Personal thoughts on the WTC, Alien Civilizations and the coming Brave New World
Sep 28 '01 (Updated Dec 18 '02)
The Bottom Line We stand at the dawning of a great age.
There is an ancient curse: "May you live in interesting times".
First of all, let me apologize for the placement of this document. I simply didn't know where to put it yet felt the overwhelming need to place it somewhere.
Like many of you out there I've been profoundly impacted by the recent incidents in Washington DC, Pennsylvania, and especially NYC. I've been rather depressed and find it hard to get on with my life the way it was before. Generally, I read and write travel reviews, but to be honest about it (no insult intended towards the many fine Epinions writers), I've been finding them to be so trivial lately. In all fairness, this has less to do with the submissions than with my state of mind. How am I to derive any enjoyment out of reading or writing about these wonderful places when so many innocent people have just had their lives cut so terribly short? Add to this the very real threat of the possible loss of my job (I work for Boeing) and it all adds up to a general lethargy regarding Epinions. Up to now, I've been avoiding writing an Epinion on NYC and the WTC incident, but a recent e-mail communication with popular Epinions author Kboo (who lives in NYC and has been personally impacted by the events) led me to the realization that I felt much better after venting a little bit.
And so, my friends, please bear with me for a few moments while I wrestle a few personal observations down onto the keyboard. At the very least you will make me feel a lot better (thank you very much) and perhaps you will even come away with a better understanding of the WTC, its place in human history, and mankind's' future in this amazing universe in which we live.
Though I am a software developer by trade, my first love has always been history. As an Air Force Brat, I had lots of opportunity to travel as child, and spent many of my younger years living in Europe. I walked the haunted battlefields of Verdun and gazed upon the wondrous works of Rembrandt in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I had ample opportunity to play in castles and ruined monasteries. I toured shattered Roman ruins and ancient stone cathedrals that towered into the heavens. I was blessed with a father who (although born in the picturesque Amish territory of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) was raised in the lovely Black Forest region of Germany, and a mother who was born in Dublin, Ireland but raised in the industrial area around Manchester, England. As children, they were on opposite ends of bombing raids in WWII. While he dove into ditches to avoid strafing American fighter planes (ironic, as he was an American citizen), she huddled under a dining room table as sirens and 500-pound bombs shattered the quiet English night. Much later, my father's job with the U.S. Air Force meant that we moved incessantly. I went to 11 different schools in 12 years of public education and was always either making new friends or leaving old ones behind. Some folks have told me that it must have been a tough upbringing to be moving all the time. I tell them it was quite the contrary. I couldn't have asked for a better education.
In my experience, most of my fellow Americans suffer from a very limited perspective. For many of them the world seems to begin on the wild rugged shores of Maine and end on the sun-washed beaches of Southern California. It is not their fault. It is all they know. For the average American, the world beyond our shores is a mystery - a place populated by enigmatic people who wear funny clothes and speak strange languages. Okay, okay, before you jump all over me, I know I exaggerate some. Americans are not really that ignorant of the outside world - but the fact remains that, compared to citizens of our neighboring countries throughout the world, Americans are woefully uneducated about the other countries we share this tiny planet with. Fellow Americans out there: you say you don't believe me? All right then - tell me this: how many of you know whom the head of state of Burma (now known as Myanmar) is? How about Algeria? Or even Italy? Almost everyone throughout the world knows who the leader of America is. Yes, yes I know, that's an unfair question. America is an incredibly powerful country whose affairs affect the entire world. Can one say the same about Burma? Still, I hope you get my point. We Americans are (by and large) extremely provincial in our outlook. This ignorance has caused us no end of problems - and will, unfortunately, continue to do so.
So where am I going with all this? Well, first of all, I wish to say that I believe (and this is NOT meant as bragging), that my upbringing and knowledge of history has blessed me with a somewhat broader vision than most of my fellow countrymen. There is a world beyond America, and I have seen it. And although my experiences were admitted Eurocentric, they still left me with an understanding that there is lot more to the world than what lies between myself and the horizon. Unfortunately, most people never really think about it long enough to come to that conclusion. The fact remains however, that there is a big picture out there - and there are forces at work that cannot be seen from up close. Like an image on a television screen, from up close it is only an apparently random collection of colors, making no sense whatsoever. As you pull away however, the picture becomes clear. There is order to it. It begins to make sense. So do yourself a favor - pull back a moment and look at the recent events from a broader perspective.
Throughout history there have been Revolutions across the globe. I'm not taking here about political revolutions, important as some of them might have been. I'm talking about Revolutions with a capital "R" - the big ones, the ones that effect not just the type of government, but the type of life human beings lead. I'm talking about The Invention of Agriculture, The Development of Metallurgy, The Industrial Revolution. These were major, major events that affected all aspects of life for the people involved and had worldwide impact. We are going through one of these Revolutions now. The boom in Technological growth that has occurred since WW II is the most incredible in human history. It is a Revolution with profound consequences. Through technology, the world is drawing ever closer together, its peoples becoming every day more interconnected, their fates ever more intertwined.
Twenty-five years ago, I made prediction to several of my college age friends. I told them that we would topple the Soviet Union with "Rock Music, Blue Jeans, and Coca Cola". By this I meant the power of Western Democratic culture. That is exactly what happened. We didn't bring down the Berlin wall with tanks and missiles (though those things did keep the peace until our real tools did the real work). We brought it down with television, radio, and the freedoms and vast abundance that the Western Democratic way of life provides. We didn't conquer them. We seduced them. Most folks don't give it much thought, but culture is a powerful weapon. Eight hundred years ago, Ghengis Khan and his Mongol armies swept over the Chinese Empire. The Chinese lost the war. The Mongols won. It's as simple as that. Yet fifty years later Chinese culture remained as strong as ever. The Mongol invaders had been simply swallowed up. The Mongols may have won on the battlefield, but the Chinese won in the courts and palaces, in the cities and villages, and in the fields and rice paddies. The Mongols had become Chinese. Chinese culture was a tremendously powerful weapon, all the more so because the Mongols hardly recognized it as such. It was powerful because of its lure, its subtle seduction. The Chinese way of life provided for a much more prosperous life style - their farming methods produced more food, and their manufacturing techniques provided more and better products. The invaders were tempted into the Chinese lifestyle because it provided for them better than their own did.
Western Democratic culture is the same - and America is at it's heart. America's true strength lies not in its military might, but in the lure of what its lifestyle can provide. During the cold war, the Soviets decried American decadence, but secretly wanted to be "decadent" themselves. And why not - for what did the "decadence" really mean? Freedom from want, Freedom from oppression, Freedom to live where you wanted and how you wanted to the best of your ability. The American Dream did not guarantee happiness, only the opportunity to pursue it - but by and large it delivered on this promise (at least to a certain degree). In the Soviet Union, though technically illegal, Blue Jeans sold like hotcakes on the black market. Though banned, American Rock Music was widely played. Though decried, Coca Cola was copied. The world, it seems has a love-hate relationship with American culture. They decry it, yet are entrapped in its tentacles nevertheless. Remember the song "American Woman"? The Canadian rock band "Guess Who" knew exactly what I'm talking about. Canada has long had a love-hate relationship with their giant neighbor to the south.
American Culture, or I have more precisely referred to it: "Western" Culture, since really involves more than just America (though the USA is definitely the heart of it) is the most powerful weapon of our age. It absorbs what it wants of other cultures, and sweeps aside the rest. The shape of the future is becoming clear - and at has a definite American flavor. From place to place, different nations and peoples will put their own stamp on it, but overall, I suspect that things are going to be based on the Western model. This is not to say that Western culture is perfect. Certainly the West has its share of problems. It is often shallow, incredibly wasteful, and in many ways as uncompassionate as any other way of life. The truth is: there is no Utopia and there never will be. Man is not an ant or a termite to faithfully push aside his own selfish interests for the good of the whole. Still, the way of life developed in the Western World has produced the highest standard of living (and the greatest degree of freedom) for the most people of any culture the world has ever seen. This is its appeal. This is its strength. This is why the terrorists hate us so.
On the surface, the reason for the terrorist actions seem to be America's support for Israel, its presence in the Middle East, and its "oppression" of the Palestinian people*. This viewpoint is essentially correct, but it is only part of the picture - the superficial part. There is a bigger picture here, and that is the fact that America is hated by these people because the very basic principles on which Western culture is based are the exact opposite of what these people believe. Principles of equality, freedom of choice, and tolerance are abhorrent to these people. Add to this the natural fear that people have of change in general (in effect: fear of the unknown), and you're going to have a certain percentage of the population that will feel the need to fight back against what they perceive as a threat to the natural order of things. They are of the "Old World" and they do not like what the "New World" is likely to bring. They fight for their way of life, they fight for their culture, they fight to keep things the same (or better yet - to put it back to how it was) - and if anyone doubted before that they were committed to this fight, they'd better not doubt it now.
There is a revolution going on. But they are not the revolutionaries. We are. Change is sweeping the world. National borders are fading away. Races are mixing. Cultures are mingling. Western culture (epitomized by America) dominates, absorbing or sweeping aside all others, but Western culture is not a static thing. It is changing all the time. As people mix and mingle and interbreed, not every thing is lost. Moslems who come to America or move to Europe are not likely to give up their faith. Neither are Hindus or Jews or anyone else. Some things are lost, but many features are absorbed and incorporated into the way of life. Such is the evolution of any culture. Think about it for a moment. Look for example at a single small segment of society - music. Go into any record store and take a look at the variety of music offered today. More than at any other time, you now can find music from all over the world. I'm a tremendous fan of Celtic music and enthralled with the magic of the Bulgarian voice. Ten years ago such music was all but impossible to find. Now there is plenty to choose from.
For the purists out there, however, this is not enough. Things must remain as they were, as they've always have been (though in truth, they have not always been that way at all, for all cultures have changed over time, even their own). They seek a return to the glory days of Islam, a return to year 1200 (or thereabouts) when the Islamic World was the center of the earth. They fight for this old way of life and against this "New World" that America and the Western World dominate. What these people fail to recognize is that the world that they seek to recreate was nothing like the world they envision. These people are intolerant and their idea of education is more like indoctrination. Instead of real learning they promote memorizing the Koran. Instead of fostering real thought, they are seeking conformity. What they fail to understand is that the reason the Islamic World of 1200 was so great is that it DID promote real education, it DID promote tolerance. The Islam of 1200 was a progressive force in the world - not at all like the version of the religion they are now promoting. In the 13th century, the Middle East was a place of enlightenment, a place of poets and mathematicians, a place of tolerance. It was NOT a place of human robots memorizing a Holy Book by rote instead of pursuing the development of orignal thought.
These people are ruthless and bold and crafty and their skills and talents should not be underestimated. They are however, fighting a losing battle. The world will NOT return to the past as they envision it, it part because that past never really existed at all. An Islamic world with their ideals would never have become great in the first place. Furthermore, the momentum involved in the evolution of human culture is almost unstopable. The world will change whether they want it to or not - and not in the direction that they desire. There are forces at work here which dwarf their puny efforts. In fact, in a very real way, they are themselves caught up in the momentum of history, and are merely playing their role, for in any Revolution there are reactionaries - people who struggle against the change. That is how the world works. Change comes. Some embrace it. Some resist it. Sometimes those who fight against it can slow it down a little, even reverse it for a time - but they cannot stop it.
The terrorists who attacked the WTC fight the same war as the neo-Nazi's in Germany who struggle to keep their country "pure" against the tide of Eastern Europeans moving into their land. They battle against the tide of history just as the Khmer Rouge did as they ruthlessly murdered millions of their fellow Cambodians in their struggle to turn back the clock to their agrarian past. Even the Neo-Nazi's of Northern Idaho and the KKK of the deep south are footsoldiers in this battle against change... and so too are those here in America who seek out random Moslems so that they can take unjustified revenge against people that are likely as outraged as the rest of us.
Communists and Socialists are prone to speak of economic forces and the flow of history - and they are right, such forces do exist. But they read the tide of those forces wrong. Revolution is coming, in fact it is already here - but it is not a Revolution leading to Communism or a "Workers Paradise". It seems clear to me that the changes coming will reflect decreasing importance of governments, increasing importance of business, and a general melting away of borders as national interests become more and more blurred. Leaders of the OPEC nations, with populations that are largely Moslem (and who certainly have sympathies with some of the terrorist goals if not their methods), are already seeing adverse impacts to their economies as demand for oil dries up and tourism fades. The simple fact of the matter is that a recession in America means a recession throughout the world - including in their own countries. The world economy is already so tied together that what impacts us, affects everyone. This was already the case in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression. It is even truer now. In the long run, this is a good thing. It means the era of war may be drawing to a close. For when the world is so tightly interconnected, it seems to me that war becomes increasingly unlikely - for how much sense does it make to wage war on people who are your customers? Once their populations become so intermixed, there is a much smaller chance of neighbors going at each other's throats. Although we are not out of the woods yet regarding this greatest of all human curses, the day is perhaps not too far off.
So think, if you will, on what I have put forth here. Perhaps you will find that there is some truth to what I say. I know many of you will disagree with me. That's okay. I understand that. I am however, convinced that I am correct in this.
But of course, only time will tell.
A Final Warning:
Many years ago, I had an opportunity to listen to a lecture by late noted astronomer Carl Sagen and was in fact able to go on stage and speak to him afterwards. During a discussion about the possibility of finding extra-terrestrial civilizations, he put forth the theory that perhaps the reason we had not been contacted by a more advanced civilization (I'm assuming that we haven't) is that perhaps these beings all blew themselves to bits. He stated that there was likely a correlation between the level of technology a species attains and the population of its planet. Primitive agrarian cultures tend to have high birth rates & high death rates - resulting in fairly low population growth. Advanced industrial cultures (which have much better medicines, health standards, birth control techniques etc) on the other hand tend to have low birth rates and low death rates - also resulting in fairly low population growth. Cultures going through the transition however, have low death rates and high birth rates - resulting in rapid population growth. This is the stage that much of the "3rd World" nations are in. He put forth the proposal that this transitional period (when a species was going though this technological Revolution) was the most dangerous time for them, because fierce competition for dwindling resources occurred just as the species developed technology powerful enough to destroy themselves. This is the period we (the world in general) are in now. I used to be pessimistic about our chances of making it through this greatest of tests. That is no longer the case. In spite of the recent WTC events (and possibly worse to come) I remain optimistic that we are on the verge of a Great Age. The future holds wonders we cannot yet imagine - but first we must get there.
For those of you still with me, I thank you for you patience. I have to admit I feel a little better.
Thanks.
Ken
* I feel compelled to state for the record here, that I do believe that the Palestinian people did get screwed. Like many other people throughout history, they were indeed displaced by others, in this case Jews immigrating from around the world to their ancestral homeland after surviving the horrors of the Holocaust. The problem is - somebody else already occupied that homeland. Still, what is done is done, and it is no solution to demand that the Israelis leave. Some other compromise must be reached. Unfortunately such a compromise will make NO ONE happy. I do feel strongly however that it is the only answer for a lasting peace in the Middle East and that BOTH sides must be willing to understand this.
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Epinions.com ID:
LordBalfor
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Member: Ken Klein
Location: Seattle, Wa
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About Me:
I am in love with the tropics (especially the South Pacific).
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