corona viruses (credit: Dr. Fred Murphy, via Wikimedia Commons) 

Heavy Thoughts For Heavy Times

Science cares about what can be observed. By any observer, regardless of what biases she/he may bring to the situation. Anyone would have to admit, “Well, okay, it happened.” 

In Psychology, for example, the branch of that science followed by more than half of the Ph. D.s in the field is called “Behaviorism”. The founders of Behaviorism said, a long time ago, that what matters is what can be observed by any observer. Whatever you say your private thoughts or feelings were in any situation you may want to analyze …the Behaviorists don’t care. What did you actually say and do? That’s observable. That is what any social science – if it deserves to be called a “science” at all – should be looking at. And that’s all. 

The point of social science is to come out with some general rules about human behavior that will allow scientists to predict what people will do in upcoming tests, which is just like what is done in all sciences. For the Behaviorists, and most other scientists, in social science and all branches of all sciences, now we’re talking. Now they’re listening.

What’s my point? Trust me. I’ll come back to this bit on what makes an attempt at science into a true “science”.

In our current global pandemic, we are being reminded daily of the crucial importance of balance. A society is an ecosystem. It contains a lot of different species, and non-living elements too, that must be kept in mind when we are working to keep that society healthy. 

Bacteria in the soil make the production of nitrogen there possible. Then, the grasses can grow, the herbivores graze, the predators hunt, and even scavengers do their jobs. Kill the soil bacteria and all of these checks and balances die. The scene will be a wasteland in one decade or less.

Similarly, in our society, as we’re seeing every day, we need grocery store clerks and truck drivers. We need doctors and nurses. And so on. We are all parts of a much larger system that has to stay in a balance – even if that balance is being stressed right now – if the system is to survive in the long haul.

We need police and firemen, pharmacists and cleaners, old folk with knowledge and young people with energy, men and women, every race and gender. There are valuable traits that support the larger system in every sub-group in society you might name. The virus hits some in every group. But there are valuable bits of knowledge and skill in every group too. Or, as the old saying goes, we must hang together or we are surely going to hang separately.

Balance asks of us respect for everyone by everyone else.

What produces the kind of behavior that contains this abstract quality I’m calling “respect”? Teaching it to the kids. All the kids. No exceptions. I don’t want to hear any more of how group A has every right to hate group B, based on …blah, blah. Period. Such talk is counter productive. It is not helping.

And respect is a value. An abstract principle that plays out in real life situations in unpredictable ways. In fact, it is the unpredictableness of real life and real life instances of our principles, when we see them in action, that makes them so moving and beautiful.

You need cleaners. Not so your building will just be a little more pleasing to your senses when you come in the front door. You need them, trained in sterile techniques, doing their best to keep your place safe, or you could die.

You need medical personnel and, in the long haul, researchers too, so we can find a vaccine for this ugly killer and stop it. Smart people, “eggheads”, do that.

You need cops to keep order. Thugs and thieves love to jump in when society is under stress. They have over and over for centuries. In that respect, there is nothing new in these present times.

I could go on and on, but I think by now you’re getting my point.

And let’s be utterly frank. We are going to need financiers and brokers who have expertise and vision. Ones who can pick winners, businesses that will go on and return to vigorous operations after this is over. Our very limited available capital should go to those firms. Our economies are going to have to be repaired and re-built after this crisis has passed. 

We can’t just print money when we want to. It has to represent real wealth - goods and services people can use - or our currencies and nations will collapse. In the end, money is just paper. We can’t eat it, make pants out of it, or build homes with it. It has to represent real wealth.

Right now, the money the government is giving out is being borrowed from our grandchildren. They are the ones who are going to have to work extra long and hard to pay off this debt. I have always said this. I just think the financiers and investors should have to pay their share of society’s expenses the same as the rest of us. In the last few decades, in my view, they haven’t been doing so. That free ride has to end. But I don’t consider these people evil. I have no desire to see them eradicated. That’s been tried. It doesn’t work.

The bottom line? In the most general of senses, the highest levels at which we are able to think, we need principles. Courage to hang in there and keep trying to maintain decency and sense. In every branch of our society. We must not give in to the selfishness of taking care only of ourselves and maybe a few loved ones. We must hang together as a nation, or we are surely going to hang separately.

We need wisdom – knowledge, judgement, “smarts”. To keep us on the efficient path toward recovery from the virus, for the time being, and to steer us toward recovery as a society six months or a year from now.

We need freedom. Every person has to take responsibility for restricting her or his own actions, choosing the smart course day by day. Personal responsibility. If that begins to break down, there aren’t enough police in the universe to keep us from living “The Road”. Catastrophe on a global scale. 

And freedom also to run down one’s own good ideas. Check them out online. A cure just might come from a teenager in Kenya. Or Albany, N.Y.. Or Spruce Grove, Canada. Or Alice Springs. Or Bangkok. Wherever that kid is, s/he could be the saving of us all. Genius shows no preferences when she bestows her gifts. 

And finally, of course, we need to love each other. Respect each other, then, if the word “love” is too scary for you. Take care of each other. You can’t know now how your small act of duty or kindness where it was applied today will play out in the long run. You can only know that as a giant policy, kindness is the right thing to do. It tilts the odds back in our favor.

Balance. Of several different virtues/principles and many kinds of people. This society is an ecosystem. 

So as a kind of side-note, I’ll end by telling my atheist friends, “If you believe in a balance of courage, knowledge, freedom, and respect – and you live them, patiently, in your daily actions and words, not so much because they are nice, but because you believe they will get us through the real challenges of these times – because these virtues fit the way reality works on the cosmic scale – then I have zero desire to convince you of even one single other point. Believe in God? Hey, man …hey, lady …by all the observable evidence …you already do.”

In the shadow of the mushroom cloud, love each other. Why? Not because it’s nice, brothers and sisters, but because it works.