The State of American Thought: Ensnared in a fallacious liberal-conservative dichotomy
By Ethan Sewall
()
About this ebook
The state of American thought: Ensnared in a fallacious liberal-conservative dichotomy is a book in two parts. The first part, Deconstructing social construction: Embracing ecumenical humanism, is a theoretical framework of American culture that investigates the way we human Subjects have constructed our social reality. Its purpose is to expose and facilitate the eradication of negative building blocks people have used in that construction that detrimentally affect their lives. Introducing a new brand of humanism called ecumenical humanism, it is premised on the idea that human suffering can be divided into two categories: one consisting of sufferings that are inevitable parts of human life because their causes are beyond our control and the other of sufferings that are not inevitable parts of human life because they are man-made and therefore lie within the realm of our control. Because these two kinds of sufferings have existed since time immemorial, they have become conflated, and the idea of altogether ridding ourselves of even just the man-made ones has not, for the most part, been considered a serious collective possibility. This book provides a comprehensive plan for doing just that.
The second part is the narrative of a preliminary platform of the Ecumenical Humanist International Political Party. The current state of American politics is dismal. Its political class is so entrenched and entangled in a debased system and so devoid of genuinely good ideas and proper perspectives regarding both domestic and international affairs that the people of the United States are suffering in countless unnecessary ways. The two-party system is broken. Simply adding another party to it is not necessarily going to fix it. What is necessary is to add a party to it that actually has the good ideas and fresh perspectives necessary to solve the country’s problems, that is united and specific in taking clear positions on the major issues facing America, and that is not beholden to special interests that block true, positive change for Americans. As the saying goes, two’s company, and three’s a crowd. Well, America is a crowd, and the “company” being kept by Democrats and Republicans is altogether too cozy, bitter though they may be towards each other.
Americans today are locked in a fallacious liberal-conservative dichotomy. They believe that most Americans fall into one category or the other, that the two groups are diametrically opposed to each other in all ways, and that never the twain shall meet. The Ecumenical Humanist International Political Party refuses to partake of this dichotomy but takes the best of both the liberal and conservative traditions, does away with the worst of them, and adds to them a healthy sprinkling of libertarianism to forge a new common ground—not one of compromise, which ends up accomplishing little and disappointing everyone—that satisfies the needs of all Americans.
Overall, The State of American Thought is a different kind of book than most in that in addition to addressing problems it also offers solutions and a real pathway to enacting them. When readers finish reading, they will face the challenge of actively participating in ecumenical humanist behavioral, cultural, and political revolutions. In 2013, America is at a critical junction in its development as a country. Hope for true, positive change is dwindling. The Ecumenical Humanist International Political Party will offer Americans participation in a national—indeed a global—grassroots movement that will bring about such change both for them and for the rest of the world, enhancing people’s health, comfort and security and radically advancing humanity’s progress in its two-and-a-half-millennia-old quest to transition from accepting the creed of might-makes-right to espousing the creed of reason makes right in all its interactions with itself and the other living beings of Earth.
Ethan Sewall
Ethan Sewall was born in Boston, MA and grew up in Newton, MA. He attended Newton Public Schools, The Fessenden School ('91) and Milton Academy ('94). He has a B.A. in Classics: Ancient Greek from Yale College ('98). He has a master's degree in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education ('02) and another in Applied Linguistics from UMass Boston ('09). He worked extensively with children from Boston neighborhoods from 1997 to 2003, providing out-of-school-time opportunities during school years and camping trips to Maine during summers through Moonrise, Inc. From 2006-2008, he served in the United States Peace Corps in Mongolia, where he taught English at the National University of Mongolia and trained high school English teachers. He currently teaches English at United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, UAE. He is married with two sons (13 and 2) and another on the way.
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The State of American Thought - Ethan Sewall
THE STATE OF AMERICAN THOUGHT: ENSNARED IN A FALLACIOUS LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE DICHOTOMY
by Ethan McDermott Sewall
Copyright 2013 Ethan M. Sewall
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
☼☼☼
For Manu
With special thanks to my mother, Emily A. McDermott, for her invaluable editing, support and guidance; my wife, Boloroo, for her love and endurance; my sons, Temuulen and Nagarjunai, for being the greatest blessings of my life; my father, Rick, for always making a joke of everything, even when it wasn’t appropriate; my siblings, Alexandra, Eric, Michaela and Samuel, for being my best friends and closest companions; my brothers-in-law, Freddy and Brad, for being great guys to my sisters and for always indulging me when I insisted on having philosophical and political conversations at the dinner table; my nephews, Claus and Kellen, for being adorable; Donaldo Macedo, my professor at UMass Boston, for introducing me to the field of sociolinguistics and to the work of Paolo Freire; Pepi Leistyna, also my professor at UMass Boston, for teaching me about cross-cultural perspectives and inspiring me to write this book; and many of my friends, teachers, professors, students and extended family members, for contributing in their own ways to the writing of this book.
☼☼☼
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. PREFACE
II. INTRODUCTION
III. DECONSTRUCTING SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: EMBRACING ECUMENICAL HUMANISM
i. On space
ii. On time
iii. On Subjects and objects, Subjectivity and objectivity
iv. On the word
v. On truth, falsehood, fact and fiction
vi. On human culture
vii. On competition and sportsmanship
viii. On the gap between theory and reality
ix. On war
x. On economics
xi. On categories of difference
xii. On outward appearance (or, On race, ethnicity, blackness, whiteness, and skin color)
xiii. On religion
xiv. On sexual orientation
xv. On developmental differences and tragic accidents
xvi. On gender
xvii. On technology and media
xviii. On youth and family
xix. On language and education
xx. On American democracy and ecumenical humanist political revolution
IV. NARRATIVE OF THE PRELIMINARY PLATFORM OF THE ECUMENICAL HUMANIST INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL PARTY
i. On international democracy and a new United Nations
ii. On a global peacekeeping force and the re-channeling of military energy and resources
iii. On American laws
iv. On American voting
v. On American governance
vi. On national service
vii. On cooperative capitalism: instituting a new economics plan for mutual advancement
viii. On immigration
ix. On health care
x. On education
xi. On pollution control and environmental restoration
xii. On energy and transportation
xiii. On affirmative action and welfare
xiv. On prostitution and human trafficking
xv. On the drug war
xvi. On abortion
xvii. On same-sex marriages and adoption by same-sex couples
xviii. On capital punishment
xix. On the right to bear arms
xx. On the long-term goals of the Ecumenical Humanist International Political Party
V. SOUNDTRACK
VI. FIGURES
VII. FOOTNOTES
VIII. ENDNOTES
☼☼☼
PREFACE
Should I let the ‘I’ invade my book? Should I just relax and let it happen? Although a prescriptive mantra rolling forth from early school days tells me no—and I do kind of like a lot of that prescriptive stuff—ultimately I’m telling myself yes. Let me be involved in this project, because that also makes a real place for you, the reader. In this, I follow Henry David Thoreau: "In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking."i
When you first approach this book, please do me one favor. The first several chapters are heavily metaphysical, so if that is not your thing, just skip ahead to chapters that address issues that are of more interest to you. For while each chapter leads to the next, and while I think the first chapters are very important, the book can be read in any order. Indeed, you might want to read the political manifesto first, and then return to the initial section, which addresses the nitty-gritty of human behavior and culture. I like to think of this book as one of those choose-your-own adventure books from the 1980s. Ultimately, though, I’d be sure to read the chapter on war, as it introduces the most important theme of the book.
You will notice that throughout this book, and particularly the first part, I frequently cite long passages by other authors. Doing so is a deliberate stylistic choice. Writing about human culture the way I am here should not, even cannot, be done by a single individual. So at times I let other people’s voices briefly take the helm. I believe it is appropriate because their words are actual manifestations of human culture, and besides, they said what they said better than I could anyway.
This book is a different kind of book than most in that it requires action of you when you finish reading it. It asks that you choose whether or not you can be down with ecumenical humanist behavioral, cultural, and political revolutions. It asks if they are things that you would want to be a part of. You’ll have to ask yourself if the world as it is today is fine with you, and if the answer is no, whether you think the political parties that currently exist are doing good enough jobs of making it a better place or whether you would want to contribute to a new political party with a fresh hope of doing so. If you agree—at least tentatively—with all the elements of the Ecumenical Humanist International Political Party’s preliminary platform, and if you decide you want to contribute to bringing about true, positive change for America and rest of the world, then the end of this book will be the beginning of your own personal behavioral revolution. It will be the beginning, or the rechanneling, of your political activism.
Also, due to its nature as a self-published e-book, this book is a living document. I can and do modify it regularly, mostly in small ways, but large modifications are possible and occasionally necessary. I welcome criticisms of and contributions to my thinking. At the end of the book you’ll find my personal email address. Indeed, each chapter here could become a book of its own with the help of specialists.
This book is an ode to the taming of the dichotomy. It is a rethinking of dualism and multiplicity, a re-conception of color and light and sound. It is a seed, merely a beginning. It lays no claim to perfection, and it’s all definitely arguable. Some may find my unabashed optimism naïve, yet I trust there will be others to whom it will bring some modicum of inspiration, or hope. Through those latter people, this book should grow and renew itself until it stands as dignified and elegant as a flowering dogwood. (Dogwood image)
I am writing this to assure you that the human species can achieve global social harmony and universal prosperity.
☼☼☼
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this book is two-fold. First, in order to help people understand the root causes of the social ills afflicting human society—and thus to help them pursue the positive possibilities that exist for humanity—it investigates the ways in which we human Subjects <1> have constructed our social reality. <2> There are many grave circumstances in the world today, and just how concerned one is about any given issue is necessarily a function of how immediately and severely the sufferings of that issue have befallen one’s own life. For example, someone who has lost a loved one to a drunk driver is likely to feel more strongly about the need to stop drunk driving than someone who has never experienced such a loss. In general, people assume that a significant amount of suffering is a necessary part of human existence, and indeed a good deal of human suffering in the world is inevitable. It is inevitable because its causes—things like being born, feeling pain, getting sick, having diseases, being separated from people you love, living through natural disasters, experiencing accidents, aging, and dying—are beyond human control. There are, however, many forms of human suffering that are of our own contrivance. People cause them through their thoughts, expressions, actions and creations, so they lie within the realm of human control. Thus there exist two distinguishable kinds of suffering: one that we have no control over, and one that we do. Because both of these kinds of suffering have existed since time immemorial, they have become conflated. As a result, the task of wholly eradicating from our midst even just the man-made ones has never, for the most part, been considered a serious collective possibility.
As of this writing, there exists no widely known plan that both comprehensively addresses all modern-day social ills and offers a grand strategy for overcoming them. This book presents such a plan. The intellectual and technological advancements of the 20th and early 21st centuries have put this plan, and its execution, within reach. Should we not run ourselves and our Earth into the ground but allow ourselves to experience (and perhaps even maximize) the exponential growth of human knowledge and capabilities that can occur in the years, decades and centuries to come, there will be no limit to what human Subjects can accomplish. We have the power to create, and we have the power to destroy, but we also have the power to choose which of these we do. Therefore, although it may forever prove impossible to stop accidents from happening, anything that involves deliberate human action should logically be fair game.
In order to make a serious effort at combating all man-made sufferings, people must work together as a team. It does not have to be a team on which all the players have exactly the same views and opinions, but it does have to be a single team on which all the players are united in pursuit of the achievement of common goals. Unfortunately, in America at least, people today can more accurately be described as being divided into two teams (socially, politically, economically, and in other ways) than as being united in one. These two teams, ‘the conservatives’ and ‘the liberals,’ work against each other more than they work with each other and spend more time arguing than they do cooperating. As a result, they accomplish very little of any good and end up merely spectating as things get worse before eventually sparring
over who’s to blame. Moreover, even within the teams themselves there is substantial disagreement over what exactly they stand for. Definitions of what it means to be a liberal or a conservative vary widely, much to the chagrin of many whose personal conceptions of what it means to be a liberal or a conservative have been drowned out in the mainstream by the practically and morally inferior versions of loud-voiced usurpers.
Nevertheless, people still cling to these two labels, and the result for the American population has been ensnarement in a fallacious dichotomy. Americans are convinced that the vast majority of them falls into one group or the other, that there is a huge, unpassable gulf between the two, and that there is little to no chance that a member of one group would ever be persuaded to switch over to the other. The whole situation has consummated in a deadlock: the terms are not serving us well, and at the same time they are too entrenched to change the way people think of them.
Notwithstanding, new conceptions of liberalism and conservatism are available and can even be compelling. For example, in my opinion, the best way to think about liberalism is that it is a willingness to change the way things are if there are ways that they can be made better, and the best way to think about conservatism is that it is a desire to keep things as they are once one has found the best possible way for them to be. By these definitions, there is nothing about these two political philosophies that necessarily puts them at odds with each other. Quite the opposite, the former leads to the latter, and once the proper moment for latter has been achieved, neither has a desire for further change. In such a conceptualization, conservative thought is the goal of liberal thought, so the two cannot be dichotomized. Indeed, tendencies to both should rightly simultaneously reside within every individual human Subject.
Unfortunately, though, the current conceptions of liberalism and conservatism carry far too much emotional baggage for alternative definitions such as these to supplant the current ones. Among liberals, conservatism is—and will likely long be—synonymous with backwards thinking, intolerance, avarice, warmongering, exploitation of both people and the Earth itself, and disregard for their fundamental rights. Meanwhile, among conservatives, liberalism is—and will likely long be—synonymous with big government, higher taxes, budget deficits and national debt, licentiousness, artificially ‘leveling the playing field’ by disregarding people’s different contributions to society and giving them back equal rewards in return, and, what is worse, coddling some by simply giving them things for free. While liberals ridicule conservatism as being callously self-serving, conservatives disdain liberalism as being overly-idealistic and nothing more than a symptom of pity.
While what truth both of these stereotypes have is vastly outweighed by their ignorance, and while all their claims could be refuted through thoughtful criticism, for Americans today it is a far better idea simply to start fresh with a new political philosophy than to invest time and effort into rehabilitating our old ones. This new political philosophy, an alternative that Americans desperately need, is what I call ecumenical humanism. The adjective ‘ecumenical’ here carries the double meaning of of worldwide scope or applicability; universal
and concerned with establishing or promoting unity among churches or religions.
ii Thus ecumenical humanism has the advantage of not forsaking God or religion or denying the positive effects they have had and can still have on human culture. Secularly, ecumenical humanism is a blend of traditional liberal and conservative values, along with a healthy sprinkling of libertarianism. In some cases, the directions in which it will take America will involve returning to better ways things once were in the past; in others, it will involve seeking out better ways that have never yet been. Ultimately, while it could be argued that in the overall ecumenical humanism has more in common with traditional liberalism than with traditional conservatism, it takes the best of both and does away with the shortcomings of each.
One of the elements that ecumenical humanism shares with liberalism (and ironically one that despite conservative criticism gives it its ultimate empowerment in today’s America) is its very connection with the capacity to pity. In a world where poverty, hunger, corruption, prejudice, war and violence are rampant and seemingly intractable human problems, ecumenical humanism provides the only path to salvation that Americans have; and in a world where terrorism is both a real threat and the number-one bogeyman touted by U.S. government officials as a crafty means of perpetuating global warfare, it is the only way to protect all Americans, rich and poor alike. Acts of terrorism simultaneously elicit our pity for their sufferers and incite our terror for our own future safety. Pity,
James Joyce explains, is the feeling which arrests the mind in the face of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause.
iii Ecumenical humanism, which by its very nature is free from restrictive dogmas and aspires to justice as the highest of ideals, can both heal human sufferers and expose the secret cause,
which can only be human in nature. It will enable the reconstruction of a terror-free (and a poverty-, hunger-, corruption-, prejudice-, war- and violence-free) Earth, where the sufferings we endure will be solely those that are truly beyond our power to control.
When on September 15, 1963 a terrorist set a bomb to explode under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing an eleven-year-old and three fourteen-year-old girls, American society suffered a severe blow to its already tormented national psyche, and the terrorist had reasons why he did it.iv When on April 19, 1995 terrorists blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of six, the citizens of the United States were devastated by an act of senseless aggression, and the terrorists had reasons why they did it.v When on September 11, 2001 nineteen terrorists hijacked four planes and deliberately crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing nearly 3,000 people, the citizens of the United States of America and nearly every other country in the world wept in shock, loss and horror, and the terrorists had reasons why they did it. When from September 1 to September 4, 2004 a group of terrorists took 777 children hostage at School Number One in Beslan, North Ossetia, over 300 people, including over 160 children, were killed in the firefight that ensued when Russian soldiers stormed the school, and the terrorists had reasons why they did it.vi When on July 7, 2005 four homegrown terrorists detonated bombs on three London Underground trains and a fourth on a double-decker bus, killing 52 people, the events left a traumatized nation groping for answers,
and the terrorists had reasons why they did it.vii When on August 14, 2007 terrorists conducted four coordinated suicide truck bombings in northern Iraq, 200 civilians died and over 300 were injured in a single night of the Iraq War, and the terrorists had reasons why they did it.viii When from November 26 to November 29, 2008 terrorists executed more than ten coordinated shooting and bombing attacks in Mumbai, India, killing 164 people and injuring at least 308, the world was again shocked by horrific cruelty, and the terrorists had reasons why they did it. And when on July 22, 2011 a Norwegian terrorist detonated a car bomb in the government quarter in Oslo and then went on a shooting rampage on an island 25 miles to the Northwest where 600 teenagers were attending a summer camp, killing 77 and injuring 153 people between the ages of 14 and 61, the people of the world were repulsed and pointedly reminded that the disease of terrorism is indiscriminate in whom it infects, and again the terrorist had reasons why he did it.ix None of those terrorists’ reasons were good or rational or just. On the contrary, they were all sick, twisted, depraved and deranged. But they were reasons nonetheless. Ecumenical humanist thought will get at those reasons. It will help people uproot the causes of hatred and sow seeds anew. Violence in any form—even violence undertaken specifically to eradicate terrorism—can only breed more violence, which leads to more suffering, which leads to more terrorism. The paradoxical solution is that the only way to rid our world of terrorism is to shower its victims and perpetrators alike with love.
This consummative statement may seem overly simplistic, or even hopelessly naïve, to many readers, but I make it in earnest and stand by it wholeheartedly. For support, I call on two of the most revered thinkers in human history, Jesus and Gandhi. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said:
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren what more are you doing than others?x
Jesus spread the hard message that one must love one’s enemies as one loves one’s friends and family, and it would behoove Americans today to heed his words rather than just pay them lip-service.
Meanwhile, Gandhi conveyed a similar message of love. He famously said, An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind,
and It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Gandhi’s and Jesus’ advice is exactly in line with my assertion that we must shower our enemies
with love in order to bring peace and harmony to the world: Wherever there are jars, wherever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.
xi
So while many will argue that to take the approach of showering terrorism’s victims and perpetrators alike with love would be to act on a fatuous assumption that Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side,
and that the more effective course would be (as America has done) to grab terrorism by the throat and not let them go,
to me it is an undeniable reality that even if we could rout all the terrorist organizations that exist around the world today, even if we could execute every last terrorist there is to execute, if we fail to address the root causes of terrorism—the fundamental, underlying social and geopolitical problems that beget the terrorism in the first place—our success will be short-lived.xii Grabbing terrorism by the throat
is the equivalent of weeding a garden without pulling up the roots: That which is not wanted will just come back with the new season. True positive change, which is the goal of ecumenical humanism, requires collective understanding, collective consciousness, and heartfelt action, and it should make the rich happier as it makes the poor wealthy. Deconstructing social construction: Embracing ecumenical humanism investigates American culture in an effort to distinguish its wholesome building blocks from its pernicious ones in order to enable the reaffirmation of the former and the removal of the latter. It seeks to incite behavioral and cultural revolutions in the United States of America that will truly unite our country for the first time, despite what any of our leaders have said in the past about us ever having been united before. <3>
The second part of this book is a narrative of the preliminary platform of a new political party, founded in the United States but international in scope, named the Ecumenical Humanist International Political Party. This new party is for everybody—country folk, city folk, town folk, suburban folk. It’s for Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Green-Rainbows, Libertarians, Tea Partiers, Occupiers, Socialists, Communists, Maoist rebels, monarchs, oligarchs, sheikhs, military dictators, Taliban, Mujahideen; for those who consider themselves to be none of the above; and for those who have never heard any of those labels before. Ecumenical humanism is about making things better for people, period. The purpose of the party will be to give a collective political voice to the people of America and other countries who are engaging in ecumenical humanist behavioral and cultural revolutions. It is my hope that the development of this political party—and the subsequent assumption of office by a critical mass of successful ecumenical humanist candidates—will culminate in a political revolution in the United States of America by which the country will for the first time to live up to its creed of being a true and just democracy, with laws and policies that are based on the will of the majority of the American people and that effect their Safety and Happiness.
xiii
Ecumenical humanist behavioral, cultural and political revolutions in the United States will afford American citizens a united vision of what it means to be an American, and they will enable every American citizen to claim the title of ‘American’ with pride, a sentiment that is very difficult for many Americans at present. They will manifest themselves first in heightened individual and collective understanding and then in observable individual and collective action. All three elements of ecumenical humanist revolution will occur without a single blow, and certainly without a single bullet, which The Constitution of the United States of America was designed to make possible. The experience of living as an American will just feel different.
Today’s politicians say they think we can do better. Their progression is off. They should think the right thing, say what it is, and then do it. Their charade must come to an end. Peaceful people, fight!xiv
☼☼☼
DECONSTRUCTING SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION:
EMBRACING ECUMENICAL HUMANISM
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i. On space
In addressing the phenomenon of human culture, the first critical necessity to consider is space. By space I do not mean outer space, but rather the actual space we occupy, the physical environs in which we live. The term ‘critical necessity’ denotes a fundamental prerequisite of human existence. Just how many such prerequisites there may be I do not know, but surely without the three dimensions we experience every day (if, say, the whole universe were confined to a single point), it would be impossible for human Subjects to have constructed the complex social networks and dynamics that exist today.
In 1927, Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet, wrote, Let my love, like sunlight, surround you and yet give you illumined freedom.
xv He wanted his love to be as liberating to its recipient as the sunlit air is to us all. The air is a beautiful thing. It warms us and cools us, tickles us with breezes, and most essentially affords us uninhibited motion across the surface of the Earth and into the sky above. We exist in the air continually, feeling it, breathing it, tasting it. It is precious to us, something we take very much for granted, yet something whose purity we value eminently highly.
Human Subjects naturally perceive some basic differences between the gas that is the air and the liquids and solids beneath, above and around us. We do not, for example, have the same freedom of motion through solid matter that we have through air. A person cannot walk through a hardwood table. She or he would have to go around it, over it or under it. Water it is possible to go through, but it’s slower going than traveling on solid ground through open air.
As far as everyday human experience is concerned, these differences are stark and seemingly absolute. Yet if we examine the underlying building blocks of physical existence, investigating the reality beyond our perception, we discover that the differences we perceive between solids, liquids and gases are actually more superficial than essential. After all, a solid can become a liquid, and a liquid can become a gas. It just depends on how much heat the substance has. So, considering that in 1946 Einstein determined that the principle of the conservation of energy, having previously swallowed up that of the conservation of heat, now proceeded to swallow that of the conservation of mass—and holds the field alone,
it seems more appropriate to consider that energy, not matter, is the ultimate common denominator of existence. Thus, even though we experience our physical bodies as complex manifestations of matter, they actually exist in the environment as mobile manifestations of energy.
This notion is corroborated by the famous equation E=mc². In this equation, again according to Einstein,
c represents the velocity of light, about 186,000 miles per second. E is the energy that is contained in a stationary body; m is its mass. The energy that belongs to the mass m is equal to this mass, multiplied by the square of the enormous speed of light—which is to say, a vast amount of energy for every unit of mass.xvi
Everything, then—our bodies, hardwood tables, dirt, water, rocks, the air around us—is encapsulated energy. <4>
To create our world, energy manifests itself in atoms. The atomic hypothesis maintains that
…all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.xvii
That in and of itself sounds a lot like most human interaction: people pull others in when they drift away, and push them away when they get too close. And although Quantum Theory assures us that "the atomic world is nothing like the world we live in," that our singular consciousnesses exist on such a macro level that it is exceedingly complex to contemplate the fundamental nature of physical reality, the fact remains that we are that atomic world.
Picturing the world in black and white, then—removing the myriad colors that give our Earth its brilliance and beauty—it is possible to imagine countless trillions of miniscule units of energy blending together to form a single fabric, within which human beings are undifferentiated from rocks, trees, water, even air. That fabric exists. We are part of it. We are it, little, macro, mobile bits of it. We just can’t see it, because it is the fabric that we both inhabit and compose. From this perspective, it is fortunate for us that our macro differentiation exists. Otherwise we would not be able to view the world from our vantage as human Subjects. As it is, we have evolved to see, feel, smell and hear our surroundings. Our differentiation has given us all our blessings and possibilities as well as all our sufferings.
Marshall McLuhan once said, I don’t know who discovered water, but I am pretty sure it wasn’t a fish.
xviii His implication is that being completely engulfed in something can obfuscate it from one’s understanding. Applying McLuhan’s logic to our human situation, what water is to the fish, the air is to us. In a sense, then, it should be difficult for us to ‘discover’ the air. With every move we make, we manipulate the fabric of the air. Every breath we take alters its chemical composition. Look into rays of sunlight indoors and you’ll see little particles of dust floating there; you’ll have a tough time catching them, but we must be breathing them. Outside, hurricane winds can blow over 160 miles per hour, defying anyone to stand strong in the face of them. Nonetheless, people tend to function on an unthinking premise that the air is empty. If, however, we understand the air to be just as full as the ground below us, only of a different configuration, we come to a heightened understanding of our physical presence here on Earth. <5> Moving about upon the surface of the Earth, we are not traveling through a void. As Leibniz put it in 1714,
Since all is a plenum, all matter is connected and all movement in the plenum produces some effect on the distant bodies, in proportion to the distance. Hence every body is affected not only by those with which it is in contact, and thus feels in some way everything that happens to them; but through them it also feels those that touch the ones with which it is in contact. Hence it follows that this communication extends over any distance whatever. Consequently, every body experiences everything that goes on in the universe.xix
Such a conception of our physical surroundings supports Lorenz’s Butterfly Effect
(1963), the sensitive dependence on initial conditions,
which postulates that something as small as the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can, by chain reaction, lead to the formation of a tornado in Texas. For this to be possible, the air must have unbroken physical continuity through which reactions can amplify and become volatile. Earth, ocean and atmosphere must compose a single entity, physically one and conjoined throughout. The heightened freedom of atoms in the air simply makes it a more dynamic environment than, say, a solid, within which a tornado could never occur.
The difference between solids and liquids [and gases] is that in a solid the atoms are arranged in some kind of an array, called a crystalline array, and they do not have a random position at long distances; the position of the atoms at one side of the crystal is determined by that of other atoms millions of atoms away on the other side of the crystal.
Now although ice has a ‘rigid’ crystalline form, its temperature can change—ice has heat. If we wish, we can change the amount of heat. What is the heat in the case of ice? The atoms are not standing still. They are jiggling and vibrating. So even though there is a definite order to the crystal—a definite structure—all of the atoms are vibrating in place.
As we increase the temperature, they vibrate with greater and greater amplitude, until they shake themselves out of place. We call this melting.xx
As a large chunk of ice melts and becomes water, that water can be captured in a wooden bucket. The water will settle in against the wood of the bucket and slowly start to seep into it. Though the H2O molecules are no longer locked in place as rigidly as they were when they were ice (they have more heat now), they are nonetheless still just as connected. For the moment, the water is a countable entity (as in one bucket of water, two buckets of water, three buckets of water, and so on).
If one were then to put that bucket of water into a dry-heat sauna that had been running at full blast all day, the water within the bucket would quickly start to evaporate. Soon the atoms would grow more and more diffuse. To human perception they would have completely lost touch with one another. In truth, though, they would not have lost touch. They would merely have become part of the fabric of the air—just as, if they had been dumped into the dirt in liquid form, they would have become part of the fabric of earth. In every freeze-frame moment, of which there are countless quadrillions every day, all solids, liquids and gases are entirely connected to one another. The Earth and its atmosphere, and everything and everyone in them, comprise one united physical entity. The water in the bucket was just as connected to the air around it when it was its own distinguishable entity as when it had evaporated and literally become the air.
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Within this interconnected environment, the combination of the proliferation of the human species and its intellectual development has resulted in our perceiving a striking paradox about our Earthly existence. On the one hand, we human Subjects are very much the same, while on the other, we are very, very different. We are one, yet we are many. Because surface appearances weigh so heavily in people’s minds—and because from the standpoint of ordinary perception there is no way to see it but that ‘many’ is a vast understatement for the number of human Subjects there are on this planet—our tendency in the face of these dualisms has naturally been to focus on our differences and multiplicity and establish our worldviews based on them, rather than to focus on our similarities and oneness and base our worldviews on them. As has been highlighted thus far in this chapter, however, appearances do not always tell the whole story of physical reality. Therefore, to ascertain the true nature of our existence here on Earth, it would be wise to consider the possibility that our similarities and oneness actually factor just as significantly into our human condition as do our differences and multiplicity, such that an equal appreciation of the two is necessary to provide us the proper foundation from which to understand ourselves and our world.
The idea that all things are one is not new. It can be traced back at least as far as Heracleitus of Ephesus, who wrote around 500 b.c.e. that the way up and down is one and the same,
day and night… are one,
the nature of every day is one,
and "when you have listened, not to me but to the Law (Logos), it is wise to agree that all things are one."xxi The idea finds more thorough expression, though, in the writing of Ibn Tufayl, a 12th century c.e. Muslim philosopher from Guadix, Spain. In his book, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (Awake, Son of Alive), he wrote,
Hayy considered all objects in the world of generation and decay—the various species of plants and animals, minerals, and every sort of rock and soil, water, water-vapor, and ice, snow, sleet, smoke, flame and burning embers. He saw that these had among them many different attributes with conflicting effects. They moved, some in the same direction, some in opposite directions from each other. Hayy saw that while physical things differed in some respects they were alike in others and after some study and thought, he concluded that inasmuch as things differ they are many, but inasmuch as they correspond they are one.
At times he would concentrate on the peculiarities which differentiate things from each other, and then things seemed to be manifold and beyond number. Beings seemed to proliferate into an unmarshallable array. Even his own identity seemed complex and multiform, because he was viewing it in the perspective of the diversity of his organs and the specialization of each by its own specific capacity to perform its own specific task. Each organ, moreover, was itself divisible into a great many parts. So he judged that he himself was many and so was everything else.
But looking at it from the opposite point of view, he realized that, no matter how many parts he had, all were connected and contiguous. Thus they could be said to be one. They differed only in having different functions, and this was due solely to the disposition each received from the animal spirit, to the discovery of which his earlier thoughts had led him. This spirit itself was one, and it was this which was his real self, all other organs serving as its tools. He thus established for himself that he himself was one.
Shifting his attention to animal species in general, Hayy found that each individual was one in this respect. He then considered whole species at a time—deer, horses, asses, the different species of birds. He observed the likeness among individual members of each species in internal and external organs, modes of perception, motion and appetite. What differences he could find were negligible, compared to all the points of congruity. Hayy reasoned that the spirit present throughout the species must be a single entity, undifferentiated except through its division among numerous hearts. If somehow what was divided among all those hearts could be collected in one great vessel, then it would be one thing, like one quantity of water or punch divided into different bowls and then collected again. Together or separate, the identity is the same. Plurality is predicable of it only from a certain point of view. Hayy thus saw whole species as one in this respect, likening the plurality of individuals to the plurality of each individual’s parts, which are not really many.
Next Hayy mentally combined all animal species for consideration together. He saw that they were alike in having sensation, nutrition, and voluntary motion in whichever direction they pleased. These activities, he had learned already, were characteristic of the animal spirit; whereas the respects in which they differed, were not particularly essential to the animal spirit. These reflections made it apparent to him that the vital spirit in all animal genera is in reality one being, despite the slight differences that differentiate one species from another. Just as water from a single source may be divided into different bowls, and may be cooler in some than in others, so the animal spirit is one; its specific differentia are like the different temperatures of the water, while the animal itself is like the water, which remains one even though it happens to be divided. By thinking in this way Hayy was able to see the whole animal kingdom as one being.
He turned his mind to the various plant species, observing the likeness of all their members in leaf, branch, flower, and fruit, and all the plant functions. By analogy with animals he saw that, parallel to the animal spirit, plants too must have a single substance in which all partake, and which makes them all one being. Likewise, considering the plant kingdom at large, he judged it must be one because of the universality of growth and nutrition. At this he joined plants and animals together in his mind, since they were alike in nutrition and growth, although the animals are higher than the plants in that they possess sense perception, locomotion, and sensation as well. Still plants seemed to have something roughly similar, as, for example, when flowers turn toward the sun, or roots towards food. These considerations showed him that plants and animals are united by a single common entity, more perfectly represented in one and somehow impeded in the other. It was as if water were divided, part running freely and part frozen over. Thus he saw how animals and plants are one being.
Next he investigated bodies that do not sense or feed or grow such as stones, earth, water, air, and flame. He saw that these bodies are bounded in length, breadth, and depth, the sole differences among them being in terms of such contrarieties as that some were colored and others colorless; some hot, others cold. He perceived that warm bodies grow cold and cold ones hot; he watched water turn to steam, steam to water; burning things to embers, ashes, flame and smoke. When rising smoke was trapped in a hollow, it precipitated and in its place appeared bits of solid, rather like earth. This line of thinking, similar to the reasoning he had done on animals and plants, made evident to him that all physical things, despite the involvement of diversity in some respects, are one in reality.xxii
What is most extraordinary about Ibn Tufayl’s reasoning is that though he approaches these matters in terms of the material things we can see, smell, hear and touch (where appearances most strongly dictate the perspective that everything is many), he nonetheless arrives at the conclusion that, regardless of appearances, all things are in fact one. Even if one has trouble grasping the idea all things, both living and non-living, are one, Ibn Tufayl’s fundamental premise that inasmuch as things differ they are many, but inasmuch as they correspond they are one
should be simple and penetrating enough to lead a logical thinker to conclude that because the correspondences between people vastly outweigh their differences, all people, at least, are just as much one as they are many.
In 1933, William Butler Yeats wrote, nothing can be sole or whole / that has not been rent.
xxiii At the moment of the Big Bang, our universe became a sole whole that was rent. Our galaxy was rent from the universe, our sun was rent from our galaxy, our Earth was rent from our sun, and life was rent from the Earth. Every individual human Subject, meanwhile, is sole, whole, and rent from a human mother. However, though we are indeed whole, sole and rent individuals, we are also parts of grander ‘ones’—the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, the universe. Remembering Leibniz’s assertion that every body experiences everything that goes on in the universe,
it follows that the actions of people, all of whom collectively are one, have an even greater influence on their fellow people than they do on the other beings and entities of Earth, and certainly more than they do on distant bodies.
People think that some of their thoughts, feelings, expressions and actions affect no one but themselves, and that others affect only their direct recipients; they do not realize that every action, every thought, feeling and expression that they have or make, has an effect (perhaps unseen) on those around them and on all the people in the world. Disharmony of any kind, let alone outright aggression, has negative effects on the human condition at large, whereas positive vibrations diffuse in harmonious and healing ripples.
As human Subjects, mobile assemblages of energy existing both in the atomic and the everyday worlds, we must understand the ‘same-different’ paradox of our existence in order to appreciate the driving forces of human behavior. On one hand, we are all one, with the same needs and wants, securities and insecurities, hopes and fears. On the other hand, we ourselves and all the living beings and non-living entities around us are multiple and intricately diverse, with different natures, functions, appearances and habits. We need to reconcile and become comfortable with this reality. We need to reap the available benefits of being simultaneously different and the same. In the past, we have not been able to manage this. In the present, things are generally getting a bit better, but we still have a long way to go. The future, of course, has yet to be determined. This leads us to consider the second critical necessity of human existence, which is time.
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ii. On time
Typically, people have a pretty good grasp of there being three physical dimensions that we observe and experience every day—left and right, up and down, frontward and backward. They are, after all, kind of hard to miss. More obscure, however, is the notion of a ‘fourth dimension,’ which is one of the many ways people have attempted to describe the phenomenon most commonly referred to as ‘time.’ What is most important to understand about time is that what we experience as its passage can actually best be understood as the constant motion of the fabric of space—that fabric that composes our world, solar system, galaxy and universe. <6> As the universe expands and all the bodies within it orbit one another, new space is being charted in some elusively complex way. If this overarching, grand motion did not occur, there would be no movement anywhere, and there would be no space to move in. Nothing would ever happen, so there would be no such thing as time. Time is not some abstract phenomenon that occurs apart from the physical world. It is, rather, the very movement of that physical world, its expansion, and our growth and decay within it:
Newton considered space and time completely independent, and that continued to be the accepted view until the beginning of the 20th century. But Einstein showed that there was an intimate connection between space and time, and that only by considering the two together—in what we call spacetime—can we build up a correct picture of the physical world.xxiv
Different levels of motion create our experience of time here on Earth. First, the Earth is rotating on its axis at a rate of about 1,040 miles per hour. Second, it is traveling around the sun at a velocity of about 66,611 miles per hour. Third, on top of those two levels of motion, the sun is orbiting the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, at a velocity of about 49,213 miles per hour (82,767 miles per hour relative to the cosmic microwave background). And fourth, our galaxy is orbiting the center of the universe at a velocity of about 123,479 miles per hour relative to the cosmic microwave background.xxv That’s a lot of motion, especially considering that each motion is compounded by all those above it in the hierarchy. <7>
Nevertheless, here on Earth, if two people were to sit in a grassy field on a sunny afternoon, it would seem to them that they were not moving at all. They would sit, time would pass, and at the end of the day they would know that if they wanted to return to the same field the next day and let time pass again they would be able to. Time changes, but space doesn’t so much—at least not as quickly, or without help. This lack of face-value connection between space and time likely contributed to Newton’s erroneous notion that they were separate from each other. At home that night, the two people would know that the same field would be there the next day because they’d be confident of two things: first, that, barring natural disaster or human interference, the field itself would still be there; and second, that there would indeed be a tomorrow.
But why would they be so certain that there would be a tomorrow? If you expect,
Leibniz wrote around 1700, that the sun will rise tomorrow because up to now it has always happened, you act as an empiricist. The astronomer alone judges by reason.
xxvi By now, we have 300 more years of empirical evidence that the sun will indeed rise again tomorrow, though of course, as Leibniz likely was aware, the sun does not actually ‘rise’ or ‘set’ at all. As the Earth travels around the sun, its rotation on its axis gives us the perception that we see the sun coming up in the East at the beginning of each day and going down in the West at the end of each day.
Herein lies the true reason for every tomorrow, and for all our yesterdays: the Earth is always turning, and has always turned, in the same direction. Moreover, our Earth, sun and galaxy are and always have been orbiting one another in the same directions. What, indeed, would happen if all of a sudden the Earth were to start rotating in the opposite direction? It is a miniscule possibility, almost could never happen, because it could only happen with a concomitant reverse in the direction of Earth’s orbit. But what if that too were to happen, and the Earth started both rotating and orbiting in opposite directions? Of course, that would have to mean that our sun and galaxy would also have to start orbiting in opposite directions. What would happen then? Would time go backwards? <8> Although we know that many of the laws of physics (such as those of electricity and magnetism) are time-reversible, nothing in our experience of reality has prepared us to contemplate a reversal as absolute as this. Our reality depends on these motions’ constancy, because they are what constitute our ‘time.’
Considering the distinction of past and future,
Richard Feynman once said,
It is obvious to everybody that the phenomena of the world are evidently irreversible. I mean things happen that do not happen the other way. You drop a cup and it breaks, and you can sit there a long time waiting for the pieces to come together and jump back into your hand.xxvii
You can wait, but they won’t. They won’t because before you dropped the cup the universe was expanding; it was expanding while the cup was falling; and it was expanding while the cup was hitting the ground and breaking. Then, after all that, the universe just kept on expanding, the Earth kept finding itself in new physical spaces, and there was nothing any person could do to make any of it go back. Theoretically, the events were reversible, but they had been absorbed by waves of time—time in the form of motion—which flow relentlessly and crash upon the fringes of the universe just as regularly as the waves of Earth’s oceans crash on their shores. The universe was expanding before we were born, and it will be expanding long after we die. It was expanding before there was life on Earth, and it will still be expanding after life has gone from Earth. In the grandest of terms, the same expansion and directionalities that pertained when the Earth was just a mass of inchoate gases will most likely still pertain long after it has been reduced to cosmic debris. As the universe expands, time moves inexorably forward from one second to the next. It never either looks or takes a step back.
Space and time together, then, constitute the ever-evolving fabric of our world. At every single moment, the multiform energy of this fabric composes a single totality, a plenum, in which the current state of every molecule is the result of immediately preceding circumstances. Human Subjects ride the everlasting wave of the present, always on the cutting edge of existence.
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As the passage of time is a physical occurrence, it has physical consequences. As years, centuries, millennia, and even longer periods of time have passed, the Earth has been getting bigger.xxviii While this statement is bound to draw challenges from scientists who believe that the Earth is not getting bigger, certain simple (and uncontroversial) observations support the intuitive theory that the Earth is indeed getting larger—intuitive because, after all, all the living beings on Earth grow, so why shouldn’t the Earth itself grow too?
The first simple observation is the fact that of the geological strata (layers) of large rock formations (such as the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona) that have been building up for hundreds of millions of years in extremely small amounts every year, the oldest strata are at the lowest levels and the newest strata at the highest (Figure 1). The second simple observation is the similar nature of the stratification of soil (that is, that the oldest layers are deepest and the newest layers closest to the surface), which makes it so that archaeologists investigate the past by digging downward and date their finds by interpolating them with other finds and basing their judgments on the depths at which they were found.xxix It is fairly common knowledge that over the centuries human cities have been built up on top of themselves and on top of other cities. Following this line of thinking through to its natural conclusion, it becomes logically inescapable that the volume of Earth’s landmass must be increasing with every falling leaf.
This reality that the Earth is continually getting bigger inspires a question: Where does the stuff that is needed to make the Earth bigger come from? And, more specifically, what propels the seemingly never-ending cycle of organic generation and decay, which is contributing to the overall growth of the Earth by producing massive new bodies (like trees) from mere seeds faster than can be kept track of? The answer to these questions is that in fact there is no new stuff
needed at all, only new energy. For, as previously noted, matter and energy are ultimately one and the same, as are rock, lava, and steam. On Earth, we have two major sources of energy: the sun from the outside, and our Earth’s core and mantle from the inside. While the energy we receive from the sun is the more salient and is obviously critical to us in myriad ways (warmth, light, photosynthesis), the more subtle energy of the Earth’s core and mantle is equally vital, for without its molten core, the Earth would be as dead as its Moon.
Earth consists of three concentric layers: the core, the mantle, and the crust (Figure 2). This orderly division results from density differences between the layers as a function of variations in composition, temperature, and pressure.
The core has a calculated density of 10 to 13 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm3) and occupies about 16% of Earth’s total volume. Seismic (earthquake) data indicate that the core consists of a small, solid inner part and a larger, apparently liquid, outer portion. Both are thought to consist largely of iron and a small amount of nickel.
The mantle surrounds the core and comprises about 83% of Earth’s volume. It is less dense than the core (3.3-5.7 g/cm3) and is thought to be composed largely of peridotite, a dark, dense igneous rock containing abundant iron and magnesium. The mantle can be divided into three distinct zones based on physical characteristics. The lower mantle is solid and forms most of the volume of Earth’s interior. The asthenosphere surrounds the lower mantle. It has the same composition as the lower mantle but behaves plastically and slowly flows. Partial melting within the asthenosphere generates magma (molten material), some of which rises to Earth’s surface because it is less dense than the rock from which it was derived. The upper mantle consists of the asthenosphere and the overlying solid mantle rocks up to the base of the crust. The solid portion of the upper mantle and the overlying crust constitute the lithosphere, which is broken into numerous individual pieces called plates that move over the asthenosphere as a result of underlying convection cells (Figure 3). Interactions of these plates are responsible for such phenomena as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the formation of mountain ranges and ocean basins.
The crust, Earth’s outermost layer, consists of two types: continental and oceanic. Continental crust is thick (29-90km), has an average density of 2.7 g/cm3, and contains considerable silicon and aluminum. In contrast, oceanic crust, is thin (5-10 km), denser than continental crust (3.0 g/cm3), and is composed of the igneous rock basalt.xxx
In the center of the Earth there are parts that are solid, parts that are melting, and parts that are molten. As the rock inside the Earth melts, it expands, as, again according to Feynman, "most simple substances… expand upon melting, because the atoms are closely packed in the solid crystal and upon melting need more room to jiggle around.xxxi The fact that the interior of the Earth is expanding means that the Earth as a whole must be getting bigger, like a water balloon that swells to the point of bursting as more and more water is put into it. But the Earth doesn’t burst, it just cracks open, forming mountains, surface grabens, fractures, mid-ocean ridges and volcanoes, from which lava pours forth.
In this respect, volcanoes are planetary safety valves."xxxii At the bottom of oceans, magma that escapes through mid-ocean ridges cools and hardens, resulting in sea-floor expansion. That is why both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are growing—a fact which would be a physical impossibility if the Earth were remaining the same size. <9>
Far more important for human existence—and therefore for human culture—than just making the Earth bigger, however, the melting of Earth’s core and mantle also radiates immense amounts of energy outward toward the surface of the Earth. As the heat/energy reaches the surface of the 1, the living things there feed off of it and grow. Thus it is true to say that all the living organisms of Earth are quite literally of it and born from within it. Leibniz captured this