I've found that the arguments about "less government" (as absurd as I find the argument to be, given the current corporate-laden reality of decision making power should be "less corporate influence" vs "more") to be problematic in at least one fundamental aspect: its romanticism of a time that never existed. Proponents of "getting the government out of my life!", "let me keep more of my money", and getting back to core principles overlook some very important structural and historical realities, namely the large role that the federal government played in constructing the core of some of the right's biggest fantasies about the past and the role that it plays today in allowing businesses to run efficiently.
First, let me discuss the notion that "more government equals less freedom", or that at the least "more government means an impediment on my freedom." There is perhaps no easier way to debunk this simplistic, pat bumper-sticker idea than to look at interstate highways, the product of federal government projects and planning. I'm sure while reading this, there are no shortage of people who depend on the efficiency of interstate highways for travel, work, or other day-to-day activities. It provides a direct and relatively simple mode of transport to take care of daily needs. But what the average observer may take for granted is the plethora of government intervention that makes this efficiency and freedom of speedy long-distance travel possible. It is government law and regulation by the police department that ensures people drive in one specific direction to get to a location, to punish those who would drink alcohol and drive on such a fast moving highway, to exit at certain on and off ramps to get to their next location, to ensure speed limit so that accidents are less frequent, and so on and so forth. Even the fundamental root of the idea, the taxation that makes funding possible, is the result of government intervention. What the simple slogan ignores is that though taxation may be an easy scapegoat of an "imposition", the indirect result of the imposition yields far more liberties to achieve individual tasks.
Now that the basic assumption of this idea of the government involvement that does nothing but impede the liberty of everyday life has been shelved, that government is not simple "a necessary evil" but can rather be a necessary good is shown to be overly simplistic, let us look at the attitudes of the past that govern many of our current day outlooks on how modern day processes should be run.
Most Americans, regardless of ideology, tend to accept (even if latently) the idea that this country was built by rugged individualists, blazing into the Western hills and achieving success through nothing but their own self-reliance and determination. Sorry, but it just ain't so.
I'll leave aside the very simple way to debunk this idea, by invoking the money made off of slaves by individuals and communities, all the while entertaining the notion of and waxing harmoniously over their own self-reliance. Instead of the traditional way I would destroy this assumption, I'll investigate other events. I'm referring to the land purchases of the U.S. government of the West and the military displacement of the indigenous people that were living on the lands. While the latter is undoubtedly an example of an unjust use of government power, it is nonetheless an example that flies in the face of the individualist thinker who likes to decontextualize the past to suit his own needs currently. The government spent $50 million dollars on the purchases of Alaska, California, Texas, and the Louisiana territories. The Homestead and Preemption Acts then turned and sold these lands to the "rugged individualists" for next to nothing in comparison, all in the name of Western progress.
In the 20th century, it was the government that would aid primarily in establishing industry to set up the life that makes up the base of our lifestyle today, building and maintaining dams and irrigation projects, rural electrification projects brought to rural farmers during the Great Depression, and wired the country-side for "progress" as it built interstate highways to facilitate travel and commerce. Some 183 acres were given to railroad companies, those which facilitated the growth of logging companies that would prove invaluable to economic growth.
Indeed, the West has a long and detailed history of government dependence. Funnily enough, however, the United States has an unusual paradoxical history of anti-government sentiment, cocksure at every corner that the existence and maintenance of government projects and involvement in the lives of citizens is tantamount to destruction of the ability to pursure personal liberty and economic freedom. It is a history of misplaced rage, or a non-contextualized understanding of oneself as an individual and as a people in this nation.
It would seem that in the course of American history, and especially in the recent case of Tea Party rage, that government assistance, no matter how large or necessary for the growth and expansion of individual liberties, also breeds an ungrateful attitude towards those same exploits.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Understanding a bit of Physics through Biology
A recent article at the New Scientist reports research that suggests (along with a litany of other similar results and studies) that the laws of physics may not hold to be exactly the same across the universe. This would suggest that Earth would indeed be in some type of fortunate position for our bio-chemistry to support life.
While I will note before-hand that there is various scientific skepticism about these findings (which I would hope there to be, given these results would reportedly fly in the face of many integral understandings of Physics on Earth and in the universe), and though I am not even a slight-amateur about Physics (I can't claim to have ever taken even a survey course on the subject), I'd like to comment on something interesting about the suggestion.
I'd welcome the idea of variability in laws of physics across universal systems, should it turn out to be repeatedly confirmed. In my studies in biology and anthropology, I've found myself increasingly in agreement with the idea that no entity or feature follows any one rule or mechanism to achieve its function.
My recent research into the origins and mechanisms behind human speech and language brought me to understand the inner-workings of that environmental phenomena as follows: language as we know was neither born in any specific instance nor was it due to the existence of any one trait, be it neocortical or physiological. It appears to have developed on a continued spectrum of time and formulation around the existence and maintenance of several coinciding traits such as enhanced breathing control, gestures, ability to sharpen intonation, and neocortical expansion (and the skills being based in more than one area of the brain).
Language and speech could not have originated based off any rules to come about in any specific moment and due to a a single rule or entity determining its function to simply "switch on". Cave paintings in Lascaux, France have been popularly viewed as the "ah-ha!" moment for language, where a revolution of language simply exploded in Western Europe. However, evidence from North Africa and parts of Australia showing the ability for intentional abstract and complex though show that these abilities developed, if even in a more rudimentary sense, over a period of time. Why then would language suddenly burst from nowhere?
To extrapolate this idea to include the Earth, we would have to look at how processes on Earth work juxtaposed to its organisms. Organisms will tend to exist, evolve, or go extinct as a result of changes or continuations of ecological processes on Earth. That is, the organism affects and lives as a result of its context. If we view the Earth in a similar manner, it would be seen with the Universe as we would view an organism to its context on Earth. If one environment suits life a certain way on Earth, and this can and has changed over millions and millions of years to accommodate changing landscapes, why would the same not hold true for Earth in a constantly growing and changing Universe?
So if time, environment, and the intermingling of different physiological parts of an organism are what may have created the situation to sustain the emergence of human language as we know it, why would certain laws based off of universal and environments in space not yield a similar result for the emergence of the the chemistry necessary for life on earth? We already know that geologic events have profound impacts on what happens to biological processes here on earth both in animal and plant life, we know that other celestial events such as the moons activity influences oceanographic activity, so why would it be such a leap to understand the biochemical processes that sustain life to be subject to specific physics laws that may govern a certain part of a galaxy?
While I will note before-hand that there is various scientific skepticism about these findings (which I would hope there to be, given these results would reportedly fly in the face of many integral understandings of Physics on Earth and in the universe), and though I am not even a slight-amateur about Physics (I can't claim to have ever taken even a survey course on the subject), I'd like to comment on something interesting about the suggestion.
I'd welcome the idea of variability in laws of physics across universal systems, should it turn out to be repeatedly confirmed. In my studies in biology and anthropology, I've found myself increasingly in agreement with the idea that no entity or feature follows any one rule or mechanism to achieve its function.
My recent research into the origins and mechanisms behind human speech and language brought me to understand the inner-workings of that environmental phenomena as follows: language as we know was neither born in any specific instance nor was it due to the existence of any one trait, be it neocortical or physiological. It appears to have developed on a continued spectrum of time and formulation around the existence and maintenance of several coinciding traits such as enhanced breathing control, gestures, ability to sharpen intonation, and neocortical expansion (and the skills being based in more than one area of the brain).
Language and speech could not have originated based off any rules to come about in any specific moment and due to a a single rule or entity determining its function to simply "switch on". Cave paintings in Lascaux, France have been popularly viewed as the "ah-ha!" moment for language, where a revolution of language simply exploded in Western Europe. However, evidence from North Africa and parts of Australia showing the ability for intentional abstract and complex though show that these abilities developed, if even in a more rudimentary sense, over a period of time. Why then would language suddenly burst from nowhere?
To extrapolate this idea to include the Earth, we would have to look at how processes on Earth work juxtaposed to its organisms. Organisms will tend to exist, evolve, or go extinct as a result of changes or continuations of ecological processes on Earth. That is, the organism affects and lives as a result of its context. If we view the Earth in a similar manner, it would be seen with the Universe as we would view an organism to its context on Earth. If one environment suits life a certain way on Earth, and this can and has changed over millions and millions of years to accommodate changing landscapes, why would the same not hold true for Earth in a constantly growing and changing Universe?
So if time, environment, and the intermingling of different physiological parts of an organism are what may have created the situation to sustain the emergence of human language as we know it, why would certain laws based off of universal and environments in space not yield a similar result for the emergence of the the chemistry necessary for life on earth? We already know that geologic events have profound impacts on what happens to biological processes here on earth both in animal and plant life, we know that other celestial events such as the moons activity influences oceanographic activity, so why would it be such a leap to understand the biochemical processes that sustain life to be subject to specific physics laws that may govern a certain part of a galaxy?
Why we should not disregard the rise of Sarah Palin (and no, I'm not a supporter).
America's Misguided Self-Conceptualization
Since the inception of the nation, political rhetoric of the United States has carried a recurring theme of "Americans" and how they make or made up the "best nation on Earth". To most mainstream observers in the country, particularly those of the 20th century, this idea may have overtly or latently seemed self-evident or generic, nothing worth examining or discussion in any critical or meaningful way. If it was discussed, and even today, it is discussed in a way reminiscent of either a schmaltzy or nostalgic way. In recent American memory, there have been two resurgent waves of this feeling, both encompassing similar, yet slightly differing defining elements.
The first was during the Reagan era. He came to embody an image of the "everyday" America (hence the slogan, "Morning in America"). He rejected, politically at least, the notion that something was wrong with the countrys approach to foreign policy. He put himself in direct contrast to the Carter administration, one that has previously been occupied with Human Rights and efforts to advance global peace. Obviously, not everybody felt the same way as Ronnie, but the feeling permeated both young and old and across political spectrums to his politically agile advantage. The demographics of the country, coupled with institutional practices and ideology of the time, allowed for a virtually unchallenged worldview in media and society of domestic and foreign policy honed under this mindset of renewed American identity, order, and exceptionalism.
What was not raised as a question, was the fact that the racial color divide in the country was still evident. Reagan's "Morning in America" tended to project the glorified image of the experiences of the White, middle-class image, an image remniscent of a mythological 1950's American utopia. Gaps in pay between Blacks and Whites had not closed significantly since Civil Rights legislation had passed, and American media images were still permeated with the same notion of "American Whiteness", the idea that Whites were the "norm" and "generic", sharing the universal outlook on society. This is still not to mention a male-centric outlook on society and the world taking root in European political thought pre-dating their very arrival. Reagan's approach took this gendered and racial outlook and utilized it to reject and regress on many in-roads made during the previous two decades in social justice achievements.
This renewal in the "American spirit" also provided a way to deal with the anxieties over U.S. policy failure in Vietnam, attacking those who would go against the renewed American spirit, implicitly demonizing any opposition from the American left. This ideology, and the subsequent national vigor it would cement in the American psyche for years to come, would come to define the bulk of Ronald Reagan's approach in the 1980's.
Challenges to reshaping the same paradigm
While post-Cold War challenges and redefining approaches to social policy came to define a bulk of 1990's American political discourse, the early years of the 21st century came to set the ultimate framework for a return to the vigorous nostalgia of the Reagan ideology. With a newly defined threat, terrorism, the United States once again came to define itself (as it had in the Reagan generation) with a global enemy. As it had in the 1980's, America was suffering from a national anxiety over its failures to execute an ambitious and idyllic policy in its Middle East conflicts. Thus, in this context we can view clearly the importance ( and possible worry over) the rise of Sarah Palin and other ideologues who share a policy eerily remniscent of that "other" wave of American exceptionalist rhetoric.
To look at this more critically, let us also take a look at the demographic changes within the country. Our country has become three things it was not or not as much so in the 1980s: more college educated since the 1980's (the college educated were a demographic instrumental to the election of Barack Obama), more technologically aware, and more ethnically diverse and furthermore populated by an identity not previously regarded as existentially threatening by the status quo: the Hispanic ethnicity. These three changes have come to define the challenges faced by the resurgence of the American exceptionalist approach, which, had Sarah Palin been the representative in 1988, for example, would not have been quite the stumbling blocks for her that they are today.
In spite of these changes and circumstances, Palin prides herself and defines herself in a familiar tone: unapologetic pride in the nostalgic feeling of American exceptionalism. What should be noted here is an ominous realization that one might arrive at after looking at the information above: Both Reagan in the 1980s and Palin today have come to represent a mythological America, a country that never was and is not today. It is an America taken out of socio-historical context to suit the psychological investment of what it considers to be its traditional "core" culture - the White, Male, Protestant.
To understand what Palin and this approach represents further, let us look at what is politically in opposition to her: the election and re-election of Barack Obama. As America is poised to become "majority-minority" in the next few decades according to the latest Census results, a demographic unseen on the continent since the founding of the nation, the rise of racial, linguistic, and religious diversity will be ever more present and visible in everyday American life for a large chunk of the country. This change, either ignored or not predicted by the Reagan coalition, has come to define the contrast to Sarah Palin's very rhetoric and approach. In the 1980's, Reagan's view of what America was went unchallenged in the way that escapes meticulous examination today (largely due in part to a 24 hour news cycle, in addition to the afforementioned demographic changes). Technology coupled with a newly shaped media has given new voice to those voices that might have been neglected in the Reagan years, and those voices are now going to rebut and attest to all of the contextual inaccuracies of this exceptionalist resurgence.
What does all of this mean?
Sarah Palin represents, on the surface, the last attempts of the rightist Baby Boom generation to perpetuate the globalistic ends many seem to have internalized by way of Neo-conservative ideologues and to salvage the legitimacy of this mythological image of the past (which necessarily creates a false "dilemma" in the minds of those adhering to this mindset). Thus, the cries of "I want my country back!" signal an anxious reaction to facing up to a reality that was never presented to them for so much time: the reality that America never was that infallible, exceptional giant that all others fell so far short of achieving. America, as a whole, never was at it's core made up of the White, Male, Protestant culture and approach.
What is quickly being understood by many observers is that the outcry of the recent Tea Party phenomenon is a manifestation of the fact that the "normal" America that is envisioned is due to a historical silencing of the realites of ethnic, gender, and religious minorities in the country, creating a false sense of cultural position and identity. When this psychological investment in this identity is challenged on the scale that it is now, you see the outbursts of denial, regardless of a lack of evidence to support the outbursts. This section of America sees the election of Barack Obama, a "socialist, Muslim, son of a Kenyan" as a threat because the context under which they (as a group) approach an understanding of the country is taken out of context of the realities of so many others that have not shared that experience. Their uniqueness of holding on to the monopoly of being "truly" American is slowly dissappearing.
What should be asked and approached from both ends of this divide is whether that section of America is willing to work together with so many that have been disenfranchised historically and give up the perks and privileges they've enjoyed for so long, or if they will fight to the bitter end to hold onto the institutional, social, and psychological advantages that come with identifying themselves the same way as they have tended to. What's more, it is in seeing this divide that the ultimate and more latent importance of the rise of and challenge towards Sarah Palin and this new exceptionalism is understood. It's a landmark moment for this county in it's social-demographic make-up. If approached responsibly, her supporters fears and anxieties may be an invaluable example for a lesson in broadening our view as a country into our historical past and social present. The approach of Palin's exceptionalism represents what America used to think it was. Obama (for all of his achievements or faults) is, in a sense, a representation, literally and figuratively, of what America is and has been becoming for some time (and the reaction to him as amplified by the media helps confim this): an America much more diverse than its psyche realized it was.
Since the inception of the nation, political rhetoric of the United States has carried a recurring theme of "Americans" and how they make or made up the "best nation on Earth". To most mainstream observers in the country, particularly those of the 20th century, this idea may have overtly or latently seemed self-evident or generic, nothing worth examining or discussion in any critical or meaningful way. If it was discussed, and even today, it is discussed in a way reminiscent of either a schmaltzy or nostalgic way. In recent American memory, there have been two resurgent waves of this feeling, both encompassing similar, yet slightly differing defining elements.
The first was during the Reagan era. He came to embody an image of the "everyday" America (hence the slogan, "Morning in America"). He rejected, politically at least, the notion that something was wrong with the countrys approach to foreign policy. He put himself in direct contrast to the Carter administration, one that has previously been occupied with Human Rights and efforts to advance global peace. Obviously, not everybody felt the same way as Ronnie, but the feeling permeated both young and old and across political spectrums to his politically agile advantage. The demographics of the country, coupled with institutional practices and ideology of the time, allowed for a virtually unchallenged worldview in media and society of domestic and foreign policy honed under this mindset of renewed American identity, order, and exceptionalism.
What was not raised as a question, was the fact that the racial color divide in the country was still evident. Reagan's "Morning in America" tended to project the glorified image of the experiences of the White, middle-class image, an image remniscent of a mythological 1950's American utopia. Gaps in pay between Blacks and Whites had not closed significantly since Civil Rights legislation had passed, and American media images were still permeated with the same notion of "American Whiteness", the idea that Whites were the "norm" and "generic", sharing the universal outlook on society. This is still not to mention a male-centric outlook on society and the world taking root in European political thought pre-dating their very arrival. Reagan's approach took this gendered and racial outlook and utilized it to reject and regress on many in-roads made during the previous two decades in social justice achievements.
This renewal in the "American spirit" also provided a way to deal with the anxieties over U.S. policy failure in Vietnam, attacking those who would go against the renewed American spirit, implicitly demonizing any opposition from the American left. This ideology, and the subsequent national vigor it would cement in the American psyche for years to come, would come to define the bulk of Ronald Reagan's approach in the 1980's.
Challenges to reshaping the same paradigm
While post-Cold War challenges and redefining approaches to social policy came to define a bulk of 1990's American political discourse, the early years of the 21st century came to set the ultimate framework for a return to the vigorous nostalgia of the Reagan ideology. With a newly defined threat, terrorism, the United States once again came to define itself (as it had in the Reagan generation) with a global enemy. As it had in the 1980's, America was suffering from a national anxiety over its failures to execute an ambitious and idyllic policy in its Middle East conflicts. Thus, in this context we can view clearly the importance ( and possible worry over) the rise of Sarah Palin and other ideologues who share a policy eerily remniscent of that "other" wave of American exceptionalist rhetoric.
To look at this more critically, let us also take a look at the demographic changes within the country. Our country has become three things it was not or not as much so in the 1980s: more college educated since the 1980's (the college educated were a demographic instrumental to the election of Barack Obama), more technologically aware, and more ethnically diverse and furthermore populated by an identity not previously regarded as existentially threatening by the status quo: the Hispanic ethnicity. These three changes have come to define the challenges faced by the resurgence of the American exceptionalist approach, which, had Sarah Palin been the representative in 1988, for example, would not have been quite the stumbling blocks for her that they are today.
In spite of these changes and circumstances, Palin prides herself and defines herself in a familiar tone: unapologetic pride in the nostalgic feeling of American exceptionalism. What should be noted here is an ominous realization that one might arrive at after looking at the information above: Both Reagan in the 1980s and Palin today have come to represent a mythological America, a country that never was and is not today. It is an America taken out of socio-historical context to suit the psychological investment of what it considers to be its traditional "core" culture - the White, Male, Protestant.
To understand what Palin and this approach represents further, let us look at what is politically in opposition to her: the election and re-election of Barack Obama. As America is poised to become "majority-minority" in the next few decades according to the latest Census results, a demographic unseen on the continent since the founding of the nation, the rise of racial, linguistic, and religious diversity will be ever more present and visible in everyday American life for a large chunk of the country. This change, either ignored or not predicted by the Reagan coalition, has come to define the contrast to Sarah Palin's very rhetoric and approach. In the 1980's, Reagan's view of what America was went unchallenged in the way that escapes meticulous examination today (largely due in part to a 24 hour news cycle, in addition to the afforementioned demographic changes). Technology coupled with a newly shaped media has given new voice to those voices that might have been neglected in the Reagan years, and those voices are now going to rebut and attest to all of the contextual inaccuracies of this exceptionalist resurgence.
What does all of this mean?
Sarah Palin represents, on the surface, the last attempts of the rightist Baby Boom generation to perpetuate the globalistic ends many seem to have internalized by way of Neo-conservative ideologues and to salvage the legitimacy of this mythological image of the past (which necessarily creates a false "dilemma" in the minds of those adhering to this mindset). Thus, the cries of "I want my country back!" signal an anxious reaction to facing up to a reality that was never presented to them for so much time: the reality that America never was that infallible, exceptional giant that all others fell so far short of achieving. America, as a whole, never was at it's core made up of the White, Male, Protestant culture and approach.
What is quickly being understood by many observers is that the outcry of the recent Tea Party phenomenon is a manifestation of the fact that the "normal" America that is envisioned is due to a historical silencing of the realites of ethnic, gender, and religious minorities in the country, creating a false sense of cultural position and identity. When this psychological investment in this identity is challenged on the scale that it is now, you see the outbursts of denial, regardless of a lack of evidence to support the outbursts. This section of America sees the election of Barack Obama, a "socialist, Muslim, son of a Kenyan" as a threat because the context under which they (as a group) approach an understanding of the country is taken out of context of the realities of so many others that have not shared that experience. Their uniqueness of holding on to the monopoly of being "truly" American is slowly dissappearing.
What should be asked and approached from both ends of this divide is whether that section of America is willing to work together with so many that have been disenfranchised historically and give up the perks and privileges they've enjoyed for so long, or if they will fight to the bitter end to hold onto the institutional, social, and psychological advantages that come with identifying themselves the same way as they have tended to. What's more, it is in seeing this divide that the ultimate and more latent importance of the rise of and challenge towards Sarah Palin and this new exceptionalism is understood. It's a landmark moment for this county in it's social-demographic make-up. If approached responsibly, her supporters fears and anxieties may be an invaluable example for a lesson in broadening our view as a country into our historical past and social present. The approach of Palin's exceptionalism represents what America used to think it was. Obama (for all of his achievements or faults) is, in a sense, a representation, literally and figuratively, of what America is and has been becoming for some time (and the reaction to him as amplified by the media helps confim this): an America much more diverse than its psyche realized it was.
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