Technology and its forms are like an infinite number of roads with and infinite number of forks. For instance, the internet has been shaped and formed by the way that we have used it. Despite the hype from polyannas who say "it makes us smarter." or "it can change the world." a recent survey was done as to what the vast majority of Americans use the internet for. #1 was social networking...#2 was email, #3 was www use consisting of buying and selling and viewing porn and sports. The web was dubbed "in jest" world wide wiretap by its creators. That is to say, the internet is being increasingly used for pernicious reasons namely surveliance and disinformation. Other than that it is basically an extremely powerful advertizing tool. This is not a description or criticism OF THE TECHNOLOGY. It is a description and criticism OF THE USES OF THE TECHNOLOGY. It is the uses of a technology that will shape the direction it moves in in the future. And at this point that is not a good direction for the internent.
The only thing that "makes us smarter" is what we do with our mind. The use of the internet is a generic activity. it is really simply an all encompassing almost instant form of communication. But "communication" is itself not an end but a means. The real question we must increasingly ask ourselves is the old Aristotelian questions of ends. We can "communicate" with anyone we please anytime. OK?? And??? Then what?? The real question of the future is not increasing access to technology or increasing internet use or whatever. That is being achieved at an almost breathless rate. The question of the future is "WHAT are we going to communicate about with each other??" What purpose does the communication serve. It seems to me that communication with no or hardly any purpose is increasing.
Again, the point is, technology moves in the directions of its most used applications. If we use technology for increasing frivilous forms of communicating the technolgy will increasingly facilitate that application in a vicious cycle. The development of technology does not occur in a beam but in a spectrum. The particular uses that people most make of the technology is the direction that technology will develop fastest. This is to say the most important component of any technology is the mind using it. We should consider that more often.
John
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010 (journal entry)
The contradictions of the Left
The Left's view that Justice is promoted through the promotion of group identities and by a powerful central government is fallacious historically.
Historically, the Civil War was not a matter of a powerful Federal government standing up for the rights of black people. The Civil War was started by Abolitionists, both Black and White, who rightly refused to abide by the edicts of the federal government to protect slavery where it already existed. It is true that the federal government tried to prevent the spread of slavery to new territories. However, even this limited effort was attenuated in 1854 by the Kansas and Nebraska Act that introduced the unjust idea of Popular Sovereignty as to whether to allow slavery.
By its protection of Slave owners rights the Federal government was itself dividing the Union not upon sectional lines but racial lines. Thus we see that it was as much the actions of the federal government in its protection of slavery that promoted disunion as it was the actions of individual states. It was therefore a false choice that the war was either to end slavery or save the Union. It was only by ending slavery that the Union, disunified along racial lines, could be restored. Any nation thus divided along racial lines was already disunified before the war began and even before secession. This is what Lincoln meant in his "House Divided" speech.
In the South, secession was dishonestly justified by an argument for "states' rights" and decentralized power. This was to gain support of the majority who were non-slaveholders. The primary issue at the Secession Conventions was slavery, pure and simple. They could not abide the growing Abolitionist movement in the North that wanted to attack slavery and the South as immoral and evil. The South, therefore, saw itself as a different nation than the North culturally as opposed to any political differences that existed. This was demonstrated in the Confederate Constitution that was almost a duplicate of the Federal Constitution in its political arrangements but was specific in its protection of the cultural institution of chattel slavery. The Confederacy had not allegiance to State or even individual rights as demonstrated by it actions domestically in the South during the war.
In this historical example we see that contradiction in the notion of the Left that it has historically been a powerful central government that promotes Justice. In the Civil Rights Era we see this same contradiction. The Civil Rights Era is viewed by most on the Left as being the story of the Federal government's promotion of Justice. Although there is some justification for this view compared to during the Civil War, it is not so simple a story. Segragation was a pattern of laws enforced by state and local governments and in many ways by the Federal government where it had jurisdiction such as in DC during the Wilson administration.
It was only by the late 1950s or so that the Federal government began grudgingly to oppose Segragation laws. It did not do this out of any sense of Justice but by being agitated against by the Sovereign power in a free nation: the People in their political capacity. Just as the Abolitionists, as free citizens, formed groups to oppose slavery, so Civil rights minded American citizens formed groups to oppose injustice in a Segragated and disunified society.
The idea that an enormously powerful central government will be responsive to minority rights or civil rights for minorities of people is a quaint and fallacious argument unsupported by the hard facts of history. It is the People themselves, organizing and acting in their political capacity that promote any real and lasting change in a free society. The Federal government and all the governments in the nation down to dogcatcher belong to them in their political capacity as free citizens. This is written directly into the Constitution by the method of amending it through conventions of the People.
It is in the nature of an unchecked and overweening central government to usurp Justice, even when no plan or conspiracy for such usurpation exists. A wolf cannot be expected to control his ravenous appetite when guarding the hens. The Left, or large parts of it, have never seemed to understand this. That fact to this moment baffles me.
Power into will, will into appetite
And appetite, a universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power
Must make perforce a universal prey
And last eat himself up.
William Shakespeare from "Troilus and Cressida"
The Left's view that Justice is promoted through the promotion of group identities and by a powerful central government is fallacious historically.
Historically, the Civil War was not a matter of a powerful Federal government standing up for the rights of black people. The Civil War was started by Abolitionists, both Black and White, who rightly refused to abide by the edicts of the federal government to protect slavery where it already existed. It is true that the federal government tried to prevent the spread of slavery to new territories. However, even this limited effort was attenuated in 1854 by the Kansas and Nebraska Act that introduced the unjust idea of Popular Sovereignty as to whether to allow slavery.
By its protection of Slave owners rights the Federal government was itself dividing the Union not upon sectional lines but racial lines. Thus we see that it was as much the actions of the federal government in its protection of slavery that promoted disunion as it was the actions of individual states. It was therefore a false choice that the war was either to end slavery or save the Union. It was only by ending slavery that the Union, disunified along racial lines, could be restored. Any nation thus divided along racial lines was already disunified before the war began and even before secession. This is what Lincoln meant in his "House Divided" speech.
In the South, secession was dishonestly justified by an argument for "states' rights" and decentralized power. This was to gain support of the majority who were non-slaveholders. The primary issue at the Secession Conventions was slavery, pure and simple. They could not abide the growing Abolitionist movement in the North that wanted to attack slavery and the South as immoral and evil. The South, therefore, saw itself as a different nation than the North culturally as opposed to any political differences that existed. This was demonstrated in the Confederate Constitution that was almost a duplicate of the Federal Constitution in its political arrangements but was specific in its protection of the cultural institution of chattel slavery. The Confederacy had not allegiance to State or even individual rights as demonstrated by it actions domestically in the South during the war.
In this historical example we see that contradiction in the notion of the Left that it has historically been a powerful central government that promotes Justice. In the Civil Rights Era we see this same contradiction. The Civil Rights Era is viewed by most on the Left as being the story of the Federal government's promotion of Justice. Although there is some justification for this view compared to during the Civil War, it is not so simple a story. Segragation was a pattern of laws enforced by state and local governments and in many ways by the Federal government where it had jurisdiction such as in DC during the Wilson administration.
It was only by the late 1950s or so that the Federal government began grudgingly to oppose Segragation laws. It did not do this out of any sense of Justice but by being agitated against by the Sovereign power in a free nation: the People in their political capacity. Just as the Abolitionists, as free citizens, formed groups to oppose slavery, so Civil rights minded American citizens formed groups to oppose injustice in a Segragated and disunified society.
The idea that an enormously powerful central government will be responsive to minority rights or civil rights for minorities of people is a quaint and fallacious argument unsupported by the hard facts of history. It is the People themselves, organizing and acting in their political capacity that promote any real and lasting change in a free society. The Federal government and all the governments in the nation down to dogcatcher belong to them in their political capacity as free citizens. This is written directly into the Constitution by the method of amending it through conventions of the People.
It is in the nature of an unchecked and overweening central government to usurp Justice, even when no plan or conspiracy for such usurpation exists. A wolf cannot be expected to control his ravenous appetite when guarding the hens. The Left, or large parts of it, have never seemed to understand this. That fact to this moment baffles me.
Power into will, will into appetite
And appetite, a universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power
Must make perforce a universal prey
And last eat himself up.
William Shakespeare from "Troilus and Cressida"
Sunday, August 22, 2010
From my Journal:August 18 2010
The US today faces a crisis of purpose the like of which it has not faced since 1860. This is no crisis of confidence in the country per se. There is an over-confidence on Right and Left in the purpose of our political agendas, deeming them to be essential to pursue the purpose we believe in for the country. The crisis is rooted in the sharp disagreements over the purpose of the United States in the present and the future. The disagreements are not only between Left and Right but within them as well.
The differences in purpose are rooted in the different ideas we hold on the Right and Left regarding the Identity of the United States. How do we see ourselves?? The Left identifies America with the idea of the struggle for Justice. This largely centered around the Civil War and Civil Rights Eras. It is primarily emphasizing the equal treatment both legally and socially of different indentifiable groups. The Right identifies America with the struggle for Liberty. This view emphasizes the Revolution, the Declaration, and increasing World War II as the time when the struggle for Liberty and America as "the most powerful nation on Earth" came together.
So we see contradiction and dichotomies in both poles of American politics. Starting on the Right, we'll then examine the American Left.
The Right has melded the struggle to be "the most powerful nation on Earth" into one unified purpose for the nation that it views as self-supporting. To the Right, it is self-evident that being and struggling to stay the most powerful nation on Earth supports the struggle for Liberty. The Right, to move forward, must disabuse itself of this vision. We must recognize that it is often the struggle to become and then stay the most powerful nation on earth that subverts, not supports, the struggle for Liberty. It is at once parodoxical and tragic that those nations at the pinnacle of the protection of Liberty often blindly move toward the pinnacle of world power. It is the desperate struggle to succeed in the latter that ultimately saboutages and hampers the struggle in the former. Ultimately a nation must choose between freedom at home or empire abroad, it cannot have both because the efforts to secure the later neccessarily threaten the former.
We must have the vision of our Fathers. Our greatness is not built upon power, either military or economic. Greatness is built upon a divided and gentle government, limited in scope, whose purpose is the protection of the Liberty of the individual person. Power flows into this kind of nation from the trust that it engenders within and among the people between themselves and their government. It is this trust that unifies the nation. It is this unity that over time fosters national greatness. It is this trust that we are losing, this unity that seems in danger and this greatness that one can only whisper about now as it becomes a memory.
The process of rebuilding trust is slow and must begin from with a nation, not from ephemeral successes outside of of it. Goodness and Greatness are perilous partners. Any identity that seeks to combine the two into one national purpose is a journey with no happy endings, fraught with danger laced in sorrow.
(more soon on the contradictions of the Left)
The differences in purpose are rooted in the different ideas we hold on the Right and Left regarding the Identity of the United States. How do we see ourselves?? The Left identifies America with the idea of the struggle for Justice. This largely centered around the Civil War and Civil Rights Eras. It is primarily emphasizing the equal treatment both legally and socially of different indentifiable groups. The Right identifies America with the struggle for Liberty. This view emphasizes the Revolution, the Declaration, and increasing World War II as the time when the struggle for Liberty and America as "the most powerful nation on Earth" came together.
So we see contradiction and dichotomies in both poles of American politics. Starting on the Right, we'll then examine the American Left.
The Right has melded the struggle to be "the most powerful nation on Earth" into one unified purpose for the nation that it views as self-supporting. To the Right, it is self-evident that being and struggling to stay the most powerful nation on Earth supports the struggle for Liberty. The Right, to move forward, must disabuse itself of this vision. We must recognize that it is often the struggle to become and then stay the most powerful nation on earth that subverts, not supports, the struggle for Liberty. It is at once parodoxical and tragic that those nations at the pinnacle of the protection of Liberty often blindly move toward the pinnacle of world power. It is the desperate struggle to succeed in the latter that ultimately saboutages and hampers the struggle in the former. Ultimately a nation must choose between freedom at home or empire abroad, it cannot have both because the efforts to secure the later neccessarily threaten the former.
We must have the vision of our Fathers. Our greatness is not built upon power, either military or economic. Greatness is built upon a divided and gentle government, limited in scope, whose purpose is the protection of the Liberty of the individual person. Power flows into this kind of nation from the trust that it engenders within and among the people between themselves and their government. It is this trust that unifies the nation. It is this unity that over time fosters national greatness. It is this trust that we are losing, this unity that seems in danger and this greatness that one can only whisper about now as it becomes a memory.
The process of rebuilding trust is slow and must begin from with a nation, not from ephemeral successes outside of of it. Goodness and Greatness are perilous partners. Any identity that seeks to combine the two into one national purpose is a journey with no happy endings, fraught with danger laced in sorrow.
(more soon on the contradictions of the Left)
Sunday, August 8, 2010
The Strategic Situation(I)
Overall, American foreign policy is just as incoherent and directionless as in the final 5 or 6 years of the Bush 43 administration. What American policy there is are policies directed at either Iran or North Korea and trying to "engage" the help of larger powers, most of whose interests coincide only vaguely and occasionally with our own.
Afghanistan is a tactical quagmire and a strategic disaster for the US. Iraq is proving to be that as well. The effects of these two endless wars have been to "terrorize" the US military. That is: to shape its training to a point where it is all geared toward "anti-terrorism" and heavy combat training is either delayed or posponed indefinitely. In this sense the US military has again become a hollowed out force with units only prepared for nation-building operations in Iraq or Afghanistan and unprepared for any type of more conventional warfare. It is a general rule of thumb in world affairs that the events you are not prepared for are the ones usually thrust upon you. The next war between major powers will be both conventional and unconventional.
The strategic situation vis a vis China and Russia sees a deepening of their relationship on the military and economic levels. This is perilous for the US and some way must be found to drive a wedge between these two giants as it is obvious the US is unwilling or unable to recognize the threat a Sino-Russian reproachment will bring. One curious little note is that Russia has cut off all grain exports until December 1st due to a drought/and or fires. It is of interest, at least to me, that just 25 or 30 years ago every Western analyst would have recognized this action as a war preparation. But of course that is now unthinkable. (more soon).
Afghanistan is a tactical quagmire and a strategic disaster for the US. Iraq is proving to be that as well. The effects of these two endless wars have been to "terrorize" the US military. That is: to shape its training to a point where it is all geared toward "anti-terrorism" and heavy combat training is either delayed or posponed indefinitely. In this sense the US military has again become a hollowed out force with units only prepared for nation-building operations in Iraq or Afghanistan and unprepared for any type of more conventional warfare. It is a general rule of thumb in world affairs that the events you are not prepared for are the ones usually thrust upon you. The next war between major powers will be both conventional and unconventional.
The strategic situation vis a vis China and Russia sees a deepening of their relationship on the military and economic levels. This is perilous for the US and some way must be found to drive a wedge between these two giants as it is obvious the US is unwilling or unable to recognize the threat a Sino-Russian reproachment will bring. One curious little note is that Russia has cut off all grain exports until December 1st due to a drought/and or fires. It is of interest, at least to me, that just 25 or 30 years ago every Western analyst would have recognized this action as a war preparation. But of course that is now unthinkable. (more soon).
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