Diary

One of the advantages of being retired is that you become accountable to no one and have the option of thinking as independently as you like. There is always the danger that you may become delusional and enter into a solipsistic world that is unintelligible to everyone but yourself, but I don't think that I fall into that category as of yet. On the contrary, I notice how people who work for a living, whether self-employed or as employees, compromise their thoughts in a manner that I don't have to. Generally, I can say whatever I like, and there will be no negative consequences such as a loss of income or a decline in my professional reputation. I find it difficult to engage with some writers because I can sense the pecuniary motivation behind their work and can see how they have created a façade specifically designed to entertain their readers without really challenging them, and this may differ from what they would write if they were unfettered by economic constraints. Such observations underlie many of the criticisms that I have made here, and I think it is telling that you won't generally find similar ideas in publications or books. Part of this deception occurs innocently in the sense that every writer belongs to some milieu that determines the forms and subjects that its members are expected to adopt, but in a commercial society, as D.H. Lawrence suggested, the ideal of honest writing often conflicts with financial objectives. Thus, I have increasingly found that some degree of dishonesty pervades public writings of all sorts.

As far back as the 1960's I noticed that painters who wanted to succeed had to develop a recognizable style as soon as possible. The more successful they wanted to become, the more obvious and repetitive that style would have to be. Since then, I've noticed that wherever I live there is usually a well-received local artist who has developed a distinct, recognizable style, and repetition has become a key ingredient of their success. While repetition may seem incompatible with creative expression, in a commercial environment it is a crucial element. The same is true on a national or global scale, but increased competition merely makes internationally competitive art more refined without eliminating the repetition: stylistic familiarity works much like a jingle in a television or radio commercial, with the aim of encouraging your continued patronage.

You might say that familiarity provides an undeserved advantage in all fields, including ones that are supposed to be intellectually rigorous, given the pervasiveness of human cognitive limitations. Flawed theories can survive for decades once they become established, if only because people have become accustomed to them. Even though I have tended to admire the thoughts of the Enlightenment thinkers, in a modern context much of what they had to say is dated or just plain incorrect. One of my biggest complaints has been that the implications of Charles Darwin's ideas have been largely ignored, because people were accustomed to and preferred the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, which, while uplifting to some degree, are not realistic in an overpopulated, unequal, polluted world. I try not to overstate my case, but I find it appalling that naïve ideas regarding individual freedom and free enterprise are widely encouraged and accepted despite overwhelming evidence of their destructive effects. I feel that it is necessary to say something about this. Our understanding of human nature has increased dramatically over the last two hundred years, and to ignore that information is foolhardy, to put it mildly. If you only paid attention to politicians, you would think that God is in Heaven smiling down on America and that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, et al., were the greatest geniuses in the history of the world. By now it is completely obvious to me that the Founding Fathers, though advanced thinkers in their day, held ideas that are outdated and untenable if not demonstrably false now.

Sometimes I wonder what the point of this blog is, and I usually return to the idea that it explores some concepts that are hard to find in conventional media. In my recent readings in nonfiction, I am struck by how very few authors are willing to speculate broadly on the implications of their findings. As our world becomes more complex and less manageable, rather than seek better solutions, our leaders, both intellectual and political, prefer to pat themselves on their backs and exaggerate their effectiveness as problem-solvers. In particular, the evidence for human irrationality has become indisputable, yet practically no one goes on to address the risks entailed when the prevailing models for livelihoods and governance are left unquestioned beyond the context of narrow academic research. Thus, I am unlikely to run out of subject matter for this blog in the foreseeable future.