In
the struggle between the material and non-material realms, which goes on with varying
results throughout human history, we seem to be at the point when materialism
has cornered its foe. Rigorous intellectual inquiry, penetrating philosophical
analysis and appetite for refinement, originality and independent opinion have
been subdued and are looked upon as departure from the norm. Streamlined and
simplified culture works hand-in-glove with the modern dynamic, no-nonsense Western
world. It seems only too right that the over-refined, decadent system of feudalism
and aristocracy was obliterated by World War I and replaced by a new order with
democracy and capitalism. There seems no problem in believing that dictatorship
of the enterprising gives more to society than tyranny of the privileged. While
this argument looks solidly black and white to most, some would discern shades
of grey that inspire conclusions going beyond the cultural discourse.
Some great works of literature have illustrated
the breakdown of the feudal, aristocratic order towards the end of the nineteenth
century: Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago”, Chehov’s “Cherry Orchard” and Prus’s
“The Doll”, to name just a few. These and others scarcely evoke sympathy for
members of the privileged classes who suffered or perished as victims of the
changing times. The prevailing judgement is that the wealthy aristocrats brought
it on themselves through their dissolute, irresponsible ways. It is hard to
expect a reasonable person to empathise with parasites who, while pursuing
their expensive, carefree lifestyles, made no meaningful, constructive
contribution to society.
In contrast, much more worthy appear those
who forced the dukes, earls and barons out of their comfort zone by buying
their properties to save from bankruptcy, appropriating assets as part of debt
redemption and marrying their daughters in exchange for strengthening depleted
capital. These diligent, practical, risk-taking people came to prominence during
the Industrial Revolution, and into their hands was falling the wealth of the less
industrious and resourceful sections of the upper classes.
The new class of bourgeoisie, which today
is better known as capitalists, entrepreneurs and businessmen, pursues wealth
and pleasure just as the opulent feudal lords in the past. However, they do it
through hard work, courage and exercise of intellect to outsmart competitors. This
occasionally involves clandestine methods, redeemed by beneficial developments
such as creating jobs, offering new useful products and services, and inspiring
others with the belief that success is not necessarily bound with class and
inheritance.
However, while being based on merit, the
capitalist system is inherently unstable. Without keeping it in check by
regulation – as was the case for half a century from the Great Depression to
the 1980s – capital acquires destructive momentum and, in the words of Karl Marx,
the capitalists (plus many others who depend on them) dig their own graves. This
destructive process started anew at the end of the 1970s, whereby the forces of
capital accumulation were gradually released as regulatory breaks and checks were
removed. However, by that stage, despite its innate proneness to busts and
crashes, capitalism had created lasting benefits in the form of democratisation
of life, progressive taxation and strong state looking after its less
privileged.
While the inherited wealth before World War
I created conditions for occasional brilliance that benefited humanity, the new
fairer order offered, through social welfare, some measure of freedom to the
common people to pursue noble causes, chiefly by free or subsidised higher
education. However, this is changing now. The appetite for supporting the
social achievements of the twentieth century is disappearing. There is
diminishing interest in letting wealth serve society rather than bring solid
returns to investors. Economic efficiency and profit maximisation have become
the main commandments of the modern times. The world is driven by blind pursuit
of short-term monetary gains, without much thought spared for what it leads to in the long run. Politicians, who are still expected by
some to by visionary leaders, are not able to see much outside the election
cycles. Materialism has become the
dominant philosophy.
Admittedly, not all was bad in the old
times. The list of those who left constructive, lasting legacies is populated
by thinkers, scientist, artists, philanthropists and leaders, who used their
own wealth, or benefited from wealth of their patrons, to improve the lives of present
and future generations. The list includes Copernicus, Michelangelo, Leonardo da
Vinci, Galileo, Descartes, Leibnitz and Mozart, to mention only
a handful of some of the most prominent ones. Leo Tolstoy deserves a special
mention. While acutely conscious of his position of a parasite in society, he
managed to contribute his great novels, such as “Anna Karenina” which
generations never tire of enjoying. Furthermore, many countries’ struggle for
independence – the United States of America, India and Poland come to mind – would
not have been possible and successful without high-minded, passionate
dedication of members of the upper classes free from the toil to earn a living.
There are also countless other forgotten or
rarely acknowledged contributions. For example, more refined and charitable
human behaviours and tendencies are legacies of the long-gone aristocracy. Courtesy,
chivalry, generosity, charity and simple good manners are notions adopted by
the mainstream society by emulating patterns set by nobility and royalty. These
invisible elements of our civilisation have become the norm, enabling social
cohesion and making human society a project worth being part of and prolonging.
The word “aristocracy” has an interesting pedigree.
After originally denoting a system of government run by the best (meaning of
noble birth), it was later synonymous with nobility regardless of the form of
government. These days it is, understandably, less frequently used and typically
with a negative connotation, signifying a group perceived as privileged or
superior to others in society. There is, however, a more universal meaning that
ensures the term’s continuing currency and enables its use in a constructive, meaningful
sense. This timeless core consists of the independence of the mind uncorrupted
by base, primitive influences. The broader meaning echoes the older idea of
independence from labour, reminding of the live link with the original source
that was not entirely useless and harmful.
Aristocratic mind is one that is not easily
swayed by the attractions of wealth and pleasure, and resists greed, egoism,
vindictiveness, indolence and other low tendencies. In pursuit of long-term
goals with benefit to society, it is not fixated on short-sighted monetary gains.
A person with such a mind would use free time for intellectual enlightenment
rather than material enrichment. He or she would be ready to temper selfish
drives and hone altruistic ones, and practice tolerance, moderation and
patience. Such a person would seek to create or be associated with elements of
culture that consist of more than easy entertainment and quick gratification.
The term “intellectual” partly captures this broader notion of aristocracy but
not entirely. Not every aristocrat would have an acute mind of an intellectual,
and not every intellectual would measure up to the uncorrupted qualities of the
universal aristocrat.
It is easy to forget about things that are
not of immediate importance and to become oblivious to invisible but concrete
patterns governing our existence. It is to the French economist Thomas Piketty
that we owe gratitude for explaining economics by putting it into real historic
perspective. His empirical studies show that in addition to cyclicality of
booms and busts, as the main characteristics of the unusable capitalist order,
there are broader, less regular and more important structural elements. They reveal
the devastation and reconstruction of capital during the twentieth century. World
War I, which obliterated most of the highly concentrated European wealth,
together with its offspring of extreme inequality, gave rise to capitalism,
democracy and social improvements. This process, interrupted by the second
cataclysm, reached its conclusion some three decades after World War II, when
the wealth of Europe had largely been re-established, with economic wellbeing matching
that of the United States.
From then on, the rebounding capital has
gained momentum, flooding the world with cheap money that rather than creating
growth and prosperity for all, only enriches a minority while dampening growth,
deflating prices and spreading economic stagnation. To accommodate this torrent
of money – flowing at first mainly from Japan and Germany and then from China –
and cash in on it, highly complicated and risky financial instruments were
invented by Wall Street banks, with the regulators either sleeping at the
controls or deliberately removing obstacles to capital movement. This rebound
of capital, with its spiralling, destructive work, culminating in the Global
Financial Crisis in 2008, is not just a matter of cyclicality. It is part of a
structural, long-term process of rising from the ashes after the catastrophes
of the twentieth century and – if nothing is done to change this course – going
back to the way things were before World War I, featuring high concentration of
capital with inequality to match.
Relentless pursuit of profit and efficiency
that is part of this process, have worked like a steam-roller for culture,
leaving behind its lowest common denominator. This will not go forever though.
As ever more people become losers in the unequal race of wealth maximisation,
they are likely to reflect not only on their comparative disadvantage and
poverty, but also on cultural flattening and depletion. They might recall the
lost dichotomy of popular and non-popular culture: something for simple
pleasure and something for those who need more than entertainment. Admittedly,
the latter component of culture has always been in smaller demand, but there
has always been room for it. The need for more meaningful narratives slumbers
in everyone, but in the deluge of mass culture it is lost or confused with
escapist blends typically involving fantasy, history and occultism.
More often these days one observes
puzzlement, and even indignation, that there can be anything else than what is
created for the mass consumer. This situation has been aptly caricaturised in Sławomir
Mrożek’s play “Slaughterhouse”, in which the author asks tongue-in-cheek whether
places of higher culture are needed at all and whether they would not serve a
better purpose by being turned over into more practical establishments, such as
a slaughterhouse. No one would deny the important role of mass culture – which chiefly
consists of helping to pleasantly pass free time – but without the non-popular
margin a culture is incomplete, with harmful consequences that have accompanied
the declines of empires a few times in human history.
Erosion of the aristocratic element of
culture has not spared literary fiction. For fastidious bibliophiles there is
little left for comfort except for works of old masters. New authors offering
more refined, challenging intellectual fodder in fiction are becoming rare. Those
waiting for another Umberto Eco and Jostein Gaarder, those hungry for
disciplined philosophical prose with insightful esoteric knowledge, have to console
themselves with Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse and Mikhail Bulgakov.
Admittedly, authors writing in the tradition of Joyce, Kafka and Borges still do
exist – László Krasznahorkai being one, for example – but their hyper-esoteric writings
tend to confirm that non-mass literature is indeed an abnormal twist in popular
sobriety.
Developments in one particular area of the
cultural discourse serve as powerful evidence in support of the argument of
this essay. It is to big science that we owe our current belief that all
important questions posed by natural sciences and philosophy have been answered.
Hypotheses of physics and complexity sciences (associated with chaos theory)
have apparently explained the origin and machinery of the world as we know it. Apparently,
there is no need to speculate about it anymore, so the whole discipline of
philosophy is redundant and religion is laughable or even harmless. Neo-Darwinism
has convinced us that a narrow reading of Darwin’s theory – emphasising natural
selection and understating other evolutionary drives – explains the whole of evolution,
biology and even psychology. We are now but fully convinced that our genes are
designed to make us selfish robots, and it is only by fluke that we are
influenced by altruism, although without a firmly imbedded charity drive there
is no chance to create a complex society. We are also told that our present and
future are pretty much determined, because the genes, in which all our traits
are encoded, are immortal and immutable.
The problem is though that the mathematical
machinery supporting these theories is underpinned by the same brand of
mysticism on which rests the reigning religion of the West. Just as Plato’s
philosophy propels the belief in the perfect domain of immutable forms – which
in the Christian tradition means God, soul and heaven – it is also the
philosophical foundation of mathematics. It underwrites concepts such as
non-Euclidean geometries, multiple dimensions, negative numbers with their
square roots and other abstract operations, imaginary and complex numbers, vectors
and tensors. None of these can be causally demonstrated or explained. They are
to be believed in as religious dogmas, and at the same time taken as the corner
stone of explaining the workings of the world around us. Mathematical wizardry
also won the argument for the Neo-Darwinists that nothing but the immutable
genes drive evolution, though we know now that the environment plays a
considerable role in modifying the genes and shaping biological organisms.
Faced with this mathematical abracadabra, people have resigned themselves to
blindly believing and accepting that all is explained and no further probing is
required.
It takes a large dose of penetrating
insight, which most mortals are not able to muster, to see through this haze of
complexity and abstract, unconfirmed notions. Numbed by incomprehensible
scientific information, attractively dished out through the mass media, one is
not even aware that one is in the fog. Why worry? Why ask questions? Everyday
life is not immediately dependent on it. So why not just leave inquiring to the
experts. Serious questions about science have not been asked for several
decades. Unresolved misgivings about Newtonian science were put to rest in the
sixties of the last century as academia embraced the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn.
Ever since, it has been agreed not to stray from the prevailing consensus
(paradigm) even if it is incorrect, until evidence against the current paradigm
topples it and gives rise to a new paradigm. However, Kuhn’s prediction of the
old paradigm giving way to new is not applicable in practice. The power of money
prevents serious evidence from emerging, let alone toppling a paradigm, as
practitioners of science have too much vested interest in preserving the status quo. Thus the same capital that
now rages demanding higher and higher returns – and which at the time of
Kuhnian victory was still on a rebound after two wars – has proven capable of
creating financial as well as abstract bubbles, the latter being the unproven and
false scientific believes.
Many would argue the world has bigger
problems – economic, political, social and environmental – to worry about its
incomplete, depleted culture. But it is worth pointing out that if our minds
had not been enslaved by selfish pursuit of ever greater returns, these
problems would not be so dire now. Our current dilemmas may be compared to an
illness, whereby the patient has been kept in a darkened room with closed
windows, so that little light and fresh air can get in. The patient is told
that any gust of oxygen and ray of light from outside could be harmful. She has become convinced that it is best to
listen to this advice, unaware that the advisers benefit from her staying sick.
We have been driven to believe that the only important thing for us to do is to
make things more efficient, keep increasing profit and have fun. If there is
anything to worry about, our doctors will tell us what it is – usually through
the main TV channels and from the front pages of newspapers.
The typical story, used to sell economic
efficiency and profit maximisation, goes that both bring benefits to consumers through
lower prices due to competition. However, not being a blatant lie, this is a
half-truth: benefits only accrue early in the process when competition is rife.
The next step is consolidation through mergers and acquisitions, reinforced by
privatisation of national assets, all of which now occurs at an accelerating
pace. Once consolidation reaches a certain level – not necessarily the monopoly
stage – competition-driven price reduction ends and consumers are at the mercy
of their goods and service providers, with regulators too weak to help. And it
is not only about trivial phone and internet services. It already includes, or
will soon include, electricity, gas, water, health, education, police and
prisons, as governments intensify privatisation desperate to address budget
deficits and debt.
A consolatory thought is that plutocracy developed
in this process may evolve into aristocracy of the old times and play the role
of noble, leading minds. But it is a weak and perhaps false hope. Once a mind
has been obsessed with increasing returns on capital for a few decades, it is
immune to alternative ideas, let alone being able to inspire others with them. And
this is why the fortunes spent, or pledged to posterity, by wealthy
entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet are but an adhesive bandage
capable of addressing only some symptoms of the disease – none of its cause.
These philanthropically minded individuals are the same who advised the patient
to stay in the darkened room with stale air. They are unlikely now to pull the
curtains and open the window.
One of the great inventors of our times,
Steve Jobs, failed to become known to future generations as the bringer of the
personal computer, because profit maximisation got in the way (in the form of
alluring equity capital with its perils). Someone else, not exactly matching Mr
Jobs’s perfection-driven visionary ideas, beat him to it with consequences that
we can only begin to suspect from comparing Apple products with their rivals.
Instead, Mr Jobs will be known as the creator of the slickest toys in history.
Alas, at least for now, these toys tend to keep minds in enclosed spaces, and it
remains to be seen if they evolve into something better.
A change seems in the air, signs of which
come from the unexpected quarters. The United States is still the most powerful
economy on the planet, and, to repeat a popular adage, when it sneezes the rest
of the world catches a cold. The reason for the strong support for Donald
Trump’s candidature for President is that a growing number of Americans
painfully experience now that economic efficiency, profit maximisation,
globalisation and privatisation do not bring enduring benefits but lasting
misery to the broader community. They feel tricked by their past leaders
telling them that staying in the dark with little fresh air was good for them.
Many no longer trust the old breed of politicians from the centre-right or
centre-left, as the half-truths have not made them prosperous or happier. Many
have become poorer, disillusioned and discontented while their shrewd advisers
have benefited from their naivety and enslavement.
Time will show whether this hope is
misplaced, and whether the elected by popular demand maverick President – if
that is the case – will reduce dependence on the doctors and let some fresh air
into the stuffy room. The capital has run free for over four decades now, and
gained formidable destructive momentum, posing a threat that is more real and
imminent than any others. It will not be easy to change that. It will not be
easy to reduce the influence of Wall Street and replace the religion of
economic efficiency and maximisation of returns with a new credo. For that one
needs not just a populist American presidents but minds capable of exciting
with insightful, uncorrupted ideas and leading in a new direction. While bad influence
of the old aristocrats is gone, their good legacy stays and there is no shame
being inspired by it. This could be our best hope of survival.
© Robert Panasiewicz, 2016