably those you have known and loved. Your soul, released from the clinging dross of the body, will be more lively than before; but you will by no means be free of temptations: you will encounter spirits both good and evil and be drawn to them according to your disposition. For two days - I speak in terms familiar to us here on earth - you will be free to roam the world. But on the third day you will face a great and terrible trial. For, as we know from the story of the dormition of the Virgin, the Mother of God herself trembled at the thought of that day when, as we put it, the soul passes through the tollhouses. This day you must fear. You will encounter first one and then another evil spirit; and the extent of your struggle with those evils in life will give you strength, or not, to pass through. Those who do not, go straight to Gehenna. On this day the prayers of those on earth are of great assistance."

 

One source of our contemporary despair, for those who are feeling despair - those who are feeling within themselves that "sickness unto death" of which Kierkegaard speaks - comes from our knowledge of what we, individually and collectively, have done in this world into which we have been so mysteriously born. We have participated, each one of us, in the defilement of the Earth, the Natural World that ultimately sustains us, and we have stayed silent in the face of, and have even participated in, human injustices of all kinds. 

 

There is also a despair - perhaps the most profound aspect of that "sickness unto death" from which we seek to shield ourselves - that comes from the thought that we are truly "nothing," and that our animal life, when it ends, wipes us away as if we never were. 

 

I assume that Father Basil's assertions are an accurate statement of the Orthodox faith, about which I know, essentially, nothing. Clearly, believing that Father Basil could be correct about what he says is a matter of "faith" not proof. For those who can find such faith, though, and who can contemplate that our "existence" is something more than, and something independent of, the existence of the body we inhabit, what Father Basil says does seem, to me, to be another "hopeful thought."

 

 

Image Credit:

https://www.abebooks.com/Russka-Novel-Russia-Rutherfurd-Edward-Ivy/30780385918/bd

#303 / I Don't Believe In It

 

That is Nancy Caywood in the picture. Click this link to read about the problems she is having on her farm in Arizona. In summary, Caywood has been pretty much wiped out. There is no water available. Period. 

 

Caywood is a former farming teacher at the University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources Division in El Centro, California. She has a master’s degree in agricultural education. Caywood is not, though, what you might call really "educated," since she questions those who say climate change is to blame for her struggles:

"I don’t believe in it," she says, "I believe things are cyclical. But I can’t believe that it’s happening so quickly.”

It's hard to deal with reality if you refuse to recognize it. 

Caywood is definitely not the only one who has that problem!

 

 

Image Credit:

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=66084c5f-8c6a-4880-9337-eb6eccddcc55&v=sdk

 

#302 / Downtown Garages, Coast To Coast

Asbury Park is a beachfront city located on the Jersey Shore, a recreational area for New York City residents. Asbury Park has a beachfront Boardwalk, and is one of three cities covered by the triCity News. 

The triCity News is an alternative newspaper focusing on the arts, culture and politics in eastern Monmouth County, New Jersey. The picture above is from the newspaper's website. There is no way to read the triCity News online because the paper wants you to read what they have to say in the old-fashioned way - on paper. One section of the triCity News website is titled, "No News," and here is what it tells us: 

Too many print publications today put their content online, free of charge and then wonder why their paper version went belly up. We understand that in the fast paced world of news, you must have an online presence to compete. But at triCityNews, we don't have to worry about keeping up with the media Jones. That's because we create our own news.... All of what you see and read in triCity is 100% original to us.

One of my friends recently visited Asbury Park, and he came away with a couple of pages ripped from the September 30, 2021, edition of the newspaper. That's why I am able to report what's going on there, which seems strangely similar to what is going on here, in my hometown of Santa Cruz, California.

Apparently, the City Council in Asbury Park is considering building a new downtown parking garage, and it appears that the triCity News thinks that's a bad idea. In an opinion column on page eight, titled "Publisher's Message," publisher Dan Jacobson comes out strongly against that proposed downtown parking garage, urging City Council Members to reject the idea: "The downtown stakeholders aren't stupid. And our city officials shouldn't be either."

Seems like this idea of building downtown parking garages, using public funds (some of the funds being library funds, in the case of Santa Cruz) is not restricted to our own little city. We and Asbury Park, on opposite coasts, are both small cities with beachfront boardwalks, and both Santa Cruz and Asbury Park are catering to the recreational needs of massive urban centers nearby. 

Where do we differ? Well, in Asbury Park, the City Council has tabled the proposal to move forward on a downtown parking garage. Here? Just the opposite. The Santa Cruz City Council has voted to move ahead, and is spending a lot of money to advance the downtown parking garage dream. Those not keen on the idea (and there are a lot of them) call the Santa Cruz version the "Taj Garage." 

In Asbury Park, the publisher of the triCity News is not confident that the City Council will keep that tabled motion on the table. He's concerned that the Council might still move ahead with the downtown parking garage plan. If that were to happen, he says, "they've got to at least hold a referendum on it. This Publisher sure hopes it doesn't come to that, as such referendums are unnecessarily divisive. That's why it shouldn't get that far. Let's move on and forget this even happened."

In Santa Cruz, where the Council did vote to move ahead with the downtown parking garage plan - with the Santa Cruz Council tossing in some affordable housing to sweeten the deal - an effort is now underway to let the voters vote on this idea. In other words, just what the publisher of the triCity News said should happen in Asbury Park, New Jersey is actually happening in Santa Cruz, California. 

Today, in fact, there is a big kickoff celebration for an initiative campaign to terminate the Taj Garage plan, while still providing for affordable housing and a library. If you'd like to find out more, you can click this link and/or show up at the Farmers' Market Parking Lot at 1:00 o'clock this afternoon. 

Image Credits:

(1) - http://www.trinews.com/#about-1

(2) - https://www.ourdowntownourfuture.org/events

#301 / Guardrails Of Democracy

 

Elaine Kamarck, who is the Founding Director of the Center for Effective Public Management and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, has written an article that poses the following, rather pertinent, question: "Did Trump damage American democracy?"

Kamarck says, "No" - albeit she admits that her "No" is a "qualified No." Kamarck thinks that democracy was tested, but that "the guardrails of democracy held." Here is her list of specifics:

 

Did Trump weaken the powers of Congress? No. 

Has Trump damaged our system of shared power between the federal government and the states? No.

Has Trump weakened the judiciary? No.

Did Trump weaken the press? No.

 

Read the article in its entirety if you'd like to review Kamarck's supporting arguments and explanations. I find her points basically well-taken. 

 

There really is something that approximates the so-called "Trump Derangement Syndrome," defined by Wikipedia as "criticism or negative reactions to former United States President Donald Trump that are perceived to be irrational ... a term mainly used by Trump supporters to discredit criticism of his actions ... reframing the discussion by suggesting that his opponents are incapable of accurately perceiving the world."

 

It isn't the "criticisms," though, that I would call "irrational" or "inaccurate." They're rational enough - and all too accurate! Trump, as president, really did provide us with a democracy "stress test." However, Kamarck is providing wise counsel in suggesting that democracy did pretty much survive, and passed that test.

To look forward, though, instead of just looking backward, we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that having survived the "stress test" of the Trump presidency means that we are in the clear now. Our democracy is still undergoing a "stress test," and we need to continue to be concerned whether those "guardrails of democracy" will continue to hold.

Heather Cox Richardson, the Boston College historian who writes a daily Substack blog, "Letters From An American," properly warns us in her October 26, 2021 letter that "we are in an existential fight to defend our democracy from those who would destroy it." As she says: 

We are today in a struggle no less dangerous to our democracy than that of the 1860s, for all that it is fought with Facebook memes and cable television rather than artillery. And when our leaders talk fondly about Viktor Orbán, or Jair Bolsonaro— former president Trump endorsed his reelection today—we would do well to listen.

Image Credit:

https://connect.brookings.edu/did-trump-damage-democracy-natural-resource-competition-and-more

#300 / Enthusiasm Has Fallen Short (So Far)

 

Some of the Biden administration's programs that provide benefits to needy families are not nearly as popular as those programs were predicted to be. Here is what The New York Times has to say about that, as outlined in an Opinion Editorial that ran in The Times on October 16, 2021:

When the federal government started sending monthly checks to families with children earlier this year, Democrats predicted that the program would be a big hit. They were counting on public support to extend the payments beyond this year, and to pass a broader expansion of federal aid for families.  

So much for that.  

Enthusiasm has fallen short of the party’s expectations, and Democrats are facing a gut-check moment. The Biden administration is struggling to win the unified support of Senate Democrats for an expansion of social welfare programs, and public opinion polls suggest that the misgivings of centrist Democrats, notably those of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are shared by many Americans (emphasis added).

  

The Times thinks it knows why enthusiasm for the Biden proposals has not been more robust:

Those seeking to expand the government’s role in American life ... need to engage the ideological arguments of their opponents. Many Americans regard government benefits as a kind of charity that ought to be reserved for those whom they consider both needy and deserving — generally speaking, the working poor. This is what Mr. Manchin meant when he said recently: “I don’t believe that we should turn our society into an entitlement society. I think we should still be a compassionate, rewarding society.”

Some proponents of President Biden’s plans are inclined to grant Mr. Manchin’s point and then argue for programs like the child benefit on the grounds that it is a worthy kind of charity.

The better argument is that Mr. Manchin is wrong. Paying taxes is not a form of noblesse oblige, and the social safety net is not a philanthropic project. This nation’s prosperity is a collective achievement, and Americans are entitled to share in that prosperity. Americans also need government support to contribute to that prosperity. A basic goal of providing more help to parents with dependent children is to allow those parents to engage in paid work and to allow their children to become flourishing members of society (emphasis added).

I think The Times' comment is right on target. Spending on social service programs is not a type of charitable donation. It is, essentially, as President Biden has said, an investment in the "infrastructure" of this nation - with "people" being the ultimate "infrastructure" on which everything else depends. It is absolutely true that the success of the United States economy reflects the contributions made by every one of us. The nation's prosperity is, as The Times claims, a "collective achievement." 

 

The problem, though, is that many don't see our national success as a "shared success." They analyze and understand the world only in terms of the "individual." What we lack is a felt sense of social solidarity. Until we develop a sense that we are "all in this together," we have a problem. Without the sense that we are engaged in a common project, the Biden program seems to be based on the idea that those who are the most fortunate should be taxed to provide assistance to meet the needs of the less fortunate. That sounds like a program of "compelled charity," and it is no surprise that such a program is not that attractive to lots of different people - even those who might benefit from it, but who don't want to be seen as "charity cases."

 

I have no doubt in my mind that we are "all in this together," so I, personally, am keeping my fingers crossed as I watch what is happening in the United States Senate. 

 

"Working together" is what builds the kind of social solidarity that will provide political support for investing in the American people as the fundamental "infrastructure" for our future national success. Thus, to my mind, the so-called "Build Back Better" program must be seen not as a way for "the government" to provide more benefits to the needy, but as a call for a contribution from every one of us to a new national project - a project long overdue - renovating and rebuilding every aspect of our common life, from environmental restoration, to education, to repaving the roads, repairing the bridges, and rehabilitating deteriorating housing. 

"The government" is us. If we, together, are going to restore and rebuild America, social solidarity will be there. If some bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. is going to take money from those who have it, and give it away as a kind of charity to those who are needy, it's just one more version of the "givers" and the "takers," and there isn't going to be much enthusiasm for that. 

Aren't we all in this together? Aren't we, collectively, putting ourselves in the position to restore and rebuild America, and to start reversing the processes of global warming that are putting our human civilization at risk? Aren't we getting set to build housing for those who don't have any, and aren't we getting ready to clean up our environment and reform agriculture in a time of climate change?

 

I know we are, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because our elected officials at the national level are going to have to explain what they're proposing in a way that we all understand that we are being called upon to mobilize our collective resources to undertake the massive challenges that - if we master them - will leave a world for our children that will sustain their lives and let them celebrate our accomplishments. 

 

We need to understand that our program for the future is not a program that will tax the fortunate to provide helpful charity to those less blessed, but is an program that reflects our collective decision, and determination, and commitment to invest our resources in projects that will rebuild and renovate the nation we love so much. 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/16/opinion/child-tax-credit-biden-welfare.html

 

 

#299 / The Best Way....

That little four-pointed star, pictured above, is not some sort of natural object, captured by an electron microscope. It is, rather,  a "microrobot." You can read all about it in an article in Scientific American, online, titled, "Tiny Robots Could Clean Up Microplastic Pollution."

Microplastic pollution is horrible, and a convincing proof that our human efforts to substitute in our own creations (plastic) for the materials that Nature has provided us has been a profound mistake. Of course, there is a problem with the World of Nature, which is why we so often try to reject it, and substitute in our own constructions. The Natural World works on the basis of life > death > life, and we humans are particularly unwilling to accept that middle term of the equation. 

 

Our human unwillingness to accept our actual status as creatures of Nature, instead of trying to act as if we are ultimately in charge of reality, is one of the main themes explored by C.S. Lewis in his "Space Trilogy" that began with Out of the Silent Planet, continued with Perelandra, and ended with That Hideous Strength. In that third volume, Lewis highlights our desire to live only in a world of our own creation. In the novel, the agency deputized to achieve this human preeminence is called the "National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.)." It's aim is to "free humanity from nature."

 

Given my way of looking at the reality of our situation, in which we live "ultimately" in the World of Nature, and only "immediately" in a world of our own human construction, I was not all that delighted to learn about the idea that we might now deploy "microrobots" to clean up the mess we have already made. This does sound "nice," in exactly the same way that C.S. Lewis used the term. 

 

I was heartened, as I read the Scientific American article, to see the following statement in its concluding paragraph: 

For now ... the best way to remove microplastics from the environment is to stop them from getting there in the first place.

 

Surely, that is "the best way." I would suggest only one modification to this concluding statement. Preventing microplastics from getting into the natural environment is not only the best way "for now." It's the best way "forever!"

Image Credit:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-robots-could-clean-up-microplastic-pollution/

#298 / What Lenin Said

 

If you want to get the facts on Vladimir Lenin, pictured above, just click that link. Wikipedia has the write-up. 

 

I recently read a novel, almost 1,000 pages long, that encompasses in a single narrative the entire history of Russia, beginning in A.D. 180 and continuing to 1945 (with a sixteen-page "Epilogue" that takes the reader to 1992, the year the book was published). Russka, by Edward Rutherfurd, is a pretty long book, but I found it absorbing. Lenin was featured in the next to last little segment, dated 1938.

Russka, however, is not where I found the following quote. I came across it several weeks after finishing the novel, and just by chance. As someone who has always liked to think about "time," I found what Lenin had to say compelling:

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.

I am not only a history major, from my college days, but am also someone who has always been keenly interested in supersaturated solutions, particularly as seen as a metaphor for how history actually happens. To paraphrase what Lenin says, history happens "slowly, and then all at once."

 

Real change, in other words, can be unexpectedly precipitated out of what seems to be an unlikely environment.

 

I, for one, find that a hopeful thought!

 

 

Image Credit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin 

#297 / Getting Out Of That Goldfish Bowl

 

Saul Jacobson, who denominates himself an "international mentor," has published some thoughts about "The Goldfish Bowl Effect." Jacobson defines this "effect" as what happens to a person who is trapped inside an isolated, individual perspective, and who thus doesn't have the perspectives of other people to provide a corrective. A goldfish, Jacobson says, "spends life swimming in circles thinking, 'Hey, there’s a castle. Oh look. Another castle. Wow, there’s another castle.'” 

 

Someone looking from outside the fishbowl "sees the entire picture." Jacobson suggests that he, as an "international mentor," would be a pretty good person to provide that alternative view. A price list is not included. 

 

Jacobson's self-promotion aside, he is providing us with a pretty good lesson. Diversity and plurality of viewpoints gets us closer to "the truth," or at least to a more accurate understanding of the reality in which we find ourselves.

I was thinking about goldfish in a bowl after reading the Maureen Dowd column published in the September 5, 2021, edition of The New York Times. Dowd's column is titled, "Drowning Our Future in the Past." She is pretty much talking about that same "Goldfish Bowl Effect" that Jacobson discusses, though Dowd is considering the problem as a "collective" one, not as an "individual" one:

 

With a memory like a goldfish, America circles its bowl, returning to where we have been, unable to move forward, condemned to repeat a past we should escape. 

 

Dowd is suggesting that we, as a nation, need new perspectives, and that without such new perspectives we will continue to be trapped in an unacceptable and outdated view of the world generated by our past history. 

 

I have no quarrel with this analysis, but I do have a suggestion. "The Goldfish Bowl Effect," whether considered from an individual perspective (Jacobson), or from a collective one (Dowd), focuses on the process of "observation," what we see, and how we see it, and from what perspective our view of the world is obtained. 

 

While questions about how and from where we observe the world are undoubtedly important, I would like to suggest that what is even more important is what we do. "Action," in other words, is even more important than "observation," and I think we need to be reminded that our ability to act, to do something that has never been thought about, or done before, is the essence of human freedom. 

 

If we think we need a new perspective, either individually or collectively, then we have to do something new, something different. Dowd and Jacobson both seem to imply that our ability to act is based on what we "see." Of course, it often is, but it doesn't have to be. 

The new and different perspectives that will get us out of the "Goldfish Bowl" will come only from some new and different action, action that can take place both individually and collectively. We don't, actually, need some sort of "mentor" to tell us this. Sometimes, of course, a "mentor" can help, but let us not discount our own ability to create a whole new reality, outside that "Goldfish Bowl" in which we seem to see ourselves, now and forever, always, entrapped.

Do something new. That's my suggestion. New perspectives will follow!

 

 

Image Credit:

https://sauljacobson.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/the-goldfish-bowl-effect/ 

 

 

#296 / Visualizing Growth

 

Bratton Online, which is Bruce Bratton's Santa Cruz County-specific blog, features lots of community gossip and commentary, political observations, cartoons, film reviews, and whatever else may come over the transom - and Bruce always includes some sort of historic photo at the very top of every issue. Bruce has been publishing Bratton Online since 2003. The photo above is from his October 20-26, 2021, edition. 

 

Those familiar with present-day Santa Cruz, and with West Cliff Drive in particular, will be able appreciate how much this little slice of our local shoreline has changed since 1960, which is when Bruce says this picture was taken. That's Bay Avenue intersecting West Cliff, to the left side of the photo. Where the hospital was, there is now a big parking lot, and there are lots of condominiums off to the left of Bay. The City Council has actually approved a major development where the parking lot is, but that proposed development (at the time I am writing this) is still on appeal to the California Coastal Commission. Thus, that proposed development hasn't been built yet. If it is built, it will put a big condominium project right on the corner of Bay and West Cliff. 

 

The big vacant area in the foreground of the photo that Bruce published is where the Dream Inn is now located. Here's what the Dream Inn looks like today, for those not familiar with Santa Cruz (you can see that parking lot I mentioned, in the background):

 

 

As I said earlier, things have changed a lot on that little slice of West Cliff Drive that was featured in that historic photo. More changes are coming to that area, too, if the developers get the go-ahead to fill in that parking lot with a six-story mixed use condominium-commercial development. 

 

Going back to the historic photo Bruce featured, see if you can picture how things look today, as you continue traveling on West Cliff, heading left off the edge of that photo. If you were to head down West Cliff Drive today, off to the left of that photo Bruce published, you would end up finding Lighthouse Field. Here's how Lighthouse Field looks today, in a photo published by TripAdvisor: 

 

That's quite a difference from what happened just a few blocks away at the Dream Inn site. In the early 1970's, after the Dream Inn had been built, the community fought to "Save Lighthouse Field," a thirty-seven acre piece of land, right on the coast. Lighthouse Field was slated to be developed into a high-rise hotel (just like the Dream Inn), a conference center, a shopping center, a lot of high-end condominiums, and a seven-acre parking lot. 

 

I was personally involved in the fight to "Save Lighthouse Field," as lots of people were, including Bruce Bratton - though Bruce was also, at just the same time, working with Operation Wilder, a community group fighting to stop a massive development proposal on the North Coast, just past the city limits, on what is now Wilder Ranch State Park. 

 

Two huge development projects were proceeding, simultaneously, right at the time that city residents were able to see just how much the construction of the Dream Inn had changed their community. Both the Lighthouse Field development proposal, and the proposal to develop Wilder Ranch with 10,000 new homes, were decisively rejected by the community, and the elected officials who had advocated for those developments were replaced by elected officials with a whole different point of view.

 

Looking at the photo of the Dream Inn site, as Bruce featured it in his recent Bratton Online column, made me remember, again, that people often have difficulty envisioning proposed land use changes - until after they happen, and when they can actually see something in the real world. I think it's fair to say that the Dream Inn, once built, did not get rave reviews from the community. Lots of people saw this as a big mistake. The fact that people could see it in real life helped the community to understand that this was not, in fact, the kind of development they wanted for their community, and that helped lead to the rejection of the proposed development on Lighthouse Field, and to the rejection of the proposed development on Wilder Ranch. 

Time has passed (a lot of time has passed), and now it seems, other people are having those development dreams. In that October 20-26, 2021, edition of Bratton Online, there is a picture of one pending proposal (six floors, on one of the main routes to the beach and West Cliff Drive). It's pictured below. The City's Planning Department website has provided renderings of a whole lot more proposed developments that look quite a bit like the one featured below.

The kind of development pictured just above, and highlighted in that recent edition of Bratton Online, is typical of developments now making their way through the city's planning process. Trying to "visualize growth," before it happens, is actually quite difficult, and the "renderings" provided by developers and their architects often fail to convey the reality of what really happens after developments are approved.

 

With particular reference to Lighthouse Field, I think that community involvement and concern, and opposition to the proposed Lighthouse Field development, was undoubtedly stimulated by the actual Dream Inn development as a model of what was being proposed for Lighthouse Field. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that the actual construction of some of the recently-proposed developments in the city (like the mixed-use development now under construction at the corner of Pacific and Front Street) will make lots of people a lot more wary of what those nice looking "renderings" actually mean, in real life.

If that turns out to be true, as I think happened in the case of the Dream Inn, a small group of committed individuals can make the political changes necessary to head the city in a different direction. It is my understanding that Margaret Mead said something like that. From my experience, as shown in the case of the Save Lighthouse Point Association, she was right on target.

Image Credits:

(1) - www.brattononline.com (October 20 – 26, 2021)

(2) - https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/10/23/santa-cruz-approves-new-beach-area-condo-commercial-project/

(3) - https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g33048-d7037510-i139404095-Lighthouse_Field_State_Beach-Santa_Cruz_California.html

(4) - www.brattononline.com (October 20 – 26, 2021 - "Greensite's Insights")

#295 / A Future Without Sex?

   

James Lee, writing in the September 1, 2021, edition of The Wall Street Journal, is suggesting that we may be heading for a "future without sex." Lee is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, and he specializes in behavior genetics. 

 

Lee is not the only one advancing this hypothesis. He may, in fact, be significantly behind the curve. Way back in 2012, Chatelaine, an online website devoted to "food, style, living, news, health, horoscopes, and more," ran an article with the following headline: "In the future will women have babies at any age, without sex?" Chatelaine was pretty positive about the advantages, as indicated in the following excerpt from its article: 

 

Women wouldn’t be the sole beneficiaries of this kind of leap in reproductive technology writes The Guardian’s Kira Cochrane, “The same field of technology would enable gay couples to have children created from both their DNA, and make it just as easy for a man to become a single parent as a woman.” 

 

Before commenting further, let me indicate my own bias in favor of sex. From my limited personal experience, and from reading lots of novels, I am betting that sex will pull through, no matter how strongly challenged. Frankly, I hope so!

What both Chatelaine and Professor Lee are talking about is the idea that we have now advanced to the point that we can use genetic engineering techniques to produce children who are "better" than those children produced by the random couplings of sex-addled humans. Here is a quick look at Lee's thoughts on this topic: 

 

If you could raise your infant’s IQ by four points, would you? Many parents would, and it’s now technologically feasible. Geneticists can screen embryos for traits ranging from height to facial features to intelligence. The method builds upon the procedure of in vitro fertilization, which induces the release of several eggs by hormonal treatment and fertilizes them in a lab. Genetic testing of the resulting embryos can produce predictions of the traits that the offspring are likely to exhibit, even if those traits are “polygenic” (influenced by thousands of genes with tiny effects). The parents then choose an embryo to implant in the mother. IVF is common, accounting for 10% of births in some countries.

All this creates unprecedented ethical challenges in the immediate future. Consider the parents who use IVF to raise their children’s IQ. If the children repeat the process for another generation, taking advantage of scientific advances during the interim, they could bring the total average gain in the grandchildren north of 10 points—a huge gain. That advantage could be big enough to give the grandchildren radically disproportionate representation at the highest levels of science, finance, information technology, medicine, law and business.

 

Lee thinks that it's likely that humans will, indeed, want to "improve" their offspring, by using genetic engineering, and then suggests that the "end of sex" may be the result, because traits that are not really necessary are selected out over the generations. For instance, it has been shown that species that live in caves ultimately become blind. Why not? Who needs to see anything if you're living in the dark?

As I say, I am still betting on sex, but what interested me in this topic was not, actually, the question of whether or not our sexual urges would atrophy, and then tend "wither away" entirely, when we took direct charge of producing the next generation by using techniques in which sex plays no part. 

What interested me was the idea, seriously being considered by professors and the popular press, that human beings should assume direct responsibility for "engineering" the future of the human race by deciding what traits they want to promote, and then using their technological prowess to accomplish their goals. 

Frequent readers of this blog know that I continue to assert that the "World of Nature," a world that humans did not create, and upon which we are ultimately dependent, is more important, in the end, than the "Human World" that we do create, and that we most immediately inhabit. Again, frequent readers know that I am a great believer in "plurality," also known as "diversity," and that the differences that exist between us, as individuals, is a "feature, not a bug." Feel free to dip your intellectual toes into Hannah Arendt, if you haven't ever focused on that thought. 

Lee's column ends on a cautionary note. He is nervous about the proposition that we might seek to "engineer" future generations. This caution is very well-founded, in my opinion. As The Wall Street Journal puts it in a "pull quote" from Lee's column: 

Reproductive technology may lead us to realize too late that being human is better than playing God.

 

 

Image Credit:

https://www.chatelaine.com/living/in-the-future-will-women-have-babies-at-any-age-without-sex/

 

 

#294 / What Good Am I?

 

That "prophetic voice" I mentioned yesterday is always calling out to us - and it is calling us to action, not to mere observation. I feel that keenly, as I continue posting these observations, day by day. The question asked in this song is for all of us, but it is for me, too, I know: "What Good Am I?"

 

In this song, Bob Dylan's question is specifically directed to us as we witness the poverty and pain of homeless people, so evident everywhere, and as we then "just turn away." The question, though, is actually more general, and is applicable in almost every circumstance. That next to the last verse helps make that clear. From homelessness, to global warming, to the continuing threat of nuclear annihilation, this question is posed, always and forever, for each one of us: "What Good Am I?"

 

You can listen to the song by clicking the title link: 

What Good Am I?

What good am I if I’m like all the rest
If I just turn away, when I see how you’re dressed
If I shut myself off so I can’t hear you cry
What good am I?

What good am I if I know and don’t do
If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky
What good am I?

What good am I while you softly weep
And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep
And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don’t try
What good am I?

What good am I then to others and me
If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands are tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been?

What good am I if I say foolish things
And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings
And I just turn my back while you silently die
What good am I?

 

 

Image Credit:

https://www.captainstomp.com/vinyl/lp/bob-dylan-oh-mercy

#293 / The Prophetic Voice (God Knows)

 

In June 2020, Esquire Magazine published an interview with Bob Dylan. In an online summary of the longer interview, Esquire called him "always a prophet."

Walter Brueggemann, widely considered to be one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of the last several decades, defines the "prophetic voice" as an exhortation to "speak truth to a society that continues to live in illusions." I do think Dylan qualifies! 

 

I have been quite taken, in fact, by Dylan's song, God Knows. If you will click that title link, below, you can listen to the song. I am including the lyrics, and I have highlighted just a couple of Dylan's prophetic phrases. This is definitely an "exhortation." God knows we need to pay attention!

God Knows

 

God knows you ain’t pretty
God knows it’s true
God knows there ain’t anybody
Ever gonna take the place of you

God knows it’s a struggle
God knows it’s a crime
God knows there’s gonna be no more water
But fire next time

God don’t call it treason
God don’t call it wrong
It was supposed to last a season
But it’s been so strong for so long

God knows it’s fragile
God knows everything
God knows it could snap apart right now
Just like putting scissors to a string

God knows it’s terrifying
God sees it all unfold
There’s a million reasons for you to be crying
You been so bold and so cold

God knows that when you see it
God knows you’ve got to weep
God knows the secrets of your heart
He’ll tell them to you when you’re asleep

God knows there’s a river
God knows how to make it flow
God knows you ain’t gonna be taking
Nothing with you when you go

God knows there’s a purpose
God knows there’s a chance
God knows you can rise above the darkest hour
Of any circumstance

God knows there’s a heaven
God knows it’s out of sight
God knows we can get all the way from here to there
Even if we’ve got to walk a million miles by candlelight 

 

 

Image Credit:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a32851064/bob-dylan-interview-george-floyd-coronavirus/

 

#292 / Inundating The Planet

 

A New York Times opinion column, appearing in the paper on August 31, 2021, was titled, "Plastics Are Inundating the Planet." That is the hard-copy version of the headline. Online, The Times has titled its column as follows: "The Proliferation of Plastics and Toxic Chemicals Must End."

 

As authors Marty Mulvihill, Gretta Goldenman, and Arlene Blum explain, "the problem with fossil fuels extends beyond their use for energy." They further comment: "petrochemicals are ubiquitous in everyday products, and many of them are poisoning us and our children." Furthermore, "global chemical production is predicted to double by 2030, according to the United Nations." 

In January 2010, in one of my earliest blog postings, I headlined my commentary as follows: "Sin And Synthetics." 

The point of that blog posting, and I have made the point since, was that the development and proliferation of synthetic materials (we mostly know them as "plastics") represents - whether we realize it or not - an attempt to substitute a "human-created reality" for the realities given to us in the World of Nature. Living within the limits of the Natural World, which is the world on which we ultimately depend, means that we must cease trying to "replace" Nature by our own, synthetic creations. 

It is funny to think about it this way, perhaps, but our use of plastics raises profound theological questions. 

Ultimate questions, you might call them!

 

Will we ultimately rely on the Natural World into which we are born, or do we really think we can create a completely new and synthetic world of our own, and sustain our lives in that human-made reality? 

 

Take a look at what is happening with plastics, and I think you'll have the answer.

 

Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/opinion/plastics-fossil-fuels.html

#291 / What You'll Need

 

 

The image above is of an advertisement from the August 30, 2021, edition of The Wall Street Journal. I paid no attention to it as I proceeded through the paper, but my wife, looking over my shoulder, expressed something that might have been a combination of alarm, astonishment, and outrage. 

"Do you see that?" she asked, pointing to the cellphone graphic. The advertisement is touting an online retirement calculator that is going to help you "find out if your asset allocations will allow you to retire comfortably." As I say, I hadn't paid any attention to the entire ad, which was a full page, but when I did look at the advertisement, and the figures my wife was pointing to, it became clear that Fisher Investments is aiming to serve a demographic cohort that does not include my own family.  

 

The advertisement postulates a family that is on target to have $2.62 million in retirement investments, but when it comes to "What You'll Need," Fisher Investments suggests that you will need $2.95 million. It's time for action, folks. I'd suggest some bigger bets on the stock market!

 

Normally, a benign bemusement would be my reaction to this advertisement. This ad is aimed at the wealthy end of the economic spectrum, and my family is just not in that category - probably proving that I am not a typical reader of The Wall Street Journal. Upon a moment's reflection, however, I decided that it might make sense to comment on that "What You'll Need" phrasing. 

What we "need," taking the word literally, is almost always a lot less than what we "want," or what we are trying to get a hold of. Looking ahead, it struck me, we should be focusing on the fact that we are living well beyond our means, collectively speaking, and that we are exhausting even the renewable resources of this very finite planet on which we all depend.

When we look at our overall, big picture, planetary "retirement calculator," we should not be trying to increase our assets, to meet what we so thoughtlessly call our "needs." Instead, we should collectively be seeking to reduce our "needs," to the lesser amounts that we will actually have available as we move into the future. 

Supply and demand do, ultimately, have to balance out, which means (since what this planet can "supply" is limited) that we are going to have to reduce our "demands." 

We need to plan for "less," not "more." Collectively. Individually. Anyway you look at it!

 

Image Credit:

http://ereader.wsj.net

 

#290 / Welcome To The Metaverse: Watch Out!

 

 

Here's Mark Zuckerberg, in the picture above, welcoming us with open arms into a "virtual world" that he is inviting us to occupy. Rental payments for our occupancy will go to Zuckerberg, of course!

 

A couple of very different articles in the August 28-29 edition of The Wall Street Journal, including the one with Zuckerberg's picture, captured my attention. First, Dan Gallagher and Laura Forman, tech writers for The Journal, told us about Zuckerberg's efforts to get us to enter into the "Metaverse," a "virtual world" that many techies see as "the next big thing." In the hard copy version of the newspaper, their article was titled, "The Real Problems Of the Virtual World." Online, the article bore this title: "Big Tech Wants You to Live in a Virtual World. Prepare for Real Problems." The subheading summed up their advice as follows: "User discretion is advised."

 

The second article in The Journal, seemingly quite different, was an "Ask Ariely" advice column, covering the following topic: "Why We Ignore Friends to Look at Our Phones." Dan Ariely, who writes this column, is a Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University.

 

Gallagher and Forman want us to know that the "Metaverse," a world inside a headset, is "hot, sweaty and even nauseating." Think twice, they advise, before strapping a device onto your face that then allows you to "interact with cartoon-versions of co-workers and friends." It's just not worth it; that's what they suggest. The "Ask Ariely" column tells us that people who "snub" their friends, to look at their phones, may well be "depressed and socially anxious." That's why they do it.

While I generally agree with the observations made in these articles, as just recounted, I have a different take on what's happening at the tech/human interface. 

In the last several years, I have come to believe that many of our real life problems derive from one, profoundly important fact. Human beings are always tempted to prefer their own creations and constructions - the human world that they create - to the world they didn't create, the "Natural World," or the world that religious people call the "World That God Created." 

 

Sitting on a sunny patio at the end of the day, not that long ago, chatting with several friends about all sorts of things, from politics to flower gardens, I found one of those friends repeatedly diverting his attention to his phone - just the phenomenon discussed by Ariely. Surely, most of us have had that experience. Real people, right there in front of you, in "real life," are not as compelling as those people with whom you can be in contact through your phone, or tablet, or laptop. The "Metaverse," as proposed, is a further step. The headset that Zuckerberg and other techies are promoting makes it impossible even to choose between "real life" and the life transmitted to the headset user online. As long as you wear that headset, the world inside the headset is the only world you know. 

These new technological gadgets, I think, represent a progressive next step in an ongoing human effort to substitute out the "Natural World" as the locus of the "reality" in which we live, and to attempt to live within a world that humans create, supposedly freed from any dependence on anything that humans have not created themselves. 

User discretion is certainly advised! The fact is, all of our human constructions are ultimately dependent on a world that we did not create. The more we forget this fact, the more we value "avatars" over real people, and the more we value our human creations over the "Creation," itself, the quicker we will undermine the conditions that make life in "our world" possible. 

This is a kind of "theological" perspective - a perspective more real than the "Metaverse" is what I'd claim!

 

 

Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-tech-wants-you-to-live-in-a-virtual-world-prepare-for-real-problems-11630056626

#289 / One Important "Fine Print" Item

A group of local activists is going to propose an initiative measure, to be effective within the City of Santa Cruz. If successful, the initiative will establish an "Empty Homes Tax." To be successful, the initiative measure must qualify for the ballot and then be enacted by the voters. If the initiative is successful, new funding will be generated for affordable housing. 

 

The activists proposing the Empty Homes Tax is having a launch party this afternoon (Saturday, October 16th, at 1:00 p.m. at Shanty Shack Brewing). 

 

If you are interested, you might want to attend! I am pretty sure that you're invited! There is also a website, with more information.  That is online right now. You can click this link to visit that website.

I have reviewed the text of the proposed initiative - filled with "legalese," as all legal enactments must necessarily be. Here is something I found in the "fine print" that makes me happy. It is the definition of "affordable housing." Monies raised by the "Empty Homes Tax" will be used for housing that meets the following criteria:

 

"Affordable housing" means housing intended to operate as affordable to low, very low, and extremely low incomes... in perpetuity....

All too often, what developers and city planners claim is "affordable" housing is housing that is not, in fact, directed to those most in need - individuals and families with low, very low, and extremely low incomes. In addition, all too often, the "affordable" housing that is given the planning go-ahead will be price-restricted, and thus "affordable," for only a relatively short time. Thirty years, for instance. That might sound like a "long time," but it speeds right by. It has been forty-three years, for instance, since the voters enacted Measure J, a countywide measure that requires that at least 15% of all new housing in unincorporated areas to be affordable to persons with average and below average incomes, with those housing units now required to be "permanently" price-restricted.

As you can see from the language in bold, quoted above, funds raised by the proposed Empty Homes Tax, to be used to support the production of affordable housing within the City of Santa Cruz, will be used for housing that will be price restricted to be affordable "in perpetuity." 

Those words, "in perpetuity," are the good news from the fine print. That's the way it ought to be!

 

Here is one shout out on behalf of this proposed initiative measure for getting this part of the "fine print" exactly right!

 

 

Image Credit:

https://emptyhometax.org 

 

 

#288 / Zoom Support For White Collar Criminals

 

Evan Osnos got to sit in on a Zoom Support Group meeting for white collar criminals. Click the following link to read Osnos' report in The New Yorker. Osnos' report is titled, "The Big House - Life after white-collar crime." It is a fascinating excursion into the world of those who are "detoxing from power." 

I am mentioning this article not only because it is interesting in and of itself, but particularly because of an observation made by Tom Hardin, one of the participants in the so-called "White Collar Support Group." 

 

Hardin is described as a "lean and taciturn man in his forties...known with some notoriety in Wall Street Circles [as] Tipper X." The F.B.I. caught Hardin making illegal stock trades, and gave him a choice. To avoid going to jail, Hardin became an undercover agent, gathering evidence "in more than twenty criminal cases." He now makes his living as a "Corporate Ethics Trainer." 

Here's what Hardin has to say about those who apologize for the wrongs they have done (these apologies almost always coming after they have been caught, of course). Hardin's observation is pertinent for all of us, even if we are not white collar criminals ourselves:

 

In his dealings with his peers, Hardin has learned to distinguish who is genuinely remorseful from who is not. “I’ll hear from white-collar felons who tell me, ‘I made a mistake,’ ” he told me. “I’ll say, ‘A mistake is something we do without intention. A bad decision was made intentionally.’ If you’re classifying your bad decisions as mistakes, you’re not accepting responsibility.”

 

I think Hardin is onto something - and it's something important. His observation has applicability in almost every situation in which we are compelled to admit that we did something wrong, and that we are sorry that we did. Oftentimes, to be totally honest, we are mostly sorry that someone noticed that we did something wrong, so that an apology has become necessary.

 

"I made a mistake; I'm sorry" is a common form of apology. This phrasing, though, and we are sometimes not aware of it, even as we utter the words, is actually an "excuse," not an "apology." Naturally, we are sorry we "made a mistake" - but, of course, who doesn't make a mistake, once in a while? This form of "apology," citing to our mistake, is really aimed at dodging responsibility for our own actions.

Individually and collectively, we need to take responsibility for what we do - and for what we have done.

And we need to do that before we get caught, not afterwards!

 

Image Credit: 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/30/life-after-white-collar-crime

 

#287 / Eating Bugs

 

On July 26, 2021, I read a story that told me that I should start eating bugs. That's right, bugs. Insects!  

 

The Mercury News version of the article indicated that the "global edible insect market is posed to boom." I guess that's what the research seems to say. Maybe it's a good time to invest. Tiziana di Costanzo, pictured above, is the co-founder of Horizon Insects. She makes pizza out of cricket powder. 

I learned, online, just how Horizon Insects lays out the case for bugs:

You’ve heard the statistics: Insects can provide three times more protein and 30 times as much vitamin B12 as beef, using a fraction of the arable land and water. Futurists are as tired of saying it as you’re reluctant to take their advice: The human diet of tomorrow should pivot to bugs if we’re to stymie the worst effects of climate change.

I have to confess that I am not very enthusiastic about having to eat bugs - even after that pitch from Horizon Insects. The New Yorker, one of my favorite magazines, has also proposed that we "Save The Planet, Eat a Bug." Still, I am just not that wild about the idea!

 

Global warming, and the climate changes it is creating, are a real problem, and I do care about that. It is more than an "inconvenience," too. Global warming is an end-of the-world challenge to the way we have been conducting ourselves for the last 150 years. Dramatic actions are absolutely called for. 

 

Maybe eating bugs should be on our dance card. Still, I am just not that enthusiastic!

 

How about we all agree to stop burning hydrocarbon fuels, right now - immediately, as soon as we possibly can? Then, after we have done that, we can rearrange our economy and society to deal with the changes that will necessarily eventuate.

 

Maybe that would mean eating bugs. In which case, I'll eat 'em. Some people say that bugs are really good, and good for you, too!

 

But here's my idea. Let's get rid of the hydrocarbon fuels first, rather than starting out on the bug diet to avoid having to do that!

 

Image Credit:

https://www.union-bulletin.com/what-pairs-with-beetle-startups-seek-to-make-bugs-tasty/image_9892c7f3-afd6-5445-b15d-89b3e27e8b68.html