Incoherent Ramblings Rave #2 (Updated 9/23/2005)

Note: I'm attempting selectively publish what I expect are essays in progress that will grow significantly longer over time, but allow the reader to eavesdrop to some extent on my "thinking out loud." After all, my primary goal is to stimulate thought and debate in the world at large, and only secondarily, for the sake of shelter and bread, to garner some sort of recognition for my own thinking and writing. So, since it's not about bread, why not start the discussion while it's still half-baked? (How noble you are, pretending not to be a raving moderate egomaniac, then throwing out your paltry humor!)

Outline:
Us & Them, You & Me
Order & Chaos

"It's Us versus Them." "It's Us against the World." "It's Me against You." "It's just Me against the World." "It's CONTROL versus KAOS. Would you believe it?"

"Pick your battles."

It's all a matter of perspective. Let me throw in one more.

"We Are the World."

Maybe I'd better take these little quotations one by one, although I'm supposed to be rambling incoherently to get the ideas out there. Anyway, these are all slightly different perspectives on how we view the world, on what we think are important units of organization. Do we identify with a group? Only with ourselves as individuals? Do we feel a part of a greater whole, of which all human beings are a part? So I don't mean to be too organized, but here we go. Most individuals, by the way, are, in my opinion, a blend of all of the following:

"It's Us versus Them." This seems to be the mindset of the so-called "War on Terror", or perhaps it is just as well termed a "War of Terror" depending on whose "side" one is on (or not) and how objectively one is willing to think about it. This is a competitive point of view in which the individual identifies with a greater whole ("Us") composed of some identifiable subset of humanity, which might be composed of one's family, or those of one's religious affiliation, nationality, ethnicity etc. Other subsets who are not a part of this subset (and are therefore viewed as "Them") are chosen as a focus of emnity and competition. The reasons for this may be realistic, largely historical, illusory, or intentionally or unintentionally promulgated to manipulate the group. In most cases it is a combination of the above factors, with further input from the motivation to rationalize some sort of political or economic gain, or even merely a catharsis of violence.

"It's Us against the World." The affiliation to the group has become so strong that everyone else is considered to have some sort of a problem. This can happen in at least two ways. One is that the group has such cult-like qualities that it acquires an extremely powerful primacy in the minds of its members. The group promulgates a worldview which the membership comes to accept as infallibly correct. Meanwhile the rest of the world, whether by birth or by training, is far enough off the mark that they must either be converted, suffer some egregious punishment, or even be eliminated.

Another factor in an "Us against the World" point of view may be one of historical and/or current persecution. Many religions and ethnicities have at least a mild sense of some such persecution; if it comes from several different quarters and the group does not form strong alliances with outsiders, to one extent or another the members may have trouble trusting anyone outside the group as much as those inside the group.

"It's Me against You" or "It's just Me against the World." To one degree or another, all of us are alone in our individuality, and we are fighting or working for our own survival or self-interest. Some may primarily feel a part of a group, but even then, the individual's worldview is bound to conflict at some points with the received worldview of the group and/or with that of individuals within the group who may be central figures in one's life. This may lead to conflicts with the other individuals, with one's own group, or with others in the world, in which one feels one is standing alone. At some point, an individual may feel his or her aloneness as having primacy over any sense of group affiliation, and thus stands as "Me against the World". This is usually harmless to the world at large, in some cases may be beneficial as it brings about unique ideas that might be stifled by "groupthink", but in extreme cases might hypothetically be an important factor in the behavior of psychopaths whether merely murderous or, as in the case of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, having a certain self-important sense of idealism.

"It's CONTROL versus KAOS. Would you believe it?" I throw this one in as a reference to the 60's spy spoof TV series, "Get Smart". Although the show was played mostly for slapstick laughs, there is some depth to the irony that the bumbling, chaotic US spy agency was named "CONTROL" and operated for the purpose of fighting "KAOS", another bumbling spy agency, roughly equivalent to SMERSH in the James Bond films. When we look at the efforts of the current US government administration to "control" terrorism or even control the chemistry of all the different groupings of people in competition across the world, if either is indeed their goal, we have to ask ourselves if they are not in fact stirring up a greater proportion of "chaos" than they are ameliorating in the process?

In fact, I think this question is one that any movement, organization, or effort to reform or improve the world, coming from any mix of the above perspectives, has to ask itself. We operate in a complex, interwoven world in which many forces are at play, so many forces that the system probably should be considered as "chaotic" in the scientific sense of the word that implies an exquisitely sensitive system in which small actions may have large consequences, such that our focused attempts at creating some desirable order may produce larger patterns of disorder in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Introducing a new force or stimulus amidst such complexity, though intended to create greater stability, may create greater instability, as it is arguable that George Bush's intervention in Iraq has done.

"We Are the World." The theme song from 1985's Live Aid concert may be hackneyed in some people's minds, perhaps even mine, but it's key phrase is philosophically important. It may even be important to the survival of humanity as a species. It is a shift in perspective that may be viewed spiritually, or may also be viewed mathematically from a systems viewpoint. To me, the two are intertwined, although I am neither spiritually all that high nor much of a mathematician. Simply put, each object or system we think of as a "thing" is part of a greater "thing". A fingernail is part of a finger is part of a hand is part of a person is part of a population (say, "Americans" or "Christians" or "Muslims") is part of a greater population (the population of the planet) is part of a greater system (such as the ecosystem of the Earth) is part of a still greater system (like the Universe)... is, perhaps, a part of "God" or "the Infinite". And we can go smaller as well; the fingernail is made up of cells, made up of molecules, atoms, subatomic particles... down to the most infinitesimal "thing" we can imagine or manage to talk about, and perhaps God is found there, too, the substrate to all existence. In any case, we are a part of everything, and we are intertwined such that everything is a part of us as well. Chaos theory, at least in layman's explanations, postulates that a butterfly flapping its wings may be a proximate cause of a hurricane thousands of miles away. It is only one of billions of tiny causes, but if it hadn't flapped its wings right then and there, and everything else had stayed the same: no hurricane. That is how connected our existence is.

Given this complexity, we have no choice but to simplify so that our brains can handle reality and make choices. If we were butterflies, we would have no choice but to flap our wings, and we have no choice but to act in the world. But if a butterfly can make the difference to a hurricane, what are the consequences of such choices as sacrificing large chunks of our environment for short-term profit or creating a power vacuum in Iraq -- choices whose enormity and absurdity are already evident, but whose ripple effects are almost unfathomable? So we must try to view things with some complexity even as we are forced to simplify our thinking relative to the vastness of existence and the infinite interactions of cause and effect.