Fred Hutchison
American innovation and the culture war: A golden age of American innovation
By Fred Hutchison
Syndicated columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a remarkable column (March 9, 2004, Columbus Dispatch) about the wonder of American innovation. "America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of many factors: extreme freedom, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products." This kind of thing happened during the industrial revolution — but the electrifying speed by which new ideas are transformed into new products and markets is unique to this moment in history.
Friedman quotes Nandan Nilekan, the CEO of Infosys, the largest computer firm in India, who said: "You have this whole ecosystem...a unique crucible for innovation...I was in Europe the other day and they were commiserating about the 400,000 (European) knowledge workers (computer, software, & internet based information systems) who have gone to live in the U.S. because the innovative environment there. The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a product and mainstream it — that can only be done in the U.S. It can't be done in India." He went on to explain that the jobs outsourced to India helps the innovative U.S. companies bring their products to market faster, cheaper, and better.
International outsourcing via broadband cable is an enterprising innovation of Americans. They outsource the least technically creative and most tedious segment of a service or transaction process. This concentrates the innovative environment in America. The renaissance of innovative industries and new technologies, and the resulting wealth creation and the present rapid rise in productivity will eventually create more and better jobs in America than are outsourced to India. Some of the new jobs on the way are activities which never existed before — the jobs of the future.
The Nature of a Golden Age
The renaissance of American innovation is a golden age — of sorts. It is nothing like the mythical golden ages of antiquity spoken of in the Greek and Roman classics. It has some similarities to the historical golden ages of human creativity. We are certainly not having a golden age in the arts and humanities — this a dark time in those fields. All the golden ages of creativity coexisted with areas of darkness. Athens, for example, had slavery and imperialism. The peasants in the hinterlands of Florence, Urbino, and Mantua seem to have been untouched by the Italian Renaissance. Some of the gifted "renaissance men" like the Medicis and Machiavelli were brutal, mercenary, and corrupt. American culture is brilliant for technical innovation and entrepreneurial adventure, but it is torpid in other ways.
The Golden ages of ancient Athens, the Renaissance of the High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, and the French Enlightenment are uncanny. They sometimes come suddenly to the least likely places — like Europe in the eleventh century. Golden ages are often short — some run less than 50 years. The environment and the matrix of human qualities which leads to a golden age are fragile and easily shattered.
After a golden age has come and gone, civilized societies are culturally nourished for many centuries through the carefully preservation of remnants of the art, architecture, literature, poetry, and philosophy which was produced by a small number of original and versatile geniuses. In like manner, the technical inventions and innovations developed in America during this era will be enjoyed for long periods in the future — well after the time of great innovations ceases.
The Fallacy of Social Engineering
It is a mistake to try to devise a cook book recipe of human, social, and cultural ingredients which produce a golden age. Systems models of historical eras — a fad in academia — are a laughable folly. The wise Creator designed human nature and human society with such complexity and subtlety that the crude devices of human analysis cannot sound its mysterious depths. Where the zeitgeist (the spirit of the age) comes from and where it goes is beyond our ken. "The wind (spirit) blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell from where it comes and where it goes." (John 3:3:8) The wonders of God are "past finding out." (Job 9:10)
Those busybodies who claim to have grasped the matrix of an age confuse the part with the whole or have come up with a formula of simplistic reductionism — like the foolish historical systems models. Some theorists select one variable or one principle and interpret everything according to it. A perfect example is "economic determinism" which was the basis of a cosmic delusion — better known as Marxism.
Interestingly, Christian societies have a better record of noticing their political illusions than do secular societies. The first generation of Puritans in Massachusetts tried agricultural socialism and had a famine. Then they chided themselves for behaving "as though we are wiser than God." They gave each family their own field to cultivate — and enjoyed abundant harvests.
When a golden age gets rolling it is best to get out of its way and let the fragile and mysterious forces do their beneficent work. When we tamper with complex and delicate things we do not understand we may maim or destroy them. This something which Edmund Burke (1727-97) tried to teach us — but which our social engineers have never understood. "The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity: and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or his affairs..."
Burke spoke of the tearing of the social fabric by the social engineering by the reformers of his day who were guided by simple, abstract concepts of rights but lacked the wisdom of practical social experience. "...All the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which by a bland assimilation incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded, as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion." (Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.)
Burke was speaking of the demise of the brilliant society in France which bred a high culture, a new strain of rationalism which we call the French Enlightenment. Some of the new ideas which were first broached in the Paris salons were essential to the conception of the new American Constitutional Republic. Yet, tragically, the enlightenment also bred ideas of radical social reform which threw off sparks which ignited a great conflagration of revolution in France. That devils brew of a revolution extinguished the brilliant and elegant society which bred the Enlightenment. The great laboratory of new ideas was burned to the ground.
Lesson: The social engineering of our political idealists and reformers can extinguish a golden age of human creativity. They are often well meaning but many of them are blind to the social and personal destruction they cause. The sharp spines of their abstract metallic theories rend the delicate tissues of the living social organism.
Golden Ages seem to breed certain ideas and attitudes which gradually undercuts human creativity. The French Enlightenment died from the poisons it manufactured. Everything created by the hand of fallen man contains the seeds of its own destruction.
The Alienated Intelligentsia
One of the causes of decay are the accumulation of destructive ideas from the restless cauldron of the human mind. The intelligentsia whose task it is to accumulate words and concepts are indispensable resources in the early days of a renaissance. However, the literati gradually absorbs and accumulates the counsels of bitterness, futility, and despair which rise from the streets of the city of man — and from their own hearts. The intelligentsia are exalted in their own estimation, but suffer from an alienation of affections because they are barely tolerated by the movers and shakers who bustle about the city streets.
Schools have always manufactured a surplus of frustrated intellectuals. The unemployed intellectual class is doomed to discontentment and drinks from the roots of bitterness. At length, their poisoned pens produce ideas which can be fatal to the renaissance of the very culture which produced them. A few examples will suffice.
The philosophy of Frederic Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) had a formative influence on Jacques Derrida (1930 - ) who invented the postmodern philosophy of Deconstruction — which is highly destructive to culture. Derrida, as a young narcissistic intellectual, was spellbound by the philosophy of Nietzsche, the ultimate narcissist. Consider these poisoned words from Nietzsche's self-destructive mind.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he becomes a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you...The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort. With it is a calm passage through many a bad night." (Selected excerpts, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886)
Jean Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) was a leading philosopher of Existentialism. He introduced the idea of "existential despair." A streak of nihilism runs through his thought. "Being is haunted by nothingness." (Being & Nothingness, 1943) Sartre wrote philosophy books, novels, dramas, and literary criticisms. Therefore he is highly quotable. "Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth." (The Words, 1964). "Human life begins on the far side of despair." (The Flies, 1943). Sartre's personal despair poisoned his writing and had a toxic effect on society.
Sigmund Freud's great influence was in part due to his remarkable facility as a popular writer. In Civilization and it Discontents (1929), his thesis was that the price we pay for civilization is neurosis. I seems far more likely that the intelligentsia of an aging culture is highly prone to neurosis — as was Freud.
The destructive ideas from alienated intellectuals such as Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, and Derrida can undermine a golden age. But if good men fight the destructive ideas of a demented intelligentsia, the golden renaissance can be prolonged for a season. We need a new generation of Christian intellectuals to do it. Every time a poisoned idea is launched, it must be met, confronted, and refuted. If we can hold back the evil tide for a while, who knows but that God might condescend to bless once more — so that there be another and wider renewal of culture.
The present renaissance of technical innovation in America is a blessing from God. It came as a surprise. As recently as 1980, most intelligent individuals thought we were going to be economically swamped by Japan. Very few saw the boom of American innovation coming. President Ronald Reagan was one of those few.
Fallacies about Human Nature
False ideas about human nature are harmful to a golden age. George Santayana believed that the greatest sins are those that set out to strangle human nature. Many harmful ideas of postmodern liberalism are doing just that. When man believes false things about himself, it damages his ability to live productively in society and contribute to his civilization.
When man believes he is something less than what the Creator designed him to be, his spirit is crushed, his mind is darkened, his will is paralyzed, and his creative powers and constructive energies dry up. When man believes he is something more than human, his ego is inflated with vanities and follies, he has delusions of grandeur, and his works become eccentric and distorted. All such states of illusion must be disillusioned. Disillusionment can lead to a depressed state of mind — and the end of a golden age. The high flying Italian Renaissance ended with a thud — with the trauma of the Reformation and the shocking news of the sac of Rome in 1527.
Advanced cultures are fragile and cannot endure too much manic delusion or depressive despair. The antidote to these twin poisons is to face squarely the truth about the human condition. Oliver Cromwell said to his portrait painter, "paint me just as I am, warts and all." But along with warts, take note of the noble brow, the determined eyes, and the set jaw. This is what the classics of literature does for us. We are shown the range of human faculties in all its complexity and contradiction.. This cures us of both a reductionist view of man and an inflated view of man.
Determinism
Reductionist ideas reduce man to a simplistic caricature. When man looks in the mirror and sees something less than what is there, it has a depressing effect on his spirit and his mind. Deterministic ideas are the most powerfully compressing of the reductionist ideas. When man believes he is but a cog in a great machine, he feels crushed in a brutal and inhuman wine press. The most pitiless and repressive states are based on deterministic ideas — such as the Soviet regime under Stalin.
When man is told that he is not created according to a design but was haphazardly evolved he is reduced to a subhuman status — an animal of no designed species but a beast-monstrosity of accidental origins. In some ways this is worse than being a cog in a machine. At least a cog has a design and an understandable purpose as an integral part of the great machine.
Determinism is based upon the inflation of the principle of causation. Causation can be decisively established only for extremely simplified situations. In modern science, an experiment must be reduced to its simplest essentials before proof of causation is possible. But human nature and society is exceedingly complicated and contradictory. Reductionism in the pursuit of proof of causation is illusive because human nature is irreducibly complex. This goes through my mind whenever I hear a liberal speak of "root causes." The illusion that we can ferret out the root causes indicates a liberal who has never read the classics — and is profoundly ignorant about human nature. Our history of trying to manipulate root causes through social programs is a discouraging one — filled with the surprises of unintended consequences.
Three Fatal Determinisms
The three fatal determinisms of our age are economic determinism, cultural determinism, and biological determinism. Economic determinism is the belief that what we are and what we do is shaped by economic forces. This is an extremely radical reductionism if ever there was one. All the incredibly complicated things that combine in mysterious synergies to make up human nature are all to be explained by one single cause — economics. If ever their was a myth grounded in false confidence and the radical ignorance of tunnel vision — this is it.
When liberals speak of the "root causes" of social problems, they typically are borrowing ideas from economic determinism. Root cause arguments obscure rather than enlighten. The poor are not responsible for their poverty because of root causes — we are told. Criminals are not responsible for crime because of root causes. Terrorists are not responsible for murder because of root causes. Such thinking rules out the idea of human conscience, and moral responsibility.
When the belief in root causes relieves us of responsibility for our actions it also weakens the belief in the existence of free will. Nothing will destroy a golden age of innovation faster than a paralysis of the will. If we doubt we have a will because of a belief in the myth of root causes, the will becomes either paralyzed or undisciplined. We become ether zombies or maniacs — and return to adolescence.
Cultural determinists believe that everything we are and do is controlled by culture. Postmodern philosophers claim that the works of the great masters in literature are purely cultural constructs. What Shakespeare wrote was determined by his culture. Obviously, no modern Shakespeare can arise in a society which believes in cultural determinism. If inspiration, genius, and hard work cannot hope to carry one above one's culture and time for the inspiration of future generations — what is the use of pouring out all of one's energies upon a work of high art? Cultural determinism is a breeder of mediocrity and a killer of the creativity of a golden age. Unfortunately, our public schools are diligently devoted to the indoctrination of students with ideas of multiculturalism — which is grounded on theories of cultural determinism.
Biological reductionism is based upon the old myth of materialism. In brief, everything we are is caused by our genes and our hormones. Now it is true that our genes and hormones have an influence on what we are. But when we carry the idea too far we become deeply confused about the nature of the human mind. We know that there are links between brain activity and human thought and consciousness. But we have no idea how electrical impulses are synthesized into thoughts. We may never know. And we have no way of knowing to what degree psychological, emotional, and spiritual faculties influences thought.
Many scientists dogmatically insist that the mind is nothing more than brain operations — without grounds for the assertion. Edward O. Wilson, a biological determinist, insists that consciousness and free will are illusions — they are "epiphenomena of the brain." This huge assertion is not based upon scientific evidence. There is a cavernous gap between what we know about the brain and what we know about the mind and the will. Wilson overleaps the canyon not on the basis of evidence but on the basis of philosophy — the philosophy of materialistic reductionism. Many scientists, like Wilson confuse empirical science with materialistic philosophy — and don't realize it. There is no necessary tie between science and bad philosophy.
Irrational Exuberance
Golden ages sometimes breed an overconfidence which leads to a disillusionment. It is similar to a stock bubble which inflates with "irrational exuberance." Such bubbles invariably burst in a crisis of confidence.
So it was with the Italian Renaissance. As the Renaissance climbed to its peak, an inflated confidence in man visibly appeared. Michelangelo's view of the human form gradually changed from the harmonious classical conception of his early work to man as a muscular giant as painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Leon Alberti (1404 - 1472) said, "A man can do all things if he will." Pico Della Mirandola (1463 - 1394) claimed that man is a protean being of unlimited powers to transform himself through a developmental process of mind and will. Man can mold himself into any nature of his choice from the spectrum of beings ranging from beast to angel or demon.
The inflated expectations of human potential always leads to a bitter disillusionment. After the crack-up of the Renaissance, Michelangelo painted The Last Judgment. The terrified human figures being cast down into hell by an angry Christ no longer look like gods or giants. They look like doomed men who have abandoned all hope and all confidence.
The irrational exuberance of the ideas of Alberti and Mirandola are startling reminiscent of the "human potential movement" of the sixties which was absorbed by the New Age Movement during the seventies. The magical thinking of this irrational exuberance can be summed up by the statement, "You can be anything you want to be." But this is false of course. Man cannot create himself or redesign himself. God created man according to a design. Man is a developmental being but his potential is contained within the design. Each individual has been individually designed. His unique talents are dictated by design.
It is injurious to man to be told that the he can disregard his innate design and can substitute another design of his own selection. A great genius who lives during a golden age must accurately discover what his greatest talents really are — if he is to become a great master in his special vocation. The idea that he can be anything gets in the way of the discovery of who he really is and what he can really do.
A golden age of human creativity cannot exist unless man finds a way to steer between the Scylla of determinism and the Charybdis of irrational exuberance. Our goal for the battle of ideas should be to warn against both fallacies — and thereby prolong the golden age of American innovation.
© Fred Hutchison
Syndicated columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a remarkable column (March 9, 2004, Columbus Dispatch) about the wonder of American innovation. "America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of many factors: extreme freedom, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products." This kind of thing happened during the industrial revolution — but the electrifying speed by which new ideas are transformed into new products and markets is unique to this moment in history.
Friedman quotes Nandan Nilekan, the CEO of Infosys, the largest computer firm in India, who said: "You have this whole ecosystem...a unique crucible for innovation...I was in Europe the other day and they were commiserating about the 400,000 (European) knowledge workers (computer, software, & internet based information systems) who have gone to live in the U.S. because the innovative environment there. The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a product and mainstream it — that can only be done in the U.S. It can't be done in India." He went on to explain that the jobs outsourced to India helps the innovative U.S. companies bring their products to market faster, cheaper, and better.
International outsourcing via broadband cable is an enterprising innovation of Americans. They outsource the least technically creative and most tedious segment of a service or transaction process. This concentrates the innovative environment in America. The renaissance of innovative industries and new technologies, and the resulting wealth creation and the present rapid rise in productivity will eventually create more and better jobs in America than are outsourced to India. Some of the new jobs on the way are activities which never existed before — the jobs of the future.
The Nature of a Golden Age
The renaissance of American innovation is a golden age — of sorts. It is nothing like the mythical golden ages of antiquity spoken of in the Greek and Roman classics. It has some similarities to the historical golden ages of human creativity. We are certainly not having a golden age in the arts and humanities — this a dark time in those fields. All the golden ages of creativity coexisted with areas of darkness. Athens, for example, had slavery and imperialism. The peasants in the hinterlands of Florence, Urbino, and Mantua seem to have been untouched by the Italian Renaissance. Some of the gifted "renaissance men" like the Medicis and Machiavelli were brutal, mercenary, and corrupt. American culture is brilliant for technical innovation and entrepreneurial adventure, but it is torpid in other ways.
The Golden ages of ancient Athens, the Renaissance of the High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, and the French Enlightenment are uncanny. They sometimes come suddenly to the least likely places — like Europe in the eleventh century. Golden ages are often short — some run less than 50 years. The environment and the matrix of human qualities which leads to a golden age are fragile and easily shattered.
After a golden age has come and gone, civilized societies are culturally nourished for many centuries through the carefully preservation of remnants of the art, architecture, literature, poetry, and philosophy which was produced by a small number of original and versatile geniuses. In like manner, the technical inventions and innovations developed in America during this era will be enjoyed for long periods in the future — well after the time of great innovations ceases.
The Fallacy of Social Engineering
It is a mistake to try to devise a cook book recipe of human, social, and cultural ingredients which produce a golden age. Systems models of historical eras — a fad in academia — are a laughable folly. The wise Creator designed human nature and human society with such complexity and subtlety that the crude devices of human analysis cannot sound its mysterious depths. Where the zeitgeist (the spirit of the age) comes from and where it goes is beyond our ken. "The wind (spirit) blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell from where it comes and where it goes." (John 3:3:8) The wonders of God are "past finding out." (Job 9:10)
Those busybodies who claim to have grasped the matrix of an age confuse the part with the whole or have come up with a formula of simplistic reductionism — like the foolish historical systems models. Some theorists select one variable or one principle and interpret everything according to it. A perfect example is "economic determinism" which was the basis of a cosmic delusion — better known as Marxism.
Interestingly, Christian societies have a better record of noticing their political illusions than do secular societies. The first generation of Puritans in Massachusetts tried agricultural socialism and had a famine. Then they chided themselves for behaving "as though we are wiser than God." They gave each family their own field to cultivate — and enjoyed abundant harvests.
When a golden age gets rolling it is best to get out of its way and let the fragile and mysterious forces do their beneficent work. When we tamper with complex and delicate things we do not understand we may maim or destroy them. This something which Edmund Burke (1727-97) tried to teach us — but which our social engineers have never understood. "The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity: and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or his affairs..."
Burke spoke of the tearing of the social fabric by the social engineering by the reformers of his day who were guided by simple, abstract concepts of rights but lacked the wisdom of practical social experience. "...All the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which by a bland assimilation incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded, as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion." (Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.)
Burke was speaking of the demise of the brilliant society in France which bred a high culture, a new strain of rationalism which we call the French Enlightenment. Some of the new ideas which were first broached in the Paris salons were essential to the conception of the new American Constitutional Republic. Yet, tragically, the enlightenment also bred ideas of radical social reform which threw off sparks which ignited a great conflagration of revolution in France. That devils brew of a revolution extinguished the brilliant and elegant society which bred the Enlightenment. The great laboratory of new ideas was burned to the ground.
Lesson: The social engineering of our political idealists and reformers can extinguish a golden age of human creativity. They are often well meaning but many of them are blind to the social and personal destruction they cause. The sharp spines of their abstract metallic theories rend the delicate tissues of the living social organism.
Golden Ages seem to breed certain ideas and attitudes which gradually undercuts human creativity. The French Enlightenment died from the poisons it manufactured. Everything created by the hand of fallen man contains the seeds of its own destruction.
The Alienated Intelligentsia
One of the causes of decay are the accumulation of destructive ideas from the restless cauldron of the human mind. The intelligentsia whose task it is to accumulate words and concepts are indispensable resources in the early days of a renaissance. However, the literati gradually absorbs and accumulates the counsels of bitterness, futility, and despair which rise from the streets of the city of man — and from their own hearts. The intelligentsia are exalted in their own estimation, but suffer from an alienation of affections because they are barely tolerated by the movers and shakers who bustle about the city streets.
Schools have always manufactured a surplus of frustrated intellectuals. The unemployed intellectual class is doomed to discontentment and drinks from the roots of bitterness. At length, their poisoned pens produce ideas which can be fatal to the renaissance of the very culture which produced them. A few examples will suffice.
The philosophy of Frederic Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) had a formative influence on Jacques Derrida (1930 - ) who invented the postmodern philosophy of Deconstruction — which is highly destructive to culture. Derrida, as a young narcissistic intellectual, was spellbound by the philosophy of Nietzsche, the ultimate narcissist. Consider these poisoned words from Nietzsche's self-destructive mind.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he becomes a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you...The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort. With it is a calm passage through many a bad night." (Selected excerpts, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886)
Jean Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) was a leading philosopher of Existentialism. He introduced the idea of "existential despair." A streak of nihilism runs through his thought. "Being is haunted by nothingness." (Being & Nothingness, 1943) Sartre wrote philosophy books, novels, dramas, and literary criticisms. Therefore he is highly quotable. "Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth." (The Words, 1964). "Human life begins on the far side of despair." (The Flies, 1943). Sartre's personal despair poisoned his writing and had a toxic effect on society.
Sigmund Freud's great influence was in part due to his remarkable facility as a popular writer. In Civilization and it Discontents (1929), his thesis was that the price we pay for civilization is neurosis. I seems far more likely that the intelligentsia of an aging culture is highly prone to neurosis — as was Freud.
The destructive ideas from alienated intellectuals such as Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, and Derrida can undermine a golden age. But if good men fight the destructive ideas of a demented intelligentsia, the golden renaissance can be prolonged for a season. We need a new generation of Christian intellectuals to do it. Every time a poisoned idea is launched, it must be met, confronted, and refuted. If we can hold back the evil tide for a while, who knows but that God might condescend to bless once more — so that there be another and wider renewal of culture.
The present renaissance of technical innovation in America is a blessing from God. It came as a surprise. As recently as 1980, most intelligent individuals thought we were going to be economically swamped by Japan. Very few saw the boom of American innovation coming. President Ronald Reagan was one of those few.
Fallacies about Human Nature
False ideas about human nature are harmful to a golden age. George Santayana believed that the greatest sins are those that set out to strangle human nature. Many harmful ideas of postmodern liberalism are doing just that. When man believes false things about himself, it damages his ability to live productively in society and contribute to his civilization.
When man believes he is something less than what the Creator designed him to be, his spirit is crushed, his mind is darkened, his will is paralyzed, and his creative powers and constructive energies dry up. When man believes he is something more than human, his ego is inflated with vanities and follies, he has delusions of grandeur, and his works become eccentric and distorted. All such states of illusion must be disillusioned. Disillusionment can lead to a depressed state of mind — and the end of a golden age. The high flying Italian Renaissance ended with a thud — with the trauma of the Reformation and the shocking news of the sac of Rome in 1527.
Advanced cultures are fragile and cannot endure too much manic delusion or depressive despair. The antidote to these twin poisons is to face squarely the truth about the human condition. Oliver Cromwell said to his portrait painter, "paint me just as I am, warts and all." But along with warts, take note of the noble brow, the determined eyes, and the set jaw. This is what the classics of literature does for us. We are shown the range of human faculties in all its complexity and contradiction.. This cures us of both a reductionist view of man and an inflated view of man.
Determinism
Reductionist ideas reduce man to a simplistic caricature. When man looks in the mirror and sees something less than what is there, it has a depressing effect on his spirit and his mind. Deterministic ideas are the most powerfully compressing of the reductionist ideas. When man believes he is but a cog in a great machine, he feels crushed in a brutal and inhuman wine press. The most pitiless and repressive states are based on deterministic ideas — such as the Soviet regime under Stalin.
When man is told that he is not created according to a design but was haphazardly evolved he is reduced to a subhuman status — an animal of no designed species but a beast-monstrosity of accidental origins. In some ways this is worse than being a cog in a machine. At least a cog has a design and an understandable purpose as an integral part of the great machine.
Determinism is based upon the inflation of the principle of causation. Causation can be decisively established only for extremely simplified situations. In modern science, an experiment must be reduced to its simplest essentials before proof of causation is possible. But human nature and society is exceedingly complicated and contradictory. Reductionism in the pursuit of proof of causation is illusive because human nature is irreducibly complex. This goes through my mind whenever I hear a liberal speak of "root causes." The illusion that we can ferret out the root causes indicates a liberal who has never read the classics — and is profoundly ignorant about human nature. Our history of trying to manipulate root causes through social programs is a discouraging one — filled with the surprises of unintended consequences.
Three Fatal Determinisms
The three fatal determinisms of our age are economic determinism, cultural determinism, and biological determinism. Economic determinism is the belief that what we are and what we do is shaped by economic forces. This is an extremely radical reductionism if ever there was one. All the incredibly complicated things that combine in mysterious synergies to make up human nature are all to be explained by one single cause — economics. If ever their was a myth grounded in false confidence and the radical ignorance of tunnel vision — this is it.
When liberals speak of the "root causes" of social problems, they typically are borrowing ideas from economic determinism. Root cause arguments obscure rather than enlighten. The poor are not responsible for their poverty because of root causes — we are told. Criminals are not responsible for crime because of root causes. Terrorists are not responsible for murder because of root causes. Such thinking rules out the idea of human conscience, and moral responsibility.
When the belief in root causes relieves us of responsibility for our actions it also weakens the belief in the existence of free will. Nothing will destroy a golden age of innovation faster than a paralysis of the will. If we doubt we have a will because of a belief in the myth of root causes, the will becomes either paralyzed or undisciplined. We become ether zombies or maniacs — and return to adolescence.
Cultural determinists believe that everything we are and do is controlled by culture. Postmodern philosophers claim that the works of the great masters in literature are purely cultural constructs. What Shakespeare wrote was determined by his culture. Obviously, no modern Shakespeare can arise in a society which believes in cultural determinism. If inspiration, genius, and hard work cannot hope to carry one above one's culture and time for the inspiration of future generations — what is the use of pouring out all of one's energies upon a work of high art? Cultural determinism is a breeder of mediocrity and a killer of the creativity of a golden age. Unfortunately, our public schools are diligently devoted to the indoctrination of students with ideas of multiculturalism — which is grounded on theories of cultural determinism.
Biological reductionism is based upon the old myth of materialism. In brief, everything we are is caused by our genes and our hormones. Now it is true that our genes and hormones have an influence on what we are. But when we carry the idea too far we become deeply confused about the nature of the human mind. We know that there are links between brain activity and human thought and consciousness. But we have no idea how electrical impulses are synthesized into thoughts. We may never know. And we have no way of knowing to what degree psychological, emotional, and spiritual faculties influences thought.
Many scientists dogmatically insist that the mind is nothing more than brain operations — without grounds for the assertion. Edward O. Wilson, a biological determinist, insists that consciousness and free will are illusions — they are "epiphenomena of the brain." This huge assertion is not based upon scientific evidence. There is a cavernous gap between what we know about the brain and what we know about the mind and the will. Wilson overleaps the canyon not on the basis of evidence but on the basis of philosophy — the philosophy of materialistic reductionism. Many scientists, like Wilson confuse empirical science with materialistic philosophy — and don't realize it. There is no necessary tie between science and bad philosophy.
Irrational Exuberance
Golden ages sometimes breed an overconfidence which leads to a disillusionment. It is similar to a stock bubble which inflates with "irrational exuberance." Such bubbles invariably burst in a crisis of confidence.
So it was with the Italian Renaissance. As the Renaissance climbed to its peak, an inflated confidence in man visibly appeared. Michelangelo's view of the human form gradually changed from the harmonious classical conception of his early work to man as a muscular giant as painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Leon Alberti (1404 - 1472) said, "A man can do all things if he will." Pico Della Mirandola (1463 - 1394) claimed that man is a protean being of unlimited powers to transform himself through a developmental process of mind and will. Man can mold himself into any nature of his choice from the spectrum of beings ranging from beast to angel or demon.
The inflated expectations of human potential always leads to a bitter disillusionment. After the crack-up of the Renaissance, Michelangelo painted The Last Judgment. The terrified human figures being cast down into hell by an angry Christ no longer look like gods or giants. They look like doomed men who have abandoned all hope and all confidence.
The irrational exuberance of the ideas of Alberti and Mirandola are startling reminiscent of the "human potential movement" of the sixties which was absorbed by the New Age Movement during the seventies. The magical thinking of this irrational exuberance can be summed up by the statement, "You can be anything you want to be." But this is false of course. Man cannot create himself or redesign himself. God created man according to a design. Man is a developmental being but his potential is contained within the design. Each individual has been individually designed. His unique talents are dictated by design.
It is injurious to man to be told that the he can disregard his innate design and can substitute another design of his own selection. A great genius who lives during a golden age must accurately discover what his greatest talents really are — if he is to become a great master in his special vocation. The idea that he can be anything gets in the way of the discovery of who he really is and what he can really do.
A golden age of human creativity cannot exist unless man finds a way to steer between the Scylla of determinism and the Charybdis of irrational exuberance. Our goal for the battle of ideas should be to warn against both fallacies — and thereby prolong the golden age of American innovation.
© Fred Hutchison
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