What next?

Sometimes it is difficult to formulate my thoughts into some semblance of order. So I stare at the screen wondering what is next. And this time of year always brings forth a host of memories, as is natural I suppose.

 

I know all to well that nearly five years have rolled by since Magucha died but that indisputable fact doesn’t make it any easier to accept. And, while I know that I have written about this before I just cannot believe that with her death Magucha’s indefinable “spirit” that was evidenced by her courage, her utter fearlessness (I never saw her afraid of anything, not ever), her intelligence, her mischievous sense of humour, her innate sense of justice and, of course, her love, have just disappeared into nothing. That doesn’t make any sense to me. 

 

Her presence is all around me. Or at least it pleases me to believe so.

 

Therefor as always when I feel the need to express the inexpressible I turn to poetry. I offer the following:-  

 

Journey’s End

 

Knowe’st thou where that kingdom lies?

            Take no lanthorn in thy hand.

Search not the unfathomed skies.

            Journey not o’er sea and land.

Grope no more to east or west.

Heaven is locked within thy breast.

 

Splendours of the sun grow dim,

            Stars are darkened by that light.

Thoughts that burn like seraphim

            Throng thine inner world tonight.

Set thy heel on Death and find

Love, new-born, within thy mind.

 

In that kingdom folded lie

            All that eyes believe they see;

All the hues of earth and sky,

            Time, space, and eternity.

Seek no more in realms apart.

Heaven is folded in thy heart.

 

                                                Alfred Noyes

 

The importance of order.

As this turbulent and extraordinary year of 2020 draws to a close I think we should all take time to reflect on what we, as belonging to the species Homo Sapiens (“wise man”?), can start doing now and keep on doing into the future. 

 

We need to reflect on the full meaning of the term “civilization” and how this is expressed by our current ways of life and the general disorder we generate.

 

Such reflections may, just may, help to redress the disastrous and damaging ways we, as a species are despoiling the very Earth, the Nature, we need for survival.

 

To this end I offer the following extracts from quite an old book – but the sentiments expressed are, to my mind, still very true:-

 

From “African Genesis” by Robert Ardrey, (Fontana Books paperback, 1970 pages 393/394) - as an aside, Ardrey was one of the first people to suggest that human beings first evolved in Africa:-

 

“But no animal compulsion stands alone in the debate of our instincts. And so I return to my second assertion, that civilization is a product of evolution and an expression of nature’s most ancient law. Far antedating the predatory urge in our animal nature, far more deeply buried than conscience or territory or society lies that shadowy, mysterious undefinable command of the kind, the instinct for order. And so, when a predatory species came rapidly to evolve its inherent talent for disorder, natural selection favoured as a factor in human survival the equally rapid evolvement of that sublimating, inhibiting, super-territorial institution which we call, loosely, civilization.”

…….

 

“The choice is not ours. Never to be forgotten, to be neglected, to be derided, is the inconspicuous figure in the quiet back room. He sits with head bent, silent, waiting, listening to the commotion in the streets. He is the keeper of the kinds.

 

Who is he? We do not know. Nor shall we ever. He is a presence, and that is all. But his presence is evident in the last reaches of infinite space beyond man’s probing eye. His presence is guessable in the last reaches of smallness beyond the magnification of electron microscope. He is present in all living beings and all inanimate matter. His presence is asserted in all things that ever were, and in all things that will ever be. And as his command is unanswerable, his identity is unknowable. But his most ancient concern is for order.”

……

 

“He does not care about you, or about me, or about man for that matter. He cares only for order. But whatever he says, we shall do. He is rising now, in civilization’s quiet back room, and he is looking out the window.”

 

One thing leads to another

I know that I have written about this before but to me it is of never ending interest.

 

What started it all? Every effect has a cause. But what? And why? That we can never know – which is why I’m attracted to the Ancient Greek idea of the Fates. Those mysterious "forces" which the Greeks portrayed as three women. Each of the three Fates had a different task, revealed by her name: Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured its allotted length, and Atropos cut the thread with her shears. 

 

Just to go back a few steps – I studied a Bachelor of Commerce degree at university. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I had been working in the bush as a surveyor’s assistant when a bloke I met suggested that I could better myself by going to university (he must have seen my potential!). So I did.

 

Science and mathematics were not my strong points so I thought Commerce would give me some scope. My employment history at the beginning was more in the managerial area.

 

I met my first wife, Frances Hunt (born in England), an attractive brunette, on a blind date and we hit it off straight away and were married within 3 or 4 months (not sure exactly, now after nearly 50 years). Seven years later I was working at the (then) Rhodesia Herald newspaper, as an Assistant Manager when our African maid phoned to say that, "something is wrong with the Madam. Please come quickly."

 

That I did, and found her unconscious on the bathroom floor – she had started the process that ended in her death four days later. Leaving me a widower with a 4 year old son.

 

Then about a year later, after I had quit the newspaper and started auditing with a well-known accounting firm, I was helping to audit a large department store in (then) Salisbury in (then) Rhodesia when I saw another, attractive but very small brunette. Anyway after nearly two years of persistence on my part Maria Augusta  (Magucha) Bandeira de Lima agreed to marry me. Now Magucha had some quite grave health issues – glomerulonephritis – a serious kidney disease. She was advised that pregnancy was not a good idea because of the strain it would place on her kidneys and the fetus. She persisted and in the hospital just before she was to give birth I was given a form to sign – given the state of her health, in a life or death situation, did I want the mother to survive or the new baby!! That was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.

 

Very fortunately both survived!

 

Then, after a series of both political and personal events we decided to emigrate to Australia.

 

But then going even further back. My parents left South Africa for Rhodesia, in 1950, because they did not like the way the Apartheid regime introduced by the Nationalist government in 1948, was being implemented. 

 

Also Magucha’s parents were more or less driven out of the then Portuguese colony of Angola because of the 1975 revolution in Portugal and the granting of independence to the colonies. So, after a number of incidents, they ended up in Rhodesia in 1976. 

 

There is a confluence of events developing here. 

 

Even further back in time my maternal grandfather Henry Matson, born in New Zealand, as a young man ended up in Demerara, previously a Dutch colony in what is now Guiana. There he learned about the cultivation of sugar cane and the extraction of sugar. Then through a series of events he ended up in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) in South Africa on a sugar plantation owned by the Acutt family. There he met and married Grace Acutt. My mother, Marjorie Matson was the second of three children.

 

My paternal grandfather (Dugald Campbell Watt) was a Scottish medical doctor who emigrated to South Africa to join his brothers. He became a very well known doctor in Natal. He met and married a girl 19 years younger than he was (he was 38 and she was 19) – Johanna (Annie) Anderson. My father was the younger of two boys born to them.

 

Then naturally, of course, my father, a journalist, met my mother, also a journalist and they married. This is where the "plot thickens". My mother was very ill after the birth of my older brother and very nearly died of septicemia – almost a death sentence in 1936. Dr Campbell Watt’s intervention saved her life. Otherwise I wouldn't be here writing this!!  

 

Then in the natural course of life, Magucha died nearly five years ago from complication brought about by the combination of the significant side effects of the many immunosuppressant drugs she had to take after her kidney transplant. These were too much for her little body to bear.  

 

I know that similar stories abound – everyone has their story. 

 

The Fates played their part (in my case) to perfection. Apparently. 

 

So you see one thing led to another – certainly completely out of my control.

 

Be careful. Be very careful.

Here are a couple of quotes from a book by James Lovelock “Homage to Gaia” (Gaia, for those unfamiliar with the term, in this instance, is not the Greek goddess of the Earth, but refers to the now accepted concept that life on Earth is a self regulating community of organisms interacting with each other and their surroundings. By doing so the Earth controls its surface and atmosphere to keep the environment always benign for life). 

 

However, I thought these quotes quite interesting:-

 

Ø  “If, in caring for people, we fail to care for other forms of life on Earth then our civilization and we will suffer. I wonder if in the 21^St Century, when the grim effects of global warming become apparent, we will regret the humanist bias that led us to continue to burn fossil fuel and plunder the natural world for food.

Ø  I soon found out that salinity greater than five percent damaged almost all cells, whether from animals or plants…… This knowledge stayed with me and when later the idea of Gaia, a self regulating Earth, first came to my mind I began to wonder how the salinity of the sea had always kept below five percent. It has done so for over 3 billion years, otherwise marine life would not have survived. We still do not know what regulates salinity……I still do not know how ocean salinity stays below five percent; it is one of the puzzles posed by the notion of Gaia.”

 

----////----

 

We dig up huge quantities of minerals leaving massive holes in the earth; we rip up millions of hectares of trees, cleared to plant crops; we use millions of tonnes of chemical fertilizers to try and replenish the soils degraded by over cultivation; we diminish the natural flows of rivers with unfettered irrigation; we poison the rivers and the oceans with chemicals which are the runoff from the degraded soils; we discard millions of tonnes of plastic, which end up in the sea; we overfish certain species of fish causing havoc with the food chain. 

 

We must all recognise that what we do individually or collectively, has consequences. And these are totally out of our control - we might not like them when we see what eventuates.  

 

But that is ok. There is money to be made, you see. And money is paramount. Cash is king.

 

Remember that we humans, all 7.4 billion of us, are like a thin layer of dust on the surface of the Earth. If every human being suddenly disappeared the Earth would quickly recover from our depredations and return to it beneficent state and a natural peace would be restored to that beautiful “blue” planet so evocatively seen from the surface of the moon. 

And Now?

Sometimes it is difficult to write about present times. No one can reach sufficient “height” or have sufficient insight, to see the warp and the woof of the patterns in life that are being woven.

I know that I have written about this before but I still want an answer!

Many will know that I have an abiding interest in psychology – trying to determine why we do the things we do. Allied to this it is always necessary to remember that every action in life, individually or collectively, has consequences – generally unexpected.

But then, firstly, I have tried to establish what we humans actually are – this has puzzled me for a very long time. What are we? Just an accident of nature (but what is nature?) or is there some design and purpose behind the creation of life?

In this regard it is worth remembering that the words Psychology and Psychiatry derive from the Greek ‘psyche’ (pertaining to the Mind or Soul). It would be to the advantage of all not to lose sight of this primary meaning because it should guide our thoughts on these matters. Furthermore, my personal life experiences, a psychology degree, the examination of published papers and extensive reading, have led me to the rather uncomfortable conclusion that research into this subject is trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. There is an attempt to reconcile the objective, quantitative, scientifically measurable aspects of the biological brain with the subjective, qualitative and immeasurable aspects of the mind/consciousness with the intention of arriving at some meaningful answer. 

Any answers arrived at, however, will be dependent on the deep consideration of some difficult concepts that in themselves give rise to many questions. For instance, what is Intelligence? What is “Life”? What is “Consciousness”? Is “Life” the same as “Consciousness”? Is there a difference between brain and mind? What is it that is absent when something that was “alive” is now “dead”? What is a thought or an emotion and how are thoughts or emotions generated? These terms (intelligence, alive, dead, consciousness, mind, thought and emotion) are in the common lexicon, yet there is no agreed definition or consensus as to what they are. The brain is believed to “contain” the mind and consciousness and yet the mind and consciousness may not be confined to the brain – even though they appear to be related in some manner as one affects the other. 

Regarding the brain, while imaging techniques, for instance, have shown that certain areas of the brain are activated when thinking or remembering something, it has yet to be determined whether thoughts or remembrances, by some means, activate the neurons or whether the activated neurons, somehow, create the thoughts and remembrances.

Similarly it will be recalled that all observable forms of matter are constructed from atoms and molecules. This becomes interesting if “Matter” (in the form of the human body and brain) together with “Life” and “Consciousness”, are considered in the light of quantum physics which states (very basically) that Energy = Matter (remember E=MC²?). Einstein, with this famous equation, revealed that the Universe is not just trillions of distinct items separated by inert space but in fact is a dynamic construct in which matter and energy are so inextricably mixed that it is not possible to consider them as separate elements. If this is true, where does this leave ‘life’, the ‘mind’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘intelligence’? How can energy/matter be intelligent or conscious? What is ‘dead’ energy (i.e. some matter which was alive and is now dead) compared to ‘live’ energy (i.e. some matter which is animated and alive)? Furthermore, physics tells us that there is no foundation for a view of life based on the pre-eminence of matter. Energy is indestructible and outside of time, and as a result the total quantity of energy is constant. This is known as the law of conservation of energy. But one of the astonishing results of relativity theory is that there is no law on the conservation of mass (matter).

Something else - humans presume to consider themselves as the epitome of the universe. As confirmation of this assertion the human brain has been described as the most complex single object known to science, with an estimated eighty six (86) billion neurons. The feasible connectivity of these gives rise, literally, to an astronomical number of possibilities. But does this connectivity explain the mind or consciousness? 

There is also this further matter - our freedom to choose – known as the “problem of mental causation”. It is a fundamental fact of science - a maxim - which states that nothing can happen that is not governed by natural laws of material causation (i.e. physical events cause physical effects). Thoughts are non-physical (they are subjective), therefore by definition cannot cause anything physical to happen. How then is it possible for subjective (non-material) thoughts of the “self” to so influence the function of the (material) brain that they compel the brain to direct the (material) body to perform a particular action? This has yet to be resolved.

So where does this leave us?

I really have no idea! That is why I am so interested in this subject.

Worthy or unworthy?

What are we? Just an accident of nature (but then what is nature?) or is there some design and purpose behind the creation of life? Nobody knows!

And further to this conundrum I add that we human beings, generally, seem to be hell-bent on destroying the very environment that allowed all life to propagate.

I know I have written about this before but when it comes to understanding the “Tragedy of the Commons” it is well worth reiterating the facts. These “commons” are those resources which benefit all and that we all rely on, water (including those species that live in and on the water), the soil and the air. Free access and unrestricted demand for finite resources (minerals) ultimately reduces those resources through over exploitation. This exploitation occurs because of the financial benefits that accrue to individuals or groups, hence a desire to maximise the use of the finite resource without regard to the deleterious effects borne by all – even those unaware that such voracious exploitation is taking place.  

The fact that money appears to take precedent over what is best for all is pure greed. I am thinking particularly of the current, apparently intractable, divide between the political Left and Right and the socially unacceptable imbalance between the very wealthy and the vast numbers living in poverty, together with the deniers, generally those whose affiliated to Right-wing politics, who oppose political reform and who have an apparent inability or unwillingness to accept the we, humans, are destroying the very environment essential for survival.  

It would be well for all to reflect on the fact that all wealth – the economy that politicians love to invoke – is totally dependent on the air; the soil and water, both fresh and salt. Without these there would be nothing.  

“The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity––then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.” (David Suzuki)

I will now quote extracts from a speech attributed to Chief Seattle of the Suquamish and Duwamish people in what is now the State of Washington DC (though there is some dispute as to whether or not this was “ghost written” for him):- 

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected ….. 

….This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected ….. 

….You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. 

The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. ….

….Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival.”

And so it seems to be. The sea ice is retreating; the permafrost is melting; much of the World’s ground water is contaminated. Many millions of square kilometres of the land is now so degraded that huge quantities of chemical fertilizers are required to get anything to grow. Many square kilometres of cropped land is sprayed with insecticide and weed killer. Many millions of square kilometres of forested areas are burning in drought-ravaged areas. Many millions of tonnes of waste, of all types, now pollute the oceans. Many millions of tonnes of chemical and noxious gasses are polluting the very air we breathe. 

But all this is accepted because of money; because of the “need” to grow the economy; that same “economy” which only exists because of people whose very lives depend on clean air, unpolluted, productive land and unpolluted water.  

 Makes me wonder!

What is next?

I know I have written about this before, but it is sometimes both interesting and instructive to refer to what the ancients had to say about life in general and in particular about money and wealth.  Plato (427 – 347 BC) in his Dialogues, particularly the Republic (Jowett translation) writes about Oligarchy and the changes that take place in people’s ways of life and expectations.

Plato defines Oligarchy as - “Typically ruled by a small group of men usually distinguished by wealth or with military backing. Seeking to rival rich men, the great mass of citizens become lovers of money. The more they think of money the less they honour virtue. Men become lovers of money and money-making; they honour and look up to the rich man and promote him to high office and dishonour the poor man ….. 

There is a further defect that arises, its division into what Plato calls a Timocracy. The State is not one but two States, the one of the poor, the other of rich men, living in the same spot and always conspiring against one another....

.... At the same time the rich with their fondness of money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.”

Plato defines Timocracy as, “An intermediate state between Oligarchy and Aristocracy (Aristocracy according to Plato is a state ruled by philosopher kings – rule by the wise) ... Timocrats are unique in their fear of philosophers as rulers (preferring passionate, less complex characters more fitted to war than peace) and on the value placed on military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars. But people living in a Timocracy are very like those in an Oligarchy in their covetousness of money.... They will spend large sums of money on women, and other others who please them .... they will spend that which is another man’s on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law...”

Oh dear! I wonder where I have heard all this before – it seems that we never learn! All this sounds distressingly familiar, doesn’t it? We can all relate to Plato’s comments, which show that human nature hasn’t changed in twenty-five centuries (at least)! 

Its well worth repeating that unless we escape the maelstrom that we are descending into, when people relate more to money and “stuff” rather than the wellbeing of people (human beings) whose labour produced both (money and “stuff”) - we have a real problem, as currently seems the case.

Rather glibly economists speak of the ‘global village’ and of the benefits of ‘globalisation’ but do they really know what they are talking about? Now that we are all in this together – the Covid-19 pandemic - isn’t it time that we recognized the benefits of prioritising the well being of the populace in one’s own country? 

As an example of the “dangers” of coveting money above all else, I offer the following – possibly extreme but true none the less. Some years ago now I listened to a sad tale, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio interview, about the changes that had taken place on a Pacific island (I cannot now remember which one). The speaker, an old Islander, told of how, certainly within his life time, there had been no unemployment, no starvation and no crime (except the occasional ‘crime of passion’) and that there had been a general sense of well being and of belonging to a community and of a long continuum in that community – going back generations. Each knew their place. Everyone was educated in the traditions of their community, their complex (and very accurate) system of maritime navigation and the various skills of canoe building, weaving and such like.  Everyone did what they could – they planted their taro, they fished, collected coconuts or whatever and they continued a simple barter trade with neighbouring islands – sometimes many days travel away in their out-rigger canoes. While they had never known any other way of living they were content.

Then all of a sudden some developer, with financial gain foremost in his mind, thought it would be a good idea to open a supermarket and associated infrastructure on the island. This brought about an abrupt change in the islanders way of living. Now all of a sudden they had to have money to purchase the many desirable items in the shop and they quickly acquired a taste for the different foods on offer. 

This brought massive disruption to their previously ordered society. Families were split up when some members had to travel to either Australia or New Zealand to find work to send back money to their families ‘back home’ so they could purchase ‘stuff’ from the supermarket. Previously unknown health issues arose (from the changes in diet and alcohol intake); previously unknown social disruption and types of crime occurred  – there was now theft, violence, greed, unemployment, poverty, exploitation and the occasional case of starvation.

The old Islander plaintively questioned, “Are we better off entering this “new” world   (i.e. the Global Economy)?”

I know things never stay the same and that longing for the past is a fruitless exercise, but I again ask the question - do the economists, who promote the “global” concept, really know what they are doing – promoting the acquisition of money as the end game of life? Surely the well being of people should be paramount? I fully realise this is not a simple Yes or No question – but it still needs to be asked.

I have often wondered about the ethics of globalisation and whether it really has brought the benefits to ALL that its promoters trumpeted that it would. 

The Fate of Empires

I was reminded of an old magazine article after reading what others have written on this topic – in this case the current political troubles besetting the USA (see 'Rolling Stone' – August 6, 2020)  

 

I kept a copy of (the now defunct) Blackwood’s Magazine, dated December 1976, because of a very interesting essay entitled “The Fate of Empires” by Lieutenant-General, Sir John Bagot Glubb, (1897 – 1986) also possibly better known as Glubb Pasha. Glubb was a highly decorated, distinguished British military man who had a long association with the Arab world.

 

This essay traces various, mainly European and Middle Eastern empires, from ancient Assyria (858-612 BCE) through to the British Empire which he dates 1700 -1950. Glubb admits to knowing nothing about the South American, Chinese, Indian or other Asian empires, so they are not mentioned in this essay. 

 

The American “empire” he barely mentions but he does suggest that this was an “internal empire” – taking over the North American continent, with all its riches, from the indigenous peoples, began after the war in 1812, with the Westward Expansion. It really started in earnest, however, in 1845 with the idea of a Manifest Destiny - “from Sea to Shining Sea” – so there was no real need to look elsewhere. 

 

With slight variations the general “age” of these empires was about 250 years and they all follow a similar pattern. While I might not agree with all his ideas – he was writing from a very British viewpoint some 45 years ago – generally what he wrote then is an accurate time line relating to the various stages of an empires rise and fall.

 

Ten generations – 250 years - is a pretty standard life-time of an empire. In summary, Glubb suggests the following as an approximate flow of events relating to any empire’s eventual fate:- 

 

1.     The Age of Pioneers (the outburst).

2.     The Age of Conquests.

3.     The Age of Commerce.

4.     The Age of Affluence.

5.     The Age of Intellect.

6.     The Age of Decadence.

This age, Decadence, in Glubb’s opinion, is marked by:

a.     Defensiveness

b.     Pessimism

c.     Materialism

d.     Frivolity

e.     An influx of foreigners

f.      The Welfare State

g.     A weakening of religion

h.     Too long a period of wealth and power

i.      Selfishness and civil disobedience 

j.      Love of money

k.     Loss of a sense of duty.

 

Generally though Empires fall largely as a result of external causes.

 

My point in quoting from this essay is to highlight the fact that, quite possibly, America (the USA) is now quite far down the path of decadence (refer Rolling Stone article). Also depending on when one considers America to have begun it’s empire 1812 or 1848 – it is quite far either into or approaching its second century. 

 

So what is next? Which country will rise to form the next Empire? I am no soothsayer so I will not make any predictions on the future of the USA or any other country. 

 

I’m not game enough!!

I thought this might be interesting

Updated January 29, 2021

I thought this might be an interesting comparison with the CURRENT Covid19 pandemic.

The war deaths figures below are taken from Wikipedia and the CURRENT Covid-19 figures are taken from the John Hopkins University statistics (as at January 29, 2021).

So far in 120 YEARS of warfare the US has suffered 627, 549 deaths.

So far, in just 13 MONTHS since January 1, 2020, the US has suffered 433, 213 Covid-19 deaths.

 Wars – since 1900 - ranked by total number of U.S. military deaths.

Rank	War	Years	Deaths
1	World War II	1941–45	405,399
2	World War I	1917–18	116,516
3	Vietnam War	1961–75	58,209
4	Korean War	1950–53	36,516
5	Iraq War	2003–11	4,497
6	Philippine–American War	1899–1902	4,196
7	War in Afghanistan	2001–present	2,216
	TOTAL DEATHS		627,549