SCIENCE AND THE SOCIAL COSMOLOGY
In Isaac Newton’s orderly universe, the motions of objects could be measured and predicted. On the social side, God punished the wicked by making a hell for them. Man was not the center of the universe and people believed that they could distinguish good from evil. That macro vision I will call the social cosmology. It provided the foundation for logic, values, and a host of other views that form ‘reality.’ Many concluded that a supernatural force, like God, must have designed that rational world. Obedience to God defined the supreme value. Some people, the priests, were supposed to understand God’s commandments better than others. The discoveries of Darwin and Einstein birthed a new cosmology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Both men themselves believed passionately in an objective, orderly world.
Darwin’s natural selection and a literal God could not be reconciled. Heaven and hell were reduced to metaphor. Maybe we could get away with murder. Many moralists worried that such a conclusion would spread. In any case, the strongest would survive and, without a heaven, survival in the temporal world excuses all.
Einstein’s theory of relativity did even more damage to the old cosmology. Things were not what they seemed. Up could be down and down could be up. It all depended on your point of view. The clock moved faster or slower on a speeding train depending on whether it was going east or west.
Freud and the unconscious determinants of the mind and Marx and the determinism of the material (economic) world further weakened the old cosmology. The spread of democracy provided an alternative to the priesthood.
The popular constructs of science that entered the perception of the masses, and intellectual leaders in particular, developed a new cosmology. People lost faith in objective reality. Quantum physics held that there was no such thing as objective reality. We could only perceive and measure, both of which changed the reality of what was observed or measured. The motions of subatomic particles could only be measured statistically. The man who inspired quantum physics, Albert Einstein, rejected this view. While he was never able to develop a field theory to refute quantum physics, this essay presents a case for his broader vision.
Special relativity applies to measurement of the physical world. It has little to do with biology and nothing to do with society. It does rely on one absolute, the speed of light. That was the factor that provided Einstein with a yardstick for his observations and allowed him to draw his conclusions. Like Einstein, we are a holistic lot, not believers in random behavior. (The new cosmology is doing its best to change that view.) Something innate expects order. Our cosmology takes in all information, correctly or incorrectly, and the makeup of ‘reality’ exerts a great influence. I view much of what is happening in government and politics, and that which comes from the mouths of pundits, as a struggle to define the social cosmology.
One dramatic consequence of abandoning objective reality is that people begin to ignore cause-and-effect relationships. Without objective reality, agendas provide the measure of all things. The individual becomes the speed of light. Everything relates to his desires. Winning or losing becomes the true measure of consequences.
Objective reality acts as a constraint. It implies that some things are not possible, even harmful. Such constraints disrupt extreme capitalism and its Ponzi schemes, sales pitches, profit margins, and ‘government is the problem’ justifications for capitalism’s failures. Hence, reality must remain flexible enough to neutralize any thought of effective regulation. ‘Balanced’ news holds that there is always another side to an issue, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. People may just make up reality as needed for their agenda.
There is no point in listing the hundreds of other examples of abandoning objective reality that undermine bipartisan politics and justice. I will, instead, describe other tenants of a cosmology that will deprive us of a future.
Two biological constants influence all cosmologies and, in turn, their apologies for greed. Natural selection’s paradox references the fact that natural selection cannot distinguish a long-term adaptation from a short-term adaptation in the short term. The resources required for the long term may be consumed by the short-term adaptation. This defect in natural selection creates the biological basis for morality/ethics. God does not save us from wrong choices, so says the Bible in the parable of the Garden of Eden. When the oceans become a cesspool and the rivers run dry, God will not replace them. A cosmology that ignores cause-and-effect relationships ignores the dangers ahead.
The other constant I call “the energy trap.” We have, broadly speaking, two methods of acquiring the energy we need. One consists of divisions of labor based on merit (who does what best) where all share in the product. Historically, this long-term adaptation has proven the most efficient. It observes natural selection’s preference for diversity and cooperative divisions of labor. The other choice simply steals other people’s labor under force or deception or social stigma. This short-term adaptation leads to waste and conflict. In a cosmology that perceives winning as the measure of success, the short term usually prevails.
The energy trap creates the biological basis of evil. Lincoln described it best: “It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other is the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it’” If we replace the word “kings” with “Capital” the quote is as modern as rockets. The cosmology that justifies exploiting other people’s labor holds that lords and ladies ruling serfs supports God’s chosen.
An even bigger paradox exists within the folds of these two constants. Natural selection created man as a social animal. Being one of the weakest of any species, cooperation proved critical to survival. Cooperation is implanted somewhere in the genes. Guilt, shame, gratitude, and other biological emotions reinforce long-term strategies that alert people to the cost of betrayal. Ironically, we must moralize everything, even greed. Greed can only prevail if the cooperative genes are turned off by apologies justified by a cosmology that ignores cause-and-effect relationships. One only has to listen to conservative talk radio for a few moments to hear apologies for greed that defy any sense of reality.
People buy the apologies in order to continue exploiting other people’s labor and the earth. The cosmology described provides a clear conscience in the face of exploitative behavior. That part of the cosmology also holds that making it big is what life is all about—get rich or die trying, what I call the American Pathology. Do not mess with anyone’s game. They might mess with yours. Venial politicians could not succeed without that paradigm. Deception rules, not cause-and-effect relationships. Making it big and winning at all costs reflect a failed cosmology, one not justified by the objective world.
By now the reader wants to know what I mean by “reality.” Two exist—the observed and the observer. Science struggles to find a way to separate the two. I suggest that it is both impossible and unnecessary to make the separation. There is a world that exists without us that obeys rules (algorithms) we cannot change. Then there is our perception of that other world and that perception’s physiological limitations.
We can resolve the duality. I believe we cannot separate the two worlds because we have no direct contact with the objective world. We can only interpret the energy our senses receive from it. Our neurology develops ways of recognizing patterns that allow us to adapt to the objective world—the key to survival. We can only reconcile the limitations on our access to objective reality by focusing on adaptation. Adaptation provides the bridge between the dualities.
Darwin made the first great step by showing us that we are what we adapt to. The critical question asks not what the objective world is, but how can we adapt to it in ways that guarantee survival of the children’s children. An ethic that serves anything less serves a false god. Only a morality based on survival of the species, survival of the generations, provides the scope necessary for making long-term decisions. The constructs, intellectual artifacts, and networks the nervous system creates, the source of our reality, must be judged according to how well they adapt to the objective world in the long term.
Our means of adapting and the source of our cosmology apply a process more of art than science. Essentially, the nervous system responds to various forms of energy by creating pathways in the brain and synopsis that will recognize the energy the next time it comes around. The big-brained animals can create software from those experiences that allow them to anticipate events, make tools, form social groups, and conceive reality in various ways. For purposes of this discussion, that software provides the key to reality. A cosmology constitutes the macro part of that software.
The constructs, the intellectual artifacts our imagination forges from our experience of energy, start out globally and are constantly refined by experience until a final version emerges. This may happen far too early for an individual to discover that he has employed a poor adaptation. An initially successful adaptation may only serve for the short-term or perform marginally. However, one may stick with it without realizing its shortcomings for reasons of failed biology or emotional insecurity, not move on.
People who do not believe in objective reality, who do not move on, will have little interest in discovering its secrets. The search for how to exploit the environment (and other people) will trump the search for preserving it (and peace). While the constructs we develop to cope with will never exactly mirror the objective world, they can come closer and closer. If we do not believe that we can improve our mirrors of reality by observation and experiment, with the use of symbols and logic that convey what we discover, we will be governed by random, selfish behavior—the tribalism that knows no peace. Belief in an objective world we cannot control is essential to a cosmology of survival.
How can we measure successful adaptations? We must start with on-the-ground consequences, such as an adaptation’s impact on resources. Sacrificing one resource, like water, to cut the cost of another resource, like oil, accomplishes nothing. If everyone in America drove an electric car, the consumption of coal, the major air polluter, would increase exponentially. Public transportation using efficient engines provides the most effective means of conservation in transportation.
The paradigm of industrial economies for centuries now has been what I call the Ethic of the Machine: Take as much wealth from the earth as possible with as little labor as possible. This evolved into the Ethic of Capitalism: Turn real wealth into virtual wealth as fast as possible. The unintended consequences of these algorithms, adaptations to our machines and artifacts, produce waste and other short-term solutions along with ‘wealth.’
Our success with tools has gone over the top. We now adapt to our tools rather than to the environment that fashioned our genes. Our tools also produce a good deal of surplus. The adaptation to that consequence created an economy based on people buying things they do not need. If necessity is the mother of invention, surplus is the father of waste. Our tools are designed for financial profit, ignoring their impact on nature’s algorithms and the need for meaningful work. At some point, our genes will no longer adapt to the environment our tools have created—end of the species. Survival of the species as the supreme value is essential to a cosmology of survival.
Any cosmology worth the title must address the two constants of all cultures: natural selection’s paradox and the energy trap discussed earlier. I use “constants” both in the mathematical sense and because they never go away. There is no permanent cure other than vigilance. A cosmology for a viable democracy must hold that government exists to protect people from abuse of their labor and to discourage short-term, regardless of profit, adaptations that do not solve short-term problems.
Darwin studied how species adapted (for example, how birds developed different bills and feet). He did not examine the flip side of that coin, how the adaptations changed behavior. Other species enjoy few choices. Their designs fit into a particular notch in a specific environment. Humans, through tools, adapt to a much broader range of environments. The environment we choose will make or break us. Will it be the ruthless acquisition of money or the common good as the goal? Lincoln understood how much the common good depended upon people’s ability to enjoy the fruits of their labor, work that everyone benefited from.
Beware. Competition does not improve everything. In a just world, it improves very little. It indicates that our designs do not embrace all people. Tribalism remains part of our cosmology. Many cultures evolved a construct for restraining tribalism. The common father, the one God, made all men brothers. That adaptation succeeded locally but resulted in bigger tribes and hence bigger conflicts. Religions and nations took the place of tribes.
Tribes have coalesced around race, age, sex, geography, theology, professions, and ideology. The evolution of justice and democracy has broken down many of those barriers to equality. As integration of the old separations proceeds, the division between the haves and have-nots, the most virulent separation, fills the void left by dissolving class distinctions. There is a reason why the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. The conflation of the Father with the values of money provides the rallying point for the Money Tribe, a new high for the increasing worship of virtual wealth.
When we were hunter-gatherers, necessity, what people adapted to, counseled sharing both the work and the product of that work. Animals, something of intrinsic value, were deified because they provided the means of survival. One killed only what one needed and people knew when they had enough. Meat could not be stored. Subsequent adaptations, starting with agriculture, changed that environment.
New divisions of labor required a medium of exchange: money. Divisions of labor became so specialized that people found themselves totally dependent on money. We worship that which sustains us. Many confuse money, which has no intrinsic value, with wealth. The Money Tribe evolved from the old class system that defined who could and who could not compete in any given activity. The huge increase in the cost of college educations, for example, now decides who gets that education.
The Money Tribe propagandized a mythology to justify its pursuit of greed. First, God made the earth for our pleasure. The Bible can be read that way. Conservation, therefore, denies God’s gift to us. That construct supplies a critical stimulus for the denial of global warming.
Next, the acquisition of money manifests God’s love. That precept provides the sub-rosa justification for the fight against government programs to mitigate the gap between haves and have-nots. An objective investigation focused on how to provide everyone with health care at a reasonable cost gets lost in the cosmology which holds that those who cannot afford coverage do not deserve it. Nobody will say it out loud, except Ayn Rand’s acolytes, but one of the apologies that accompanied self-interest as the measure of all things holds that money provides the litmus test of God’s love. Any interference or mitigation by government in the competition to exploit resources, including labor, defies God’s plan.
These two tenants of the cosmology advanced by the Money Tribe provide the force behind deregulation: the Money Tribe’s right to plunder the earth and labor. Those who do not subscribe to this cosmology need no proof of the benefits that conservation and universal health care bestow on all people. The benefits are obvious if one looks at cause-and-effect relationships. Expensive health care and its expensive health insurance beggar labor and reduce money for government assistance. One can think of no other basis for the richest nation on earth to deny its citizens what every other industrial culture now provides: affordable health care for all. Beggaring labor serves the Money Tribe; it makes supplicants out of workers.
The health care debacle manifests a symptom of a cruel cosmology, one holding that an unfettered Darwinian struggle for the acquisition of money achieves the result God intended for determining people’s lot in life—one of the consequences of confusing money with intrinsic value. I need not define the cosmology further. It has many similar features, such as the claim that taxes steal from the righteous and give to the morally corrupt.
There remains one other paradigm that has escaped everyone’s attention. When Lincoln opined that labor deserved the product of the sweat of its brow, he read the Bible that way, most things were produced by labor. Today machines and capital dominate production, provide the “sweat.” Those who own the machines and the capital claim that they deserve most of the profits. As Marx predicted, labor has become an appendage to the machine and thereby lost its bargaining chip. Only government can protect labor from the abuses that follow.
For decades, conservative propaganda has advanced the cosmology of greed and promoted the self-fulfilling prophecy that government can do nothing right. Even labor has bought into a pejorative view of itself. The plight of workers is their own fault, not the misfortune of exporting our productive economy. They did not get enough education, as if we could all be lawyers. They should have three jobs instead of two, as if their wages were fair.
Everything comes down to the evolution of adaptations. Adapting to a ‘free market’ paradigm that tears society asunder by promoting a competition between atomized individuals, the war of all against all, for material goods has not served humanity’s chances of survival. It cannibalizes resources, including labor.
Our problems remain insoluble only because of the war between cosmologies. The cosmology that supports greed makes war on everyone and everything that does not support it. To survive, we need empathy between all members of the species. That requires a means of production and distribution that provides work for everyone and cares for all.
Cosmologies remain hidden by deception, even to those who hold them. They constitute one’s soul. America needs some soul searching.
