Shot by the Arrow

 Shot by the Arrow

 

I doubt that perfect government is possible. Consider Kenneth Arrow’s “Impossibility Theorem”. It is a mathematical proof that no social choice function can always have all four of these virtues:

1) it is fair; it divides power equally,

2) it is decisive; it answers all question set to it,

3) it is linear; it has no illogical preference loops A>B>C>A,

4) it is responsive; it never defies a consensus.

 

Or in other words: any society, however constructed, must at times be unfair, or indecisive, or illogical, or perverse. Cruelty, weakness, folly, and perversity are political evils; so Arrow’s Theorem proves the inevitability of political evil.

The proof is mathematical; it has nothing to do with sin, or sex, or money, or power, or human nature, or what two kids stole from a fruit tree long ago. The theorem is cold, not hot; its diagnosis is impersonal. You can no more practice perfect government than you can draw a round square. It would apply even to a society of saints and angels.

In a way this is comforting: political evil isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault. But it’s also disturbing: political evil is necessarily everyone’s problem.

 

Eve and Adam

 Eve and Adam

 

To me the Adam and Eve story is a fairy tale, but I like fairy tales. I write fairy tales. And I say, as a fairy tale writer, that Eve and Adam did nothing wrong, and they were not punished.

Eve showed curiosity, courage, and initiative; she sought and got knowledge of good and evil, or in other words moral choice; so the Apple was fruit of the Liberty Tree. Blessed be heroic Eve, and all of her long-suffering daughters! Her sidekick Adam gave up Paradise for her; so his is a love story. Even Yahweh isn’t so bad in this reading. He released the breeding pair as soon as they reached mental and sexual maturity; that’s good wildlife management.

When Yahweh told Eve and Adam about sexual danger, and labor, and death, he wasn’t punishing them, he was warning them. He gave them the bad news. After all, they were looking for the news. He also gave them this good news: you’re free. Eve and Adam fled the Garden, shedding tears; for excess of joy weeps.

 

Theocrats vs Theists and Atheists

 Theocrats vs Theists and Atheists

 

Theocrats say that theocracy is rule by God. In practice it’s rule by theocrats. To learn the result, ask competing theocrats about each other.

If God exists, then God already rules, and needn’t take over anything. Theists and atheists believe in God’s equipresence: namely, that God is everywhere or nowhere. But theocrats believe in God’s varipresence: namely, that God is some places but not others. To theists and atheists, the boundary between God and no-God doesn’t exist. Theocrats are all about drawing that boundary.

I myself am an agnostic. I do not know what God is, or if God is; and I do not believe that anyone else knows. God may be, and God may not be; that is the mystery.

What is the difference between a mystic and an agnostic? Answer: a mystic is a believer who does not believe, and an agnostic is an unbeliever who does believe.

Sacrifices to the Crown

 Sacrifices to the Crown

 

 Stay indoors, do not go out;

now we are all dead.

Venture out only virtually;

now we are all ghosts.

When you do go out, stay six feet apart;

now we are all monsters.

When you go to shop or bank, wear a mask;

now we are all superheroes,

now we are spies,

now we are criminals,

caught in the act,

guilty of the crime of life.

When you get home, wash your red hands

for twenty seconds

long enough to confess.

And above all, do not touch your face;

you might not have one.

Cold War stories, 3 of 3

 3. Dragon's Hoard

 

When Mikhail Gorbachev disappeared, I got a bad case of coup flu. For three whole days I held my breath. I would go up to people and ask, "What do you think?" and they knew what I was talking about, because they too had coup flu. For three whole days the world watched the past and the future play chess. We hovered, suspended, over the abyss. We saw ourselves within it, screaming, burning, dying, but we did not have time to be afraid. We did not fall; we flew.

 Then suddenly the crisis was past, the coup had failed, the Cold War was over, our deaths had died.

 Days later, driving home under the influence of the full moon, I was still grinning, still laughing at nothing in particular. The attendant at the toll plaza had headphones on, and he was dancing. 

 I parked my car at home, then climbed up to a park atop a nearby hill. I sat on a stone bench there, and I stared at the city. Downtown was close by, for long before I had moved to within the second circle in the explosion maps, where death would be within milliseconds. I never intended to envy the dead.

 It was night. The city's lights were on.  White incandescent lights, blue mercury lights, orange sodium lights. The city at night was... beautiful. It looked like a dragon's hoard of citrons and sapphires. I gazed at the city at night. I said to myself,

 "Maybe we'll live after all."

Cold War Stories, 2 of 3

 

2. On My Own Terms

 

As I grew up, my father and I often argued, for we liked to argue. During one such argument, he waved a hand dismissively and said, "Ahhh, you'll become a Conservative in your old age!” Stung to the quick, I retorted, “If so, then it shall be on my own terms!” Since then I've seen that we were both prophetic. He knew me, and I knew me.

 

As an example of those terms, I fondly remember when I shut him up. He had the bad habit of referring to someone's "good intentions" with an audible sneer. Finally I had enough of that. I told him, "I get it. Intentions are no excuse for bad results. I get it! People have the responsibility to be competent! I get it! But do not insult good intentions as such... or this conversation is over!" My dire threat made him stop talking, and from then on he never sneered at good intentions.

 

Cold War stories, 1 of 3

 1. Playing Chicken with Earl

 

My father, Earl Hellerstein, told me this story when I was a young lad, many years after it happened. It was a home-front war story. During World War 2, my Dad served on a secret mission. His mission was to truck supplies for the armed forces. He did not know why he was trucking those supplies, for he did not need to know; but he did need to know what those supplies were, and where he was going. The truck he drove was full of high explosives. His destination was a secret weapons laboratory, in a small town in the American Southwest, named Los Alamos.

He did not know then, but he knew by the time that he told me this tale, that he was working for the Manhattan Project. Young me hung upon his words, wide-eyed.

It was a long drive, through boring empty desert. An approaching driver chose to break the boredom. He shifted into Dad's lane and stayed there. And stayed there, and stayed there. He was playing chicken!

Decades later, I blurted, "What did you do?!"

My father mimicked holding a steering wheel. He said, "I did nothing at all. I kept driving, as if nobody was in my lane, and  pretty soon, nobody was."

Young me had two realizations.

First, that the other guy (and it was certainly a guy) made five mistakes:

1. He played chicken...

2. ... with an Army truck...

3. ... filled with high explosives...

4. ... for the Manhattan project...

5. ... driven by my Dad.

 

The second realization was that it's a miracle that I exist!