The Evolved Natural Society

Fri 2/15/2008 11:27 am. Like that “natural law” thing, see? ... But the whole society, the reality in which we swim, the stuff of our very thoughts and feelings. The society of men, all around us. ... And it evolves; in my lifetime, from rotary-dial to the swarms of gnat-like wireless cellphones; the astonishing rise of electronic futures trading. ... We imagine that someone somewhere understands these things; not necessarily both of them, but some meester big somewhere knows how the futures trading market works, today.

But the transcendent truth is, nobody knows. ... Or to put it another way, our human society knows. ... Obviously someone knows more about many things than me. ... But perfect knowledge? An actual complete grasp? ... That knowledge only exists in a mysterious aggregate of us all, some more than others, but none all alone....

Holes

The Darwinian evolutionary theory has well-known holes: the inability to convincingly describe how the eye, for instance, evolved in tiny random steps; it seems impossible even in millions of years, and as far as I know, no one has suggested an example to the contrary. Yet my modern soul believes in evolution, anyway ... mostly. ... My Evolved Natural Society scheme has a comparable hole: the inability to imagine how anyone or any group of people could’ve concocted the electronic futures market, or the cell phone. Not to mention modern medicine; or rap music....

Faith

For years I’ve remembered some meretricious TV show where a black guy told a woman that “you have to have faith” and as an example, explains that he has faith when he gets on an airplane it’ll land in New York and not plunge into the sea. ... And we do have that faith; society would fall apart if we didn’t. ... But even ’though I could see the obvious reality of this faith and its essentially irrational nature, I was troubled by what this had to do with “real” faith; the faith in a living God who looks over us all — which faith of course is alien to me....

As our secular materialist society evolves, it has gradually overtaken and replaced the religious faith of older days, as we all know, for better or worse. ... But this is probably one of those antithesis things; they’re not really contradictory. ... The synthesis is: who makes sure the plane lands in New York and doesn’t fling itself into the World Trade Center? ... Our modern answer is “the society”, “other people” — but this begs the question, and I’m sure many others besides myself have had the disquieting experience of examining some large organization up close — the post office; practically any place in corporate America, certainly including the airlines — only to come away with a terrible sense of dread: how could this possibly work!?

But it does. ... Perhaps the society magically makes it work. ... But who makes that work? What strange force moves it? ... It doesn’t require a guy in the sky with a white beard, but it does require a superhuman force, the “geist” in antique language, that somehow pulls it along, motivates it, makes the wheels turn even when some don’t feel like turning. ... And invents cell phones and all the other wonderful gadgets and miraculous technologies....

Socialism

For an ethnic communist like myself, raised by beatniks in the “Great Satan” Nueva York, the evolving natural society idea, while intermittently comforting, is also troubling. ... Socialists and nihilists and their ilk, historically suffering from Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit”, imagine they can take-over the natural society from whatever spirit seems to keep it going — typically conjured-up as capitalists/Jews in an all-but magical hidden conspiracy — and do it so much better. ... But so far, their efforts have been strikingly and, I would submit, conclusively worse, resulting in massive murder and war.

My job

Leonard Bernstein’s Candide has a heart-rending anthem calling on us all to “tend our garden” and “make it grow” — at least in part a Roussean call for a more-natural state. ... I realized many many years ago, however — well, around the age of 30 — that anything like a return to the natural state of man would immediately consign most of us to the cold cold earth. ... No exaggeration; a “natural” human life-span averages out at something like 25 to 30 years or less. ... And even those years are horrible compared to our beautiful world. ... The “Roussean” natural man is usually thought-of by the romantics who still think such things as a sort-of “privileged” natural man, who somehow lives in a natural state, but with antibiotics. ... I.e., modern health-food liberals....

So when I say the natural society is the medium in which we live, this is literally true. ... Nutrition, antibiotics, and advanced geezer medicine keeps us all alive. ... This leads some hasty people to conclude we’re evolving to a hierarchical society with the medicos on top. ... But as far as I can tell, it doesn’t work that way: the medicos can’t do what they do — or the futures markets, or the cell phones — unless someone, somewhere, puts labels on industrial boxes, perhaps with one of the machines I helped design — however incompetently, with however confused insight or purpose, while getting drunk in the evening — nevertheless, they need those boxes and all the other little details our natural society mysteriously provides. ... But astonishingly, my box-labeling machines and the companies that make them themselves need medicos and the services they provide and computerized future markets — all the treats, conveniences, and absolute necessities of the evolving natural society!

It all fits!

Amazingly it all works together! Like the famous centipede who better not try to remember how he walks! ... But in our case, we can try and try and it doesn’t seem to make any difference; we don’t know, we can’t tell, we don’t remember, but it still works! ... The ol’ “invisible hand” indeed; rocking our cradles and facilitating our box machines and medicos, the whole thing keeps on going and going....

No despair!

And most of us have a mysterious improbable faith that it will continue to keep going. ... But sometimes our hearts grow heavy in the natural reverses of life and fortune, and we turn away in sorrow and despair. ... Then we see the society around us as heartless and cold, filled with busyness and glitter but no care. ... But I say unto you, you are surrounded by miracles! ... Like the miracles of early Christianity, they offend our “traditional” sense of the miraculous, but they are miraculous nevertheless, and saying they’re just “progress” or “technology” or “western materialism” is no explanation at all: who made those things happen, who causes them? ... Some surpassingly clever Zurich gnome in the 17th century?