I was sitting in the library reading several Harper pieces, one about the multiverse, another about an old mind’s journey into death juxtaposed with the collapse of American politics and another on the collapse of Britain. Each piece traversed my mind bringing up issues that exist, but aren’t yet formed. At the same time, I’ve been working on my own piece about urban renewal within a new mental framework. I’ve submitted my article several times, but editors have a lot of hangups. As such, I thought it would be helpful to systemize millenial thinking. Anyone else who has something to add is encouraged to comment.
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism as understood in America makes no sense. The basic premise is that people who should survive will survive and is suppose to reflect how nature works. Only it doesn’t represent how nature works at all. It’s just anarchy.
In nature prey animals like elephants herd together. They organize like a union does to ensure survival. If they didn’t they wouldn’t survive. Lions or other predators would eat them until they became extinct and then when there was no food left the lions would cannibalize one another until their numbers shrunk. Amazingly, this is exactly how economics work in America. Businesses become more and more monopolistic until they reach the point where they no longer benefit the consumer.
The clear lesson here is that laizzes faire economics is not what Adam Smith calls natural liberty because it cuts off one group’s method of survival, so another group can dominate.
On Government
Which brings us to our next dilemma. The older generation hates government. I can’t understand this idea at all. Perhaps it’s a throwback to their hippie days when they simply said, I don’t like how this works, so I’m going to quit it entirely. Anti-establisment rhetoric doesn’t help anyone. Perhaps, we should talk about the responsibility’s of government, but it doesn’t make any sense to say a country could exist without government. In thousands of years of human history no country has ever succeeded without government. That’s overwhelming evidence that it is necessary.
It’s very simple why we need government: to protect the populous against accumulation and abuse of power. People naturally need to move forward, but in a country without a legislature there is no guaranteed way for a country to move forward without the consolidation of power (this is also true of legislature’s who refuse to work together). It’s true that a country can move forward behind a moralist like Gandhi or MlK, but long term those situations won’t work unless the people have strong moral character. In a country without strong moral character, consolidation of power generally results in a firm simple ideology (to reach a broader audience.) Idealism can be the greatest sin man has. As the bible says, “the path to hell is paved with good intentions”
P.S. I won’t delve into a country with long lasting moral character because it has never existed. If a country did have strong moral character it wouldn’t need idealism however because the people would always give each other the benefit of the doubt and work hard. In that country idealism wouldn’t matter because the people would always find the right solution. I guess you could say moral character is more important than any ideology.
Idealism and Pragmatism
One of my biggest concerns with the older generation is their obsession with idealism. They believe a good idea can solve all the world’s problems regardless of methodology. The Harper’s story of the dying man bemoan’s his generation’s obsession with idealism. The writer says he never realized how a lack of ethics could damage the country so badly.
His explanation is simple. If you believe you are right and all you need to do is bring people to your side than what’s the harm of manipulating your audience? Why not say wolves are waiting to tear us apart? Why not say money will trickle down? The problem is once one begins to live in a world of ideas one loses any attachment to reality. And even worse, the lack of remorse in manipulating people allows politicians to postulate overly simple ideas. The Bible is actually a good place to understand why the older generation has failed. Essentially, there are two ideas that encapsulate all of the bible: Man is fallen and love thy neighbor. With these two ideas one can build great societies.
Firstly, man must understand he is fallen and ultimately falls short of perfect understanding. By doing so man humbles himself to others and God, but also prepares an ideology that is adaptive to failings. No man with self doubt would postulate such simple economic theories. They would understand economics are four dimensional and change happens. They would spend more time reviewing and less time proseltyzing. Secondly, man needs to understand they must love thy neighbor. This should be the philosopher’s maxim. Without loving everyone one can’t help anyone. Loving one’s neighbor forces one to develop more complex philosophic systems and forces one to be just rather than power hungry.
Human being’s naturally don’t like dissonance. They don’t like being confused, so they make generalizations. They do this because they are flawed. Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s ok. If they were to put themselves in one another’s shoes they might be overwhelmed, but Augustine tells us that angst is good. He says being lost is the way to God. In the case of economics if one lived a day in the inner city they would see the problem’s there aren’t laziness. Loving everyone forces one to except a lot of different believes. It pressures one to come up with middle of the road solutions. In our society we belief compromising is a sign of weakness. This is because we worship power. In a just country, we wouldn’t think of compromise as submission. We would see it as the end result of a long hard discussion where our realization gives us greater answers than we could have found on our own.
Millenial Future
I have posited an unorganized world that can only been held together via community love and hard work. I have proven (very easily) that social darwinism is a mistake and results in a consolidation of power. I have established government as a necessary check on power and finally I have proposed that when electing candidates it is important that our generation not get caught up in the simplicity of hate. Instead, we must love all ideas and develop our own ideas accordingly. Necessarily our ideas will surpass our parents in terms of complexity, but that’s ok as long as we stay connected with one another and patiently explain rather than bark. When someone asks us why we do something a certain way we must explain it and don’t become short tempered. Finally, I think it’s important to add it is natural to be mad at our parent’s generation for their religious and economic failures, but anger is not a helpful emotion. One one hand we must be stern when saying the world must move forward. We have to introduce new ideas, but we must do so with love in our hearts.
