Finding my humanity

The story I tell is that my life turned a corner when I began to listen to and for feelings, to pay attention to the interior worlds of the people I interact with, when I began to value relationships. The corner I have turned is from idealism to realism.

I thought I understood right and wrong. I thought I could coach us back from cruelty,  genocide and ecocide, to a stable, sustainable way of being together on this planet. But my vision is just my vision, and at that, only a vision for humanity.

In my teenage years I was approached, as nearly everyone is, by those who keep faith with a God and wish for a heaven on Earth. I would say to them "Your wish for a perfect world cannot happen because you will never convince everyone of your plan.". I was thinking of myself – I knew they would and could never convince me. "If you want a better world, your plan must accommodate many different world views." That was my aspiration – a plan that would accommodate every different point of view.

So the question on which I meditated was, "on what can we all agree?". 

The framing of course controlled the answer. I was seeking a vision for how to live peacefully and sustainably in the world. The very least that is necessary for peace is that we respect each other's bodies, autonomy, safety. I saw that for me to be safe, I had to promise to everyone else that they would also be safe from me. I would hurt no one. For this premise to hold did not require everyone to join, but the degree of not joining would be the degree of unsafety.

The world we live in teaches me that there are many, perhaps half of humanity, unwilling to accept this premise. "Your gain is my loss, and I will hurt you to get what I need."

So I despair of enlisting a groundswell of humanity in the belief that we must keep each other safe. I despair of enlisting humanity in the ideal that we must take care of each other, that only by sharing, across group boundaries, ideologies, national boundaries, do we minimize misery and maximize the quality of life, that the resources of our abundant planet can support all of life, if we are willing to share.

But we must be willing to take the least we need, and not take the maximum we can get. Our lives must be about living, and sharing, and ensuring that others have what they need, not about getting and hoarding. And yet, Me-ism is what we are taught in economics and in culture, and I do not know how to appeal to the great mass of humanity that accepts this vision for living. And thus we careen toward Gaia-cide. 

There is a deeper problem. Who am I to tell anyone else how to live in the world? Each other person who is trying to survive will make choices to suit them, and who am I to challenge their logic? Would that not be the harm I am counseling against? That any person ought to resist the leading of their inner guidance?

So if there is a principle, the principle of the zero sum, to which we all forced to turn, it is not a principle with which we all agree. Me-ism is the great default strategy, to which we are all forced to turn because everyone else is using it, while sharing is a fragile ethos, easily  damaged by defectors to me-ism. 

I remember, of course, that I am humanity. That every feeling I have felt has been felt by another human being. That every feeling that has been felt by another human being I can also feel. I also engage in me-ism, because at the margin, I need to succeed and survive. I embrace all that is human, even its mean, repugnant, hateful parts. I understand these choices that other people make. And I despair in them. 

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Stephen.Alrich.Marshall@gmail.com

802-922-1446

Dispolemic.Blogspot.com

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Violence and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Reports were heard that Peru had closed its borders to Venezuelans, in light of increasing crime  rates. As images of chaos in Venezuela spilling over into Peru filled my mind, I saw decisions in the margin, "what do I have to do to survive?", spreading like a plague across a landscape of intact communities, inflicting violence on their systems of sustenance. The communities that had generously received the Venezuelans received all of them, all of them desperate, some of them willing to steal or cheat to meet their needs, and some of them already criminals in the country they came from, and the Peruvians experiencing this disruption in their communities must be asking, "Why would we endure the loss of our own security and sustenance to benefit people who do not respect our way of life?". Of course, the Venezuelans probably emerged from such communities as well, but intact communities can absorb only so much disruption before they begin to break down. As the communities are flooded with people struggling to survive, burdening the capacity of individuals to respond with compassion, the cooperation and sharing that is intrinsic to community life is unrewarded, and the choices in the margin – "Today, will I cooperate and assist my neighbor, or will I protect myself and ignore my neighbor?" – lean toward self-protection, and away from generosity. 

The Prisoner's dilemma suggests that in many instances cooperation will yield the greatest rewards for the community, but not the actors in the scenario, and if the actors do not trust each other, their choices will be guided by the edict, "Make the choice that benefits me, no matter what the other person does." In the prisoner's dilemma, that is the low value choice to not cooperate.

Our dilemma, as researchers, as activists, and as people who see life in peril, is that we need everyone to choose the  common good over the private good. We need them to choose cooperation in scenarios that scale from not using plastic bags to joining together in a strategy to reverse Global Warming.  But when faced in the margin by hunger, violence from gangs or governments, loss of family, what is the incentive to "cooperate"?

At the level of hunger and safety, the most elemental form of cooperation is whether to use violence, whether to steal, whether to  attack another person or their property,  or not. Those communities in which people feel safe are communities in which people follow a simple principle: I shall respect you and your property, in my confidence that you will respect me and mine. They are also communities in which people are able to find means to meet their needs without hurting other people. They have jobs, homes, food, family, and friends.

Violations of this principle always hurt, and many laws are written to prohibit and sanction these violations. Unfortunately, the laws are often written to protect the "safe" community from the unsafe community, the community of property from the community of poverty, the community in which the principle of "me first" results in great wealth, from the communities in which there isn't enough food, enough housing, enough health care, enough jobs, enough education, in which the violence is structural, in which cooperation is itself submission to violence, in which great disinvestment produces that violence which teaches "me first". At a larger scale, in which we include the impoverished and the wealthy, "me first" is the defining ethic, because at this scale, wealth can be accumulated only by interposing forms of violence such as fences, laws, and police, between those who have and those who do not. Arching over the "safe" wealthy community is the principle of "me first": that the communities of the rich might seem safe is a product of exported violence. 

As a form of the prisoner's dilemma, inter-communal cooperation is thus much more complicated than the simple example of individuals considering what to do. Perhaps in this matrix, the wealthy actor continues to accumulate wealth when not cooperating, and must pay in more when cooperating, while neither "me-first" nor cooperation improves well being of the poor actor. Not only are individuals asked to cooperate with other individuals for the greater good, but they are asked to cooperate in an effort of their group to cooperate with other groups for a gain that is shared among many groups, at a loss to itself, while it is still possible for individuals and the group to gain more from making the "me-first" choice. Nor is the actor given any reason to trust that the other groups will reciprocate. So what is the reason to cooperate? Most people understand the rules and necessity of cooperation and sharing without being instructed - it is instinctual. And when presented with low cost opportunities, they will cooperate. So how do we induce cooperation between people?

By reducing the causes of violence – you ensure that people have reliable means of self-support, you build economies in which people can rely on their jobs, their homes, the food supply, the water supply. You must enforce the distribution of wealth to those who do the work, and to those who cannot work, you provide that least which is sufficient to create stability, security and health.   In short, by cooperating for the good of all. 

"Free Will" distracts once again.

The debate over free will is encumbered by the old ideas that surround it. Determinism of the Newtonian sort (the billiard ball theory) stands on the obsolete notion that if it were possible to measure the velocity and direction of all particles, an observer could predict the outcomes of all future interactions, and predict all future events. Chaos theory shows that these measurements quickly seek out infinite degrees of precision, and therefore are, even theoretically, impossible to make, making prediction also impossible. Accordingly, the future is not determined by the present. Randomness emerges across time, even though immediate events are determined through causality. 

The mistake that Einstein made was the mistake that the quantum theorists were making: to think that the behavior of quantum particles, which were being described as random, would in fact be random. Einstein could not believe that anything could happen without causality, while the Boor and others asserted the opposite. But why should we not postulate that at the infinitesimal scale of strings, quarks, etc., that causality still operates, but simply beyond our ability to measure? The fact that we can only measure probabilistic behaviors, and not the behavior of particles, is not a comment on nature, it is a comment on our relationship to it. We just don't have the tools to read causality at that scale. Perhaps, as in the Newtonian model, randomness occurs as an emergent property of a deterministic system. But in quantum physics the time scales are so small that there is no meaning to the word "causality". 

Let us also remember that no one has postulated a true causal linkage between the uncertainty of quantum mechanics and the manner in which "free will" is produced. "Free will" is a psychological condition, and what is the relationship of this to subatomic particles? Without this link, quantum mechanics is merely a metaphor, or at best proof that determinism isn't necessary. 

Thus "free will" lives in the margin of uncertainty between randomness and determinism. When we use these dichotomies, we defeat our efforts to understand. Determinism, causality, and free will, are invented categories which give us a game-board on which to play, but do not actually give us new power to live in accord with what we are and do what we want to do. 

For me the greatest challenge in the "free will" debate is the paradox involved. If you are a student of evolution and the life sciences, you might find plenty of cause to believe we do not have free will. We are determined by our biology. But we need to overcome the connotation of "determined" in this case. Our precise thoughts and choices are not predictable, but our tendencies (like the mass properties atoms and quarks) are. Take enough humans together, and we can be expected to eat, poop, seek out sex, give care, talk, scheme, plan, act. We are intrinsically biological, and each of us takes a form predicted by the billions of years that life has flourished on this planet. But that biology gives us a sense of self, and relationships with other selves. In fact, the "self" we possess is a direct product of our relationships — another way that determinism is woven into who and what we are — and yet at that scale, on the scale of relationships, we insist on freedom of action and self determination. 

It is foolish to deny our biology, and yet the freedom we covet is real, in the realm in which it operates. The problem is that we treat "free will" as a thing to be owned or not. But let's perform one or two thought experiments. Do you have free will to choose to be another person? Could you choose the body of a mouse, or a tree, or choose to operate as a physical law of the universe? The fact that there is only one body in which you exist, and can exist, and that you will cease to exist when that body dies, determines important properties of your existence. You are a property of the physical universe. That does not mean you are not free within your realm of consciousness. It's a paradox. Pay attention, get accustomed. Breath it. 

The distinction between "being" and "doing" is likewise a distraction. While to say "I am gay" or "I am a poor writer" is a box to die in, "being" need not be a static state. From moment to moment I am changing what I am, depending upon the energy I have and the interactions I am engaged in. But being true to myself has always been important to me. I am not trying to be a particular thing, I am trying to be honest and without disguise — I am myself to the extent I am not coerced to express that I am something else (which is the root question of "free will"). "Being" is not adhering to a definition, it is standing in coherence with the internal processes of the body and mind.

Thus "doing" emerges from "being", not as a contradiction, but as a natural property. I feel and live in the internal experience of my body, but everyone else, and everything else, experiences me as what I do, so if I am watching and listening to the effects I have on the people and the world around me, I am learning whether what I am, whether what I value, is expressed in what I do, whether the dynamic, learning, growing, changing self that I am has the impact in the world that I would like it to have, through what I do. 

Like the concept of "consciousness", "free will" is a problem of its own making. Without the framing, without the definitions, the problem would not incarnate. They are philosophical problems derived from circular definitions which collapse when we understand them as expressions of a philosophical tradition. They are interesting questions, but I prefer the functionality of paradox over the illusion of certainty. 

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Stephen.Alrich.Marshall@gmail.com

802-922-1446

Dispolemic.Blogspot.com

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On Being an Alumnus of Storm King School

Hello Lynn, 

I received your note and the magazines, and thank you for reaching out. I enjoyed talking with you, which reminded me that one of my secret aspirations was to teach, if not at Storm King then perhaps another private school. 

Just behind our conversation about visiting was the memory of an actual visit I made to campus, within the last year, on a day the campus seemed to be empty. I did not want to make any demands on who ever might be there, as I have no right to expect hospitality if I show up unannounced, so I left without any human contact. This is why I said I would write to you if I planned to be in the area again, so there could be an announced visit. I am not now planning that visit, but I wanted to reciprocate your reaching out to me, and thank you again. 

I realize that the cultivation of relationships with alumni is an important part of what every school must do. Unlike hospitals, whose alum are likely to revisit many times, before they actually expire, or the military, which must actually provide health care to its retired soldiers, schools have a time-limited occupancy with a distinct beginning and end. The only relationship is "You were once part of this community". But that relationship is meaningful to the student as much for the period of life it overlapped, as for the people and lessons that were learned. Any experience at that time of life will be meaningful. But for the school, this tautology is irrelevant. That relationship is a source of continuing benefit to the school, and perhaps also of accountability to its mission, so there may be something reciprocal and conservative about the relationship, although ultimately transactional. 

I have positive memories of my time at Storm King, but in other ways my two years there were merely a hiatus from my emotional development, which resumed when I returned to my neighborhood school. Important growth in my brain, my cognitive powers, insights in the nature of human life and my life, were denominated by isolation, meanness and entitled arrogance, and I have no way to account for the loss implied. In the vast range of ways to be in the cosmos, I do not blame Storm King for not being what I needed it to be, but neither do I feel indebted. It gives me cause to wonder what being an Alumni of any school really means. Like my meditations about religion, if they all claim to be correct, then which one deserves my loyalty? If I find reason to believe in family, community, and principles of the social contract, Storm King was a model of both what to do and what not to do. 

I like the circle of community still embodied by the campus. I liked the individuals who were thoughtful and kind. I enjoy now the sense of communality of dormitories, a central dining hall, an infirmary, and a small account at the school store for postage and supplies. I also got a personal and visceral exposure to privilege and entitlement whose "positive" is that I know what form I do not want my community to take. The other boys I remember were full of themselves and their ambitions made them obnoxious. There is not a single one of them I remember fondly or that I wish to catch up with. My failing in emotional development was that I did not know how to protect myself from unkindness, and one boy made my life so miserable that I hit him. My roommate for one year was also very cruel to me, and I didn't know I could ask  to be given a different roommate. My roommate for the other year was a baseball fanatic, which had no meaning to me. When my father asked me if I wanted to go to Storm King, I only asked "Can I do woodworking?". I was told that I could, but when I got there, I  was told that only maintenance people could use the wood shop. So I have a lot of pain connected with my years at Storm King. 

There is no lesson I wish to impart. I am indulging this moment to express feelings long held, to reflect on the meaning and purpose of an Alumnus relationship. I have always wanted a family where I could be safe (which I approach in my maturity), and Storm King was another of those places that didn't offer that to me. So I am and remain ambivalent about my connection to Storm King. 

As 1/7,700,000,000 th of humanity, My family feels too big with too divergent interests for me to feel safe. Embedded in a time of rapid growth of technology and decline of the biosphere, I feel danger growing around me exponentially. The United States is led by a madman who wants to plunge the world into war, and the model of military hegemony by which the  United States has protected (and sacrificed) its white citizens for a century is now being turned against it by a country with all of the technology and energy that we have, and a massive population with which to execute that model. The best way to survive in the world is to make friends, and work together to make the  world a better place. Yet what is the central premise of our foreign (and domestic) policy? It is the way of the bully. To win or lose. Likely, against that bully, to lose. 

I have friends with whom and relationships in which I feel safe, and yet I find very little else to be loyal to. I have been a defender of the underdog for my entire life. I have espoused cooperation and sharing as sustainable social models which could help assure the survival of humanity and life, and I have watched their opposites increase in control of our country - selfish me-ism, security through wealth hoarding, neglect of the social fabric and avowed elitism, racism, sexism and phobias of various sorts, and status seeking through consumption of stuff. It is very short term thinking which advocates me-first-ism. Imagine believing the world will continue as it is and that wealth could possibly protect a person from the inevitable degradation of the environment? There is so much work not being done. Is Storm King preparing young people for this world? 

Stephen Marshall.  

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Stephen.Alrich.Marshall@gmail.com

802-922-1446

Dispolemic.Blogspot.com

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