ThoughtsFromTheCheapSeats is an expression of my thoughts and opinions on a range of subjects. The purpose is to promote a healthy exchange of ideas. Archived newsletters can be found at 1hundredsixty8.substack.com./archive
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Whether or not Benjamin Franklin said, “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid,” the statement captures the journey we take through life. The human brain is a wondrous thing, the instrument we use to observe and describe the world we live in. It is the master of our bodies and interpreter of our senses, the repository of our intelligence and our emotions. The brain is the basis of our creativity, imagination, and curiosity. It controls our behavior and is responsible for good and evil, love and hate, generosity and greed.
The perceptive Dr. Franklin understood that many of us do not take advantage of the power of our minds. There are people who prefer to be told answers rather than search for them. They crave certainty, and seek simplicity when confronted with complexity. Ideology is attractive to the incurious mind because it provides emotional satisfaction, allowing one to avoid the demands of critical thinking.1
Beginning with the oral traditions of our ancient forebears, homo sapiens exchanged information in the form of stories, a proclivity that continues even as more sophisticated forms of collecting and communicating knowledge are developed. The history of humankind is a story of progress; as our knowledge of the world has increased, our thinking and languages have become more complex. We developed the means to observe and to record the phenomena of our environment in greater detail. The ancient Greeks described the material world as consisting of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. The contemporary Periodic Table lists 118 elements. These were always present; it simply took time for humans to develop the capabilities to “see” them.2
Beyond our physical environment, our minds control a cognitive process- ‘thinking '- which we use to create and analyze ideas. Thinking allows us to tell stories, much as our ancient ancestors did. We have, for example, told ourselves for millennia that there are gods, or a God. Those are stories humans created. Such stories- fictions, if you will- became our religions, our laws, our morals, and the conventions by which we agree to live in groups. We created languages, verbal, mathematical, and symbolic, to communicate not only information about the physical world, but also about abstractions, thoughts that existed in our minds. We came to think of ourselves as the apotheosis of intellect among Earth’s living organisms- a fascinating conceit, when you think about it.
I say conceit because we should ask ourselves what we are doing with the power of reason and imagination available to us. FDR spoke about the ‘four freedoms’: the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear. I would argue that the freedom to think, to reason, and to imagine is the ultimate human freedom. It is the tool humanity wields to learn, to change, and to progress. Those who resist or deny change ignore reality: from the day we are born, we are changing. Our bodies grow, we accumulate experiences, and we learn from the world we live in. It is also true that not all change is beneficial, either for an individual or a society. When we learned to harness atomic energy, its first use was as the world’s most terrifying weapon. Only after World War II was the focus switched to the development of nuclear technology as an energy source.
So, where do we Americans stand today when it comes to using our brains? Despite the country’s history of preeminence in various technologies, our politics and culture have been degraded. A prime example: According to The Global Statistics website, 21 percent of American adults struggle with basic reading tasks. For the founders of our republic who were influenced by Enlightenment philosophy3, democracy requires a citizenry sufficiently knowledgeable to select their leaders, and they expressed serious concerns that a government of the people would be susceptible to demagoguery. As Madison warned in Federalist No.10, a politics of “ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition” would be the consequence if a sufficient number of people fell prey to misinformation and emotional appeals.
And thus, here we are… Which would be no surprise to our old friend, Benjamin. Franklin. On September 18, 1787, the last day of the Constitutional Convention, when asked by a Mrs. Powell of Philadelphia, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”, Franklin replied, “A republic… If you can keep it.”
If we are to keep it, perhaps what we need is an Enlightenment Redux, a New Age of Reason. The old football coach in me thinks we need to get back to fundamentals, to the basic principles of a society that preserves our rights and liberty through a social contract and a rational framework for government. It requires interdependence among the system, its leaders, and the people, like the meshing gears of an engine. That translates to reform of our politics, including constitutional amendments to modernize government, eliminating the role of money, and redefining capitalism to be harmonious with democracy. The power of the President must be reigned in; the position should be akin to that of a corporate CEO, with Congress as the Board of Directors, and we the people as the shareholders. Modern society cannot function if all complex decisions are made by one person. The current political situation should be a lesson in itself.
We must end the conflation of misinformation and propaganda with free speech, and hold our media outlets, including social media, accountable. We should require political candidates to substantiate the claims they make during campaigns. We must recognize that term limits for elected officials already exist; re-election should not be automatic, and every two, four, or six years, we decide if elected officials merit another term. We must understand that leadership in a democracy does not simply mean executing the will of the majority; it means that the principled leader strives to steer government to accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number. And I think that candidates for Federal office, including those who are appointed, must pass the same citizenship exam given to immigrants who become citizens. We vet people for all sorts of jobs, yet not for those with such a large potential impact.
We should be thinking about these issues. Understand ingyour goals is the first step to taking action: In the final analysis, the power to change lies with we the people, if we put our minds to it.
Anyway, these are some thoughts from the cheap seats.
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For reference, the Wikipedia entry describes Critical thinking “as the process of analyzing available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to reach sound conclusions or informed choices. It involves recognizing underlying assumptions, providing justifications for ideas and actions, evaluating those justifications by comparing them with different perspectives, and assessing their rationality and potential consequences.[1] The goal of critical thinking is to form a judgment through the application of rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluations.”
Consider the microscope, which permitted humans to view living cells. You can read a timeline of its development here.
From Wikipedia: The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason or simply the Enlightenment, was a period of intellectual and cultural flourishing in Europe and Western civilization, emerging in the late 17th century in Western Europe. It reached its peak in the 18th century as its ideas spread more widely across Europe and into the European colonies in the Americas and Oceania. Characterized by an emphasis on reason, empirical evidence, and the scientific method, the Enlightenment promoted ideals of individual liberty, religious tolerance, progress, and natural rights.
The Constitution was founded on the notion that the people, the electorate holds ultimate power. That's the votes of the people. Then the founders created the Congress, given certain powers to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the people. The Senate and House of Representatives balance one another are supposed to do this, elected by the people. There's the rub. Thanks to detachment of the people from monitoring Congress, we elect those people who we like, more than those capable and willing to stick to the aims of the Preamble. And the underlying lies and kowtowing of candidates, lies to the electorate and kowtowing to the rich, have led to charlatans being elected, who ignore everything on election, so we have lost today both independence from hacking (everybody) and maybe brainwashing and the Preamble sentiment (at least half of elected officials). So now we have a do-little or do-nothing Congress because the former GOP and Republican organizations seek only power and longevity in office, permitted to remain there because their backers--both rich and citizenry--seek power, not defense not providing for the people's welfare.
Yet the people still have the ultimate power, if slow to awake to the fact that their choices for office are not heeding their electorate, but the rich--the majority for a time sought no longer defense, nor support for the common good, but power they mistook for good. Enter the Constitution's executive who was rich enough to get elected--the desire of many MAGA backers to be rich--and glib enough to con the rich into supporting him--to preserve and extend their power. The voters thought he was going to achieve his campaign goals to ensure their general welfare. NOT! The search for power meaning money overwhelmed voter knowledge and morality, both. So despite MAGA backers known as Evangelists who nominally claimed to be Christian, that is, guided by biblical precepts--think Christian Nationalists--getting heaven on earth, they get hell--taken over by White Supremacists, derived from national isolation, oppression of non-white peoples inside their country, and the wannabe rich. But they forgot the common defense and general welfare, at least for now. President Trump said all the right things to the David Dukes of the nation, to the captains of industry--bankers losing money/deposits/investments to globalism, real estate developers being outbid by international rich men/organizations primarily from China, industrialists sending jobs abroad to gain cheaper wages for higher margins, and the highly educated, including lawyers--finding common cause with power seekers in a rational way.
The lawyers are coming to their senses first today. Former Republicans abound in the group of the deep thinkers who recognize the arguments and balances of the Preamble as implemented in the Constitution. The rest of MAGA can't or won't think so deeply relying on 'common sense' so remain Trump/MAGA supporters. Supreme Court justices have abandoned their rationality in its majority members for the good life--Justice Thomas--or misunderstanding of the founders--Justice Alito--or bureaucrats masquerading as justices--Justice Kavanaugh--or the recently recovered thinkers--Justice Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts.
The nominal Christians are still mostly lost due to the apostasy of their Pastors whose sermons and teachings have devolved into the non-Christian beautiful stories of the harsh Old Testament--revenge, retribution, stoning others, etc.--instead of the hard-to-achieve Gospel's Beatitudes, walk a mile in another's shoes, Parables, and common good from 2 Commandments which are interpretive vs. 10 specific Commandments.
MAGA contrarians to the Preamble, etc. seek the 'filthy lucre' so permit the rich to hold sway with campaign donations and lobbyists. They lack Christian precepts due to their wayward pastors and teachers so available on air and in print doing the Old not New Testament things. Remember slavery was justified in the bible--the foundational Jewish part. The White Supremacists have forgotten to 'go into all the world' so support isolationistism and white-only pre-bellum status of the Deep South.
So it remains for efforts into the distant future via education and religion to illuminate the ills pursued by those who want to dump rule of law, due process, freedom of the press, religion, etc. and the other parts of the Bill of Rights. Remember even the august fathers of the Constitution and country, only added the first 10 Amendments to assure adoption of the Constitution in the diverse states. It was an afterthought, a political move that today is being ignored by those in power, today's 'fathers' in Congress and the Executive and Judicial branches. We, the People, must awaken to save our Constitution or succumb to the darkness of the Old Testament precepts which Christ gave his life to change for God, the Father.