Of Revolution, Reason and Humanity’s Future

Chris Hedges’ new book Wages of Rebellion is a profound account of rebellion and revolution, its history, the existing need for this kind of change and the life and challenges of the moral and social rebel.

Hedges brings passion and blunt, articulate and exceptionally well-informed argument to this effort to get people to realize that customary forms of protest from marches to rallies alone will not accomplish the change that is desperately needed. We need the committed rebels of the past, e.g. Emma Goldman, Sacco and Vanzetti and Marin Luther King.

Toward the end of this book Hedges, a former Yale Divinity student, described the depth of commitment of rebels from Socrates to Martin Luther King. He gives King’s speech on “Taking up the Cross” that would require that he give himself to the needs of the poor, to live for and among them. As Socrates chose the hemlock rather than exile, so King chose to serve the interests of the poor rather than his own.

I have long been aware of the religious element in Hedges intellectual makeup, but somewhat befuddled by his (it seemed to me) refusal to say exactly what he means by religion, e.g. does he believe in the existence of a God. In his account of King’s “taking up the cross” commitment to the poor it seems clear to me that Hedges, as so  many religious thinkers have, confuses religion and morality. Religion, at least as far as the Abrahamic religions are concerned, makes a statement of fact about the existence of a god. Morality makes no such claims, but rather assigns moral values to the actions and thoughts of humans.

It is, however, Hedges’ belief that faith, not reason, is what is necessary to get humanity through the deep crises it has created for itself, that I find inadequate. In this book he quotes approvingly from Francesco Guicciardini “To have faith means simply to believe firmly— to deem almost a certainty— things that are not reasonable.”  What, I ask, is to differentiate such belief from that of an ISIS volunteer out to kill the next Shiite he sees?

When I look at humanity’s long history of development, it is clear that most, if not all, of what has made this species so profoundly superior to the other products of evolution, is human thought and the resulting understanding of its world that has made the difference, not the moral efforts of a few during times of crisis.  Granted the products of reason have not always been used wisely, but even then, reason is often the best tool for dealing with the social rubble of misuse and deliberately created human suffering and death by the greed and power-lust of a relative few.

Because morality takes place solely in humans, its perspective is highly distorted and because its prescriptions are didactic in a world of compound variability, it cannot be a reliable guide, or instance, to all those demands and impositions as well as opportunities that the natural world presents to humans. This, I think, Hedges fails to understand.

Let me make it absolutely clear. There is no better guide to the overwhelming problems that face humanity and the revolution needed to wrest control  of the planet from corporate dominance and greed than Chris Hedges. I think, however, the need to better comprehend human potential and the honesty to accept the results are paramount for the species’ survival.

For those who would like to know what Hedges means by revolution I suggest they Google his online essay titled This is What Revolution Looks Like.

Bob Newharrd

Rationality at Bay

Recently I stumbled on an advertisement by Nissan for its Infiniti automobile. In the ad a man hops out of his driverless car ala Google and jumps into the Infiniti and roars off taking curves at high speed. The obvious intent of the ad is to portray the driverless car as boring, while the Infiniti provides the thrill of driving at breakneck speeds, as the auto ads would have it.

In short, a transportation system is presented as a playground for visceral delight.

This may not seem to be that serious a matter to some, but it is. Approximately 40,000 people lose their lives each year because of automobile accidents. Countless others are grievously injured, not infrequently for life. Property damage is immense and the cost of accommodating roadway needs of an ever increasing automobile population is unsustainable, not to mention the immense cost to our environment.

One of the most promising means of addressing this multifaceted unsustainable mess is to pack more vehicles in the same roadway space. The small driverless car with suitable electronic sensors and controls can allow cars to travel safely much closer together and thereby significantly increase the carrying capacity of existing freeways and surface streets, while, at the same time increasing safety. Google and others have been developing the driverless car for a number of years. Reporters have ridden in them on the freeway between San Francisco and San Jose at rush hour, one of the busiest roadways in the nation. They were amazed at the way these cars were able to continuously monitor their traffic environment and to brake much more smoothly than most humans.

As it is, we have in the automobile a mass transit system not infrequently in the hands of an inept, emotionally out of control, angry, deeply disturbed, or panicked driver in control of a vehicle of unknown condition. It should be obvious that this is no way to run a mass transit system. No such system would be tolerated and the only reason it is not so viewed is that corporations have continuously sold it as an individual’s thrill-generating device for getting from point A to point B as fast as one can and in a style that will impress others. This was demonstrated when General Motors manipulated the destruction of the old Red Line light rail system that served much of Sothern California in order to create a larger market for their cars. With the small driverless car we would retain the ability to go where we want when we want, but with an efficiency and safety far beyond what we now have.

The fact that an existing automobile company would attack this development in its infancy on the grounds that it was, in a thrill-seeking sense, boring should tell us volumes about the odds that reason faces in an image-soaked communication system we call the media. The same motivation and its dire consequences lie behind the resistance to red light cameras that photographs drivers and their vehicles that run red lights at traffic signals, even though these are targeted on a major cause of death and injury. This resistance has been so intense that some cities have removed them. This is the kind of idiocy that also fuels the many conflicts between religion and science, e.g. the denial of evolution in favor of religious accounts of human origin and development. Some schools in the South actually use the Bible as the basic text for teaching in this matter. This kind of idiocy must be stopped before it becomes policy in the hands of Far Right conservatives and the corporate wealth that so cynically uses them as its major political constituency.

Real consequences await the illusions of those who deny reason and evidence.

Bob Newhard

Humanity, The Species

We do not often think of humanity as the species it is. With the increasing globalization of our species and its impact upon the planet it calls home, it is high time that our individual and collective consciousness made this human species the center of our attention and the background for all other considerations. We are, after all, the only ones who can assure our continued existence, at least until the next major asteroid hits Earth. We are, and must regard ourselves as, an endangered species.

As a child of evolutionary accidents we must deal with the deep conflicts in our nature that flow from that random complexity. Salient among these is the apposition between our ability to reason and our more ancient inheritance of emotion.  We appeal to both of these when confronted with threats to our well-being and when faced with the unknown.

At the current conjunction of species-threatening impacts such as global warming, overpopulation, dwindling food supplies, weapons capable of destroying civilization if not our species, growing water shortages, etc. we see the conflict between our reason, as exemplified by science, and emotion exemplified by the refusal of many to accept the overwhelming evidence of science and substituting religion and tradition. This cannot go on.

A number of proposals have been made to suggest a way out of this increasingly dangerous dilemma. David Korten argues for a world of small productive enterprises to replace the mammoth corporations that now control our world. As evidence for the validity of this approach he points out that the American people, trying to throw off the control of a massively more powerful England, undertook a plethora of small productive actions, including women manufacturing their own and others’ clothing, in order to survive the British embargo. Gar Alperovitz argues for an economy of cooperation in which employees own their business, thereby eliminating the master-servant model of capitalism.

Both of these proposals, as is so often the case, rests upon historical evidence of the way humans have behaved in certain specific cultural and economic occasions. They are both very worthy proposals and merit our respect and understanding. However, they are both derived from human cultural artifacts such as labor relations and the size of economic units of production.

I think the problems we face require that we go far deeper in our understanding than how some societies have functioned. We must go to nature itself for guidance in trying to cope with our many and massive threats.

Let me take as an example the single threat of overpopulation and all the horrors and species decimation it could be expected to unleash.

In nature we find species that limit their birth rate according to the availability of the resources they need. Indeed, in a report titled Top Predators Limit Their Own Numbers issued in May of this year, evidence is presented that top level predators such as lions and wolves are able to control reproduction without such external controls. If these animals have developed the capacity to control their numbers we, as a top level predator with the greatest ability to reason, should also be able to do this.

So far, except for China, the best that we humans have been able to do is hope that the increasing education of women combined with the technologies for preventing reproduction, will be sufficient to prevent the mass starvation and violence that large scale shortages of food and water would engender. We have already seen what much less dramatic shortages of oil can do. Even China, now that it is more affluent, is relaxing the one child per couple law. Lamentably, this is one more demonstration of our inability to learn as nations and cultures.

Perhaps the most profound book on using our biological and evolutionary knowledge to create a zeitgeist inclusive of all humans regardless of other divisions among them is to be found in Edward. O. Wilson’s The Social Conquest of Earth in which this great evolutionary biologist shows that the most enduring species have been social species. What does that say of a society whose economy is based on competition?

This book is packed with succinct thinking and the prose to go with it. I highly recommend it to those who are struggling to find a way to avoid the obvious catastrophe that faces our species. Let me close with two among countless pregnant observations in Wilson’s book.

History makes no sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes no sense without biology. Humanity is a biological species in a biological world.

The more we learn about our physical existence, the more apparent it becomes that even the most complex forms of human behavior are ultimately biological.

So why not start there in our search for a viable human future?

Bob Newhard

It is imperative that the human species consider itself as one. If we do not do this we will continue to use our brains to kill and maim each other and plunder this planet for the materials and wealth to do so. The purpose of this blog is to understand the implications of this monumental change in our self-perception primarily as members of a species rather than as members of a nation, religion or any other sub-grouping of human. Our increasing numbers, capacity to consume and destroy, demand this. The continued existence of our species demands it.


This blog is still under construction and may change its appearance occasionally until I can come to terms with my expectations and energy. I expect to  post frequently, but not frequently. There is an RSS feed associated with the blog. You will notice it on the front page.  I hope what I have to say will entourage you to become a reader. Thank you.

Bob Newhjard