The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov
Commentaries
Conclusion Regarding Religion
Religion and G.W. Bush
f conclusion means final and unchangeable, my conclusion is merely that science seems a better bet than ignorance. Indeed, it has been repeated time and again in history that positions have ultimately yielded and that the general direction has been toward improved comforts for less that a quarter of us. Science has produced such gifts and changes that the errors in old myths were exposed throughout the populace. The earth can be circumnavigated. I try to use scientific method, by which I mean logical interpretation of empirically verifiable data and I also mean understanding of methodological limitations on discovery. It is also using the less fluid type of Richard Dawkins memes, information that doesnt lose in translation. Some memes are tough because they are simple, frequently encountered, and useful for the achievement of other aims. Repeatedly verifiable and useful ideas are not easily dislodged. Nor are absolutes of authority. Meme advocates define their subject as a contagious idea that replicates like a virus. What makes a meme tough is an appropriate research question. I have not yet settled whether the concept of the meme is helpful or discordant to my ideas about absolutes. It is also scientific never to close the door on a possibly new interpretation. Conjecturing is okay, fantasy is okay, as long as the conjecturer doesnt try to pass it off as truth. Has my fondness for the methods of science attained the status of a belief in my mind? Would it activate the same spot on my brain as on the brains lf the religious? I recall almost a half century ago when a friend (Dorothy Gifford) called herself a scientist in the sense that others have religion. There is some truth to that, I suppose, depending on interpretation, but as a scientist I go by weight of evidence. The question of god is scientifically open, but the evidence is meager making the probability low. The relationship between science and religion gets a lot of confused press by writers in intellectual journals. It seems entirely clear that science, the skeptical pursuit of knowledge of nature cannot be combined with belief in the supernatural. To believe without evidence is the opposite of believing in that which is untested. Religion and science are incompatible, opposites. They cant be combined as so many want them to be. Of course an individual may be scientific about some things, religious about others.
A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:
The 2004 Presidential Election
Many who are knowledgeable detest Bush, but he has so much money that he will win. In this democracy, those of any degree of sophistication are encouraged to vote. The politicians agree that voting is a good thing, that it is patriotic. Only tiny occasional voices suggest that virtually all voting is in ignorance, although some voters are more ignorant than others. The three traits that Republicans will exploit this year are (1) that money buys publicity that demeans the other side and incites fears, (2) that people tend to follow leaders, and (3) that citizens are caught in a web of intimidation and promises. No public person can safely speak freely. Certain ideas cannot be voiced. Advances toward civilization typically occur over the bodies of the martyred. Tragedies may bring ultimate improvement, but not always. I look for an unexpected (not supernatural) miracle. Perhaps one will come, but the democracy with which we must deal rests on an ideology of, to quote a famous movie line spoken by actor Kirk Douglas, greed is good. By that simple sentence unfettered capitalism is exposed for what it becomes when elites are allowed to rule.
Copyright 2004 Dorothy Tennov
Bushian Democracy
Mob Rule
he domestic and foreign policies of G.W. Bush seem to arise from his absolute position that God is on his side. He struts because he is the king, but his ideas come prepackaged from those of others. He is not knowledgeable nor does he try to be. Labeling himself a reborn Christian is enough for many voters. He is popular because he pulls the right strings and pushes the right buttons and gets and spends money in the right places. Or rather his handlers do. One can only gasp in despair to consider what others have called his stubbornness. The picture given is that GWBs God speaks to him through his gut feelings.
The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov
I really became chilled when I wondered about the (surely now) deliberate mispronunciation of nuclear. He cant change. Hes stubborn. His closest associates speak correctly. Hell go all the way. He honestly believes his words (where by honesty I mean that he does not see the conflict between facts and his assumption of the basic goodness of the God for Whom he is an instrument). The voters like him because he is a regular guy they could drink beer with. They dont know how to pronounce nuclear either. They do physical things that match the image that GWB portrays himself to be. The image on the aircraft carrier was effective. The ignorant and patriotic voter has every reason to follow the man who elicits fear with empty, but hot words, words that stir emotions but are not recognized for being with out content. They say Bush maintains protective ignorance by not reading newspapers. Others report that he reads them every morning. There are things we do not know about. He maintains determined control, says Woodward. No regrets, no admission of mistakes, no doubts at all. One can only wonder about the relationship between father and son today. His father did things differently. They seemed bad at the time, but few are aware of the sea change that has taken place in the nature of this government. You lost, pop. I know what Im doing. Leave me alone. What is happening is quite a drama. Filled with unknowns. Kerry is too good to be true in some ways. Electable, however, is more about dirty tricks and a pretty face than issues understandable to the vast majority. It is not about clarity of thought. It is about simple issues simply stated. The issues get too complicated as we climb the IQ-educational level for those with IQs 100 or less. Thats half the population and probably close to half the voters. [One thing that has always puzzled me is why voting is considered a sacred patriotic duty. About thirty years ago I proposed a book called Dont Vote, the essence of which that money buys the propaganda that leads the masses to vote against their own interests. Taking that into account, the citizen finds greater protection by staying home on Election Day.] The people are fired up by fear then led through carefully devised strategies authored by Karl Rove that involve mathematical calculation regarding how to campaign to which audiences. How can it fail! Many writers have expressed the view that the ideologues who guide Bush are mainly interested in retaining protection and power. Neocons operate with understanding (and apprehension) to note by their inner unmentionable voices the ever-growing schism between the comfortable and the starving. Bush himself shows no sign of grasping implications that are at variance with his announced religion. He avoids full knowledge of why his policies are what they are as well as their consequences. Are the neocons really consciously preparing for deliberate world-wide genocide of all unneeded people whose jobs are better done by robots and who only waste resources? Tyrants rid the population of dissidents who, for example, reject a world view of unfettered capitalism. Greed is good and the more power they have, the more they want. Psychologists have wondered why enough is never enough making it necessary for laws to hold back the size and power of the financially elite. Somewhere I read that FDR favored capping personal income at $25,000. Culture moves unevenly. Good things are sometimes lost; bad things sometimes reinstated.
A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:
Empires of the past have fallen in on themselves. Has GWB hastened the process? Would an all out effort on those who could be reached despite the powerful propaganda of the reigning dynasty be successful? Biologically speaking, isnt that what happens to a species as the niche no longer sustains life? It is called extinction. Bush defends freedom of expression, multiculturalism, the right of people of difference races to mix and marry because he must. I dont think he cares much one way or another except for what his targeted voters will fall for. Republican strategies are calculated in terms of polls and voting districts. Will they undermine Kerry as they weakened Clinton? Will Republicans do whatever it takes to get votes? The morality of the corporation is to take the largest profit possible. Is the morality of the Bush gang to control the government, whatever it takes? Thats the flaw in democracy. It has been noted by observers at least as far back as Plato that mob rule (one person one vote and all can vote) is a danger. Dirty tricks are played, e.g. posting signs in Floridas black communities giving the day after the election as the time to vote. If Democrats did more of that sort of thing I understand Naders feelings, Democrats are not faultless, but their policies are more likely to try to halt the widening gap between halves and have not and the loss of civil liberties. Shock and awe alienated. As has the rudeness with which Bush has treated the rest of the world. That seems to be his personal contribution to the Administration mix. Its probably something his handlers would like to see toned down. But Bushs stance is that he is the ultimate ruler. Things were bad before Bush; now they are worse. Self-defense? Defense of the power. American interests are imperialist, but not quite like that of Rome, Britain, and Portugal. Other empires fell. Americas empire must compete with multinational corporations out to get what they can heartlessly. Unless reason begins to prevail in the American Administration, which seems unlikely, The United States will decline even before it begins. One World scares. People dont want to be ruled by foreigners. I am not a historian. I had originally selected psychology, which was, at that time, loudly proclaiming itself a science. By college, I had learned from A. C. Doyle the immense value of that which has continued to be, what I would forever see, as science: reason applied to empirical data under the joint assumptions of skepticism (no final answers) and that the laws of the nature can be learned. Me, as a scientist, thereafter held to criteria of knowledge that resembles the descriptions of Scientific Method found in high school and college textbooks, logical deductions from empirical data. We seem to do some of that as part of our innate mental machinery. It comes from being human or mammalian, or much further back than that. On the other hand, for various reasons, known and unknown, the species today called homo sapiens developed to the point that I can write these words and have them transmitted electronically to those who might be interested in them. The rocket scientists have created miracles. My motives seem clear to me. As I watch events that seem to lead inevitably to self-destruction, what needs to change are those inclinations that cause nonrandom fluctuations in historical events, in things that people do because of the ways people are, the mechanisms, harmful innate inclinations.
The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov
We are at a turning point. History provides no instructions. We have never before had the weaponry to destroy the world. We have never before had the communications power. By the time of Eisenhower the military-industrial complex had already taken over. The nature of the laws of the land determines how wealth and power become distributed among the governed. The way things are going some predict unimaginable horrors of suffering as dwindling resources produce Easter Island writ large. Some predict that ruin may occur within our lifetimes. In fact, it has already occurred to many contemporary lives in less fortunate places like American prisons and African communities decimated by disease or the increasingly large areas of clean water shortage. The acts of governments and individuals destroy many lives, but the terrorists are feared. They are equipped with knowledge via the Internet and other communication modes, intelligence, and motivation. Powerful technologies dont cost like they used to. One World scares people right and left, but not George Bush. Globalization fits his plan. He wont let Americans be ruled by foreigners. Human inclinations would have to be changed to achieve protection against disaster. Some inclinations were altered through cultural forces. Maybe there are other, fast, ways. Maybe science can find them. We asserted that the purpose of government is to secure the goals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to say nothing of survival. It means through regulations (laws). The purpose of the regulation is protection against the unregulated acting out of those built-in urges. Unless held back in some way, slight initial differences in power distribution become magnified over time until societies consisted of the power elite versus the rest. The future looks grim. We have got ourselves into a fix and the race between ( 1) the greedy, powerhungry, and maybe underneath frightened (of losing power?), and (2) the many knowledgeable forces acting ever more frantically to stem the tide. Pure democracy is a kind of autocracy. It is the self-destructive process of allowing power unchecked to gain more and more for itself. Greed is not good. It is not the same as fair competition in which all have equal chance, and there is a cap on individual wealth that keeps it from uninhibited growth. The reason is simple. It would work as Adam Smith hypothesized, but only for a time. A tipping point may be reached after which the process cannot be stopped. What happens in democracy one vote for each and every unit (person) is that the unseeable hand becomes a fist that batters down the many to increase the power, protection, and privilege of the few. The explanation is mathematically simple: the elites are able to purchase the votes of the majority, as we can see Bush now doing. They buy, intimidate, distract, and misinform, and they are able to do that because the more democratic the structure, the easier to rouse the crowd. Hitlers ability to rouse the population is called mob rule. One more thing. It is said that Bush-lovers among Fundamentalist Southerners, one of his most reliable constituencies, believe that a troubled world filled with wars, disease, and starvation portends the
A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:
glorious ending and Second Coming. They call it the Rapture. They almost want it. They like Bush. To them, he, GWB, is an honest and decent man. I wonder what history will say. One long tale. I wonder what will happen next. Dorothy Tennov 2004