Interesting Times!

There is this phrase, often xenophobically attributed to the Chinese (not unlike the blame directed at the Chinese for the recent pandemic) but actually spoken by British politician Joseph Chamberlain. The saying goes, “May you live in interesting times.” I do not believe any definition is given for what is meant by ‘interesting times’ though it is commonly believed ir refers to times that are turbulent. Dissension, war, revolution, social unrest., those events of times. Given even a casual glance at history, I suppose the times are always turbulent, and so I wonder, when are the times not interesting! Robert F. Kennedy had used the phrase to suggest that turbulent times could lead to change! But to my thinking, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. As for me, the existence of war, violent and dissension have been ever constant during my life: I cannot begin to list the events that have rendered my times turbulent.

 Turbulence begins as a small irregularity and to my unscientific mind this irregularity suddenly transforms unpredictably into something dangerous. Tornadoes are highly localised, extremely small and spontaneous systems. It is practically impossible to forecast their formation and path. They are, however, turbulent! As with tornados, a small personal or cultural irregularity suddenly transforms into a violent and dangerous turbulence. Airplane pilots recommend to passengers to fasten seatbelts when seated in case of unexpected turbulence. Turbulence is always unexpected, unpredictable and potentially very dangerous. Nobel laurate Richard Feynman says, “if water falls over a dam, it splashes. It we stand nearby, every now and then a drop will land on our nose. This appears to be completely random . . . The tiniest irregularities are magnified in falling so that we get randomness.” Personal and social order follows this pattern. “[G]iven an arbitrary accuracy, no matter how precise, one can find a time long enough that we cannot make predictions valid for that long a time. Now the point is that the length of time is not very large . . . It turns out that in only a very, very tiny time we lose all our information . . .  We can no longer predict what is going to happen!” A smoothly running classroom turns turbulent suddenly from some minor disturbance. Turbulence is inevitable and highly unpredictable. That is why pilots caution passenger to fasten their seatbelts. 

But there are those who disdainfully yet ignorantly deny the existence of turbulence and that neither they or any one else require seat belts; these are individuals and governments who foolishly assert their capacity to command control over everything. Their narcissism threatens everyone aboard the plane. Such leaders are fools. Tolstoy writes in War and Peace, “It is understandable that as long as the historical sea is calm, it must seem to the ruler-administrator in his fragile little bark, resting his pole against the ship of the people and moving along with it, that his efforts are moving the ship. But once a storm arises, the sea churns up, and the ship begins to move itself, and then the delusion is not long possible . . . the ruler suddenly, from his position of power, from being a source of strength, becomes an insignificant, useless, and feeble human being.” Oblivious to their own ultimate helplessness they construct homes out of sticks and straw. Such unwise leaders refuse to acknowledge that we cannot predict irregularity with very much accuracy, that we always must be prepared for unexpected turbulence, and that we mere mortals would be foolish to think that we are in full and inviolable control at all times.

There are, at least, two aspects to this ignorance: that of the one who behaves as if they are in complete control over everything and so denies the possibility of turbulence; and there are those who ought to fasten their seat belts but do not do so because they believe the swagger of their irrational leader. In 1834 Orestes Brownson delivered an address on the 58^th anniversary of American Independence. Brownson warned, “There is a worm gnawing into the very heart of the tree of liberty which our fathers have planted . . . a large portion of our community lies at the mercy of any political demagogue who knows how to veil his liberticide designs under a pretended love of the dear people.” And those dear people foolishly believe this solipsistic leader. I wonder . . . Make America Great Again? When was the United States ever great? During the religious persecutions of the 17^th century? At the advent and perpetuation of slavery? During the massacre of the Native indigenous populations? At the attempt by the Southern states to destroy the Union by seceding from it? The rapaciousness of the Gilded Age? During the Cold War Arms race? The Vietnam and Iraq Wars? The preent oligarchical takeover of the government by sycophants and incompetent officers? The incidences of turbulence continue to pile up. When wasn’t the nation beset by turbulence? Brownson knew that American democracy was an experiment and that it could fail if not nurtured and watched over. I think that any leader that assumes absolute control over events ignores the reality of turbulence and the responsibilities that attach to the offices they serve. But then that leader must be protected from the reality of turbulence by his minions and his secret services. They ignore the reality that they cannot protect him from someone who has greater accuracy with a rifle or from foreign leaders with less bravura and more skill. To declare a complete knowledge of and control over things and events and to confidently predict a future becomes evidence of stupidity. It denies the existence of turbulence. Such a position does not acknowledge the world as it exists. The narrator of George Eliot’s Middlemarch says, “to most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable—else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?” Of the latter I might offer this: we teach a child to say please and thank you even though the child doesn’t really mean it. We demand that elementary school students recite the pledge of allegiance though they don’t understand one word of it, not even the word ‘I.’ The demands and niceties in the maintenance of social bonds are numerous, strong and sometimes even important. We must be guided to a sense of restraint. 

I think we live in interesting, turbulent times. We are led by stupid, self-centered individuals who believe that they can assert absolute control over everything and who deny the existence of turbulence. Of social bonds they care not a whit and so assume the right to do whtever they please and the rest be damned. Such stupidities are dangerous even as faith in these stupidities is equally troublesome. No one is that knowledgeable or powerful to ignore turbulence.

I have been thinking of the Schooner Fare song “We the People.” They sing,

We know the time has come
To take our heads out of the sand
'Cause if we don't the chance might never come again

If we do not fasten our seat belts and attend to the already present turbulences, the chance may never come again.