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Today's subject is..absolute power

It seems that there is-- and perhaps has always been--an eternal quest among the powerful for more power then they already have. It's not enough that in the past 50 years we have made astounding gains in terms of technology in virtually every area, someone always wants a more superfluous influence then they already have. Now I do not believe that striving for success is wrong, or that one should simply forget the world once they have become successful. It's the people who are already obscenely wealthy and powerful yet never seem to be satisfied that bug me.

I have often ruminated about why would anyone behave in such a way. One possible explanation is that gaining power is just wired into some folks DNA in a somewhat Darwinian fashion. Gain more power, increase chances of success for you and your descendants. Or maybe it's not about you at all, maybe it's solely about your descendants. Make a mad dash for as much power as possible during your short life--we must remember for most of human history the average length of life was very low--, spending every waking second plotting how to gain more until the day of your death. It would certainly be no stranger an approach to life then some of the other organisms on this planet. Some creatures seem to spend their entire lives either eating or desperately trying to mate, then once they mate they die. It makes sense in some fashion when you consider how perilous life is for many of them and how low the survival rate often is for newborn wild animal.

So perhaps some people are behaving just like animals, ruthlessly pursuing as much influence as possible because of some primal instinct designed to maximize their success. However, what does all of this mean for the rest of us? What happens when so much of the power becomes concentrated in the hands of the few, does capitalism fall to pieces? Does democracy cease to be by the people for the people and instead meta-morphs into by rich for the rich? One also has to wonder what will our world look like once we finally figure out how to slow down the aging process even further, and people start routinely living for hundreds of years--which if I am not mistaken is the current optimistic estimate. Will certain individuals who don't have an "off switch" for their desire for more suddenly find themselves living virtually forever, able to be kept alive by technology? Maybe some of them will even become heads of state, able to hold their office for many generations, Fidel Castro style.

Perhaps our societies can only really function if there is a system of checks and balances..for every force pushing one way, there most be another force pushing in the opposite direction. The alternative--unchecked power--seems to me rather dangerous.

Vocab: Ruminated: to meditate on; ponder.
Superflous: being more than is sufficient or required; excessive.

Machiavelli and morality

The first I heard of Machiavelli was when I was a junior in high school. My government teacher described him as being someone who believed that cruelty was always justified as long as it got results. I believe the example he used was "Machiavelli thought that instead of having a loving relationship with your wife you should beat her to make her fear you, because fear is a more effective method of control then love". That is not an exact quote but it was something along those lines, the main point being that Machiavelli would approve of beating his wife to maintain control of her. Now I respect my old teacher who gave this example to try to make his students understand what Machiavelli was all about, but I thought and still do think it's a very crude and inaccurate interpretation of Machiavelli's work. I don't think this characterization is an isolated incident either, it reflects a larger more mainstream view of Machiavelli which I believe is flawed.

Indeed one only has to do a simple internet search to find Machiavelli’s infamous quote “Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. "shortened down to "it is better to be feared then to be loved" To me this seems completely taken out of context. Within the very same passage Machiavelli more elaborately demonstrates his views on the subject of fear by saying "Nevertheless a Prince should inspire fear in such a fashion that if he does not win love he may escape hate. For a man may very well be feared and yet not hated, and this will be the case so long as he does not meddle with the property or with the women of his citizens and subjects. And if constrained to put any to death, he should do so only when there is manifest cause or reasonable justification." Is this not the very thing that government, or any body that imposes a law does? Make any who would seek to break the law fearful of the consequences, but at the same time avoid the hatred of the people? So then it could be said that a society with any laws at all is Machiavellian.

Why then do people use terms like "Shocking" to refer to Machiavelli's delineations on princely life? I think comes back to the fundamental ignorance and misunderstanding of Machiavelli by the mainstream culture. I admit that when I first heard of the generalizations of Machiavelli by my teacher and others, I came to think that Machiavelli must be a complete fool. What kind of idiot thought you could just abuse people constantly and it would work out? That way of thinking, using brutality to achieve ones ends is tried and tested throughout history and always fails in the end. So when I actually read some of Machiavelli's work I was surprised to see that my understanding of him was wrong. Machiavelli didn't advocate mindless destruction to achieve ones ends, nor did he make any mention of what anyone should do in their personal lives. Rather he laid out a thoughtful, logical perspective of how a prince should operate in order to be successful. He seemed to advocate not that force should predominate life nor that it should always be the primary method of conflict resolution, but simply that force in addition to prudence was required to be a successful prince. Essentially he seemed to be saying that being a prince requires brawn as well as brains, and that to survive in a world where your enemies could be mercilessly brutal to you it was sometimes necessary to be mercilessly brutal to them as well.

The concept that most people seem to get wrong is that just because Machiavelli promotes using unorthodox tactics sometimes, that doesn't necessarily mean he is an evil or mean spirited person. After all, every politician must make choices that are in the interest not only of himself but the national good. In making such choices sometimes there is no universally right answer, they are required to choose between bad and worse.

Then again, are those really accurate terms to define things? In our culture people tend to define things in black and white, something is either right or wrong. Good or bad, up or down. Perhaps the core issue is that this is a foolish way to look at the world. I tend to find that most things have elements of both good and bad blended together. It is no different when one has to make hard choices. One may find that each choice has an element of good and an element of bad, and that they must choose the one that leads to the greatest sustained good.

Overall we must confront the fact that there is seldom a straight and narrow path to doing good while in a position of leadership. Machiavelli simply did what no one else would do, tell it like it is.

Vocab:

Prudence: The quality or fact of being prudent.

Delineation: Something made by delineating

The internet and the future

I was struck by a rather interesting thought the other day as I was contemplating youtube. Given that you can save the videos that people put up there and just re-upload them using your own account if they are taken down, it seems to me that once you put a video on youtube there's a chance it will be around the internet literally forever. I don't think this concept applies only to youtube either; Myspace, Facebook, Blogs, and virtually any other kind of media can be saved by someone. With videos of course the video itself can simply be saved, and for websites like blogs all archived versions of a page tend to automatically be saved by google and other search engines. With dozens of engines attempting to emulate google's success and probably dozens more in the future, I wouldn't doubt cached pages are something that's here to stay. Which means that even if a web page on a site is deleted or changed it is and will continue to be possible to see what was there before. That means that in twenty, thirty, even fifty or one-hundred years from now we may still be able to read the web pages of today. Perhaps we will get so good at archiving the net that they will just stay there forever.

But of course, what kind of implications for the future will any of that have? Well I for one have to think of political campaigns. In an age where the slightest off script remark or gaffe can be turned into a million dollar slander campaign against you, just how will having all of this old internet material around affect current and future generations of politicians? Using youtube as an example, consider the following individual. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ATY9MP0Gs&feature=related) His original video was taken down, but it had over 1 million views and tens of thousands of comments. So I think it's safe to say that video is going to be around for a while. Knowing that, I have to wonder just whats going to happen to that kid if he ever wants to run for public office. Would his campaign even be able to get off the ground, or would it be stopped as soon as it started by the release of the video? I doubt his competitors would release it themselves or mention it publicly, but I can easily picture it mysteriously finding its way into the picture through attention given to it by third parties.

Of course the question must be asked, are average voters so immature that they would take something from twenty to thirty years ago and use it to make a judgement about someone? Would they allow such an old video to obfuscate the present? If they are egged on properly, then I believe yes. So then, has this individual just limited some of his options in life by making a childish mistake of his youth? It's certainly possible. All of us make infantile mistakes in one fashion or another when we our young, but until now we've had the good fortune of doing so in relative obscurity. Now however because of cell phones virtually anyone has access to a pocket camcorder. Are all of the kids growing up around that kind of scrutiny going to be hurt decades later just because they made a few simple mistakes of youth that get caught on film?

Maybe none of this would ever be an issue if people weren't so judgmental, but that is not the world we appear to live in. Not only are people quick to judge but they also tend to give more weight to things they can see first hand then to things they are told on the basis of trust. It also doesn't help that we live in a political landscape where shaping other peoples opinions is a million dollar industry. I have no doubt in my mind that if the above mentioned youtube video was given to the proper individuals and they were told to politically ruin the creator, that it could be done. Then again maybe the world will turn out differently then I am imagining. Maybe the general populace will become desensitized enough to propaganda and misinformation to be skeptical of it rather then overly trusting, and perhaps in the future we will all become less judgmental. I suppose only time will tell.

Vocab: Infantile:

1. (2) childish, infantile

(indicating a lack of maturity; "childish tantrums"; "infantile behavior")

2. Obfuscate: make obscure or unclear

Today's topic is.. Persistence.

In today's world perseverance is an important trait to have if one wants to have any quality of life. If we want something we must be prepared to fail several times before we finally get it. But not all of us seem to have this trait of persistence, why not? Perhaps the problem is that once we become accustomed to regular success in one area, we begin to want that feeling of regular success in all areas of our life. After all, success feels good and failure feels bad. When one has become habituated to the feelings of self worth and pride that success brings, it's nice to think that feelings of insecurity and failure are a thing of the past. But if we fall into this trap, new experiences may be avoided solely for the fear of failure. Becoming overly accustomed to success can also cause us to give up easily on new endeavors. Take playing the piano for example; it's a simple fact that most people who try to learn to play the piano don't stick with it long enough to really learn to play. Why don't they stick with it? Is it because they no longer think they will ever have any success at playing the piano? Have they realized that they are such horrible piano players they will never be able to play no matter how hard they try? I do not believe so, I believe that they "put their piano playing on hold" so to speak because they are tired of experiencing feelings of failure. They have become habituated to success in other areas of their lives, and they desire it with the piano at a faster rate then they are seeing it happen. But assuming this is the case, it seems to me a terrible way to perceive and live life. Failure is a part of life and in order to be successful we must overcome any fear of it.

Perhaps we can even learn something from the animal kingdom. The tiger for example, for all its strength and cunning, will fail on average 19 out of 20 hunting attempts. Each time the tiger wants a meal it has to be prepared to fail 19 times. I wonder where our species would be today if we all had the tiger's tenacity? Perhaps some of us still do possess the power of perseverance, but many others of us seem to have fallen into the trap of complacency. If we ever find that we are among the complacent ones, we must do our best to remember that fortune favors the persistent as well as the bold.

Vocab :
Habituated: to accustom (a person, the mind, etc.), as to a particular situation.

Complacency: a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc.