In previous articles, I have described the contribution of Germanic Heathen tradition to modern ideas of individual rights, reasonableness, and even evidence-based knowledge that really gave us the tools with which we can discover and describe the physical world.
One of the most ancient surviving Heathen institutions is the English Common Law, which provided a fair and reasonable approach to determining truth. The lawyer Sir Francis Bacon thought about applying the idea of cross examination to nature, and delineated the basic process of scientific investigation. Combining Bacon’s method with another English principle, Occam’s razor, the Royal Society tightened the standards of evidence and proof, resulting in British Empiricism which gave us the strict processes that enable us to conduct modern science.
Thus, as I have explained elsewhere, the modern world owes much to the survival of some ancient Heathen principles, and can be seen as a natural evolution of Heathen culture.
From this perspective, I have to look back to other aspects of our culture and ask once again, how do we reconcile the spiritual aspects of our heritage with the intellectual and material culture we have today? To answer this, it helps to first look at where other popular religions have gone wrong, and why they have been rapidly losing credibility.
The Church had put humans at the centre of the Universe, both figuratively and literally. When Copernicus discovered that the Earth was merely one of many planets orbiting the Sun, he was denounced as a heretic, and his book banned. When Galileo confirmed the discovery, he was placed under house arrest, and threatened with torture. Over the next century, the facts had been so well verified by astronomers, that the position of the Church had become laughable. In trying to maintain its authority over something completely outside of its expertise, it had made itself an anachronism and lost credibility among many educated people.
Likewise, when Darwin discovered and described the evidence for evolution, and put forward his famous tree of life, religious groups reacted with outrage. Like Copernicus, Darwin had removed humans from the centre of life, and shown them to be one of many branches on a tree in which all creatures had common ancestors. Although the Catholic Church has recently accepted Darwin, learning from their mistake with Copernicus, many other religious groups are still unable to come to terms with it.
Perhaps the most obviously ridiculous religious position, short of the Flat-Earth Society, is Young Earth Creationism, which proposes that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.
What we see here is a repeating pattern of religion attempting to simply decree the facts about the physical world, in order to make them fit their mythology in a literal way. However, the physical world does not bend to the decrees of Popes or Gurus. Any religion making such claims will lose out to science, and damage its own credibility. Claims about the physical world that contradict, or are unsupported by, the observable facts are rightly called “superstition”.
The faith-based religions maintain their ability to prevent their followers from discovering the truth by early indoctrination, social penalties for those who question, and a regime of fear-inducing tales of supernatural punishments for those with insufficient faith (blind belief) in their dogmas.
The only way to avoid entangling religion and tradition with superstition, is to keep a clear demarcation, and avoid confusing the spiritual and physical worlds.
Unfortunately, humans are rather prone to superstitious thinking. We have a natural inclination to see patterns. If condition ‘A’ is often followed by condition ‘B’, we tend to assume a causal connection. Nine times out of ten, we will be correct, even if our explanation of the link is wrong. This has survival value, as it allows us to make predictions. The problem is that for common conditions, A will often be followed by B purely by chance. This becomes anecdotal evidence, which is then confirmed and perhaps given a fallacious but plausible explanation by a perceived authority (a priest or village witchdoctor). Even when the link has been shown to be bogus, the superstition can persist among otherwise educated people for a considerable period.
A good example of this is the recent anti-vaccination campaign. A large number of children are vaccinated, a large number also become autistic. Anecdotal evidence provided an abundance of examples of vaccinated children becoming autistic. Authority was provided by a researcher who prematurely published a paper on a possible link. People were rightly concerned, and stopped vaccinating. This gave the existing small anti-vaccination movement an enormous boost. In the meanwhile, it was obviously a priority for researchers around the World to test for the existence of the causal link. Many studies were done, and failed to find any evidence that vaccinated children were more likely to become autistic than the unvaccinated ones. Neither was any plausible explanation found for the claimed link. The original research paper has since been thoroughly exposed as flawed, manipulated, and agenda ridden. Yet the myth continues as hearsay or superstition, and is manipulated and politicised by interest groups.
This kind of causation fallacy is not obvious to the general public, but can be illustrated by an example: The anecdotal evidence is that most adults drive cars, most adults eventually have to go to the dentist. I could observe that every adult I know who has needed dental work, has first been a driver. All I need now is an authority figure to publish that vibrations from the wheel, up the arms, and into the jaw, will cause drivers to have dental problems. In the time it takes for reputable researchers to debunk the myth, there will already be a significant number of believers. The superstition is likely to persist for some time as it is spread by word of mouth, aided by the fact that everyone can think of examples that seem to confirm it.
Of course, it is not only fringe interest groups that manipulate and politicise information, or misinformation. Governments, churches, and corporations are notorious for covering up real indications of adverse effects, the tobacco industry being the most infamous. However, the good thing about science is that nothing is settled until many independent groups have tested the claims in question. The truth will always come out in the end, and bogus claims, or cover-ups, will eventually be exposed. Unfortunately, good science takes time, and many people are impatient and will just go with the popular trends, or the urban myths.
If we are to build a sustainable and credible tradition-based culture, we must become more science literate, not less. We must resist the temptation to take the easy way out, and mire ourselves in convenient falsehoods. Mythology provides a powerful symbolic resource for self knowledge and empowerment, not a means of escape from the real world.
Different Heathen groups have dealt with the problem of reality in various ways. The weakest and least credible approach has involved a kind of denial of reality. Aspects of the now discredited philosophy of post-modernism have been used to virtually dismiss reality from the equation by a kind of cop-out, claiming that reality is a social construction. Being able to sidestep the inconvenience of reality, these groups are then free to create their own. For xenophobes, it also justifies a reluctance to understand other cultures, as they can be dismissed as living in different “realities”.
Other groups have recognised the credibility and persuasive power of science, and resolved to invent their own pseudo-science. They put together scientific-sounding justifications for their positions, borrowing from the credibility of science, without the inconvenience of any actual research or evidence. McNallen’s racist “Metagenetics” is one that comes to mind, although New-Ageism abounds with other examples of pseudo-scientific fraud and charlatanry.
Neither do we need to deny the mystery and esoteric side of our traditions. We have perfectly good words to describe this side, Wyrd for one. We do not need to explain it away with peudo-science as Metagenetics tries to do, nor justify our Heathenness with voodoo linguistics and quasi-racist psychology as post-modernists like Thorsson are doing.
It is frankly embarrassing that some may associate Heathenism with these sorts of intellectual laziness and deception. If we are to avoid being duped by the snake-oil peddlers, or worse joining them, we must make the small effort necessary to attain a basic level of scientific literacy. At the very least, we need to avoid the anti-science agendas common in the New-Age movement. We also need to understand were these anti-science attitudes came from.
The first wave of anti-science was instigated by the churches during the 1600s & 1700s as they felt their authority over truth being challenged. Some religious groups still carry on this fight. The second wave was a romantic upsurge during the 1800s as a reaction to the perceived loss of mystery involved in discovering the real universe. The third wave is the reaction to the corporate greed and environmental damage that really started to become widely talked about in the late 1960s.
One of the major causes of the last reaction was the blatant hijacking of the notion of “progress” by unscrupulous developers. “Progress” had previously been the term used to describe a continual acquisition of knowledge and technical capabilities that are put to use for the benefit of humanity. Having too often been used by corporations and governments to justify large environmentally and socially destructive projects, by the mid 1970s, the word could not be pronounced without a note of cynicism. Different groups dealt with “progress” in various ways.
Again, post-modernists have the weakest and somewhat defeatist argument, that there is no such thing as progress. Things just change and go around in cycles. By any number of measures, this is demonstrably false. Even during the so-called Dark Ages, our ancestors were continually finding ways to improve their lives. It is human nature to accumulate knowledge and improvements in the way we do things. It is simply obtuse to deny the fact that over time, civilisation advances in numerous ways.
New-Agers and traditionalists, on the other hand, do recognise that progress happens, but many see progress itself as the problem. They would prefer to stop the clock, or wind it back. They long for a romantic vision of a simpler age. Many can not see a way to reconcile their dream with the advancing technology around them. They equate technological progress with the environmental destruction, and social disconnection that are real problems in the World.
As I have argued previously, science and knowledge are powerful but neutral, with the potential to harm or help. Blaming them for our problems is not helpful, or even rational. More than ever, we need them to help solve our problems. Sustainable energy and food production, and solving other of the World’s most pressing problems, will be impossible without highly technical research and solutions.
The answer is to recognise the different functions of the physical and spiritual realms. Just as religion can not inform us about the physical world, technology can not make us happier or more fulfilled in our lives. However, science does not make us less happy either. That is our own personal challenge.
For those of us interested in our cultural heritage, and keeping traditions alive, we must make our application of those traditions relevant and useful. If we withdraw into pseudo-science or superstition, we will fail to create a sustainable legacy. If parts of the tradition are shown to be at odds with reality, the whole tradition loses credibility. Like all superstitions, it will eventually die out, but in the meanwhile, false information leads to bad decisions. Superstition is disempowering, while tradition is a source of strength.
Hej Sweyn, thanks for this thought-provoking article!
I must say that I disagree with your point about technology…it itself is neutral, but the uses to which it has been put are not. A traditionalist stance does not have to require the abandonment of technology, but only a call for more responsible usage (not that I label myself a traditionalist or anything else).
Reading extensively about industrial food production makes it clear that many of the current food production problems are due to the introduction of technology with only one motive: to produce inferior product cheaply. In areas like this the call to reintroduce tradition-informed methods and philosophies is rigourously grounded in empirical science. In other words, the two are not necessarily enemies, and it seems overly hasty to imply that they are by default opposed. It seems clear that sometimes the traditional stance is more scientifically sound than the technological one.
In this sense there is actually a three fold relationship between tradition, technology, and empiricism. We need to consider all three and sometimes tradition is a better servant to the evidence-based approach than technology – as I say, food production is proving to be a classic example of this (check out the work of Michael Pollan and Nina Planck for more on this).
H
I am completely ignorant on the subject, and I don’t know if this claim is true, but it is sobering:
“Large, prospective long term studies evaluating the health of infants and children given 69 doses of 16 vaccines from birth to age 18, which is the current federal recommendation, have never been conducted.”
from http://www.nvic.org/faqs.aspx#63
Is vaccination evidence based? I hope so. I am all too aware that medical science has a nasty tendency to fall short of the standards of rigour of mathematics and physics.
I’d love to read more about the issue, for and against. Anyone able to point me in the right direction?
H
Hei Heimlich,
I actually agree with what you say here. Perhaps my essays are too intent on avoiding too much elaboration. The point I was trying to make is that tradition & science can be complimentary, and that the negatives are invariably the result of corporate greed.
Thanks & Wassail!
Sweyn
Indeed, medical science is and should be under continual empirical scrutiny. I would be shocked and surprised if there were not rigorous ongoing evaluation. What can not be denied is the fact that before vaccination, smallpox, polio, and many childhood diseases left thousands each year dead, maimed, or disabled. These epidemics, and some of the diseases themselves are now only seen where vaccination is not practiced. It is one of the most thoroughly tested & proven medical success stories.
Hi. I’m a new reader, and I’m wondering if you could cite a source or two, or even just give a brief explanation, for the discrediting of postmodernism. Academically, I’m trained in postmodernism, and I’m finding it hard to live with outside that context but can’t seem to get away from it or erase it from my mind’s “operating manual”. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Hi Wolf,
Apart from the hearsay that postmodernism started to go out of fashion in the universities in the late 1990s. Here are a few books I have read.
Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Paperback)
~ Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt
Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science (Paperback)
~ Alan Sokal (Author), Jean Bricmont
A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science (Paperback)
~ Noretta Koertge (Editor)
Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism (Paperback)
~ Paul Boghossian
The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy (Paperback)
~ The Editors of Lingua Franca (Author)
The Flight from Science and Reason (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences) (Paperback)
~ Professor Paul R. Gross (Editor), Professor Norman Levitt (Editor), Professor Martin W. Lewis (Editor)
PS. I don’t have a problem with postmodernism as a form of literary criticism. I am really refering to the way it has been abused outside that context.
Medical science deals with the human body – a living organism that cannot be reduced to mathematical formulae. Therefore trials and errors will always follow the development of medical science. Some people will always die in the process. Knowledge comes from mistakes, too; unlike metaphysics which wants to see itself founded upon absolute truths. Christianity essentially has a metaphysical character. Some Asatruars also yearn for metaphysical certainty. But the very notion of hamingja embraces contingencies and uncertainties – the stuff of immanent existence that is called life.
Much less understood is the influence of mind and spirit over body, including the role of beliefs. The scientific approach is to make a demarcation between medicine and psychology, but when treatment in the latter domain requires prescribed medications, psychiatry comes in, which is medicine. Almost unknown in the Christian religion is the influence of the body over mind, which having inherited Plato from the pagan Greeks, is essentially mentalist in its understanding of spirituality. Heathenry should provide a much healthier alternative for embodied existence that is life.
Excellent article, as always, Sweyn. I’ve long been fond of the idea that science and reason could be traced back to heathen and pagan thought patterns. You argue the case much better than I’ve ever been able to.
Hey Heimlich, which came first; The chicken or the egg?
More to the point, which came first?
a). The poor, ignorant souls who prioritize cheap, convenient, tasty food over long term health.
b). The greedy corporations who supply the poor, ignorant masses with exactly what they asked for.
or
c). The corrupt goverment bureaucracies who allow the greedy corporations to cheat, lie and murder in the interest of producing cheaper, tastier, more convenient “food”.
Hey Wolf,
The question you need to ask yourself is “Are some things true, whether we know it or not, regardless of what anybody thinks on the matter?”
If you can answer that question honestly, I think you’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong with post-modernism.
Hey Clint,
I think that when you look at the tactics used by major industrial food produces, the kickbacks, false claims, and the rest (a study of the history of margarine is breathtaking for example) it seems a little unfair to blame an uninformed public who might be too trusting or too willing to wallow in ignorance, but who didn’t exactly initiate the situation. Same goes with government agencies – sometimes they deal with these problems well, mostly not, but they are responding either way. Everyone has some kind of responsibility for these situations, but the problem didn’t arise prior to the greed-driven industrial food producers’ arrival on the scene.
To Sweyn – I think that mostly we’re on the same page (as usual) but you come from the British empirical tradition where I come from the muddleheaded Continental tradition (if I can make ridiculously crude caricatures) and so go about things in different ways. Incidentally, I have read an argument that improved sanitation is the main cause for the reduction of these diseases (I think that is even the offical line of the CDC) and not vaccination! Perhaps the wrong bit of modern technology is getting the kudos on this one, regardless of its value on its own terms?
The horror of the Spanish influenza could have been prevented if a vaccine was found then. It was a virus that went primarily for the young and healthy – like the swine flu.
Smallpox was another horror, responsible for 300-500 million deaths. Early ancestors of humanity already suffered from it. It wiped out the Aboriginal population in Sydney, despite their healthy life-style prior to full-scale colonisation of Australia.
Some pathogens can be controlled through social measures such as improved hygiene, but others will wreak havoc in a community even if these measures are in place. They just seem to know how to undermine the body’s defence system. Vaccination can therefore be seen as a front line countermeasure against the unpredictable onslaughts of the worst pathogens.
Life is a state of perpetual war against pathogens. It includes forming strategic alliances with germs that are friendly to human existence and propagation.
Despite our best intentions to attain good health and longevity, there will always be pathogens that will bring us down. It is the role of medical science to prevent epidemics of these pathogens. Heathens should support a scientific approach to the nature and behaviour of pathogens and I think this is what Sweyn is trying to say in his essay when he touches upon the subject of medicine.
The black plague struck down both the virtuous and the wicked: religion at the time was at a complete loss as to how to explain what was going on. Disease has no reason. It simply breaks down living beings whenever it can. Hence the mythic power of death, and the perennial allure of the pathos of suffering.
Yes, the history of margarine is an excellent example of greed and deception.
The point that I was trying to make is this…
It seems that, in a state of nature, human instinct drives us towards a full belly as priority number one.
Priority number two, for most people, is that the food taste really good.
Choosing healthy food seems to be at best a distant third for most people. More to the point, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of “healthy eating instinct” beyond avoiding stuff that made you feel sick last time. A preference for healthy food needs to be LEARNED. It’s an indicator of intelligence, education and maturity.
So, yeah, the food manufacturers are acting on the profit motive. Of course they are, that’s what corporations do. But there wouldn’t be any profits to be had in selling cheap, tasty crap (think MacDonald’s) if people weren’t interested in buying it.
It seems to me that, having solved the problem of production, we are currently evolving towards a cultural preference for real, healthy food.
Putting it another way; now that our bellies are full and we have some cash left over, we can afford to start being a bit more picky about what we eat.
The evolution towards a culture of genuine nutrition has been (and will continue to be) a slow and painful process. This is partly because the science of nutrition has not yet been fully worked out and partly because the process (and the science) has been interfered with by greedy pricks in business and government.
It’s also been a slow process because most people are sheep and don’t have two brain cells to rub together. But I’m not sure there’s much we can do about that!
Hey :)
Of course prior to industrial food what tasted good was what was healthy for you, in most cases. So from that point of view the introduction of industrial food is a massive set back, and people used to have a better grasp of what good food comprises of. I’m not saying that people aren’t ignorant or too easily satisfied for their own good, but in this case such factors are really only secondary contributors to the problem…
Jumping to a different theme…
As for vaccination, I’m not arguing that it is bad, but it is interesting to question and be curious. Big pharma are not known for their ethics or efficacy in many areas. Doesn’t mean they haven’t generally nailed this particular problem, but I decline to silence my curiosity. It causes no harm.
I don’t think people in the past understood healthy eating any more than most people today. I think they ate mostly healthy food because that’s all they had.
The evidence that people raised in traditional cultures don’t, in fact, appreciate the full value of their native culinary traditions is the speed with which they switch to a modern western diet when given the opportunity.
Even if they lacked a deep (e.g. scientific) understanding, traditional cuisines tend to combine foods in ways that just happen to allow for optimal nutrient uptake – vegetables or fish with butter is the classic example from Europe. That sort of thing suggests a level of instinctive or culturally established nous which modern folk living on TV dinners and microwave pizza just cannot match. Pre-industrial eaters figured out that beet kvass is good when you are sick and that pregnant women need to change their diets invarious ways, and a million other bits of knowledge. This is the kind of thing I am referring to.
The fact that they didn’t see that the new food would be bad is understandable because, after all, they probably couldn’t imagine that food could be bad for you…and once we humans are in a dietary disequilibrium it is no easy thing for us to get back to where we need to be, even when we have full insight and understanding of the dietary issues from a scientific perspective, and especially not when our whole way of life is under stress because of organised and calculating colonising newcomers.
The politics of colonialism as applied to food is way more complex than just “they were good eaters because they had no choice so naturally it went to hell when options appeared.” This isn’t like going to the supermarket and discovering that there are now two brands of organic butter available (but you don’t know which is better or worse since “organic” can still play host to wide variability in quality) which you are unfettered in your ability to select between…
The seduction of modernity and industrialised food is powerful – refined sugar and alcohol, introduced suddenly along with geographical and social dislocation, can cut like a swathe through traditional cultures because there is no framework to contain or make sense of them. And pretty soon, the traditional lifestyle smashed, there is poverty, which leads to a dependence on cheap rubbish and a state of amnesia that is difficult to come back from.
Actually, a little of each of our accounts is true. I’m not stupid enough to argue that people aren’t short-sighted and foolish at the best of times, but there is more at play than just this universal phenomenon. None of this changes the point that had we never industrialised our food production we’d never have needed nutritional science to eventually – after disastrous mistakes still playing out in the Western diet for health, cultures, animals, biodiversity, and environment – start telling us that actually the best model for eating is the one we had before the industrialisation of food…
Stuff like margarine is designed to fool people into thinking it is actually food…yet margarine took decades to win over the public, there was staunch resistance for years. But in any case, presented with what seems to be real food, who can blame people for thinking it is? It might be foolish to be so trusting, but on the other hand, one would be blameless for not being able to imagine the sometimes bizarre lengths to which food manufacturers will go…
I always prefer natural traditional foods. We are prepared to pay 3 times the price for free range eggs. Natural tastes better & is healthier. No doubt about it. But we can afford the luxury, many can not.
Industrialisation of food was driven purely by profit. Nothing to do with modernity. Economies of scale produce cheaper, inferior food in huge quantity, on smaller areas of land.
Without this industrialisation we would not be able to support anywhere near the current world population. Natural production would have pegged the population far below the current 6.7 billion. The price would be a significant portion of the population in permanent starvation. This is the natural wall first forseen by Malthus a couple of centuries ago (and gave him serious depression). However, mass production has only delayed the inevitable.
Just a couple of decades ago there was surplus production. Now, with another billion people added, the surplus is gone. The population is outstripping production, and set to rise a further 2 billion in the next 3 decades.
This is one of those ethical dilemmas. If we had never industrialised production, the food crunch would have hit decades ago. Would the world have had the wealth and stability to allow the social and technological advances of the last century with so many starving?
With mass production, we have bought time, but in 50 years, the number starving will be far larger than the entire population would have been without industrial production.
Either way, I think people will always choose not to starve over any concerns about how the food is produced.
It is a supply and demand thing with eating better food…in parts of the States, for example, small farm and organic produce is far, far cheaper because of its popularity, than the equilvalent is here in Sydney.
I think it is facetious to say that industrialisation of food has nothing to do with modernity. Do we not live in modernity? Is not industrialisation one of the main elements of modernity? How fine do we want to slice hairs?
I think that if the famine had hit 50 years ago, rather than in say 20 years time, then far fewer people would have died – there simply would not have been as many around to starve. China and Indonesia are aggressively trying to encourage their populations to have less children because they’ve figured out that the “we’ll just produce more” philosophy doesn’t work. So while I understand why the decisions made were made, that doesn’t make them the right ones.
And of course prior to the beggarising of the Third World by greedy capitalists (surely another hallmark of modern times), things were far better off there. The relative plenty of the First World has always been at the cost of impoverishing the rest, this started with English colonialism, the forerunner to the current world political economy. I think that even if the starvation had hit earlier on, the world would have seen just the same technological and social advances, which have largely been confined to the First World, which would have just exploited the Third World problems more aggressively than it had already.
But the more we choose the better quality food, the more prevalent it will be and the cheaper it will get. Stats on US industrial food are horrendous – in many areas these industries would run at a loss without Government subsididies, so we aren’t actually even talking about more economical food production! These are complex issues, but the solution is simple – bite the bullet to the extent that you can, buy the free range eggs or whatever, and slowly change will happen. Or for those who can there are other ways – organic food co-ops enable individuals to buy at wholesale prices, and gardeners eat for free. Rejecting industrialised food is also critical for protecting the environment, for animal rights, etc, etc, etc…
There are always ways and means.
Hei Henry,
Again, we agree on most things. I guess we differ on our use of the word “modernity”. I see it as the philosophy of striving to create a more enlightened world for the benefit of all. A kind of realistic utopianism. It will make mistakes along the way, but obviously profit without restraint is not rational or enlightened on the larger scale.
I also agree that we should vote with our wallets, and we certainly buy ethical and natural whenever possible. We also intend to grow what we can.
Indeed, “there are always ways and means”. To me this summs up the optomistic Enlightenment spirit of modernity.
Hey Sweyn,
Yes it does seem like a simple definition debate ;) Insofar as I have criticisms of the status quo, they are not philosophical or ideological but simply based on the observation that the status quo falls well short of its hyperbole. I have no problem with the ideals – it is the reality that disappoints!
Dude, I’m pretty sure the reason most people in third world countries are so broke is due to low literacy rates, high taxes and their own corrupt authoritarian governments.
But I suppose it *could* all be part of some evil capitalist conspiracy. You never know.
The history of most of the third world includes extensive exploitation and political destabilisation by colonialist powers. Third world economics is dominated by the outright devious and duplicitious economic policies of the World Bank and IMF. Corrupt third world Governments have a long tradition of being propped up by First World powers (the Cold War was the heyday for this sort of thing, and it still continues). The third world is crippled by debt run up in accordance with the IMF and by corrupt dictators but which greedy First World lenders refuse to drop, even though it isn’t worth much to them (a major part of the reason for those high taxes). The third world is a cheap playground for multinational corporations to exploit people for low wages in attrocious conditions in order to make a bonanza in the first world. etc. etc. etc.
I’m not saying that all the problems of the third world are caused by the first world, or that third world individuals are always virtuous victims…but to suggest that the first world’s colonial legacy and economic hegemony isn’t the deciding factor is to ignore the history of politics and economy in the world for maybe the last four centuries.
I always like to throw the cat in with the pidgeons and pose alternative views. It is a popular position to demonise colonialism & multinational corporations, so I just have to take the more difficult case in the debate.
English colonialism laid the foundations of democracy, education, industry, and trade in undeveloped countries. They generally exploited resources that were not exploited by the native populations, and often resolved long standing inter-tribal conflicts. The Commonwealth countries are now generally better places to live than their neighbors.
I work for one of the largest multinational IT corporations, & my clients are also large corporations. I know that these companies do ship a significant amount of work to India, etc, because labour is cheaper. However, ask those workers if they feel exploited. They earn many times the average local wage, and in nice offices. I can confirm it as I talk to them often. They inject a huge amount of cash into their local economies.
As for making ethical or sustainable choices. I often have lunch in food courts in the West of Syd. With a choice of various healthy foods & a couple of junk food outlets, I invariably witness 99% of young kids (age 3 to 15) being fed junk food by their parents, even when the parents choose something decent for themselves. Same story in the supermarkets. We buy ethical. The vast majority just buy cheapest.
We educated affluent minority will make a small difference in household purchases, but I do not see it catching on with the masses any time soon.
Contrast this to the corporations. The educated minority in charge are influencing policy. Most corporations now have ethical procurement policies, recycling directives, and social contribution works. Ethical and sustainable commerce is driven far more by the corporations now, than anything coming from the grass roots.
I agree that things have been pretty bad at times, but companies and governments are learning that unstable political and economic conditions anywhere is bad for business everywhere. The changes I have seen in the last decade are remarkable & give me cause for hope.
African governments are now leasing large tracts of land to First World countries and China so that they can grow their food there at far lower prices than in their own lands. African labour is also used, but the wages paid are higher than the average in order to ensure constant supply of manpower. The food grown gets shipped back to the faraway lands of the bosses.
About the future scarcity of food and water: you are right, Sweyn, it is something really scary. As heathens we can support organic food growers as much as we can as an act of defiance against the crass exploitation of land and bellies by the industrialists, who hide behind faceless multinational corporations.
Ah well, I rather find this account of colonial and corporate history breathtaking! Tell the Hutus and the Tutsis, or the castes in India, or the Palestinians and the Jews that the colonialists resolved differences. These are the tip of the iceberg.
Colonialism was a self-interested project intended to enrich European pockets. Any benefits done were quite incidental to that, and horribly constrained. And I am not talking about educated Indian IT workers (who nevertheles are being exploited compared to their similarly educated Western counterparts). I’m talking about Nike slave labour, gold miners who die in their thirties from mercury poisoning in South America, etc, etc. These people choose to do this work, but it isn’t like their options also included becoming a doctor, or a lawyer, or even a bottom-of-the-rung worker with half-decent conditions!
Ethical and sustainable commerce driven by corporations? I remember reading a few years ago about how Phillip Morris spent a couple hundred million on good works – an a BILLION on advertising their good works! It is incredibly hard to feel confident about the prosocial claims of multinationals given this sort of thing. One exception I know of – insurance companies are very proactive about climate change because they know they will be footing the bill…but even that is ultimately still a question of self interest. Where do you think the impetus for social change in large organiations comes from? The grass roots where the ideas are invented and perfected. If you can see that corporations are beginning to figure it out then that’s fantastic news, but this represents a victory for grass roots ecology, not a stealing of thunder.
I await the day when Shell, Halliburton, Monsanto, and Coke live up to your optimism. Looks like it will be a very long wait.
As for food – the change is slow but it is happening. I agree that the onslaught of poor eating in this country is amazing. However, we are 15 years behind the curve here in Australia with these sorts of things. Having been in the States last year I am optimistic that change will happen. We need to go forward to using more backward food production methods it seems ;)
I appreciate your challenging stance-taking, and it is worthwhile to remind oneself that there are always multiple stories unfolding in any circumstance. But even so, there is a line between optimistic and Pollyannaish, don’t you think?
Obviously, I have criticised governments and corporations before. We are justified in being wary of the motivations of any organisation. However, we need to remember that we only see a limited view. As you say there are multiple stories. As usual, the ones I choose are to illustrate a point.
In this case the point is that it is too easy to be dragged in to generalisations and catch phrases. Like any form of prejudice, a faceless entity is often a convenient villain. Certainly, many cases will confirm the negative stereotype, but it is still an obstacle to seeing the bigger picture. Any organisation is still made of real people.
There is a book “The Aquarian Conspiracy” (Ferguson, 1980), that posits that, as more enlightened folk make their way into positions of influence within organisations, they will start to create change for the better. Ferguson may be woefully ignorant of science, but the central idea of the book is valid. If she had been more educated in esoteric history, she would have known that the process has been going on for about 3 centuries.
Networks of humanitarians have been working quietly from within the establishment to mitigate the worst excesses of greed and stupidity. They have not always succeeded, but have made a significant difference over time.
In the last couple of decades, we have seen more pressure from within organisations to be more socially responsible, and environmentally accountable. The policies we are seeing are from real people who have kids, and really would like to see a better world.
This push for change is “grass roots” only in the sense that it is instigated by individuals. These individuals are not representative of the masses, but are generally well educated.
The real and substantial changes come from within the system, and from an enlightened minority. So while organisations may not be able to take the credit for anything, they are powerful conduits for positive change.
Once again, Sweyn has said it better than I could have.
An additional point to consider…
The history of the First World also includes extensive colonial exploitation and political/economic instability.
The US achieved independence from Great Britain in 1783.
Brazil achieved independence from Portugal in 1822
Colonialism is not a sufficient explanation for why some countries can’t really get their shit together, even after having been independent for nearly 200 years. (And that’s assuming colonialism actually did do more harm than good.)
I’m not going to argue with you on the IMF or the World Bank. I don’t know a lot about what they do, but any organization who’s stated purpose is “stabilizing international exchange rates and facilitating development” clearly can’t be trusted. (And no, I’m not being sarcastic.)
“African governments are now leasing large tracts of land to First World countries and China so that they can grow their food there at far lower prices than in their own lands. African labour is also used, but the wages paid are higher than the average in order to ensure constant supply of manpower. The food grown gets shipped back to the faraway lands of the bosses.”
Sounds like a good deal, provided there’s enough food still available for the African laborers to spend their above average wages on.
Oh change happens – one day soon China will reclaim her title as the most kick ass world power, not a bad turnaround from being the “Asian weakling” of the early 1900s. The US is a particularly compex case because they had slave labour and were essentially populated by Europeans, the indigenous population did not need to be integrated…in any case, the US only really got to be a serious contender after making so much money selling arms in WWI. They say an opportunity and took it, but it isn’t every day a country gets an opportunity like that.
But I agree that nations each have their own wyrd. The States has a certain magic to it, something I’ve not experienced anywhere else. And I’m reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman right now (he beat us to the whole idea behind Chaos Heathenism by almost 10 years with that book), and wow but it opens up that sense of mythos that I’ve sensed in the US into something altogether amazing, for all of its terrible flaws…
Enjoying the spirited debate. This site rocks!
Oh yes, the US is beautiful and terrible.
Brazil is terrible and beautiful.
And China is the next big thing, for a bunch of reasons.
Hey, I wonder if, in 50-100 years, Chinese people will feel about New York the way Americans now feel about Paris?
After you finish American Gods, you must read Anansi Boys. It’s got nothing to do with Heathenism, specifically, but in my opinion it’s an even better novel.
The African land leases: I, too, thought it was a good deal in economic terms at first because of the dire financial situations of most African countries. But then ecologists argue that the Africans will lose control over what kind of agricultural practice will be applied to the leased land.
As to British colonialism: there is some truth in what Sweyn said. Look at Hong Kong and Singapore: they are called the “jewels” of Asia because they perform well, and that is because they have adopted the British system of governance. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are similar success stories, although their models of governance are based on America. (Japan became a basket case during World War II when it emulated Nazi Germany!) China adopted the Soviet system and despite its free-wheeling capitalism since a decade ago, politically it still cannot shake off the repressive style of the Soviets.
British colonialism brought enlightenment to some parts of the world but it did not always do it nicely, even though being “nice” was so integral to the self-perception of the British “gentleman”.
Hey,
I guess with China…the empire was beginning to crumble and concerted efforts by Europeans brought it down through economic and political undermining and the use of opium as a virtual weapon. After that China went through decades of civil war and the democrats lost. The Communists then proceeded to step right into the Imperial archetypal current and nothing changed. Having destabilised the region for their own benefit, the West washed its hands when the crap hit the fan, except for their profitable little outposts. That seems to be a recurring theme of post-colonial history, actually. And Japan was never colonised – their Westernisation was their own thing. I don’t know enough about Korea or Taiwan to be able to say much about them either way.
It is worth recalling that the exponents of Enlightenment ideals were not generally the merchants and bankers who ransacked happily for their own immediate gain. Voltaire was hated and persecuted in his age, even though we now call that time the Enlightenment – we name it for the philosophical innovations of the time, not the often bloody and miserable reality of the realpolitik of the day.
Modernity seems to have two contrapuntal themes – idealism (which all too often turns out to be impotent unfortunately), and greed (which has always been around, but which has been able to expand into exponential grotesquery with the way that technology enables the centralisation of power and ideology). These competing tendencies are beautifully illuminated in the failure of Communism, just as much as they are in the poison of Fascism and the iniquity and crassness of capitalism (used not in Clint’s sense but the everyday sense). Of course, this tension was not invented in the modern age – it runs powerfully through the history of monotheistic religion, too.
Nonetheless, I suppose this is why I am ambivalent about the present age. We don’t need to invoke an idealised past era to be able to see that how things stand now ain’t great for a lot of people, as well as the entire biofield of the planet (can anyone say mass extinction? its happening right now)…on the other hand, humans are a small blip in earth history and it is unlikely we’ll prove to be significant in the course of its whole lifespan. That’s a comforting thought, given how poorly we seem to be doing so many things! Where I find the appeal to pre-modern ways helpful is not in the sense of wanting to regress, but in the sense of taking the things they got right – which is a lot more than many people realise – and seeing how that approach to life can be applied now. Kind of like the motto of Hex Magazine: “Old Ways for a New Day.”
Nicely put.
Good work Clint too, I like your directness.
Err, I don’t really have a problem with anything you said in your last comment.
I’m not sure to what extent opium was “used as a weapon” in China, rather than just being sold for profit, but I’ve heard this accusation before.
Japan did modernize on it’s own initiative (by copying western models) and has never been colonized, but I suspect the Allied occupation post WWII has had a pretty signifigant impact on the Japanese scene today. For example, the current Japanese Constitution was written under the supervision of the Allied forces.
VdVR,
Yar, well, you can’t have everything. If you’re leasing land, it’s usually possible to include clauses limiting what can be done with it. But that’s only possible to the extent that you can find someone willing to take that deal.
As an aside,
I visited Singapore briefly in my early teens. Seemed pretty awesome if I remember correctly. I’ve also had my eye on Hong Kong for a while. There are several places in that region that look like interesting options if the US ever really goes belly-up. Though I’ve been feeling more optimistic about that recently, at least some mornings…
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/04/15/ron-paul-and-the-libertarian-moment/
Thanks Sweyn. I hope you don’t wait so long before writing for us again next time.
Today’s news on some important changes in the IMF: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8633455.stm.
Modern psychiatry has inhuman aspects, however, the alternative to the Western tradition of Enlightenment, as seen in today’s Sydney Morning Herald article on mental health patients in Indonesia, is harrowing: http://www.smh.com.au/world/chained-to-a-life-of-madness-20100618-ymsz.html. How much resource, both spiritual and material, is required to heal the broken?