In principio
Over the years, I have read too many books and encountered too many people. In the process, I have learned and failed to learn quite a few languages. Drawn to the library, I fell into the trap known as school, where I have been plagued with exams, degrees, and administrators, who expect me to lecture and then set exams for other students so that tuition may rise forever, or at least until they retire. No surprise, then, that my mind teems with a thousand strange thoughts run amok. The burden of these essays is to catch and tame those wild ideas, or at least to put them in some tolerable sort of order.
My core insights are few and relatively simple.
(i) An essential characteristic of life is the creation and exchange of information. Babies cry. Parents yell. Dogs bark. All of them tell you something. Are you listening? Can you read the signs of the times? Watch that pot on the fire. It will boil in time.
(ii) Life always produces more information than any individual or group can control comprehensively. Memorizing a dictionary is not the same thing as knowing a language. Real languages cannot be made to exhaust all their richness in any single book, or library. One approaches them the way surfers approach the ocean--with reverence. Like the ocean, they can always show us something new. That is why we still study the classics, always, till the day we die.
(iii) The individual that survives necessarily finds ways to recognize important information and separate it from what does not matter. This I call culture. The group that survives finds ways to do the same thing, at a larger scale. This I call civilization, an emergent property of groups practicing culture over time. Culture requires the individual. Civilization presumes the individual but does not require her particularly; what it needs are populations. Culture is fundamental: the individual needs it in order to live. Civilization is secondary: nobody needs it, but survival over time in a human environment will often produce it. Many useless discussions exist on the premise that culture and civilization are the same, as though my using a certain language necessitated me taking a particular political stance. If you think the words on this page represent my attempt to dominate you, or destroy your culture, then don't read them. Get out and live--a little or a lot, as you will and the fates allow.
(iv) Learning trumps teaching. Teaching requires respect for authority, which history shows to be a very dubious good, especially as we scale up, leaving individuals behind to deal with populations. Learning requires respect for information, which is much healthier. This is especially true when we come to civilization, which involves institutions attempting to influence the culture of individuals whose particular circumstances always escape the cognizance of authorities at some moment. It is very hard to respect teachers who ignore your existence; if you succeed, things get really dangerous. Better to stick to learning. Always a student, never a teacher--not even when they try to seduce you with money, glory, or duty, the usual works that civilization deploys to dominate culture.
The essays that follow represent my attempts to learn. They are not meant to displace or deny anyone else's learning. I expect mistakes as a matter of course, though I shall not make all of them on purpose. I have no illusions of authority. Leave that to the teachers.
My core insights are few and relatively simple.
(i) An essential characteristic of life is the creation and exchange of information. Babies cry. Parents yell. Dogs bark. All of them tell you something. Are you listening? Can you read the signs of the times? Watch that pot on the fire. It will boil in time.
(ii) Life always produces more information than any individual or group can control comprehensively. Memorizing a dictionary is not the same thing as knowing a language. Real languages cannot be made to exhaust all their richness in any single book, or library. One approaches them the way surfers approach the ocean--with reverence. Like the ocean, they can always show us something new. That is why we still study the classics, always, till the day we die.
(iii) The individual that survives necessarily finds ways to recognize important information and separate it from what does not matter. This I call culture. The group that survives finds ways to do the same thing, at a larger scale. This I call civilization, an emergent property of groups practicing culture over time. Culture requires the individual. Civilization presumes the individual but does not require her particularly; what it needs are populations. Culture is fundamental: the individual needs it in order to live. Civilization is secondary: nobody needs it, but survival over time in a human environment will often produce it. Many useless discussions exist on the premise that culture and civilization are the same, as though my using a certain language necessitated me taking a particular political stance. If you think the words on this page represent my attempt to dominate you, or destroy your culture, then don't read them. Get out and live--a little or a lot, as you will and the fates allow.
(iv) Learning trumps teaching. Teaching requires respect for authority, which history shows to be a very dubious good, especially as we scale up, leaving individuals behind to deal with populations. Learning requires respect for information, which is much healthier. This is especially true when we come to civilization, which involves institutions attempting to influence the culture of individuals whose particular circumstances always escape the cognizance of authorities at some moment. It is very hard to respect teachers who ignore your existence; if you succeed, things get really dangerous. Better to stick to learning. Always a student, never a teacher--not even when they try to seduce you with money, glory, or duty, the usual works that civilization deploys to dominate culture.
The essays that follow represent my attempts to learn. They are not meant to displace or deny anyone else's learning. I expect mistakes as a matter of course, though I shall not make all of them on purpose. I have no illusions of authority. Leave that to the teachers.
ante diem VI Idus Septembres, anno Domini MMXIX --JGM.