James Gillray: Election Candidates
(published May 20, 1807 by Hannah Humphrey)

ABOUT THIS ARTWORK
Despite its jovial hand coloring, James Gillray’s response to the 1807 parliamentary election in the district of Westminster caricatures real candidates with ruthlessness. Here, Gillray implied that the winner, the radical Sir Francis Burdett, had extra help. Burdett becomes the goose atop the pole, supported by a demonic figure with a pitchfork, while the agitated constituency below degenerates into a mob.

" … can't see how this latest experiment in degenerative Democracy can go any way but sideways."

The first of The Stupidities I introduced in yesterday's missive deserved to be Certainty; for Certainly, Certainty must be the primary difficulty of our age. Every age preceding us complained about the complexity of their situation, and should have. Each successive generation could rightfully complain about their age's complexity, which might mean that our world has become increasingly complex. Suppose the purpose of civilization was ever to somehow tame this native context each generation faces. In that case, civilization has utterly failed because it seems that it has managed only to amplify complexity rather than attenuate it.

Perhaps because of this, the urge for simple solutions seems to grow with each successive generation. If we acknowledged the ever-expanding complexity by abandoning simple-seeming suggestions, we might cope better with the situations we face, but we amplify the complexity by choosing to respond simplistically. Our belief in a Common Sense seems to grow with each generation, too, rather than devolving into the obvious nonsense this belief must represent. Our forebears doubtless also shared our dilemma: our insistence on bringing a proverbial knife to a virtual gunfight. We tend to leave our BIG guns at home or, worse, refuse to acknowledge their possible utility. We continually surprise ourselves with our results, the ones our very perspectives insist upon.

It makes no sense to the simple-minded social reformer that banning abortions could increase infant mortality. There is no simple way to resolve this confusion without resorting to the very thing the Common Sensicals steadfastly refuse to embrace, namely, Systems Thinking. Thinking systemically remains the purview of a bare minority, one that is most broadly misunderstood and disrespected by the vast majority. Systems Thinkers believe that all phenomena are likely connected. They are sure of few things, but they suspect much. They mostly suspect simple solutions, for they perceive a world in great, often overwhelming, complexity. They inquire to perceive, not to receive definitive answers. They question what they see rather than immediately believing what they perceive, acknowledging the fallibilities of even the most perceptive.

Electorates get conditioned to perceive politicians as properly assessed by the positions they take. Citizens ask questions as if positions might answer them. Those questions often take the form of double binds, essentially asking when the politician stopped beating their dog, even when the politician never owned a dog or beat one, either. To answer the question is to undermine one's position. Hence, politicians are often accused of avoiding questions and "playing politics." Why can't they answer the simple, straightforward questions, then? Perhaps because we don't live in a simple or straightforward world. The fixed positions an electorate might insist their politicians take do not result in good governance. They, at best, most often produce broken promises and, at worse, the opposite of whatever the electorate expected.

The bottom line here might be that the Certainlies we seem to insist upon undermine our best intentions. Most of the difficulties any polity faces cannot be properly characterized as solvable. They are, therefore, not usefully thought of as problems. They might be better described as dilemmas, each featuring some damned-whatever-you-do aspects, practicably unresolvable by any means. This does not mean that the underlying situation might not be improved, just that not even the best-intended application of any force could fully resolve the conditions. This is not cynicism talking, but Systems speaking their uniquely disappointing dialect. Flights of fancy resolve nothing but the naive expectations of the fancier, and those only temporarily. Real resolutions tend to be much less inherently satisfying than pseudo ones. The one thing they tend to have going for them might be their relative longevity, but nothing ever turns into forever over and done with.

But, like with anything, durability comes at a cost. A durable response to a situation usually requires more resources. How much more? Typically, more than anybody would willingly agree to provide. There might be no proper investment, only the one that achieved agreement, but the agreement always emerges from misgivings and uncertainties. The sure bets are all long-term losers. The simple-headed solutions all turn out to be, at best, short-term palliatives and typically easily fall apart and leave disturbing debris piles, which become the next generation of difficulty the simple-minded polity will be challenged to deal with. I suspect we'd be much better off if we elected doubting Thomases, those who seem relatively ponderous or too obviously out-think us. The current prototype of this sort of politician might be Pete Buttigieg.

Conservative MAGAs despise Buttigieg because he seems to think a few steps ahead and slightly above anything they can perceive. He leaves them feeling stupid. Correctly said, they feel stupid when he's around, so they must do everything in their simple-minded power to bring him down, if only because he probably has the better answer. They pine after such abilities but only have their Certainlies to bring to the challenge, their sharp knives to the BIG gun fights. The history of our time will be scratched on the surface of the simplest notions. Making America anything poses a considerable challenge, and almost any serious Systems Thinker might consider making America anything a disturbingly delusional notion. One does not "make" a nation do anything. Nations make up their own minds about everything. If, indeed, any nation ever has a mind.

Ours seems to be out of its mind at the moment. This is not an unprecedented situation if I correctly read the historical record. Churchill was perceptive when he posited that America tends to do the right thing only after exhausting every other possibility. We are presently embedded in the process of exhausting more of those other possibilities. We are actively digging deeper holes while insisting that we're making our way to Mars. Neither objective seems terribly productive, just terrible. Our NextWorld will only seem entertaining when reviewed in the history books. Living through it will likely challenge each of us. My Systems Thinking can't see how this latest experiment in degenerative Democracy can go any way but sideways. That might say most about how I perceive.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld #Pure