A Dysfunctional Society - Guns, Violence, Inequality, Incarceration

Murders and violent crime are increasing.  One hears it all around, neighbors voicing their concerns – “The streets aren’t safe anymore”, “I just bought a gun to protect my house”, “The police are afraid to do their job anymore”.

Societal problems are complex.  America has a many times greater percentage of its people in prison than other developed nations.  It has much more gun violence.  It has a greater disparity in wealth and income than other wealthy nations and that disparity has grown rapidly over the last 30 years.

 

The last few years have added other huge problems to our list of woes – the continuing saga of COVID, rampant inflation and the multiplying effects of climate change.  We are not unique in our afflictions.  Every nation is struggling with some mix of problems.  But they seem particularly acute and paradoxical in the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.

 

When crime increases in the United States, we demand stricter enforcement, more police, longer sentences, less leniency.  We manufacture more guns.  It’s a vicious circle.  

 

Ironically, in recent years we had finally begun to see a bi-partisan effort to address the problems of over-incarceration.  And there seemed to be at least some recognition that we could begin to decrease inequality through investments in infrastructure, education, healthcare and childcare.  But those efforts will probably go dormant now, as fear overtakes reason.   No one will be in the mood for reform.  Indeed, there will be indignant calls for aggressive police action and tactics, and for tightening the belt of government spending.

 

Why is there so much crime here?  Why do we have so many firearm deaths?  Why are we the undisputed world leader in mass shootings?

 

Until we understand and acknowledge that these problems have deep roots in our culture, our economy and our government we are destined to repeat the cycle again and again.   

The Anti-Abortion Movement Reflects a Deep Fear of Changes in Sexual Morality

The abortion rate reached a high in the early 90’s and has been going down ever since.  The increasing effectiveness of new birth control devices, in particular birth control implants, has been accelerating the decline of abortions.  The logical way to minimize abortions would be to encourage utilization of effective birth control methods, make them widely available and disseminate information about them through sex education classes.  Everyone wants there to be fewer abortions.

 

So why is the anti-abortion movement so determined to criminalize abortion, creating a new, never-ending, unwinnable conflict like the Prohibition Era or the War on Drugs and risking all of the horrible consequences that have historically been associated with back-alley abortions?  They will say that is because abortion is murder, but I believe there is another more fundamental fear that motivates this crusade: the rapid changes in sexual morality.

 

Sexual practices and societal views on sex have changed radically since the 60’s due to several factors – introduction of effective contraception, later marriages, changes in women’s role in society, cultural openness and media coverage, scientific understanding of sexuality, etc.

 

These shifting values on sex, sexuality and gender generate a deep unease in fundamentalist Christians (and probably in fundamentalist Muslims and Jews as well). They threaten the very foundation of Christian beliefs for people who crave a very unambiguous definition of proper personal morality and adhere to a non-scientific view of the world.

 

I can understand their discomfort.  In a single generation, or perhaps two, the Christian ideals of marriage, virginity, chastity and gender have undergone radical change.  Casual sexual relations are common; premarital sex is almost a given; homosexuality has become accepted and even mainstream with transsexuality, drag queens, bisexuality and transgender issues surfacing as well.  It is in many respects a strange new world.

 

It was comforting to have a set of well-defined rules to live by, but it was also unrealistic in many ways, and never truly very simple. As our understanding of the human body, sexuality and psychology have advanced, so has our recognition that life and relationships are neither simple nor static.  

 

Has the pendulum swung too far?  Is sex and all of its manifestations such an obsession in our society and our culture that there needs to be a counter-revolution that will bring things back under control?  I believe this is the underlying impetus of the anti-abortion movement.  It is a desperate rear-guard action to hold the line in the evolution of sexual behavior.  

 

This misguided effort to stem the tide will fail.  The genie of sexual openness is out of the bottle.  It will never go back in.  The current wave of experimentation and re-definition of gender and sexuality may temper in the future, indeed there are signs that it already is beginning to do so, but we will never go back to a society where chastity and virginity are prized and homosexuality is condemned and vilified.

 

The biblical literalists have lost battle after battle against the march of science and reason.   It is time for them to join the rest of the world in trying to comprehend what is the most humane and loving way to lead lives in this world.

 

Of course we all want less abortions!  Of course we all want less sexual violence!  Of course we all want to be super careful in how we handle new ideas about gender identity and transitioning. Of course we want to avoid having sex become a damaging addiction or obsession. 

 

We need to view sexuality and gender though the lens of what will make people happy and fulfilled, and most importantly not hurt people.  It won’t be easy or simple, and we will make mistakes along the way, but it certainly won’t be based on arbitrary rules or writings from thousands of years ago.

  

The Logical Absurdities of the Idea of God's Plan

 I am all for spiritual quests and faith.  Life is often difficult and we grow increasingly aware of our mortality with the ceaseless march of time.  If spirituality, whatever that term may mean, gives us relief from life’s woes and death’s approach, then by all means let us seek it.  I have been a very ardent Christian adherent in the past, and though my theological point of view is much more abstract and ambiguous these days, I still choose to believe there is something eternal, something 'godly' in ourselves and our universe.

But I am not a fan of the concept of God’s Plan.  I believe it is employed to cover a multitude of sins and is often divisive and hurtful.  The idea that God has fully planned out this world and our lives seems patently absurd to me.  There is no logic in it and one simply has to abandon all rational analysis to hold to this belief.  In the end, it is another human system of defining winners and losers.

To interpret life's events in terms of a Godly plan is to beg the question of why some are favored and some are not.  This is reminiscent of the ancient belief that the righteous are rewarded and the wicked punished, that there are the chosen and the discarded.

 

‘God has a plan for all of us’, ‘Inshallah’, ‘Everything happens within God’s plan’, ‘God has done great things in my life’, ‘God’s plan is good!’ – these are the expressions one hears that give voice to the idea of God as a great planner.  But these same voices contradict themselves.  When asked if God’s plan is also responsible for evil, then they say that there is free will and God is not a puppet master.  But if God is not a puppet master, then how can He or She ensure that the plan is carried out?  The standard answer to this question is that this is a mystery and we cannot understand the nature of God, which is of course a total copout. 

To associate God's plan with some events but not to others makes no sense.  Many events in this world are unfathomably sad or brutal.  Is the child who dies at birth part of God's plan?  How did God's plan work out for the serial killer or the drug addict or the quadriplegic?

And to say that God has a plan but that our free will and our actions may alter this plan doesn't hold water either.  That is a goal or a hope, not a plan. If God's plan can actually be altered by actions then there are a billion such actions that we make in our lives and no plan would ever be carried out exactly as 'God planned'.  Either God is in full control or has no control.  Having a bit of control isn't a plan.

 

Some people say that God knows our hearts and knows what will happen.  But this is omniscience, not planning!  If everything happens within God’s plan, then He or She must be in full control, not merely an observer. 

 

There is a broader question of whether God intercedes at all in our lives, which again confronts a logical conundrum.  What would cause God to intercede?  When does He decide to cure someone’s disease or get them a good job or grant them admission to the first-choice school or cause them to win the championship?  And why would he decide not to do the same for someone else?  What kind of scorecard of good deeds, bad deeds, prayer circles, and other metrics would God need to have to make any sense at all out of interceding in human affairs?

If one argues that God's love can have an impact on the world and in an indirect way influence events or create something good after misfortune or tragedy, then I find no logical contradiction there.  It is a consolation and an appealing aspect of spiritual faith to believe that some sort of higher power of love and kindness imbues human beings with the will to do good things.  However, this is not a plan, except in a very broad sense.

 

And if one says ‘God’s will be done’ or ‘Inshallah’ as a way of expressing resignation to life’s vicissitudes, there is no harm in it.  We must all come to terms with the fickle nature of life and must use any tools available to achieve some level of solace.  

But the rational basis for the interpretation of life events in terms of direct intercession by God does not exist and I find it hard to believe that assigning either misfortune or good fortune to God’s plan can ever be anything but respectively profoundly distressing or obscenely egotistical. 

Evil

The concept of evil is one that has intrigued me for some time.  The word ‘evil’ falls into that category of words that are often invoked but generally plagued by ambiguity or even misuse.  What do we mean when we call someone or something evil?  Is evil a trait, a character flaw?  Or is it a distinct entity or force, something that possesses or animates someone to be evil?  Is there an ‘evil one’ that seeks to turn people into ‘evildoers’?  Or is evil simply a way of classifying acts or deeds or intentions that go against societal norms or morality?  Can something be ‘definitively’ evil?

Evil is both a noun and an adjective.  Its definition is ‘profound immorality and wickedness’, or ‘profoundly immoral or wicked’.  But like so many other definitions, this one relies on other fairly complex definitions – those of morality and wickedness.  And as I have argued in the past, these concepts are difficult to pin down.  One person’s immoral act is another’s heroic act in many cases.  

 

There are some acts that seem to fully deserve to be termed evil in all cases.  I would call rape evil under any circumstance.  Murder, when done out of hatred or anger, or for material gain, is also evil.  A person who robs and murders someone on the street is definitely committing an evil act.

 

But is murder for a cause evil?  General Curtis Lemay ordered the napalm bombing of Tokyo, which resulted in the death of about 100,000 Japanese, expressly for the purpose of killing massive numbers of civilians in WW2.  Was that evil?  Was it any less evil than Osama bin Laden ordering the twin towers attack of 9/11/2001?  Both men believed they were serving a higher cause and sacrificing people for a perceived greater good.

 

Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an ‘Evil Empire’ in 1983, and George Bush later coined the term ‘Axis of Evil’ to describe Iran, Iraq and North Korea in 2002.  Did these men truly believe that the force of evil or the devil himself was acting on these nations and their leaders, or were they simply employing the terms for political expediency?  

 

We have a long history in the USA of believing that we are a holy nation and a chosen people, carrying the torch of morality and piety in a world that is growing dark with secularism and immorality.  Yet there are numerous examples of deeds and events in our past that could qualify as evil and that had horrific consequences.  Does it really make any sense to label a government or nation evil?  Isn’t most of humanity searching for the right path but simply making errors along the way?

 

On an individual level, we see some people who do incredibly wicked things – serial killers, rapists, gang-bangers, child molesters, etc.   One does not hesitate to call them evil and certainly they deserve the label. Are these people under the control of some evil force or ‘devil’, or are they simply mentally deranged in some manner?  Are their heinous acts the consequence of some genetic defect, the result of a brutal or perverse childhood, or some combination of the two? 

 

If we try to understand depravity in terms of environmental factors some will accuse us of moral relativism.  But attempting to understand the nature of psychotic or anti-social behavior is not a way of rationalizing or condoning it, but rather a means of gaining better insight into how to prevent such behavior in the future.

 

There are aspects of human nature that make all of us susceptible to anti-social behavior or acts – avarice, sexual drive, envy, anger, pride.  Every human being must balance their natural impulses, desires and needs with the constraints of society by developing a conscience with a moral and ethical framework.  Whether this conscience or moral integrity is linked to a higher power is a question one cannot answer definitively, though I do believe we have some evidence to support this idea.

 

I do not believe there is a ‘devil’ or some external evil force that is vying for our allegiance.  There is no Mephistopheles exhorting us to perform evil deeds in one ear while angelic beings whisper kindhearted suggestions in the other.  There is evil in the world – wicked and immoral acts – but they are the expression of broken human beings and a broken world, not of some supernatural malevolent power.

 

 

Who Elected Elon Musk President of the World?

If there were ever a great example of why the world needs to rein in individual and corporate wealth, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is it.  

Musk is certainly a very bright man with an excellent record of success in multiple industries.  His championing of electric vehicles has accelerated that technology dramatically and he deserves to be congratulated for that.  His forays in space exploration are also remarkable, though not as clearly beneficial for humanity.  In general, one can say that he has achieved much in his career and should be encouraged to continue to explore new technologies and ideas within his sphere of knowledge and expertise.

 

But he is also a very erratic and eccentric personality with a tendency toward megalomania and a huge ego. No one in their right mind would choose him as a leader or arbiter of civic values and ideas.  Moreover, he is not an elected official and has no mandate from the people.

 

Computers, cell phones and the Internet have centralized power, wealth and influence in a very troubling way.  The human social and herd instinct, as well as some very pernicious proprietary technology has compelled us to purchase or subscribe to astonishingly few products or social media.

 

We subscribe to Microsoft or Apple not because they are uniquely brilliant or creative, but simply because they long ago became the standard and it is too onerous or perhaps even foolhardy to experiment with or move to other platforms.

 

We use Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or Amazon or PayPal because everyone else does, not because of their ingenious design or technology.  The software technology behind these platforms is quite simple and it is only the random combination of luck, timing and momentum that propelled these specific businesses to such dizzying heights and allowed them to dominate.  

 

But the centralized nature of these products and services has rewarded their owners with unimaginable wealth and the all-too-common delusion that they are superhuman, imbued with superior knowledge and wisdom.

 

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is an expression of this type of hubris and megalomania, disguised as a mission to save free speech.  We need only reflect on the almost comical eccentricities of Henry Ford and Howard Hughes, among a long list of tycoons who believed they were uniquely qualified to dictate how the world should run, to realize that this too will not end well.

 

The world is not well-served by dictators or even well-intentioned plutocrats.  The progress of humankind is frustratingly slow, but it is best accomplished through communal deliberation and consensus leadership, not an ‘I know best’ mentality.  

 

We are in ever-increasing danger of having super-wealthy individuals and companies direct our future.  The only way to curb this phenomenon is to heavily tax massive incomes and wealth, and to break up monopolies or somehow encourage alternatives to centralized platforms.  The future will be dark indeed if the Elon Musks of the world are in total control.

The Meritocracy Trap

There is strong support in some political circles for the goal of making America a meritocracy.  Indeed, it is already proclaimed as one by many.   But what is a meritocracy and is it a wise objective for our country?  

Simply defined, a meritocracy is a political and economic system where power and wealth are commensurate with ability and effort – i.e. merited.  In contrast to an aristocracy, where power and wealth are hereditary and resistant to change, a meritocracy is in theory a fluid state where each person can rise to whatever heights can be attained based on skill and hard work.

 

Meritocracy is the idealized product of true capitalism.  The rewards of clever entrepreneurship, investment and diligent endeavor will produce a hierarchy of rewards and status based on merit.  The ‘invisible hand’ of the market, that so cleverly orchestrates the successes and failures in business, will also sort out the deserving and undeserving and allocate to them wealth and power commensurate to their contributions.  Or so the theory says!

 

The logic behind the meritocracy is that there are vast differences in ability, work ethic and initiative among human beings and that the best mechanism for progress and a better all-around world is to have a political and economic system that promotes and rewards people based on these attributes.  

 

But there are interesting and disturbing questions surrounding this adoration of merit.  What defines merit?  How is merit measured?  Does merit naturally rise to the top in a capitalist society?  What does a meritocracy do to human relationships and the social compact?  Is it truly ‘better’ for society to have a meritocracy?

 

Defining merit is tricky.  It could conceivably include any of the following:  intelligence, ability, acquired knowledge, acquired experience, diligence, initiative, risk-taking, industriousness and effort, to name just a few.  But each of these single attributes is actually a catchall for a spectrum of complex qualities that are neither easily defined nor described.  There is more ambiguity than precision in these terms.

 

If we are hard-pressed to adequately define the components of merit, then how much more helpless are we in attempting to measure them?  For example, if we wish to measure effort, diligence and industriousness, shall we use the number of hours a person works?  Or how fast they work?  Or how cleverly they work?  Already we find ourselves stymied in finding adequate yardsticks for these simple, yet elusive, qualities.

 

And when we move on to intelligence and talent, we find ourselves in a morass of stereotypes and fables.  We have learned in recent years that IQ and SAT tests are unreliable in terms of assessing intelligence or aptitude.  There are so many diverse aspects of intelligence and capability that any attempt to make a simple assessment is foolhardy and bound to be skewed in some way or another.

 

In practice, we do not generally ‘measure’ merit except in academic settings.  There, it is true that for the most accomplished students there is the opportunity to ascend to the most celebrated undergraduate and graduate institutions and thereby somewhat guarantee one’s future success.  But there are so many gifted students that this becomes a veritable lottery that serves only a small portion of the talented applicants.  It is highly unlikely that the lucky few are any more capable than the legions left out of these elite launchpads.  And even more unsettling is the fact that the great majority of the lucky few have been expertly groomed for these positions in upper class homes, academies and tutoring scenarios.

 

Once out of school, in the crucible of the business world, the assessment of merit is haphazard and subject to the whims of chance and human foibles.  Success may come because of being in the right company at the right time or in the right position.  It may come as a result of having a personality or style that appeals to a senior executive.  It may come by launching a product or company at the right time with the right backers, with the right angel investors.  It may come by sheer luck.  It may come by devious, selfish or unethical means.  And yes, it may come because one is capable and does a good job.  Anyone who has worked in several different companies has witnessed the fact that merit, however one may define it, is not always or even generally the path to success.

How many of us who have been rewarded highly for our work can truly say that we have merited such a disproportionate amount compared to others who have worked more hours or have overcome more hardships or obstacles?  The market may dictate our higher reward but is it just, is it fair?

One may argue that if we do not allow the market to work its magic then it will lose its efficiency and human progress will be jeopardized.  Even if that is the case, which I believe is certainly not an accepted fact, then let us call our political/economic system a marketocracy rather than a meritocracy and concede that 'merit' is not the secret ingredient to wealth and power.

 

For when merit is associated with power, wealth and fame, and we prize those things above all other achievements, we create a hierarchy of human value that is not only false but harmful.  We use the meritocracy to justify vast inequalities of income and wealth as though they are somehow inevitable or expedient.  

 

If we promote the illusion that our society is a meritocracy and we view all accomplishment through that lens, associating all material and worldly success with one’s ‘merit’, then we condemn a large portion of our fellow human beings to a category of ‘less merit’ or ‘no merit’.  The dedicated teacher, the social worker, the public service lawyer, the small-town doctor, all of whom have chosen a path that has little material reward, must wrestle lifelong with the demons of self-doubt and the lack of societal acclaim.

 

The meritocracy is a trap.  It is a trap because the concept of merit is subjective, undefinable and unmeasurable.  It is a trap because success is also subjective and relative.  It is a trap because merit and success are only casually related.  But most importantly, it is a trap because human value is not based on either merit or worldly success.  And it is a trap because it allows us to pretend that there is not a desperate need to continue to do the difficult work necessary to create a more equitable and humane society.

Capital and Ideology - Well Worth Reading

I am about to finish Capital and Ideology, a 1000 page book by French economist Thomas Piketty.  It is requiring a major commitment but it is well worth it.  I want to mention several of the most interesting things that Piketty writes in this massive tome.

 

Piketty surveys the history of what he calls ‘inegalitarian regimes’ right up to the current growing inequality of the 21^st century.  His approach is very analytical and he makes use of data and statistics that he and his associates have gathered from historical archives and many other sources.

 

Piketty clearly believes that income and wealth inequality, especially in extreme forms, are an unhealthy condition for society.  He is not a Marxist or a communist, but he is also supremely skeptical of the efficacy of the so-called ‘invisible hand’ of pure capitalism. 

 

The first part of the book tracks the long history of what Piketty calls the ‘ternary’ regimes – regimes that consist of some sort of religious/clerical class, a warrior/noble class and a peasant class.  These regimes dominated the world for many centuries.  The inequality in these societies was extreme – the peasant class, by far the largest in number (usually close to 90%), essentially owned nothing or very little.

 

During the industrial revolution a new elite joined the traditional noble class, but inequality continued to be extreme.  The age of revolution and social consciousness in the late 1800’s ushered in a political will to address these inequalities, starting with Bismarck’s social security policies in Germany.  Later, the two world wars and the depression in the early to mid-1900’s caused major disruptive changes and resulted in a more active role for government in the world economy.

 

The post-WW2 period from 1950 to 1980 was a period of rapid economic growth, but also a period of serious efforts to redistribute wealth and income.  The level of inequality was dramatically lower than ever before in history.  Higher income and wealth taxes were utilized partly for war debt repayment but also to fund social programs and national infrastructure development.

 

But moribund economic results in the 70’s caused a shift away from redistributive tax structures (the Reagan and Thatcher era) and a return to full-throated worship of the free market.  The abject failure of communism seemed to place unfettered capitalism on an unassailable pedestal. The period from 1980 to 2022 has propelled income and wealth inequality to new heights and has caused a total stagnation of middle and lower middle-class incomes.

 

What is particularly interesting in Piketty’s analysis is the evolution of political alignment in the years from 1950 to the present.  From 1950 to 1980, the parties of the left were primarily supported by voters with lower income and lower education.  Conversely, those with higher income and education strongly supported the parties of the right.  This held true for all western democracies.

 

Since 1980, there has been a dramatic shift in these allegiances.  More highly educated voters have moved to the parties of the left (you can see this in my summary of the 2020 election poll by the Pew Charitable Trust - https://rvgeiger.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-2020-election-demographics-what-do.html) and the less educated have moved to the right.  But there is still a significant high-income group (not necessarily highly educated) that has remained faithful to the parties of the right.  Piketty terms these two groups the ‘Brahmin Left’ and the ‘Merchant Right’.

 

Piketty believes that this evolution is due to a couple of factors:  one, that lower income voters have not seen their circumstances significantly improved by the policies of the left and thus have become disenchanted, and two, that the globalization and meritocratic focus of the left has mainly benefited the ‘Brahmin Left’, leaving much of the population behind but attracting well-educated voters.  

 

Piketty posits that the policies of Clinton, Blair, Obama and Macron have not been significantly different than their conservative opponents in terms of reducing income and wealth inequality.  He sees the nativist/identity issues (immigration and nationalism being the primary ones) as secondary, though recognizing that these also play an increasingly noisy role.

 

Another interesting analysis in the book is how the lack of transparent international financial recording and the competition between countries for business by providing tax havens has allowed massive fortunes and profits to be realized and kept hidden from view.  This has clearly accelerated the global accumulation of absurdly disproportionate wealth by the top earners.

 

I have not yet read the final chapters that propose a new international approach to socio-economic challenges.  But it is clear that the current trends are unsupportable in the long run and can only lead to social and political instability.  Whether the world will be able to address this problem while facing climate change and the resurgence of totalitarian regimes is a weighty question.  If we cannot overcome the inertia of today's political chaos then there may be hell to pay.