Reading Between the Lines: Kant, Falling Fertility, Schools, & (by proxy) The Societal/Economic Costs of Incarceration.

Immanuel Kant's "What is the Enlightenment?"

...A greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people's spiritual freedom; yet the former established impassable boundaries for the latter; conversely, a lesser degree of civil freedom provides enough room for all fully to expand their abilities. Thus, once nature has removed the hard shell from this kernel for which she has most fondly cared, namely, the inclination to and vocation for free thinking, the kernel gradually reacts on a people's mentality (whereby they become increasingly able to act freely), and it finally even influences the principles of government, which finds that it can profit by treating men, who are now more than machines, in accord with their dignity.
-Immanuel Kant

Synthesis by Le Fils de Fanon
such is the make up of the United States, the world's most highly perfected mix of freedoms and navicable oppressions which is ruther mitigated by the opportunities provided to the underclass (education, healthcare, etc) to join the middle and upper classes. the magic ticket, or the "lotto". The free thought promoted by Kant in his analysis of "what is the enlightenment" predicts the future stability as well as the primary reason for the economic development of the United States. The desire to invests in ones education is in part fueled by the virtues of liberal arts and sociological "enlightenment", yet, the greater impetus is the ability to freely ply ones trade in the economic sphere and achieve free class movement and/or engage in the pursuit of happiness with all attendant free speech and civil rights.

falling fertility rates are a great proof of the success of this Kantian idea in that as a people become more educated and their awareness of the investment needed for their children, they work longer, have less children, delay childbirth during key, high economic earnings times, the freedoms of females, enlarges this largesse and mentality, and the entirety of society, in both freedom of thought and environmental impact is spared the evils of uneducation, high population, and the creation of a "true" permanent underclass.

Falling Fertility Rates

All told, global fertility rates are half what they were in the early 1970s. The primary reason appears to be the rapid movement of people from farms to cities (nearly half the world's population today lives in urban areas), and the increasing social and economic opportunities available to women. Because of the large numbers of women still in childbearing age, world population will continue to grow for several decades, even as the average woman has fewer and fewer children. Yet within the lifetime of today's young adults, most demographers now believe, world population could well be falling.
Ben J. Wattenburg & Ivan R. Dee

Schools vs. Troops in Pakistan

For roughly the same cost as stationing 40,000 troops in Afghanistan for one year, we could educate the great majority of the 75 million children worldwide who, according to Unicef, are not getting even a primary education.... Such a vast global education campaign would reduce poverty, cut birth rates, improve America’s image in the world, promote stability and chip away at extremism. Education isn’t a panacea... but all in all, the evidence suggests that education can help foster a virtuous cycle that promotes stability and moderation.
-Nicholas D. Kristof

The end of October

October must end.
it may be argued that it never began.

Many philosophers have contemplated the true nature of reality, or even if there is a true nature, or a reality or any contemplation "upon it".
i have a rather simplistic view myself.
awareness is a potentiality, created by the consciousness necessitated by the needs of life.
and so, this awareness, gives rise to the awareness that there is a relationship between what happens, what is experienced and the various meanings that subsequently arise.
contemplation upon the temporal nature of ones existence, creation and meaning, are then unavoidable.
what is true, where it starts, where it ends, are meaningless contemplations, because they all negate the ongoing truth, outside of the physical form, of the existence of only arbitrary beginnings and quite literally, arbitrary endings.

i heard Dr. earth on television today, saying that all humans were, living, breathing earth. because dirt, is plants, is humans. we are just created out of dirt. we are just a form of dirt.

so it must be the case that our consciousness arises from dirt

which is a great idea, yet, just an idea.
the larger point being, that the philosophical contemplation of anything, is only as good, as the ability to produce insight into and upon our lives.

that insight, to be meaningful, must impact our actions and result in a fuller loving understanding and awareness of the only thing that matters in our lives.

Final Reflections on Joseph Stalin

The one thing that's hard to understand in reading the new biography of Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore, is what exactly Marxism, Leninism and Bolshevism has to do with Joseph Stalin, and what his legacy is.

Marxism, was nothing more than an insight. it was not a belief. It was not a moral, or ethical base, or even truly a goal. Not a goal of Lenin, and not a goal of Stalin. Almost immediately after seizing power, [much along the vein of the Cuban revolution, with a small cadre of true believers, vastly outnumbered, yet unopposed due to corruption and disorganization of those in power] they began to turn on the people.

Supposedly, their agenda was the liberation of the proletariat. Yet, the rub in all philosophical ideas, is the tension and inherent conflict between those who truly believe, [either in the name of the people, or not] and their belief that the very people that they are fighting to liberate and lead, must be controlled, oppressed and at times liquidated or robbed of their basic human rights, in order to achieve their "true" liberation. The Marxist/Leninist in this respect were true political "missionaries" exhibiting all of the most ruthless and detrimental inhumane aspects of missionaries to the darker continents and inhabited areas of savages. Saving them from themselves through a purging of their ideas, culture, way of life and often, oppression and abuse of their very bodies as they are literally scourged and cleansed in order that future generation may make benefit of their newfound truth.

Stalin grew up in a violent household with an alcoholic cobbler father and a very cunning and scheming mother. both were sadistically brutal to the young Stalin. Stalin also suffered from being sickly, and many horrific injuries and traumas, such that he walked with a permanent limp and had a lame arm too weak to hold onto a female dance partner.

Stalin's true talent, and gift, was a voracious appetite for knowledge, especially subversive knowledge, and a nature fire, passion and acumen for evaluating others and using all possible personality tools to effect his will and gain support for his agenda.

Stalin's practical education was composed of the seminary, where he not only received an excellent education, but also received a second excellent education in subversive activities, such as forming outlawed political and literature discussion groups, avoiding and ducking trouble, building consensus and a fervent base of supporters, while also devising ways of manipulating his environment to conjure up money, travel, and experiences to further his cause.

When he felt he had learned enough, he was expelled, with his grace. From here he went on to organizing labor, which in Baku, an oil rich area of the Russian domain, consisted of extortion, kidnapping, assassinations, bank robberies, blackmail, beatings, bombings and terror. Stalin was the leader and main figure in the black underworld of Baku.

Constantly under the surveillance of the Tsarist police and secret police, Stalin formed a link with Lenin. From my interpretation of events, their bond was not so much philosophical, rather, they both rose to strong positions within the "party" and anyone who experiences success in something, is apt to stick with it. As far as their articulation of party philosophy, it was not from the heart, it was purely from the head, and their interest was in devising a idea that would achieve two ends. 1. be philosophically sound, 2. ensure that they were in power, as the ones to dictate policy.

meanwhile, Stalin had been sent into exile on several occasions, seduced many under aged girls, had several children out of wedlock, escaped exile several times, in drag as a ruse at several junctures, meanwhile travelling across Europe to meet other Bolsheviks, and Lenin, learning several languages, writing prolifically, and staging a major, internationally known bank robbery that netted an equivalent of $3.5 million for Lenin's coffers.

The belief of the Bolsheviks, which numbered perhaps 2,500 at the time of the revolution, and had a core leadership of only 15-20 individuals, was that the revolution was inevitable, as articulated by their theorist/saint, Karl Marx. So that when the conditions were ripe for revolution, they, being prepared and ready with their plan, were able to take control of a vast empire, virtually unopposed, disorganized and almost in a comedic way.

But if the way they gained power was comedic, almost immediately after seizing power, it became bloodthirsty.
Stalin lay in wait, through Lenin's term, opposing him strongly at some points, and counteracting his mandates boldly at other times.

when Lenin died, Stalin consolidated his power against Trotsky. once he had slowly built enough power to seize control of the party outright, the terror began. having struggled against enemies for so long, his mind became interminably obsessed with paranoia and a fear of enemies. This is where the childhood beatings, the persecution of the seminary, the exiles, the gangsterism, the experiences of being covert, under constant surveillance and horrific injuries and crimes all culminated in the terror, where an estimated 25-40,000,000 Russian citizens were starved to death, shot, worked to death in the gulag, or died in exile.

Stalinism, Bolshevism, Leninism, Marxism, became wholly superfluous, once the ends were achieved, because the strength in the ideologies, was in their ability to represent the priorities of their adherents, and in the power of their propaganda.

It made no matter to Lenin (who had a brother executed for an assassination attempt of a Russian czar), that the conditions for the proletariat revolution were not present in Russian. Marx himself "corrected" Marxist/Russian adherents in letting them know that the proletariat revolution could never arise in a peasant state with communal farms. Russia would first have to pass into an age of private ownership, and then industrialization for a working class to emerge and become exploited enough to serve as a basis for the Marxist revolution.

other problems with Marxism in Russia, was the 5-year plan started by Stalin, became a 1-year plan as Stalin forced collectivism/socialism upon the peasants and their lords, all in the service to the industrialization predicted by Marx. The peasants rebelled, killing half of their field animals and not planting crops. Stalin's response was to take every bit of grain from the peasants, and imposing the death penalty for the theft of even a cup of grain. This caused the mass starvation in the Ukraine. the only known or recorded wide spread man made "famine" in the history of man.

all of this done, in service to Marx's proletarian revolution and proletariat freedom from capitalist exploitation.

if war is peace, then it can certainly be seen that any political ideology can be used to justify any political action or oppressive action, as long as the adherents, believe that the deviation, however great, is in service to the ultimate ends.

Richard Feynman: The Greatest Mind Since Einstein (DVD)

An instructor at cal tech for thirty years, Nobel prize laureate for physics, in charge of the team that performed the complex calculations needed for the Manhattan project in Los Alamos. He lead this team at a time before computers, when men with pencils computed the complex mathematics by hand and by formulas. Feynman’s ability to lead this team, was nothing short of fantastic by all accounts.

He said that his love of science was instilled in him by his father, a salesman who wanted to be a scientist. He taught his son to notice things. Feynman states, “he knew the difference between knowing something and just knowing the name for something. He talked about an example of when he was a young boy an dhe had a ball in the back of his wagon. When he started, the ball rolled to the back. When he stopped, the ball rolled to the front. His father said, “no one knows why this is. It’s called inertia, and things at rest, tend to want to stay at rest. Things in motion tend to want to stay in motion, until and unless some force acts upon it. That’s the difference between knowing the name of something and the reason why it exist/true understanding.

In July of 1945, while still working on his PhD, he went to work with Dr. Oppenheimer on the Manhattan project. Dr. Feynman speaks of the moral question. He says he didn’t remember the reason why they were doing what they were doing. Germany was the enemy and they were also working on the problem, so the race was to do it first, and the fate of the world rested on their shoulders. Ocne Germany was defeated. Feynman faults himself for not once again re-evaluating his reasons for working on the project. Feynman talks about the wild celebrations that went on after the bomb was drooped on Hiroshima. He talks of champagne being popped, people getting drunk, yelling, celebrating, blissful… and the death and destruction and suffering in japan.

While working on the Manhattan project, he fell in love with and married a beautiful woman. A woman who was expected to die of tuberculosis. Her name was Arline Feynman. He realized that the only way he could care for her and also be with her, is if he married her. INH had been invented and she had taken the medication for a few months, but it was too late. She died.

Feynman formed a great relationship with an artist, and he decided that he would teach him physics if the artist taught him art. They did this on Sundays and they continued it for a number of years until Feynman become a very good artist. His artist friend would say that he could look at a flower and enjoy it’s beauty, but that a scientist would break that all down and not be able to enjoy the simple beauty. Feynman disagreed. He said that his knowledge of the mystery of cell biology, what was happening on the cell level, the biological level, the microscopic level, in addition to the colors, the sweetness of the smell,t he nectar and pollen, and the seeming awareness of the plant of itself and it’s surroundings added to the mystery, rather then subtracting from it.

Feynman won his Nobel prize for his work in physics and electrodynamics and electromagnetic physics. He shared the prize with two other scientist that also discovered the process of taking into account the phenomenon. Feynman also devised a way to diagram the processes that ignored the wave part of particles all together and focused on the particle behavior. It was described as a “very powerful” method. Another scientist speaking on the subject stated, “it never occurred to us to make a drawing and to combine the protons an electrons int his way.”

Feynman did not like honors. Saying, “I don’t like honors, I appreciate them, but I don’t like them. the prize is the discovery, the knowledge, the accomplishment. These are the real things. Honors are epaulets and uniforms. This bothers me.” Feynman talks about receiving an academic honor in school and then being awarded membership in a society. He said the major work of the society was in deciding who should be let into the society. He said he resigned from the national academy of science for this very same reason. “the whole thing was rotten”

Another friend agrees that Feynman did not like honrs per se, but also, in a way he did like them, because it gave him the “credentials to be quirky”. Feynman also learned to become an accomplished bongo player.

He met a guy flying kites in baja California. Feynman had to go to Lucienne Switzerland and the kite flying friend also had business so they went together. When they got there, Feynman talked to a scientist about a large two story experiment that they had going on. It was tons of people, and knobs and levels. When the other scientist was explaining the experiment, he remembered that the theory they were testing was one of Feynman’s theories, so he said, “this is to test one of your theories.” Feynman said, “how much did it cost?” the man said, “$37 million” Feynman said, “what? Don’t you trust me?”

Feynman loved imagination, but not so much the idea of “creativity” he called what he did “imagination in a straight jacket” meaning, that given all of the laws, and understanding of how the world worked, what is possible? It has to agree with what we already know, or what can we imagine that we already know?”

In 1978 Feynman began a 10 year battle with cancer. He had 4 cancer operations, not knowing if he would survive the first one. He had a strange form of cancer that never metastasized, but began in his kidney and grew around in tentacles around it, but never metastasizing. Shortly before his first surgery, someone had found an error in a paper that he had written with another scientist. Feynman weak, sick and close to death took on the problem a few days before his first surgery, plunged completely absorbed intot he problem. The other scientist could not do the calculations that Feynman could , so he could only watch. After 6 hours they gave up, but all the shile, they knew that the error was trivial, and not important. They finally decided to call it quits. Two hours later, Feynman called the other scientist to say that he had found the error. He was exhilarated, and walking on air.

Perhaps Feynman was best known for his work on the investigation of the space shuttle challenger tragedy. His work on the committee gave it instant credibility. he searched for the answer, looking in all the regular places, asking all of the questions that should be asked. He was able to see that the problem was simple and basic. So basic that he had to ask the question of how the tragedy was allowed to happen. The big wigs at NASA did not want anyone to think the space shuttle wasn't capable of hundreds of missions. the engineers knew it wasn't. The problems were ignored and the astronauts died as a result. when Feynman demanded that the evidence be included, those in power argued that it would be put in the appendix. when they said that they wanted a watered down version of what had been found, Feynman threatened to not sign his name to the report. they backed down, and Feynman was once again thrust into the public spotlight two years before his death.

In facing his death, he had a good ten years to contemplate it from when he was first diagnosed with Cancer. He figured that although he would die, he had shared so much of himself with so many individuals, that he would not really, ever truly die.

Iosef Dugashvili - Stalin, On A Pure Marxist Vision

Stalin on Marxism from Simon Sebag Montefiore's 'Young Stalin' :

Stalin's Marxism meant that the revolutionary proletariat alone is destined by history to liberate mankind and bring the world happiness. But humanity would undergo great trial and suffering and change before it would achieve scientifically proven Marxism. The heart of this providential progress was the class struggle. Marxism is the masses who's liberation is the catalyst for the freedom of the individual. This creed was, says Stalin, not only a theory of Socialism, it's an entire world view, a philosophical system like a scientifically proven religion. (Stalin) believed like Trotsky that the lasting thing is gained through combat. Blood, death, conflict were essential. Many storms, many torrents of blood, in Stalin's own words, would mark the struggle to end oppression.

Also of importance, Stalin believed in a mix between Marxism and Georgian nationalism. It was hard for him to believe in true international Marxism because the oppression and repression of Georgian's made them also dream of independence.

for political idealist, there is no room for dissent
even among their idealist-mates, they continually debate the particulars of minor points.
such bickering is a bad sign for the people at large.
for the "ignorant masses" know not that which will be demanded of them idealogically.

Frantz Fanon discusses at length the process by which those who are the "powerfully oppressed" become the revolutionary oppressor to those whom they had previously sworn to liberate.

Once idealogically strict revolutionaries claim power they set about the perpetual work of installing the first phase of their infrastructure, which is the elimination of negative human capital.

Dissenting voices can not be tolerated.

The dream that a society could be "cleansed" in this manner and be free, is in truth a subterfuge to justify inhumane acts upon fellow beings. Despots, who are unrestrained in their zeal to choose idealogies over human needs have an unfair advantage in the debate halls when the finer points of the necessitous work of the revolution is discussed.


The thing these ideaologies never achieve is the actual thing they are set up to achieve -liberation, peace, utopian exchanges, freedom, equality, etc. what they do achieve, what they are very good at creating is murder, paranoia, terror, assassination, oppression, repression, hardship, strife, hopelessness, fear...
The cleansing is perpetual.
The violence, endless.
The process of clearing the path for the coming Utopia becomes the means and the ends.
The process is above all criticism because it is a process, and can not be "judged" until finalized, and it will never be finalized.
The novel 1984 offers the best critique of the look and feel of a society caught within a perpetual paranoid cleansing.

There can be no vision, that can be imposed upon the heart of humanity.
Societies must move, but not necessarily forward.
At times moving towards or in response to some guiding light.
And at other times plunging headlong into the abyss.

Young Stalin has won the Costa Biography Prize (UK), the LA Times Book Prize in Biography (US), Le Grand Prix de Biographie Politicale (France) and the Kreisky Prize for Political LIterature (Austria).