Taking and managing risk is also an acquired skill.
Like riding a bike or swimming in the sea.
Only nowadays the key word is safety. Safety, not safety net.
We are taught to avoid risk, at all costs, instead of how to lend a helping hand towards the fallen ones.
This is why we pay lip service to entrepreneurship but despise failure… as if it were possible to have one without the other.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
Have you left no sense of decency?”
Joseph Nye Welch, 9 June 1954,
replying to Senator Joseph McCarthy.
As an European, I’m fascinated with how intense the Americans are.
‘knows nothing (nor cares) about Kommunism’…
As if Joe McCarthy had never existed – btw, he was a fascist – and Kommunism had been a German thing. All other languages use “c” when spelling the word, you know…
As a Romanian – who had spent the first 30 years of his life under the yoke – I can pretend to know a thing or two about the subject. Given the fact that Romania had been subjected to both fascist and communist rule. 1938-1945 and 1945-1989, respectively.
Apparently, and declaratively, those two are at the opposing ends of the political spectrum.
In the day to day practice, both belong to the totalitarian mode of controlling a society/country.
Before going any further, I’m going to mention a few traits shared by both modi operandi.
Communism had been first formulated – by Marx – and only then put in practice.
Fascism, like most other political ideologies, had been first practiced and only later put into words.
As far as I know, for communism to be successfully instated in a country, that country had to have had experienced a bout of fascism. Even if it had not been declared as such. This is a necessary condition but it isn’t sufficient. Fascism had been invented – declaratively – in Italy, but Italy hasn’t – not yet, anyway – become communist.
All communist and fascist regimes had ended in abject failure.
While all communist regimes had been instated in former fascist(oid) countries – to the best of my knowledge – fascistoid regimes may be, and already have been, reinstated in former communist countries.
There are also a few notable differences.
Communism pretends all property belongs to the entire people while fascism allows individuals to retain the ownership of their ‘belongings’. But only theoretically and subject to various limitations.
Under communist rule, the ‘democratic process’ is used exclusively to rubber-stamp whatever decisions had already been made by the current dictator while some fascist regimes use the electoral process to gouge the ‘social temperature’ of the ‘political organism’.
While the communist regimes tend to crumble under their own weight, the fascists usually grow too big (cocky) for their own good.
Before ending, I must mention the fact that both China and Russia have become fascist countries, despite China’s leaders pretending their country, literally their country, continues to be communist and despite Putin pretending Russia is a democracy. A democracy which attempts to denazify Ukraine…
“Tough times create tough men. Tough men create easy times.
Easy times create weak men. Weak men create tough times.“
American proverb
“Wealth lasts only for three generations: one to make it, one to keep it, one to squander it“
Chinese proverb
“If you raise your children, you get to spoil your grandchildren.
If you spoil your children, you get to raise your grandchildren.“
Popular word of mouth
There’s no denying that, on average, each generation fares better than its predecessor.
Then why some people end up worse than their parents?
Is it a social thing?
Is it in their upbringing?
Is it the consequence of bad personal choices?
The easy way out would be to consider that legislation, material status, the culture one was born into and even the upbringing offered by the parents are nothing but circumstances. And, ultimately, it’s the individual who makes the call. And bears the consequences…
But the above mentioned individual doesn’t rise from and into a complete void… so I need to go deeper!
An equally true but somewhat more useful observation would be that we’re dealing here with something more important than mere wealth.
‘There’s no such thing! Nothing is more important than Wealth!’
Yeah, right… Individual people keep squandering the personal wealth accumulated by their forefathers, the humankind keeps going forward and you tell me personal wealth is the most important thing here…
But you do make a good point. Your insistence, obsessive even, about wealth being the crux of everything is very relevant.
Since I agree with you that wealth is important, indeed, then maybe it’s the ‘insistence’ which is causing the problem…
First of all, allow me to make a simple distinction.
There is wealth – structured opportunity, I’ll discuss this notion in another post, and there is personal wealth. Opportunity which belongs to somebody.
When an individual squanders the wealth inherited from their parents – or even that which they had managed to put together themselves, the wealth itself – the accrued opportunity – doesn’t disappear from the face of the earth. It just passes from one hand to another. Most of it, anyway. For the simple reason that most of today’s wealth is expressed in money. Which is fungible.
‘OK. So individual people squandering their inherited wealth do not represent such a big problem. The total wealth already present ‘on the face of the Earth’ remains (more or less) the same, no matter who owns it. And since new wealth is created everyday, the humankind, on aggregate, goes forward.’
That’s how things used to be. That’s how things had evolved for the last ten millennia or so. Ever since our forefathers had invented agriculture. Agriculture and money… Land and money cannot be destroyed. Buildings and almost everything else which carries value can. Be destroyed. Land and money also, actually, but it’s a lot harder to do it.
But there’s a catch here.
For wealth to do its trick – to function as an opportunity, people have to have access to it.
That’s why, for example, people do not keep their money under the mattress. When deposited in a bank, money will end up being used. The bank will lend them to somebody who needs it and that somebody will put that money to work, In no matter what shape or form. Kept under a mattress, money becomes mostly useless. At least for the time being…
And this is where ‘insistence’ – our obsessive insistence – that money is the only worthwhile goal for any respectable person becomes counterproductive.
‘Are you a communist?!?’
On the contrary, my dear Watson!
In fact, Marx had been just as infatuated with money as Milton Friedman was going to be a century later. With more or less similar results…
Friedman taught us that greed is good. Profit uber alles. That getting money trumps everything else. That getting money is not only good for the individual itself but also commendable. That everybody should make it their goal to become rich!
Marx, on the other hand – please remember that the ‘other’ hand is nothing but similar to its twin – advocated for all wealth to be stripped from its rightful owners.
See what I mean? Both Marx and Friedman had been thinking only about ownership. Who owns that wealth!
On average, we deal with the same situation.
According to Friedman – pushing his advice to the very limit, there’s no problem if someone owns all the money in the world. If it so happened, so be it.
According to Marx, nobody should own anything.
On average, the wealth corresponding to each living human in both situations would be the same.
We already know the consequences of Marx’s teachings. When all the wealth present in one country is managed by a very small number of people, the whole situation goes south. Fast. Very fast!
We also know what happens when the market is cornered. Becomes suffocated by a monopoly. The whole situation goes south. That’s why we cherish the freedom of the market!
Doesn’t make much sense?
To insist that the market must be free and simultaneously maintain that ‘greed is good’?
Yep! My point exactly…
The Bolshevik Revolution had nothing to do with cooperation. Nor with civilization.
It was nothing but the famished underdog eating the bloated plutocrat.
The ensuing indigestion lasted for almost a century and resulted in a huge number of people suffering from ideological food-poisoning. Too many of the poisoned ending up dead…
Yet here we are. Again!
Trying to sort out a re-heated dish.
Which had already been proved to be unpalatable!
No wonder ‘gaslighting’ had been determined to be ‘word of the year’…
As for Kropotkin… he was a true revolutionary!
He was gaslighting his audience before the term had even been coined…
‘Jungle’ – or ‘bush’, is where evolution takes place.
Some of us might see it as a venue for cut-throat competition but it’s nothing but the opposite of it.
The fact that some of us misperceive the jungle doesn’t change the evidence.
In nature, death doesn’t happen at the whim of someone.
A lion kills only when hungry. And chooses to hunt the already weak. Leaving the rest of the herd in a better situation.
The kind of cooperation designed by Marx and put in practice by Kropotkin – the communist ‘civilization’, is the epitome of stagnation. When humans are no longer free to fine-tune competition with cooperation – and are forced to cooperate as they are told to from above, things end up in chaos.
All revolutions – 1789, 1917, 1989, have proven – time and time again, that things cannot be sustainably maintained as the rulers consider to be appropriate. That no matter how skillful the ‘designers’ consider themselves to be, society is a too complex thing for a small gang of however powerful people to be able to ‘keep afloat’.
This being the point where Marx, along with all other ideologues, had gotten it completely wrong.
According to Marx, it’s enough for a bunch of people to pretend they have a ‘theoretically clearer understanding of the line of march’!
In fact, this is the sole argument made by Marx when explaining why the communists were entitled to lead the proletariat.
‘Because they knew better!’
Well, we know, now, what it means to be led by people who pretend to be above all others!
By people who pretend to be better than the rest…
Does it really matter?
Both fascism and communism appear when enough people are fed up. Really fed up.
So fed up that they have become gullible enough to accept the lies promised by those who want to get ‘at the top’, in the given circumstances.
The difference between fascism and communism, the only one, being the exact conditions which had caused the ire of the people.
Communism can, and will presently be, presented as the only possible alternative to those confronted by a ‘black ceiling’.
Fascism, on the other hand, can, and will presently be, presented as the only possible alternative to those confronted by a ‘glass ceiling’.
The always poor who have no chance of improving their lot will accept the lies promised by the communists. They don’t know any better so they believe those lies are possible.
The impoverished who have no chance of returning to their former situation will accept the lies professed by the fascists. They know what they have lost and need to find a culprit to blame for what had happened.
In a sense you can identify fascism with the right and communism with the left.
In reality, fascism and communism are the two ugly faces of the same fake coin.
An embassy is a conduit.
It brings information back and forth between the ‘host’ and the ‘sender’.
A spy ring is (intended to be) a ‘one way pipe’. It gathers information about the ‘host’ and transports it to the sender.
They have in common the fact that the bulk of the information is gathered from ‘open’ sources. From the media, that is. Newspapers, TV, radio, internet…
Imagine now the following situation.
There is this planet. Let’s say ours. Inhabited by us, the human people.
And you have some other people. One or more species capable of interplanetary travel. Who have found out about this planet and want to learn more about us before making contact.
Since they haven’t yet conquered us – as per our knowledge, and since there’s no evidence of any galaxy wide conflict raging on we may presume the aliens are fundamentally peaceful. Either naturally ’empathic’ – hence in no need whatsoever of being governed, or having such a ‘natural’ form of government that they’re very happy with it.
In their attempt to learn about us and to understand our situation before engaging in any way with us, the aliens have sent an ‘undercover’ fact-finding mission on Earth.
Right now!
When a country capable of yielding almost half the (self) destructing power available on Earth ‘happens to be’ at loggerheads with a coalition of countries which controls most of the other half of the destruction power already mentioned above.
The local agent employed by the fact-finding mission compiles two news articles which, in his opinion, summarize perfectly what’s going on on the planet.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ‘planetary divide’,
So.
Forget, if you can, about the war in Ukraine and about the US mid-term elections.
Let’s pretend you’re the head of the alien fact-finding mission.
What recommendation would you send back to those calling the shots in your organization after reading the two articles I mentioned above?
I’m going to discuss four things in this post.
The difference between a scientific paper and a piece of ‘mere’ literature.
And what can be learned by analyzing a message.
I’ll start with the second.
A message has two layers of meaning.
The ‘prima facie’ and the ‘deeper levels’.
When somebody asks ‘What time is it, please!’, the first thing you do is to check your watch.
Most of the time, it’s the proper way to react in this situation.
But not always! Sometimes, the guy only wants to find out what kind of watch you’re wearing. To determine if it’s worth the effort. To steal it from you!
If looked at from the proper angle, most messages speak volumes.
The first volume is always about what the ‘speaker’ wants to convey to their audience.
The next ones are about the speaker. About their ability to speak, about their manner of thinking… and so on.
When speaking, the speaker wants to convey a limited amount of information. The intended message. When listening, an attentive listener may learn more about the speaker than about the issue at hand!
A scientific paper starts by stating a conclusion.
And continues by listing the arguments.
An ‘ordinary’ piece of literature builds a ‘scaffolding’. Introduces a series of ‘things’ and leads the reader towards a conclusion. Which is more likely suggested rather than imposed.
Should I continue?
About what I learned by reading the Amnesty International report?
The most important issue here – for Amnesty International, being the fact that “Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians”.
As if Ukraine was the big bully. Who had enough resources to carefully select ‘tactics’!
“Attacks launched from populated civilian areas”.
Hello!!! Ukraine itself is a populated country! Mostly by civilians…
This is not a joust. Which may be organized ‘out there’, on an open field. If both sides agree…
This war, like almost all others, is about conquering, and defending, populated areas!
“Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians“
Finally!
But shouldn’t this be the ‘main course’ of the Amnesty International report?!?
After all, it was Putin who had ordered the Russian army to invade Ukraine…
It had been his orders which had started this mayhem!
I will wrap up this post by introducing the third concept.
“The phrase useful idiot designates a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda.“
Instead of any conclusions, I’ll be asking you a question.
What is the real importance of studying ‘humanities’?
I’m getting old. Old enough, as a good friend of mine had noticed, to have a way closer relation with sex than ever before.
I am a sexagenarian!
Which gives me certain bragging rights.
You see, everything around us has been made – or started – during my watch. Or earlier…
There is a small catch, though.
Not everything around us is good. In working order. Sustainable!
Some 50 years ago, humankind had developed the means to destroy itself. Remember MAD?
We – our fathers, actually, took a step back. And took the necessary steps. In the end, nothing happened. We’re still here, in spite of having the possibility to spoil everything.
Nowadays, we’ve reached another inflection point. And no, I’m not speaking about ‘global warming’. Not exclusively, anyway.
Global warming is only one of the many things which may go wrong.
One of the many ways in which we may fuck everything up!
My point being that it’s not the first time in history that we are able to fuck everything up.
It’s the first time in history that we are fully aware of the many ways in which things might go totally wrong and we’re practically doing nothing!
Why?!?
Because we have grown old!
When I grew up, there were relatively few old people around.
A lot more than when my parents had grown up but a lot less than now.
When apes had become human – when humanoids learned to speak – old people were precious assets.
Having lived a lot – and being able to share their experience, in detail – they had become depositories of knowledge. The go-to place for when you wanted to learn about something. When you needed a certain piece of information.
Hence the old-timers had, gradually, accrued a lot of respect. As a category.
Add the fact that in order to grow old – to survive for long enough, it helps to make ‘the right calls’. OK, you also need to be lucky… but being smart does come in handy…
Are you done yet? Adding these two? Being looked up to because you are old with thinking good about yourself?
Did you get ‘confirmation bias‘?
In the ‘good old days’, people who had reached my age had their ‘confirmation bias’ tempered by ‘impotence’.
No, not only sexual impotence…
In those days, individuals were a lot more aware than we are today of how much we depend on each other. Of the fact that individually we are impotent! The old ones knew they were going to starve if the young ones would cease providing for them while the young ones were aware of how useful the old ones could be.
Nowadays… We, the oldies, continue to believe we know everything – we survived, didn’t we? – while the young bucks believe they can find out whatever they might need from the internet…
Meanwhile, we – the oldies – no longer need the youngsters to provide for us.
We are wealthier than ever before, we have pension plans and we vote as a team… the world is ours, as it should be!
And since we don’t have so much more to live…
But how sustainable is this situation?
For the shortest of the imaginable time-frames…
‘Repeated and serious representations…’
‘I told you how I see things.
Hence if you do what I warned you not to, I’ll be free to punch you in the nose!’
Is this the epitome of ‘bullying’?
Or, rather, of pushing yourself into a corner?!?
Now, if Pelosi actually lands in Taiwan, how far will Xi go in order to ‘save face‘?
Let it go… he would lose too much of it. Too much ‘face’. Any threat he would utter from then on, would be met by deaf ears.
Do anything foolish…
On the other hand, China is the world’s biggest importer of food! And energy…
“Who is telling the mind? Am I not my mind?”
“Your mind is only a part of you. Like the driver is only a part of a car. Irreplaceable but…
Most of us believe it’s the driver who tells the car where to go…
Well, the driver has to follow the road, obey the rules, interact with the other drivers, take care of their own needs… fuel and maintain the car… only then they are ‘free’ to ‘pursue’ the destination.
Which destination is, more often than we care to admit, chosen by the heart rather than with the help of the mind.
So yes, it’s the mind who should tell itself what to believe. Only it needs to reach a certain serenity in order to make a proper decision.
To be able to choose by itself instead of accepting, indiscriminately, ‘suggestions’!”
nicichiarasa 