On White Clothing

The first thing I encountered after opening wide a creaking gate was a Boston Terrier on jet packs. With its mouth spread into a silly grin, Snoopy bounced like a spring with arms and legs outspread, trying to land itself into the comforts of my white, immaculate dress shirt. The sight of the dog airborne was already in itself an intimidating sight, but it just so happened that I was also wearing a pair of white pants with matching white tennis shoes. I quickly examined the sprawling dog, and with one look at its rough little paws thrust forward like muddy kisses, I knew that if I were to relent, I would instantly be decorated in black cherry blossoms . Yes, Snoopy was cute with his little jiggling belly and yes, he had some desperate looking eyes too, but no. Permission to enter: denied. As Snoopy leaped, pounced and flailed, my backpack swept up, down, left and right, blocking off his trajectory. He started to whine, but I had already closed the door.

After setting down my backpack in the house and changing into different clothes, I went back out to see Snoopy. He sat at a corner next to his food and water, head on the ground but tilted slightly to see me emerge from the house. He didn’t move. “Snoopy”, I called, “Come on. Good boy”. He lifted his head, slowly, then picked himself up to trot dutifully next to my side without a sound. I stroked his head, but he just sat there glancing at the door, pensive. No slopping tongue, no wagging tail, nothing–not a trace of jet-packing Snoopy. Maybe he was looking at something beyond the door, something that went in but never came back out the same. Or maybe he was thinking longingly about my white attire. I continued stroking and tried complimenting him, but my words fell out, dead before they even got to be lost in translation.

I stopped petting and stared into Snoopy. Our eyes met, but nothing connected. Then, I realized as I looked in his eyes that my white set of clothes was really a decorative facade called ego. With a set of white clothing on, I wasn’t ready or willing to accept, much less approach, that which may potentially leave a stain. I made sure I established a protective zone for my ego. It was this distance, extended and maintained for the sake of sanctity, that has kept excitement and amicability at bay until they have slumped into a mound of apathy. By the time I have changed into a more receptive set of clothes, a certain degree of polite respect remains but the initial energy has drained. Ultimately, white clothes, blue clothes, red clothes, green clothes, gray clothes and whatever I wear can and do get dirty, no matter how hard I try to keep them clean–but they are washed. Egos also get soiled, but they eventually get dipped in the cleansing waters of time, soaped, spun, dehydrated, and heated by daily life experiences to emerge, once again, clean.

I snapped out of my reverie as I felt something on my cheek: Snoopy’s pink tongue was lapping my face and his entire body, dirty paws and all, were all over my clothes. That’s life: rumble, tumble, and roll out humbled.

Close encounters of the Third Kind

You know that a blogger is either lacking imagination or plain lazy if he talks about the same class for three days in a row. Well, I’m both, so here goes:

Today in my Humanities class we explored the film titled, “Close Encounters of the third kind”. The film, released in 1977, tapped into a lingering anxiety for UFOs, a phenomenon that first caught fire through the Roswell incident in 1947. At around the UFO hype, there was much speculation and, along with the plethora of pictures, a good number of video interviews of sheepish farmers who were abducted by aliens. Do I believe the stuff? Well, how do I know that I am not an evil vegetable spawn of a malicious alien hoard that had taken over the United States during the Roswell incident? Come to think of it, U.S. policies does seem oddly nonsensical lately… Could it be? It’s tempting, real tempting.

My potential alien heritage aside, Close Encounters is an interesting film that shape shifts depending on which historical lens it is viewed with. For instance, viewed from the modern perspective, the film is so over dramatized and exaggerated that it comes off almost as a parody of alien encounters. The main character is portrayed as a nut-case, and after a series of little obsessive behaviors, he has a revelation and begins to build a huge mud mound in the middle of his living room, alienating him from his family in the process. He became so frenzied that his begins to dislocate everything surrounding the house–plants, bricks, fences, dirt–and shovels them into the room through the window. I could understand if a person feels strongly about an aesthetic impulse, but to humiliate the family in front of everyone in the neighborhood for the sake of gathering materials needed for a dirt mound that could have been built covertly? Hard sell. Again, from a modern standpoint, this film could have passed as a ridiculous satire.

On the other hand, the film could easily be dead serious. Given that the Close Encounters came out in 1977, or 30 years after the actual Roswell incident, the film could have exaggerated the social embarrassment aspect of believing in the UFO to resonate with the audience, some of whom have had, know of, or heard about friends who claim to have seen UFOs. Unlike modern times in which UFOs have taken a more fictional backseat, the topic of UFOs was still fresh in the national consciousness in the 70s and was a possibility that was not too far removed. Which take is more accurate? To be sure, both interpretations are justified but the ultimate intent will, like the UFOs, remain a mystery.

Design your baby!

*Phone Rings*

*Man picks up*

“Hello Sir, you called yesterday requesting for a customized skin color for your new baby?”

“Yes. Does the lab offer blue skin for a type XOR baby?”

“Um… we still have some blue genes in stock, but only of a lighter shade. It’s more baby blue.”

“That’s fine, I take some baby baby blue genes then”.

“Thank you sir, would you like stripes with that?”

For my humanities class today, we created 3 designer babies: one male, one female, and one sexless. Given the option of choosing from any and every trait to ‘gift’ to the baby, The students were given the option of choosing from any and every trait as ‘gifts’ to the baby. Naturally, the class gushed with creative suggestions. Besides the expected traits (like IQ 1000 and immortality), a few interesting propositions included ‘wall scaling abilities’, ‘hairless below the waist’, and ‘cultural sensitivity for the Armenian race’. In particular, the female students were quick to endow this super baby with ‘brad pitt’s looks’, ‘horny with a plus’, and ‘endurance 6 hours’. My professor responded to such a combination by stating that we were essentially ‘designing a super smart porn star’. What did he expect from a room of college students?

For all the messing around, our ‘design-a-baby’ exercise was actually predicated on some serious implications. Some examples include natural selection versus artificial selection (taken to the extreme), the battle between intrinsic and extrinsic value, and the social politics of genetic modification. After making our babies, the teacher asked, “What if each trait costs $100,000 and mom and dad had to take out loans to create the super toddler? After all, no company is going to pass up such an opportunity to make a few quick bucks. Wouldn’t the parents expect their super babies to make that money back later on–with interest? Would Democracy still exist in a society in which the rich can buy traits for their babies and the poor can’t? Wouldn’t Racism, or Genism, become rampant?” The future from a genes-eye view sure looks pretty dour. After all, as Syndrome from The Incredibles said, “When everyone is super, no one is.”

There is no doubt that biological engineering has a future market. However, as each new discovery takes us a step closer to dreams of greatness, we must return to a fundamental question: should we open this Pandora’s box? Besides unpredictable biological consequences, what social ramifications could result from opening the floodgates to genetic modification? Natural selection used to be the rule of the game; however, with artificial selection playing an increasingly greater role, the game is being taken into an entirely different level, one that directly challenges the essence of what it means to be “Homo Sapien”.

Life can get complicated.

Principle of Practicality

Catepillar: “…and who are you?”

Alice: “I–I hardly know, sir, just at present–at least I Know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

Have you ever encountered a question that is so enticing, so nerve raking, that you feel it must be pursued at all costs? This problem can be a religious conviction, a philosophical dilemma, or even a social complication. Either way, it is a problem that infringes upon your conception of identity and puts you in a state of uncomfortable uncertainty, neither black or white but a pathetic shade of Grey, begetting question upon question until finally, a biblical flood of confusion washes out the chaos and drowns you in a pool of tired bile. I know I sure have come across such problems. For me, personally, this problem developed a sphere of influence that handicapped my ability to formulate, construct and defend positions with passion. It created a lingering doubt in everything I once held to be self-evident, and it engendered a senseless fear about striding forward. This problem is the problem of myriad paradigms.

To simply, a paradigm is simply a point of view, a set of values and beliefs that construct a certain mental frame of mind. The problem of the myriad paradigms is one that is self-complicated. It dictates that, according to the different social, cultural and historical backgrounds, every individual has a different set of values. For instance, a man raised in a cannibalistic family would not consider cannibalism an infringement on morality. The man in the modern 21st century, however, would appall such practices. Ultimately, the establishment of values seems relative to the circumstances of each individual, and if this is the case, who is to dictate the standard set of ‘ethics’ for everyone to follow. After all, each culture would claim the authority in morals and values, and this quickly deteriorates into chunks of oligopolies who hold different sets of generalized morals. What then, does one make of the moral ’standard?’ Which does one follow? Is it a social contract more so than it is ‘moral’? Indeed, at times like this, ignorance is bliss.

However, all this philosophical contemplation does little good on the general scheme of things. I have already been socialized to a point where, as much as I could toy around with the possibilities of hybrid values, I have evolved certain behaviors, inclinations and assumptions to best suit my environment. My existing social niche remains unchanged, and in order to thrive at where I am, I need to simply ‘be myself’. Now, this would not be the case if I were to travel or move to other countries/cultures, but at least for the time being, it doesn’t seem I will be doing much radical changing. The best philosophy to adopt in this case would be that of practicality. The ‘principle of practicality’ might exist as an actual term; it might even be a repeat of a similar idea in philosophy–I don’t know. I made this up and I naming it how I want to.

The principle of practicality is based on a very important premise that is illustrated in the following exercise: go out and walk down the street. That’s right, just walk down the street and look around. With each step, the view and perspective is different from the step previous. Time is like so. As time passes, the mind changes and evolves as it undergoes different experiences–this is as inevitable as it is the changing scenery when one takes a stroll. Although with my current mental capacity, I may not come to a conclusion about the problem of myriad paradigms, with time, my existing paradigm will shift and change as well until one day, I will have accumulated enough experiences to appreciate at a deeper level a certain message or idea. Ironically, I will end up using an element of the myriad paradigms–the fact that paradigms are constantly changing– to try and understand the problem as a whole. At first, this method may seem to be an evasive strategy; however, there is no other way to approach this organic problem except with an equally organic process. Rather than debate the philosophy of this problem, I have decided to go down the most practical path and grasp onto my fickle sense of identity that is now.

Who is Vincent?

My Humanities 1 class dedicates the first day of every week to watching a film for the sake of analyzing it for the rest of the week. Today, we watched the 1997 Science Fiction film Gattaca, a film that wrestles with tensions between combos such as social identity and physical identity, natural conception and genetic enhancement, biological fate and psychological determinism. Ultimately, the film digs deep into the significance of what it means to have an identity by questioning a critical assumption: does one’s biological make-up define one’s identity, or is there something more to what makes the identity of a human meaningful.

The film explores this question with the story of two brothers, one natural born (Vincent), one genetically modified (Anton). A quick summary of their relationship is as follows: Vincent was born with defects in his genome that will shorten his life span to no more than 30 years. This is written into his DNA. It is his fate. Even though it is his dream to become an astronaut, Vincent cannot possibly achieve this dream because his body disqualifies him.  Vincent’s brother, Anton, on the other hand, has high quality genes and incredible talent in many areas. This disparity on the genetic level eventually developed into an ongoing rivalry between the brothers as Vincent refuses to accept inferiority. To establish authority over one another, the two brothers periodically engage in a swimming game called “chicken”, a game in which both boys will swim as far out as they can out into the ocean until one gets scared and decides to swim back. Not to say, Anton was always the faster and stronger swimmer, and Vincent lost each time. One day, however, as both boys challenged each other in the game again, Vincent was actually able to out swim his brother and save Anton from drowning. Since then, the brothers parted and did not meet again, but Vincent never forgot his one moment of  triumph and cultivated a will power for challenging his fate.

Vincent’s first act of defiance was assuming a new identity.  Out of disparity to reach his goals, Vincent abandoned his biological identity and took on the identity of a man named Jerome who had highly sought after genes but was paralyzed in an accident. He did this by modifying himself to look as close to Jerome as he could, and then he extracted daily supplies of Jerome’s hair, urine and blood to satisfy various authentication tests at the Space station. The situation of the story thus far begs a question: is this ethical? Is it ethical for Vincent to assume the identity of Jerome in order to side-step a biological discrimination and pursue his dreams of space? But any such question necessarily raises another question: What about Anton? Is Anton’s genetic modification any more justified or ethical than Vincent’s fraudulent identity?

Buzz Blogging

It was 1:30 AM when I first heard the faint, ominous premonitions to what would turn into an all out war: a hush wisp of buzzing was slowly swimming my way. I had on my poker face and was conducting the important matter of blogging something serious, something that is especially fickle and comes in little puffs at 1:30 AM, something that is not to be disturbed. But alas, it arrived, first as a ghostly shadow, then as a blurry black blob, and finally as a fat, beady projectile set on wreaking havoc–the fly!

At first, I tried to ignore the buzzing and continue with my serious business. “You don’t touch me”, I thought to myself, “and I won’t mess with you”. As if sensing my thoughts, the malicious little fly began to hover over my head and take frequent nose-dives in front of my computer monitor as if it were bungee jumping. It repeated this feat with such devotion that one would think the dive was choreographed, or that the fly was trying to master an art or woo a female. The whole time, the buzzing sound followed the fly in loops: Loud buzz. Faint buzz. Loud buzz. Faint buzz. Loud buzz. Faint buzz. The fly was taunting me. Suddenly, my hand shot out and I swiped the air, but the fly had already skipped away.

I reached to my right and picked up the 2008 High School graduation program from earlier today and curled it into a bat: either the fly was going to be knocked out, or I was. With the resolve of a pissed off blogger, I swung, fanned, stabbed until, after a good 5 minutes, I sat down defeated. It was then the fly flew kamikaze at me and rammed itself between my eyes–I was ambushed! In the brief moment of contact, I felt the weight of the fly’s belly chafe against my skin, leaving a slight tingle that could only be the sensation of disgrace.

I stood up again and, with an odd sense of calmness, clasped my hand around the Graduation program. This time, instead of leading me on by dancing around before me, the fly decided to land on the table. The black of its outline was in sharp contrast with the white of the table, and as it sniffed around, licking its furry little fingers, it looked up to throw me a mischievous glance. What a contemptuous little sucker. Slowly, I began to spread out the program and bend closer and closer to the fly. Then, with one fell swoop, I slammed the program on the table and recoiled as if by reflex. There was a brief pause, and then I smacked the program a few extra times for good measure while the crisp noise echoed in the quiet room.

Silence.

Gradually, my fingers found the courage to tip-toe over to the suspect area and, ever so slowly, lift the program. I looked up and down and left and right, expecting a black mess of mashed oblivion. Nothing was there. The table was clean. Then, a buzz came from behind. The fly escaped! By this time, I really gave up–how does one deal with a Houdini fly? I sighed and went back to my blog.

The persistent buzz continued to trace my writing process as a phantom, looming over me as if spying on my blog entry. I ignored its presence and tried to stay focused on my material, but at one point, I couldn’t help but notice the fly slowly crawling up the table. It found some crumbs near a crevice and was inching greedily towards them. Without blinking, I surprised even myself with my own agility as I slipped a magazine over the hole and clamped down on all avenues of escape. This time, I could hear frantic buzzing inside–it was the last stand of a desperate warrior. I began to apply pressure, and the buzzing became more intense, crescendoing to a loud hum until the din became psychologically taxing. Many thoughts crossed my mind: Should I kill the fly? Am I a murderer? But wasn’t it annoying? Didn’t it distract you, insult you, and tick you off? Would I prefer fly paste over irksome noise? It was it my hands, It was in my hands…

And then my hands let go. I couldn’t do it. With a defeating flick, I flipped the magazine away and expected a black bullet to shoot out with double the buzz. But nothing came out. “Oh shoot”, I thought, “Did I unintentionally squish the fly when I was setting it free?” After a quick glance, my worries turned to relief and then to glee: there it was, the fly, on its back, kicking in the air like a newborn baby. I quickly pulled off the cap of the paint bottle I had nearby, capped the fly down, slipped a paper underneath, and took it outside. As I stood in the darkness, I took a breath of the cool air and opened a crack. The fly drifted out and merged into the night.

(Moral: At first, my situation appeared to be black and white: either I kill the fly or I die from annoyance. However, with some consideration for the other’s point of view, I took a step back and found a middle ground where both the fly and I were able to come to an unexpected, win-win situation.)

Waiting for Philip

It’s hot. It’s frigging hot. As the glaring sun spilled its rays across my left cheek, I raised my arm in a futile gesture to–if only briefly–shadow myself from the cruel light. The benches were pre-heated to an uncomfortable level, enough to warm my buttocks as I waited for the tall robed figures to come filing out in an alternating succession of green and yellow to receive a special piece of paper called the High School Diploma. Behind me, I hear an excited chatter and make out a few key words, “make lots of noise……he he…take this…it’s called a blow horn…wait for Philip…”. Note to self: Potential noise detonation at 6 o’clock. Activation key: Philip.

After all the green & yellow robes seated themselves, the ceremony proceeded to the most important segment of the afternoon: speeches. The high school graduation is the spawning pool for the most predictable of cliches. It is the place where the most tired and hackneyed kind of cliches come parading out of the closet like retired Veterans, displaying themselves with the kind of glitz and glamor known to exist only in other areas of triteness like the typical personal statement. Unfortunately, that is the way graduations work–there is simply no way to escape the fate of being bromidic. Like all ceremonial events, the graduation exists with a template, without which would leave the ceremony feeling improper, incomplete, and strange. No matter how clever one gets with the delivery of content or how distant one wishes to portray oneself as unwilling to ‘impart wisdom but will attempt to’, this template remains stalwart and lingers like an annoying little brother who will make sure that the speech is a masterpiece of overused wisdom.

“We could someday be a President, a CEO, or painter…”, “Life is like…”, “Successfully confront future…”, “do great things…”. Yes, I’ve also heard these at my own graduation. To be fair, although the speeches were fraught with collections of expected stock phrases, they had a certain magical aura around them that made them unique during the occasion. There was a feeling there beyond the reach of words, the same kind of feeling that one gets from visiting a country abroad in comparison to simply learning about the country on the Discovery channel. As I listened to the speeches, my analytic mind flashed red and screamed at the cleverly disguised torrent of cliches; my gut, on the other hand, told my mind to chill out and feel. So, reluctantly, I detached myself and tried to feel.

But i was a step too late: the speeches ran out and now came the final march. This was when, once again, I began to hear the anxious noises behind me. With a blow horn in each hand, the young students behind me were cocked and ready for Philip. I was too.

One after another, the names were being called off. Some were long, others were short; some were funny, others were outright hilarious (no offense). But with each name, I felt the excitement of counting down to an unknown integer that could explode into a frenetic chain of high pitch honks the moment the announcer hits the land mine that is Philip. Time went by, one graduate at a time. There were explosions elsewhere in the crowd all throughout as different tribes of supporters broke into hysteric cacophonies when other names were detonated. One name-call in particular (whose name I forgot) had taken ‘explosion’ to a literal level:fireworks were lit the backfield (illegally) so that 30 seconds worth of glittering firepower were successively shot, cracked and split into stars on the sky. Beautiful as it was, I have to admit it was overkill.

“Phil–HOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNKKKK!–ip”. A few more spurts of honking later, it was over. The excitement I had built up throughout the entire graduation ceremony waiting for Philip amounted to nothing. I expected a shake-up, maybe even a good rush of adrenaline, but I didn’t even so much as flinch or feel any pressure on my ear drums. I felt cheated. But then again, maybe I expected too much from the 6 sets of blow horns behind me, just as I was expecting too much from the experience of coming back to a High School graduation. The whole time, as I watched the procession, listened to the speeches and waited for Philip, I was busy searching for something. Was it a dose of trite wisdom, perhaps, to smooth out an episode in the past? Or was it a cathartic sense of nostalgia to wash away some stains of regret? Maybe it was a missing puzzle I sought to fill a gap called “if only”? Either way, I waited for the Philip moment that will rouse me to great emotion and change my life, only to be disappointed.

As the sun began to set behind the palm tree, casting a soft orange glow on the last students called forward to receive their diplomas, I heard a click and–Gary–HOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNKKKKK! I shook.

Rebuttal to a Rebuttal

Yesterday, I pitched for a hybrid political system that operates with the juice of Capitalism but with the mentality of Neo-Malthusian conservatism. I argued that, with the increase in the capacity to exploit resources, we need to begin to consider the finite resources that are available on this planet and to channel the Capitalist drive towards a more sustainable direction. After speaking with my teacher, I was offered a convenient solution to the problem of diminishing resources: technology.

I do no doubt that technology can indeed alleviate the issue; however, I feel that my teacher’s reliance on the Capitalistic thrust to drive innovation is too slow a proposition without a Neo-Malthusian mentality. Why do i claim it is too slow? Because changes that impact the world are slow and scarcely felt in daily life and humans are a species that tend to respond to immediate stimuli. Sure, a species is reported to be extinct in the newspapers once in a while and oil prices are bit more pricey than before, but in general, much of the anxieties of an overexploited world are not being felt at an intimate level. Once felt, however, the changes will have gathered enough momentum to set off a rolling chain reaction that even technology cannot stop.

Capitalism is inherently a selfish mechanism. Sure, it benefits the society at large and ultimately ends up being a win-win situation for all, but on the most fundamental level, it is driven by the most powerful incentive: that of selfish gain. In particular, Capitalism promotes the freedom of competition in order to stimulate an almost irrationally efficient market. This freedom of competition takes the idea of Survival of the Fittest to the foreground, eliminating the inefficiencies of an economy that is not completely free in competition and forces all the players to compete to survive. Unfortunately, such competition has little regard for others competitors in the field, let alone the resources that are being consumed–after all, when everything is up for grabs and everyone is grabbing, who wouldn’t be grabbing as fast as they can?

The competition mentality results in creative destruction in which people are constantly innovating to undermine that which was the best. From a consumer’s stand-point, this is a great system to keep quality high and prices low; however, from the perspective of finite resources, this is a system that is callous to conservation in the long term. Because Capitalism is a moving treadmill in which all players must constantly run in order to stay on top, the competitive instinct focuses on existing incentives and not the prospects of the future. Unfortunately, the market runs on incentives and conservation is not lucrative enough an incentive to trigger the power of Capitalism’s innovation. As the lack of resources truly begin to emerge as a problem, Capitalism-as-usual will result in the tragedy of the commons in which everyone fights for resources until there is no more. After all, as Economics dictates, the lesser the supply, the greater the demand. The greater the demand in a free competition market, the fiercer the competition.

To make matters worse, the catastrophe that is diminishing resources enters the stage so slowly that few can feel it quick enough to respond to it in time. The situation is like the boiling pot phenomenon that Al Gore describes: a frog thrown in hot water reacts quickly to survive; however, the same frog left in a slowly cooking pot will remain there, oblivious, until it is boiled into frog soup. My point is, Capitalism works as a system that satisfies pressing needs and current incentives–a business that assumes the prophet in the market speaking on conservation makes little money and will, like Van Gogh, find credibility only in death.

Ultimately, because the force of Capitalism comes through the manifestation of selfish desires, the greater incentive will triumph. This drive accounts for why Capitalism has elevated the Standard of Living of the U.S. to such a level in such a short amount of time. It may also explain why it was possible for GM to successfully (and quite easily, I might add) buy out and dismantle the street car system through the United States in the mid 20th century but so hard for the public to muster the political strength to install a better functioning public transit system in California to mitigate the traffic congestion. Incentives, incentives, incentives–there just isn’t enough incentives for the case of conservation until ‘proof’ for a resources crisis is sufficient. Capitalism has the mechanism to run the innovation needed in producing technology for sustainability, but the motivation isn’t there and in the mean time, the juice will flow to power other special interests who have a stake in persistent consumption. Such is the unfortunate fate of conservation.

Ultimately, my argument turned out to be less about adopting a Neo-Malthusian economic world view than it is about the dangers of Capitalism and the importance of conservation–the Neo-Malthusian conception just happened to incorporate ideas of overpopulation and limited resources as its fundamental principle. Either way, the power of incentives is often directed to satisfy needs. If conservation is made into a significant enough a need, perhaps the Capitalistic machine may consider changing its diet for once and work to preserve the future prospects of the earth rather than follow its usual habit of irrational consumption.

Appropriate Political Economy?

Economics is the creation and distribution of wealth in countries. Two hundred years ago, two contemporary political philosophers conceived of two seemingly opposing views on the economy: Thomas Malthus with his ‘Dismal Science’ and Adam Smith with his Capitalism. These two men differ in a fundamental way due to the perspective and focus they have adopted. Malthus believed that resources were limited and that to increase the population is to increase the demand for recourses and reduce the resources available for everyone else. On the other hand, Adam Smith preached the power of the ‘invisible hand’, the invisible market forces that turn the self-directed impulse for success back into the market, thus expanding the economic resources that are available for all. After making the connection between the Declaration of Independence and Smith’s Wealth of Nations, my teacher concludes that history has proved Smith’s conception (Capitalism) the more accurate model for the political economy for the world.

I beg to differ.

To begin with, I do not think the two pioneer economists in the 1700s were diametrically opposed. They had different points of emphasis, yes, (one focused on the relationship between resource/population while the other on population/productivity) but ultimately, there is no contradiction. Smith’s Capitalism model happened to be most appropriate during its historical context since productivity and the capacity to innovate were less developed at the time when resources were still abundant. However, as the human capacity to exploit is enhanced by technology and the consumption of resources is magnified into a global-scale influence, the fundamental Capitalistic idea of self-directed gain to improve overall welfare quickly becomes a race to the bottom as resources dwindle. In other words, Capitalism expedites consumption to maximize productivity but doesn’t take into consideration the finite resources (a fundamental Malthusian proposition) available on earth.

Even though the Malthusian idea is more conservative (and sustainable) in that it considers finite resources, it is poorly timed given its historical context–its inherently pessimistic view of economics would have stilted growth for many decades to come. During the time, the human capacity was way below the abundances that are available in the world and there were much uncharted land and resources open to the swift, strong and daring. The world was like a big bank account: as long as there was enough of the principle capital left, the interest that is generated (resources that is created from the sun’s energy) could be utilized at sustainable rates without ever exhausting the planet. With the Malthusian world view, expansion and growth would have been slow but sustainable; with the Capitalistic world view…well, development could tap into the selfish motives of man, trigger a storm of entrepreneurship and innovation and turn a nation into the most powerful and abundant entity in the world.

Thanks to the technological advancements sparked by the Capitalistic system, the United States eventually had the capacity to exploit resources at unforeseen levels; thanks to the internet and global trade, now the entire world has that same capacity. Before, the system was sustainable only because of an unequal distribution: we were able to live life with the consumption rate of 15 people because even more people in 3rd world countries were living below their average consumption rate. Now, the entire world is increasing in consumption rate (including the phenomenal populations in China and India), and we are slowly eating away at the principle capital of this planet, killing the hen that lays the golden eggs in order to score a spurt of quick gain. This cannot go on forever–resources can and do run out. The Capitalistic model of free competition and free consumption was helpful in raising the standard of living and quality of life that we enjoy today, but we must now adopt a hybrid, Neo-Malthusian mentality to confront the situation before us to ensure that we have a tomorrow.

Theory and Practice–again!

Yesterday, I went out on a whim and ranted a bit (while generalizing a lot) on the theory based education system of college; today, I attended my first day of Summer school at the Pasadena City College. In the first class, Introduction to Business, at 9 frigging AM, I came face to face to the theory/practice dynamics I wrote about the night before. I swear, it must be Karma. But then again, what did I expect? I’m in college–I asked for it.

But that isn’t the interesting part. What really made the situation uncanny was the specific example we discussed in class: Wal-mart versus small town businesses. As the teacher spoke about the wonderful world of business, his particular perspective on the benefits of competition (citing Walmart as the ‘perfect’ example) touched a nerve in class. “I come from a small town, and Walmart can really destroy the small businesses”, a student said, and he leaned backwards with arms folded and legs crossed. To keep the jolly spirit alive for the ‘first-class of the session’, the teacher quickly took on the callous shield of Political correctness. “It depends on your perspective”, he said, “If you’re the consumer, you love Walmart. If you’re the small town business owner, maybe not so much.”

True as this talk of perspectival considerations may be, it is too clean, too perfect, too sterile. It sounds fair and reasonable, but it actually serves more to mollify and pacify the moral indignation incurred from such injustices than it does to attempt a win-win compromise. It strips the discussion of its rightful emotion and renders the sentiment into an innocuous and impotent form of intellectual lip service. It waves the Hegelian banner, touting a macro-level moral high ground in serving the ‘greater good’ but conveniently shadows all that is underneath, sidestepping many important issues that need to be addressed.

One such issue is the ethical measure of fair competition in less developed countries. It isn’t just about mom-and-pop stores in the U.S., it is also about the poor in the global community and why they remain so for so long even when, theoretically, the food that is currently produced in the world is sufficient in serving everyone. Ultimately, such talk of ‘different perspectives’ does not do much to feed these poor who are dying by the thousands every single day. It does, though, keep the profiting companies from compromising their unjust ways to feed children in the US who are struggling to fight off an obesity epidemic.

Now, as a consumer in the United States, I understand that I am playing the role of a hypocritical critic since ultimately, when push comes to shove, I also would like the material goods in this country to remain cheap. But before reducing everything to economic terms, I want to ask: how much of humanity is lost to the categorical, incentive-based paradigm? How much of my being is taken to be the inane, bestial drive of an bait-biting trout? As this dilemma quickly dissolves into a philosophical, humanities type of problem, I will reserve further judgment and seek some answers in my Humanities 101 class tomorrow.