Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design has been in the news lately because of Creationists. The concept has been used by them to argue against Darwinism and evolution. Creationists say that there is definition and sophistication about the world that evolution alone cannot explain, because it is based on randomness and chaos. They ask, how could the erratic nature of evolution produce the order and complexity we see today? They believe that since there is such order all around us, from the length of a day to the orbits of the planets, that there must been a specific plan and a Creator behind it. Hence Creationists' religious belief in Intelligent Design.

The other day I read an article that said religious belief initially had nothing to do with the concept of Intelligent Design. Creationists have latched on to the idea to forward their own agenda, the article explained. Scientists noticed and commented on an intelligent design in nature long before religious types got a hold of it. They saw that nature had this ability to organize itself into something intelligent from pure chaos. James Gleick, in his book "Chaos", points to the ability of nature to create beautifully organized things out of its chaos without the suggestion that there is a Creator or God with a specific plan behind it.

I believe there is something inherent in nature that creates order out of chaos. The example I use to illustrate this is an experiment used in elementary science. You take a piece of paper and sprinkle iron filings on it. One sees a clump of iron filings on the paper, helter skelter. Next you rub a magnet underneath the paper and as you are watching a symmetrical design emerges. This is how the universe and the world developed, through similar magnetic forces that have worked on stuff flying around chaotically, bringing it together and organizing it.

Everything starts off like the "Wild Wild West" I like to say. First there is a chaotic, wild situation and them it gravitates to an orderly situation. The universe started off like the Wild Wild West. Civilization started of as the Wild Wild West. Democracy started that way. One thing more immediate that started off this way is the internet. Originally in started with no rules or specific order. Its first practitioners wanted it that way, free to find its own level. Part of the reason for this is that no one really knew what it was going to end up to be. Also, the first users of this fledging enterprise didn't wanted any one group imposing their own agenda on it. However, as the internet grew it found order as it expanded and adapted to change. The internet found its intelligent design by just being and out of the necessity to survive and continue.

On a primary level the Creationists are right, as scientists have pointed out, that there is an intelligent force organizing nature and humankind. We are all made of that intelligent stuff called DNA. However, on its own DNA is not very smart, only potentially. It has to engage external forces like the environment, nurturing and change to become something intelligible. Nothing is intelligent from the beginning. It took the long drawn out efforts of nature and time to create the intelligence we see today. It didn't happen with the wave of a wand, as Creationists tend to see it.
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All politics is local

There is something to the axiom "all politics is local".

I discovered how true that axiom is through my essays. My essays talk in broad terms about the political landscape of the world. However, most people think more locally, in terms of what is happening in their lives. They are more concerned about how things affect their world, not the larger world. One reader wrote that though my holistic thoughts about the world make sense she really didn't care because it was all she could do to keep body and soul together without being bogged down with world affairs. And that is how it is for most of us, just making it through the day. One thing I discovered is that I elicit more interest from readers if I touch on issues that directly affects them - things they can immediately identify with.

To understand some of my grand ideas about the world readers often put them into a context that relates to them. They put it into the context of how they see things and what affects them personally. I wrote an essay on the coexistence of democracy and capitalism and said I believe their togetherness means that neither can survive without the other. I thought I was pretty non-ideological with my argument. However, people often read things with preconceptions and project them onto what they are reading. For instance, I mentioned the word 'capitalism' and some readers immediately saw red and think of greed because that is how they are programed. Initially I am thrown off guard by such views but I understand where they're coming from and I also know that whatever I say will not change minds. Also, from that kind of response I feel a bit inadequate because I feel there is something I haven't been communicating because people have interpreted me wrong, as being too rosy about the world, which isn't true.

The next two paragraphs are a response to a reader who I believe thinks I have put too rosy a spin on things. He puts his concerns in the context of his locality, America. He feels that the America he knows and hopes for is fading away, due to the mean spirited politics that have enveloped it recently. I didn't think I was going to make him feel any better but I wanted to clarify some thing about what he may have interpreted. I wanted to show him I am less political and ideological than I think he thought I was.

This is what I wrote in response:

I am going to say what first comes to mind after reading your letter. I am sure you've heard it before: We live in the best possible world. However, in saying that I am not being an apologist. Overall, I see humanity as "red in tooth and claw" . Though that redness has been tempered and modified over the centuries, it nevertheless keeps popping up. Greed is one of those inherent traits that keeps popping and will never be completely eradicated. Humankind in always a work in progress. It will never be completed or perfected. It will always have faults and imperfections that need putting down and taming. And if there is a meaning to life, I think it is about keeping vigil and managing the beast. I think that on the whole and under the circumstances humankind is doing the best it can. However, that doesn't mean we can't do better or that we shouldn't try harder. We still require a lot of work and it happens incrementally - two steps forward, one step back . Part of the problem is that humankind is always shifting and never staying still. There is always something new, new variables, new situations, new people. The message, as the message about greed, often has to be repeated and relearned.

I've wondered why I have a positive view of the world while some other don't. (It's not so much that I am positive but pragmatic- dangerous notion in some circles.) I believe it has to do with things like circumstance and the combination of nurture/nature. If I had been born under different circumstances, had different parents or my mother had a different attitude when she was carrying me I may have seen the world differently. I see how chancy it can be as to who we become when I look at my sister who is rather negative about humankind, as was my father.

Perhaps I will not win any arguments or convert anybody with what I say. However, that's not really my point. It's more like an exercise. I am comfortable in what I believe and my main objective is to make my argument clear so a least people can understand and agree or disagree with it. I cherish views like yours because they keep me grounded and from straying into a "Pollyanna" world.

In Defence of the Corporation

Recently I saw a documentary called “The Corporation”. It was, as you can imagine, about corporations and their business practices. The Corporation was portrayed negatively. I, however, see this institution in a more positive light.

My interest in the Corporation began when I asked myself the question why do corporations exist? Generally the response to this question is a negative one: to exploit people; for the benefit of a few. However, I unconsciously asked the question rhetorically and thus had something in mind. What I had it in mine was that one of its purposes is to advance Democracy. When I suggested this idea to others they laughed or gave me a dirty look.

The notion that the Corporation promotes Democracy admittedly seems far fetched. Nevertheless, I think it’s true. But before I get into that, let me point out something that I think we all agree on, that the modern world wouldn’t be possible without the Corporation. If this economic engine didn’t exist the material needs of the world couldn't be met. Smaller enterprises like traditional family businesses wouldn’t be able to cultivate or harness the resources needed to support a big modern civilization. Only big business can build and maintain the infrastructure we need to survive and continue, those in communication, transportation, energy, health and in food production and its distribution. Also, smaller enterprises couldn’t raise the vast amounts of capital required to finance essential services like railroads, hydroelectric dams, oil refineries, airports and harbors. Another thing, without this institution we wouldn’t have the managerial skills, which it invented, to run and maintain this complex world we live in.

Only big business or corporations could have developed, produced and distributed the technologies we’ve needed to survive and continue. Oh yes, individuals may be the ones who invented them but it’s the corporations that have the resources to develop and market them so that we can all benefit from them. And in that there is a form of democracy because corporations have made products and technologies available to all, not discriminating. Another often overlooked fact is that many of the technologies corporations have produced have also advanced democracy. Take, for example, television and newspapers, telephones and the internet. Those technologies have developed our communication skills and in turn our democratic skills. Even the car, one of the Corporation’s greatest and most ubiquitous developments, has contributed to democracy. Cars give us mobility. Mobility is a form of freedom and choice, rights that are synonymous with democracy.

Television was made possible by the Corporation. I would say it has been the most influential technology in promoting democracy. A prime example of this influence is the civil rights movement in the United States in the fifties. That movement wouldn’t have had much of a chance if it wasn’t for TV and the mass audience it created. TV provided the platform to make it an issue of consequences. It made and changed public opinion. Without this mass media, the denial of civil rights, in a land that professes to be just and democratic, may still be unresolved. TV has had a similar influence throughout the world in educating and changing public awareness on other critical social issues such as universal suffrage and human rights.

The Corporation is the chief agent of capitalism. As such it has help create and steward an ownership society. Ownership, whether it be in real estate or in stocks and bonds, is an integral part of a well oiled Democracy. Even one’s labor, which corporations can’t function without, is considered private property. As Arthur Schlesinger said (referred to in an earlier essay), private ownership is the backbone of Democracy because “it provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom. Even though it has been inadvertent, The Corporation has helped build and reinforce that base.

Another thought about Democracy

I am very interested in Democracy and how it works. So I was quite interested in reading what two well known academics, Cornel West and Natan Sharansky, had to say about it.

Cornel West, a Princeton professor, is the author of "Democracy Matters" and Sharansky, an Israeli politician and former Soviet dissident, is the author of "The Case For Democracy". Sharansky's book has been adopted by the Bush White House as a template for establishing Democracy in places where it doesn't exist, like in Iraq and other Middle East countries . As a reviewer put it, West "touts dialogue as route to democracy". Sharanshy's theme is " 'the town square test': if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of imprisonment or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society." There is something simplistic and naive about what both authors think. However, that's how Democracy is generally portrayed, in wistful, jingoistic terms. I exaggerate. Yet that's how Democracy is seen, as one or two dimensional when really its multi-multidimensional.

Both men seem to be preaching to the choir. Their audiences pretty much understand what they are talking about. And that's the thing about Democracy, only those that have done it really understand and appreciate it. It's an esoteric enterprise, very convoluted and complex. It require a lot of things happening at once - some undesirable. It is something that is in our blood. For those of us who live it, it's natural, like breathing. Catch phrases and platitudes like those the two author used are very heart warming for those who have experienced Democracy. But in practice they wont help start Democracy where it hasn't existed, or keep it. Dialogue alone will not ignite democracy, nor will free speech in the town square.

To be fair, though, West was talking more about how to maintain and preserve democracy in a Democracy. Dialogue is certainly one way of doing it, freely debating issues and openly questioning motives of those in power, without being harassed. He was driven to say what he said by something he deeply feels, and rightly so, that there are people in power who are trying to stifle and cut off debate. Though dialogue is an extremely important cornerstone of Democracy, I am sure West understands that dialogue itself is not enough. It also requires strong arm tactics to achieve it as he can attest to. For instance, as an African-American West knows tactics like affirmative action have been necessary to gain democracy. On paper Democracy looks pretty neat but in reality it's quite gut wrenching and contradictory.

The contradictory, gut wrenching part is perhaps why many don't want anything to do with Democracy. It requires a lot of work and social upheaval. It requires a foundation. Sharansky's town square, free speech template is essentially based on a foundation he hasn't acknowledged. He has had the luxury of living this foundation in Israel, whereas other haven't. For his town square test to happen successfully there have to be in place a number of back-up systems. Not only does there have to be a constitution that flatly states and supports ones right to free speech but a legal system to back it up if, as inevitably will happen, someone denies that right. Also, the recognition of individual liberty and freedom usually precede and accompany that right. These things take time to cultivate. My point is this, that it is over simplistic to say that dialogue and passing the town square test is Democracy. Voting itself is no guaranty of Democracy. Nor are those other two axioms on their own.

If the president of the United States relies on a simplistic axiom like Sharansky's to advance Democracy, I don't think the cause is being served well. It requires stronger factors, factors which have taken western Democracies generations to cultivate, things like universal suffrage, polyphony and just the simple tacit understanding of what it is to be democratic. Ironically, Democracy has advanced most through the pursuit of self-interest and property rights. If such avenues had been encouraged from the start in Haiti and other places where the world has tried for decades to establish Democracy, it would now be on a roll. If West's dialogue and Sharansky's free speech were dovetailed with those other things I mentioned, then their axioms would really be something to crow about.

I had this crazy notion that someday there might be a S.W.A.T teem to establish Democracy.

Develop through perverse means

I have this idea that we develop through perverse means.

The idea popped into my head as I was contemplating the contradictory nature of society. By contradictory I mean we seem to espouse one thing and do another. For instance, we espouse Democracy but simultaneously we encourage undemocratic institutions like Capitalism to exist. Basically what I am saying is like a reverse psychology, that we behave in an opposite manner to what we believe in order to achieve what we believe.

The Buddha is the only one I know who commented on this type of behavior. He didn’t couch the idea in the same way but said something similar. What he said is something like this, symbolically of course: One generally has to leave one’s house by the front door and reenter by the back to appreciate what’s inside. What he meant by that is that we generally learn things indirectly, like going from A to B via C and D instead of taking the direct route. Another way of explaining it is that we have to lose something before we can appreciate it. One theory I have as to why its like this is because we learn more convincingly through perverse, backward means than through, normal, straight forward means.

Learning from mistakes and mishaps is perverse. One analogy I’ve used to support this idea is about a child who burns itself on a stove element after being told not to touch it. Ironically the child learns more from that experience of burning itself than the from the sensible parent telling it not to do so.

This is also perverse: “The world needs problems because they make us better”. Essentially what that statement is saying is that we inadvertently improve ourselves through negative means. For example, we have made ourselves better because of wars, community strife, environmental pollution and economic upheavals. Problems test and challenge us. That statement reinforces what I believe, that we learn more convincingly about how we ought to conduct ourselves from negative events than we do from positive events. Things like Aids, SARS and terrorism really get our attention, more so than things that don’t give us strife. Problems provoke and compel us to rethink things, seek solutions and understanding. In the process, because we are pushed and motivated, we become more intelligent and sophisticated.

That statement was made by an economist, Julian Simon. In respected to problems, he was thinking in terms of resources. At the time he said it the world was having problems with shortages and rising prices of commodities like oil and copper. Those problems triggered a search for alternatives and stepped-up conservation. Society was jarred by those problems and forced to think anew and act differently. He realized that in going through the procedure of finding alternatives and implementing conservation, society as a whole was improving itself because it was gaining knowledge and new techniques. These gains manifested themselves into other areas of society, also sharpening our skills in how we organize and govern ourselves. Though its hard to measure, problem solving has had an incremental effect on us.

Kant said that humans are inherently lazy. I know that from my own experience. Isn’t it perverse that we need problems to challenge us so not to be lazy? The great economist Adam Smith showed that our own self-interest must come first if we are to take care of the interests of others. Now, that’s perverse.

An adjunct

The following is born of a reader's comment. She also suggested that I post it on my blog. So here goes:

Thank you for you comment. It triggered in me a thought, something I haven't explained well, something that is central to the way I think about the nature of our human governance and the need for an antithetical system like capitalism and democracy (Democracy). It has to do with our imperfection and fallibility and that it will always be that way. Because we are naturally like that we must have a system of governance that deals with it as reality. The system I tout deals head on with this reality, doesn't avoid it, and does the best with it under the circumstances and also contains it. The system of Democracy acknowledges the imperfection and fallibility in human beings and turns it on its head, so to speak, into something workable. Unlike Communism which manipulated and forced people to change against their will, Democracy uses more a carrot and subtle coercion to influence and change people's less desirable tendencies. Democracy also realizes that people are naturally complacent and lazy and tend to fall back into their natural patterns. Democracy has fashioned itself for this inevitability. One thing I believe is that we develop through perverse means, which I think I have implied above, and meaning something like we don't do the right thing from the start even though we know its right. It's like applying reverse logic to function. We generally have to be encouraged to do the right thing through perverse, illogical means. Democracy deals with this like no other system.

We can all see in ourselves the weakness I speak of, such as our tendency to cheat on our taxes, to be corrupted, to cut corners when we can and to avoid doing what we know we should do. But often our weaknesses are not known to us so we have to be shown them. The system of Democracy we have, with it's bipolar make-up, constantly jolts us to keep with the "program". We always have to be reminded of who we used to be and what we could go back to being. So we have to have a system of governance that can deal with all this. And it always has to reinvent itself and us.