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Musings Report 2018-49 12-9-18 The Limits of Individual Power
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
An Apology to Correspondents
A whirlwind trip to Yosemite National Park and 25 miles of hiking has wiped me out. As a result, I haven't been able to respond to email. Please forgive this tardy Musings and my lack of response through December 15.
The Limits of Individual Power
One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: "Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything."
The impotence of force is matched by the impotence of the vast majority of individuals, including myself.
I'm not sure why, given my extremely modest corner of the World Wide Web, but readers regularly solicit my support of their solution to various pressing economic problems. Sometimes they berate the futility of writing books, suggesting that if only I'd recommend and promote their solution, I'd actually get some traction.
The sobering reality is my promotion of any particular solution, regardless of its source, is an exercise in impotence: nothing is going to change because I recommend a course of action or a policy.
Even individuals with authority are often effectively impotent. Try visiting your city mayor or senior municipal official and demand a new children's playground. You will quickly find there's no budget for a new children's playground, no land available for the playground, and numerous approvals are required from various city commissions, review boards, the city council, Parks and Recreation, and so on.
The official might love your proposal and be persuaded of its value to the community, but none of that speeds the process or conjures up the long-term lobbying required to move the needle of the political-economic regime, even for something as relatively small scale as a children's playground.
One of the most moving postwar films from Japan is Ikiru (to Live, 1952) by Akira Kurosawa.
The film's protagonist is a listless bureaucrat in a bureaucracy devoted to inaction. Upon discovering he has terminal cancer, he first attempts to "live life to the fullest" by embracing the nightclub scene.
But seeking pleasure is ultimately unsatisfactory, and he eventually decides to find meaning in the last months of his life by pushing a new children's playground through the sclerotic, resistant layers of bureaucracy.
It is only his relentless determination to achieve this modest goal before he dies that the small playground actually comes into being.
In the usual course of events, months or even years of badgering eventually causes bureaucrats to tire so thoroughly of being badgered that they relent and approve the project.
Alternatively, a politically powerful organization that doles out hefty campaign contributions gets on board and adds its weight to the pressure to find the land and budget for the playground.
But in the grand scheme of things, most of us are impotent to change what really moves the needle: new understanding and / or changes in values.
The environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s is a well-known example. Clean air and water regulations came into being not as a result of powerful status quo players or persistent lobbying by individuals; the real shift was in the general public's understanding of the sources of pollution and the web of effects that tied pesticides, industrial waste, etc. to our own health and well-being.
At the same time, the public's value system shifted: what was not valued much before (clean air and water) became highly valued, and the lobbying of industries and other opponents could not reverse this change in values.
The World Wide Web is a relatively open free-for-all: anyone with a network connection can post his/her solutions, ideas and proposals for the world to find and ponder. Rather than lobby me to promote their ideas for them, individuals would be better served by promoting their own ideas directly to the public via whatever media they prefer: text, photos, film, podcasts, etc.
Jean-Paul Sartre addressed this process of changing understanding and values in his essays, and concluded (not surprisingly, since he was a writer) that the written word was most effective in changing understanding and values.
Ikiru certainly suggests that film has a unique power in this regard, but personally, I've found that books are the only mechanism that has changed my understanding deeply enough to modify my value system. Perhaps this is why I persist in writing books, regardless of how many others may reckon them ineffective.
Others may persist in producing films and podcasts for the same reason: these media are what moves their value systems.
Highlights of the Blog This Past Week
Are We in a Recession Already? (12/7/18)
The View from the Trenches of the Alternative Media (12/5/18)
Truth Is What We Hide, Self-Serving Cover Stories Are What We Sell (12/3/18)
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Yosemite Valley with a light layer of snow, perfect for a walkabout.
Musings on the Economy: Anticipating Recession
I've noticed that as a generality, those who believe the US economy is far from recession tend to extrapolate the uptrends of the past decade, and reckon further gains are if not guaranteed, then awfully close to a sure thing.
Since expansions have never exceeded ten years, and we're approaching the ten-year anniversary of this expansion, it's a timely intellectual exercise to draw another line: not an extrapolation of uptrends but a topping out and decline.
This raises the question: what sorts of impacts would a recession have on my household income, assets and plans? The question may prove useful, even if the answer is "a recession would have no effect on my household."
From Left Field
"I’ve seen this same routine played out in companies and government. People in authority savor power, but hold themselves responsible for nothing."
Dr. Doom’s Latest Warning Should Not Go Unheeded
Peak Oil & Drastic Oil Shortages Imminent, Says IEA -- natty gas looks plentiful, oil not so much...
The Next Bite: Every step in the way we eat — from before seeds hit the ground to the moment food hits your plate — is undergoing massive change. What will the future of food look like?
The moral and ethical rot at Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s Facebook--woah...
U.S. Renters Face 'Unprecedented Affordability Crisis,' Fed's Community Council Says
Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies-- a sobering step off a cliff...
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Forgotten Lesson on Good and Evil
The ‘feel-good’ horror of late-stage capitalism
"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." Soren Kierkegaard
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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