Cities

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Books on cities present a view of how future economies will be organized. The following two books in particular see through today’s international chaos and give the reader a glimpse past the event horizon, where nations and corporations will be disassembled and brought back from the world of “too big to fail.”
The Metropolitan Revolution, How Cities and Metros are fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile economy. Katz and Bradley, Brookings Institution Press, ISBN: 978-0-8157-2151-2

An uplifting read that exposes a new energy in cities that are going broke under the current Federal system. The key attributes for cities are planning for the future instead of the election cycle, finding local funding outside the Federal structure and cooperation between political parties, major institutions and unions.

Chapter 7, Toward a Global Network of Trading cities, expresses a rise in city power and economy. What we tend not be aware of is that cities, particularly in China, India and Brazil, are exploding in population, are centers of commerce, and have assets that make them independent of national monetary policy. Increases in international trade will make cities independent leaders in GDP.

In the United States, not a population powerhouse, cities like Denver, New York and regional agreements in Ohio are taking the lead in a sociological revamping of what a city means to its citizens. Citizens are willing to raise taxes to pay for infrastructural improvement. Denver, a complex group of smaller cities, has the largest public transit project in the country. Large cities in the US go abroad to increase trade without the help of the Federal Government and, largely, not even their own states.

If Mayors Ruled the World, Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. Benjamin R. Barber, Yale University Press, ISBN: 9780300164671

This is another book about the emerging role of cities in ways that displace national and international relationships. Barber poses the question, “Is the nation-state, once democracy’s best hope today democratically dysfunctional? Obsolete?” The answer, says Benjamin Barber in this provocative book, is yes. Barber says cities and the mayors who run them can do and are doing a better job.   He says cities worldwide share pragmatism, civic trust, participation, indifference to borders and sovereignty, and a democratic penchant for networking, creativity, innovation, and cooperation. Throughout the book, Barber demonstrates how city mayors, singly and jointly, are responding to transnational problems more effectively than nation-states mired in ideological infighting and sovereign rivalries.

The mix of growing population in cities around the world, including the US, the fact that “the buck stops here,” with respect to day-to-day operations, and an ability to generate income through trade with different nations, make cities the political and economic power for the future.

The danger for social justice issues lies in the independent nature of cities. There are important objectives for national governments: sustained democracy, human rights, equitable income for workers, health practices and safety.

The mariner has mentioned before that a trade agreement among Pacific Rim countries called The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) attempts to override all precedents associated with the above list. TPP is a dangerous “trade” agreement and should be vetted publically. At the moment, the President is trying to fast track the agreement, which essentially takes Congress, media and citizen opinion out of the picture. TPP is the exact opposite of the national role needed for the future.

Ancient Mariner

A Blissful Place

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Like many of you, the mariner feels a need to respond to greater tragedies in the world. However, there are two points to be made. First, he will solve not one great tragedy no matter how hard he tries. Second, No matter how much the mariner learns through personal education about a great tragedy, his knowledge inflames only his own soul.

A similar opinion is reflected in a few responses to posts. The mariner must agree with the general premise. True, he will not live long enough to see many great tragedies resolved – if they ever will be resolved. So find something pleasant to do until he dies.

However, a look backward through written history shows that tragedies have been overcome not by one or two powerful individuals but by hoards of people who took matters into their own hands. Discounting the contributions of science and technology, this has been the case most of the time. Further, no set of population has agreed to the last person that a given premise is absolute. Without elaborating, freedom marches could not have occurred with Martin Luther King alone. He had a few companions. Also note that both racism and “paid” slavery still abound. Still, the freedom movement made changes to American culture. One must, over the millennia, take one step at a time.

Occupy America and Tea Party movements are more evidence that it takes more than one person’s angst to change culture. To quote a great American phrase, “E Pluribus Unum.” It takes one hundred pennies to make a dollar. Consider yourself a penny – can’t make a dollar without you. To be more absolute about individual responsibility, be a citizen who votes – a power for change few citizens have had in history. 48 percent of eligible Americans do not vote. The mariner would recommend voting in caucuses and primaries as well. Further, when was the last time you shared your opinion with an elected representative?

The counterpoint is made. Yet, there is truth in the first paragraph. This modern age requires more than a millstone and corn to make breakfast. Although each of us is only one person, we as individuals are super-engaged in every level of local, national and global society. Our lifestyle is dependent on every level of local, national and global society. Our personal lives face daily confrontations that simpler times did not require. Further, in simpler times, tasks generally did not require much stress on the deeper machinations of our personalities.

In the United States, given a few exceptions for the wealthy and starving artists, having a job most of our life is an absolute requirement for survival. That means working steadily all day five days a week (a fairly recent limitation created by collective bargaining – but I digress). It means doing more than that if one needs to assure job security and lasting success. Virtually every job is stressful because time, not our own, is of the essence.

In the United States, children and parents and grandparents and cousins and friends disburse all over the world, leaving less of an envelope of unspoken comfort and protection. It is both blessing and curse in our American culture. As we have moved from an agricultural society to a post-industrial, technology driven society, a new festival has emerged – the family reunion. Used to be every day was a family reunion, though too much of a good thing can sometimes be too much. The mariner is reminded of a good friend he knew during the 1960’s. The friend said, “Never been more than 54 miles from home.” Queried about why, he said he never felt the need. He was an older farmer; he and his wife had four generations of family nearby.

So while we are more involved in our society than ever before, we tend to find less in the way of curative family and friend activities. In effect, were it not for a spouse, a great many individuals literally would live more than a day’s travel to a family member. Those without family or spouse emotionally have a harder life and tend to shape their lives in a way that guarantees curative time with friends and in solace.

The Western World is captivated by the noise and innovation of democratic capitalism. We tend to forget the healing aspects of religions that never experienced a Puritan-driven reformation, never heard of James Smith or John Maynard Keynes. One of my favorite anthropologists, Joseph Campbell often spoke of the need for each of us to have a blissful place. His definition of bliss was for religious purpose as well as emotional. Nevertheless, it takes training to sustain a blissful place. Perhaps that is why yoga and new age movements are growing in popularity – these movements reflect a need solved long ago in Hinduism and Buddhism – two religions that never faced western influence until the world grew too small. Still, as religions, they do not fare well in Western culture. Find solace in Pilates or Tai-Chi.

The mariner concedes we need solace. He also advocates that the world needs our constant attention because of human, chemical, planetary, and equality dynamics – but he digresses.

Ancient Mariner

Imbalance Continued

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This post continues the idea that our expectations and understanding of our culture face dramatic change. The mariner owes at least a speculative image of how change will occur.

We shall start with what we know. It isn’t pretty but it makes the case that a lot of our societal beliefs are no longer true. To shorten the post, here’s a list of broken images:

The most damaging and most urgent change is that since 1985, the United States has moved inexorably from a democracy run by the people to a corporate plutocracy run by the wealthy. This phenomenon is nearing the tipping point. It may take 12 to 24 years before the underpinnings begin to collapse. This will happen at the speed at which voters want it to change.

An added partner in forcing this change will be the cities, who will fail unless wealth is redistributed through new investment models not driven by national interests. Many cities already have coalitions of entrepreneurs, banks, industry, public citizens and city officials who are redrawing the economic model of their city. The most common examples are modernizing infrastructure, redefining public schools from Head Start through community college, and gentrification not only of homes but commercial, retail and service solutions that will support the new city-based culture. In toto, this will allow for new business opportunities and new jobs influenced by the cities rather than the plutocratic Federal Government. States will be partners with the cities only insofar as the state is helpful to the city. Right now, many Governors and state legislators have dreams of promotion to the Federal level. Their future view must shift back into the state and its economic growth.

Another broken image is the world of Norman Rockwell. Let it go; it no longer exists in any form. It has been replaced at unbelievable speed by technology, medicine, science and the way daily life already has changed because of these advances.

Older folk speak of how life speeded up when the automobile replaced the horse. The iphone leaves that change in the dust. The definition and location of jobs is changing even now. Both the mariner’s children are fine examples of a new worldview not too dependent on institutional safety nets. Sadly, the comfort of Norman Rockwell’s world will fade into history much like the world of Okefenokee Swamp and all its Pogo characters. Even Opus has been retired to Good Night Moon. How can the comics poke fun at a changing target?

A serious failure today is the tangle of politics, fossil fuel industries, international priorities and citizen torpor concerning Planet Earth. We cannot move to another planet – at least not yet. The next 100 years will tell if we can stay. Climate change is documented; ocean currents are slowing down; the atmosphere is changing to an unhealthy state – both for humans and for the planet. Sea levels are destined to rise too many feet for virtually all ocean front cities. Harbors will be overrun and commerce will come to a standstill. This is an issue that, given the international tangle and flaccid citizenry, has no solution.

All these issues are expensive to correct. We have yet to feel the full force of economic hardship as the paradigm morphs to a new model. To put it in terms of family pocketbooks, get rid of credit card debt fast. Use as much cash for daily expenses as you can; pay cash for gasoline; pay cash for groceries; pay cash at supermarkets, Walmart, Target, and Farm and Home. In other words, live well within your means and do not use the Wall Street banks in lieu of any other option. And save, save, save. The taxes to pay for change are coming.

Have a good day.

Ancient Mariner

 

Imbalance

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The mariner knows that he views the world as chaos. Surely, his readership knows that by now. He is, but as Amos, a minor prophet in a sheepskin crying in the wilderness – and likely has fleas.

The chaos is real.

The reader should take a long view. The Federal government is an archaic dysfunction that drifts further from the current values of social, technical, moral, and governmental truth. This is spoken without regard to political party, tea parties or progressives; the mariner did suggest that the reader take the long view. That vows are taken on the names of Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy and Reagan is evidence that Congress and the President live in the past. The real world has traveled through that history and has moved on dramatically to a new reality.

Our beliefs linger with an agricultural society that no longer exists. The rural image that carried us this far has ruined our cities, left behind the rural family structure, and left the United States, if not other countries as well, with a false comfort that social structures exist as they did in the 1960’s.

How do we as citizens confront the disappearance of privacy – not just personal privacy but privacy that is taken from us and used to manipulate our freedom of choice and even our view of reality?

How do we as citizens confront the advances in medical science that enable regeneration of skin and organs that will provide perpetual life?

How do we as citizens, particularly US citizens, dismantle an ever hardening plutocracy?

How do we as citizens deal with lingering prejudice, particularly racial hatred and gun violence? This is not so much a phenomenon as it is an indication of incompetence and an inability to deal with reality.

How do cities recover an economic model that provides jobs and feeds their populations?

What is the impact of technical capability in ipads and iphones that liberates us from the rooted morality of the twentieth century?

The citizen ignores a dramatic shift in the social fabric.

This is as it should be. Change is a violent wrenching of the status quo into a new definition of society. It will not come from a Congress of profit-taking millionaires. It will come from the people – individually and collectively – an image not to be perceived as the riots of the 1910’s or the abruptness of the FDR era, but as a pragmatic move toward individual reward. How that plays out cannot be predicted. Just note that change is expensive to the individual as well as to institutions.

The mariner is wary of the imbalance of reality as we know it. Be prepared.

 

Ancient Mariner

 

How to if You want to – You should want to.

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The following post is not written by the mariner. It is an example of how readers can mobilize themselves without leaving their computer. It is an example of an unheard citizenry making their voice heard in a way that is comfortable for them. One could, but need not, march in parades, picket lines, or work in elections. Just be observant to ways by which you can make your voice heard. Every elected official you voted or could have voted for has similar websites – just Google the name of the elected official or the seat of government, e.g., Senator (state), Congressman (state), mayor, etc.

The mariner does not promote this appeal specifically but he accepts it’s credo and provides it to his readers as an example that goes beyond just voting on election day.

To the mariner’s conservative readers, you, too, can find conservative appeals similar to this one. The point is that the citizenry is instructing elected officials directly – circumventing lobbyist influence.

Ancient Mariner

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Join U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders for a special conference call on Monday,     January 27, 2014 at 8:00pm EST.

Dear Friend,

Thank you and congratulations.

As I hope you know, you have been part of a successful effort to prevent major cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  Your help is much appreciated.

In November, a number of grass-roots organizations came together and presented Congress with a petition signed by you and more than 700,000 other Americans. The petition was clear: Do not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.  Do not balance the budget on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in this country — the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor.

And guess what happened?

Despite an intense and well-orchestrated effort from some of the most powerful special interests in the country;

Despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars from Wall Street     billionaires and their lobbyists;

Despite support from almost every Republican in Congress and some     Democrats;

Despite the never-ending carping from the corporate media that Social Security “ is bankrupt” and that we need “entitlement reform;”

WE     PREVAILED.

While the budget agreement to prevent government shut-downs and partially     end sequestration was far weaker than I had wanted, it did not include any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.  Why?  Because you, and hundreds of thousands of other Americans across the political spectrum — Democrats, Republicans, Independents — were loud and clear!   You made members of Congress an offer they couldn’t refuse.  You told them that you were following what was going on in Washington and that if they cut these life and death programs they would face a heavy political price.   You participated in a grass-roots political process — and you made a difference.

The very good news is that we showed that when ordinary Americans stand     together we can defeat some of the most powerful political forces in the     country.  The bad news is that our opponents are not going away, they     are not giving up. They have huge financial resources at their disposal, hundreds of well-paid lobbyists and members of Congress prepared to do their bidding. And their agenda remains the same.  Cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.  No increase in the minimum wage.  No jobs program to lower unemployment.  More tax breaks for the rich and large corporations.

Where do we go from here?  How do we work together to demand that     Congress creates national priorities that protect the interests of the middle class, and not just the millionaires and billionaires?  How do we create an economy and governmental programs that work for working families and the most vulnerable Americans, and not just Wall Street and big corporations?

Please join me and other coalition partners on Monday, January 27, 2014 at 8:00pm EST for a telephone conference discussion as to how we protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and create an agenda that works for all Americans, and not just powerful special interests.

In 2014 we are not just playing defense.  We are not just working to protect Social Security, but expand Social Security and other programs that a disappearing middle class desperately needs.

Please join me on Monday, January 27, 2014 at 8:00pm EST for a discussion on these issues and more.

Thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

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The Big Picture

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The mariner is a worrier about big picture circumstances. There were times, during his career as a consulting project manager, that he foresaw a dysfunctional future if certain immediate and short-term decisions were executed. Sometimes, the foresight was acknowledged and the approach to converting a computer system would be modified. Other times, the foresight was ignored in favor of convenience, managerial prerogative, no desire to restart, etc. Fortunately, as a consultant, the mariner had moved on before the dysfunction appeared.

The mariner sees a nasty big picture insofar as the state of affairs in the United States is concerned.

Consider the following list of big picture issues:

Governments controlled by banks and corporations. Since 1985 (we shan’t mention the revered President’s name), political control has been wrested from the citizenry; unionism has been virtually eliminated by corporate strategies; the middle class has been reduced by half; and a Supreme Court has been appointed that believes money is protected under the first amendment as free speech and a corporation is a “person” with all the Constitutional rights of a real person.

As a result of financial misbehavior by the banking industry, in 2008-10 one and a half million people declared bankruptcy, banks repossessed one million homes, nearly three million homeowners received foreclosure notices, record numbers of people (some forty-three million) received food stamps, and more than twenty million people remained unemployed and underemployed.

Social extremists, whether right wing or left wing; special interest groups like the National Rifle Association, the abortion/creation/crop seed manipulation advocates; the battle for control of energy objectives and global warming advocates and those who deny the issue, all are able to disrupt and stop normal cultural behavior with a very small percentage of the general population. The core centrists remain quiet. This will not last.

International piracy by both corporations and nations. The tech recession in the nineties had a jobless recovery. Today, government reports put unemployment rates at 8-9% but in actual terms, approximately 25% of the working force still is unemployed. Much of this dilemma was because of job loss to computerization and a surge of moving manufacturing out of the country courtesy of the US Congress. However, the recession in 2008 brought the middle class to its knees. Salaries had not increased measurably since 1985; savings accounts were gone. Personal debt was at an all time high. Corporations stopped internal retirement options. Meanwhile, corporate profits soared from these strategies and the United States became a Plutocracy.

Abuse of democratic principles by the elected. 92% of the Congress is reelected term after term after term. This is not a normal principle of democracy. The manipulation of election laws and processes, especially gerrymandering, campaigns financed by special interests and restricted voting rights, has limited the choices available to the electorate. The collapse of statesmanship and the emergence of destructive manipulation has left the Federal Government incompetent at best.

The mariner could add more to the list but this short list is more than enough to suggest that a long list of events executed in the interest of a few without regard to the big picture of life in the United States has brought us to the mariner’s favorite phrase: mounting chaos. The big picture is dysfunctional and will collapse in a cacophony of hard times, cultural upheaval and a useless government.  The following list is for the reader to contemplate as actions that will lessen the intensity of the chaos rather than letting the whole situation collapse at once.

Mandatory voting similar to that in Australia. Every citizen is required to vote or face a fine. Restrictive voting rights laws abolished.

Restructure the processes for creating districts. Remove this authority from elected officials.

Capped campaign financing. Campaign financing limited to geographic scope of specific district, state or nation associated with a given election.

Enhance employment and income for middle class. Ban right to work laws. Reinstate corporate obligation to provide retirement funding and pay raises equal to inflation. Institute profit sharing in all businesses. Create an automatic minimum wage increase tied to inflation.

These few suggestions just keep the national boat from capsizing. There still are innumerable leaks related to fringe authorities, e.g., National Rifle Association – a group financed by munitions manufacturers, not its members. What is the best balance of experience and turnover for term limits? Force trade agreements into the open. They are silent killers of American democracy.

Have a pleasant day.

Ancient mariner

 

Children have a Different Space

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As the mariner thinks about it, the mariner and his wife raised good children. In retrospect, we could not genuinely empathize with their lives. They were growing in their own existential space just as we had experienced the world into which we were born.

Physiologically, the growth patterns were the same as they are for every generation. What blocks our empathy is they are growing in a different world. Our children have a different social environment, a different national impact on their lives, a different interpretation of jobs, a different lifestyle.

When the mariner was 8 years old, he carried furnace ashes to the yard; his mother was bedridden so he washed clothes in a laundry tub with a washboard. The mariner’s public education had no electronics. He was taught cursive writing in two elementary grades. He accepted these things as the world that he had to encompass in some way.

The mariner’s children did not have to carry ashes but the burdens were different. Public schools had a more complex environment. Children were moved around, had pressure to participate in ancillary programs in music, sports, hobby clubs, etc. The mariner’s elementary and middle school had no pressures similar to those of the mariner’s children. The children’s school model was socially more difficult than for the mariner.

The mariner learned the principals of economic ethics at the age of ten. There was a summer reading program at the public Library. He received a headband made of construction paper. For each book he read, he would receive a feather stapled to the headband. If he read enough books, he would receive a strip of paper that would hang down his back like an Indian headdress. Additional feathers were stapled to the strip.

The mariner took a couple of books home to read. About a week later, when he had finished reading them, he returned to the library to find a girl in his class had feathers almost to the floor. He noticed that she was checking very thin children books ten at a time that were returned promptly for more feathers. To the mariner, the principle was to encourage reading – how altruistic. The feathers, a construction paper symbol of personal aggrandizement rather than progress in reading, were more important than actually reading good books. The mariner links this example of ignoring virtue and manipulating a process totally for personal gain to the economic manipulation by banks that caused the recession and the collapse of the housing market.

How did the mariner’s children see this collapse? He learned their worldview is extremely skeptical, even cynical about every element of society. They assume they are on their own; the government, business, banks, whatever, were vultures waiting to pick their bones. The mariner’s children do not believe that Social Security will be around when they are old. the mariner’s children feel they owe nothing to the institutions of our society. To them, it is a make it on your own environment; the social infrastructure is of no use to them.

How different is this experience from the early days of the mariner’s life. There was comfort that institutions would provide jobs and security. The government was not in turmoil as it is today. The government was where one acquired a driver’s license, a marriage license, a Social Security card or joined the armed services. The government was a stable, somewhat helpful entity during the mariner’s younger years. How different the existential experience is for our children compared to the mariner’s experience.

Washing clothes with a washboard doesn’t seem so bad in comparison to the life challenging world of the mariner’s children. Would we old codgers be able to handle the pace of life and the eclectic manner in which jobs are found, or surviving without our pensions?

Ancient Mariner

Resolutions

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Do not become excited, these are not government resolutions. It is that time of year, amid Christmastide, when many determine that they have not served themselves well in 2013. Perhaps it is time to feign purpose and motivation that they will be a better model of themselves than in the past. The mariner, it goes without saying, was as fine a model of himself as he will ever be in 2013. At a certain age, older folks get a pass on resolutions.

In lieu of trying to make himself finer than he can be, the mariner looked about to see what resolutions others should make – if not to be finer, at least to be prepared.

Government is easy. Just say “government.” We’ll all understand. The Country is closer to revolution than resolution. The mariner supposes we should make a resolution to stand our ground not against people wearing hoodies or walking in public places but against further damage by compromised and incompetent Federal, State and Local governments.

The other day, a friend of the mariner resolved to assist the South in seceding a second time. Several years ago, another friend said the US would be better off if the northern boundary of the western United States (49th parallel) just continued straight on to the Atlantic Ocean, implying that such a solution would lop off most of New England. As accepting as he always is, the mariner agreed it would be a good move – not only would the US not lose any territory, it would gain a great chunk of Canada including the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and half of Newfoundland. The mariner received little gratitude for helping. Another friend actually sent emails to all her Federal, State and Local representatives asking them to pass one-term limits for all elected officials.

How does one construct a resolution for government? Probing rational solutions requires walking through a dark wood as frightening as any horror film. Every kind of lurking and vicious creature lies in wait for one who dares tread this mindless darkness of elected creatures and citizen creatures. Some, like lobbyist creatures, are more like the Sirens of Greek mythology who lured sailors to their death on the rocky shore. In Government Land, however, one dies of depression and hopelessness.

The mariner’s recommended resolution: Have your passport ready and your duffel packed. The ship sails any day for better ports.

One is not supposed to talk about politics so we’ll talk about religion. One just as easily could say “religion.” We’ll all understand. There’s little difference. The dark wood is replaced by a wood invisible in dense fog. Some nasty creatures lie in wait – especially those that also lie in wait in the dark wood of politics.

It is more difficult to suggest a resolution about religion. Politics has boundaries similar to a twenty-ton boulder coming down the mountainside to visit you. For many, perhaps the boulder already has arrived. Either way, one can see the shape of the boulder. Religion, on the other hand, is like being lost in an endless swamp in Louisiana. There are so many circular paths that one will never leave the swamp.

Over the centuries, the integration of the Old and New Testament into one Bible at Nicaea has caused the most confusion. The Jews have a special place for the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – the Pentateuch). The mariner doesn’t intend to be too skeptical but he suspects that’s as far as most Jewish children are taught in religion class – at least that’s the case with Christian children who are taught the Jewish Pentateuch in religion class (on Sundays). Except for the Christmas and Easter stories, the New Testament is unknown to Christian children until they are forced to take a world religions class in college.

Meanwhile, debates about the origin of our species have raged endlessly for more than 150 years. The Christian part, the New Testament, never mentions the issue. Adult Christians should read all of the Pentateuch, which promotes a few severe practices reminiscent of other Middle East religions. One is to stone rebellious children to death but I will not say more in fear of giving away the plot. It is widely known that one cannot eat pig, but gecko? That’s going too far.

Perhaps the resolution for Christians is to start reading the Bible at Luke or Matthew instead of starting at Genesis. There is some important stuff in the New Testament that has nothing to do with creation or stoning children or not eating geckos.

If one cannot talk about politics or religion, then one might try talking about sexual practices or, if the reader is a US citizen, talk about one’s annual income or net worth. The mariner doubts any of these conversations will last long enough to formulate a resolution.

What’s left is gossip. The reader can always resolve to gossip better than in 2013.

Ancient Mariner

 

Goodbye, Knowledge

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The mariner wants to believe that in the distant future knowledge about all things will be available instantly – so that the wisest decisions about life, religion, politics, health, philosophy, science, music, sociology, mathematics, and the world of all arts, will contribute to a better experience for all humanity.

However, for at least the next one hundred years, he has a decreasing belief that knowledge will be important to the person on the street. Many situations raise doubt:

Allowing governments and corporations to think “for” the reader. Personal preferences – not only credit card and banking data but presumptive knowledge about what we will wear, buy, move, die, marry, even when we will divorce – all are in databases owned by others who will leverage that knowledge to limit a reader’s personal choices. Already Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com and most online retailers shape what the reader sees, reducing the reader’s free choice to make informed decisions. Google reads your email to improve product placement.

The government no longer depends on any reader’s unique, single vote. The reader is a quantifiable entity, a mark on a standard deviation table, a phone number. The reader is grouped into a set of opinions that will be dealt with by targeted advertising and speech making all the while passing legislation that will never be vetted by the public.

The public is sated by the easy life. That is the message promoted by those who will own the reader. Who wants to read books? Who wants to dig underneath the surface to see why governments and corporations hide their intent? It takes time and intellectual energy to learn things one is not supposed to know.

Perhaps The Matrix is more revealing about future deception through intellectual repression. The reader unknowingly will lose free will. The mariner sees no urgency on the part of the government to repair the education system that has dropped the nation to twenty-seventh on the list of most educated countries. Knowledge is not as important as greed and power.

Libraries are under duress to find a new role that replaces the old one of rich collections of literature, science, and meaningful fiction. Today, many folks go to libraries to play Internet games (or as the mariner has witnessed, look for jobs). The desire to enrich one’s knowledge of reality or informative fiction is failing – easier to pick from Netflix.

True, there are many who are devoted to their calling, many which will excel in their field. The many are becoming the few. Turn on the Kindle. Highly trained fields often are controlled to keep the demand and expense high for those who leverage education (think medical doctors, sport coaches, CEO’s and tenured professors).

Something has happened to natural inquisitiveness. Do children still look for salamanders or collect tree leaves, spend a part of each day reading, experiment with how the world and its people work? Do adults maintain an informed consciousness about prices, inflation, value for the dollar spent or the dollar saved? Do adults know that salaries have not risen since Reagan while profits have climbed far beyond expectations?

Goodbye, knowledge.

Ancient Mariner

 

Morality Conclusions

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Replies from readers have been enlightening. One ends up poking around in ego, alter ego, altruism, behaviors of many species in crisis, and consideration of genetic responses that preserve the species. The original question, “where does morality come from?” involves all the above subjects in one way or another.

To a large degree, morality derives from alter ego and genetic responses that preserve a species.

Perhaps the most vivid example of morality arising from alter ego is a soldier falling on a grenade to protect his fellow soldiers from harm. Another is similar: the suicide bomber (exempting mentally disturbed individuals of any nation). One can conjure many examples in many circumstances that have a trained obligation to give one’s self to protect another.

Alter ego does not require death or injury to be moralistic. Nuns give up a secular life to dedicate themselves to Jesus and God. Many provide bone implants to save another individual. Families may uproot themselves to favor the hardships of a family member, including selling the home and quitting jobs.

What all these examples have in common is that the people involved are trained to respond the way they do. Training is easily visible in the soldier who has his civilian alter ego torn down in boot camp replaced by a military code that puts the team first under every circumstance. Simple punishments like making the entire squad run ten miles because one member failed a group standard. The training embeds team morality so intensely that it is a matter of faith that a soldier is prepared to sacrifice himself. The suicide bomber is conditioned in the same manner.

Behaviors (morality) rooted in the alter ego include any social influence that becomes accepted over time. Examples are behavioral differences between classes, between races, between religions, between social issues, etc. One need only be receptive to a concept to allow unstructured training to occur, thereby establishing a code of morality.

The other source of morality is the behavior hard wired in any creature’s genetic code. Several philosophers and social scientists contend there is only one absolute morality: survival and propagation of the species. Strongest of the morality behavior is the urgency to have sex, thereby assuring the future of the species. One need not search far in the history of any group or nation to identify moral rules and traditions associated with sexual behavior. From Helen of Troy to Prince William of Great Britain, sex has obvious rules about who, when and where. The mariner will leave how to his readers. The commoners are not excluded from obvious rules that control sexual behavior. It may be that the reaction to homosexual marriage is that it seems to change rules of sexual propagation – a very important issue that seems averse to survival of the species. One must think hard about the issue to understand that it is a moral issue arising from the alter ego rather than a change in the genetic requirement for human propagation.

The mariner has found many curious genetic behaviors in other species and invites the reader to investigate a few. Understanding the genetic morality of other species will clarify one’s understanding about the influence propagation has on the social behavior of the species – including humans.

For a few examples, check out the angler fish, elk, mayfly, checkered whiptail lizard, and dolphin.

Ancient Mariner