Philosophy

The Instinctual Mistake of Racism

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Our history is replete with racism, and many of my posts are devoted to its tragic examples: US War on Native America, Road to Abolition, Equal Education, Black History and American Concentration Camps. Since genetically all humans are the same species, there is no scientific basis for racism. We are all on the same side. But in my travels, I have found both overt racism and subtler ethnocentrism everywhere. I have heard Swedes make fun of Norwegians, British belittle the Irish, Italians disparage Romani, Turks and Greeks complaining about each other, Russians being anti-Semitic, Japanese discriminating against Koreans, Chinese distrusting Japanese, Malaysians criticizing Chinese, Israelis insulting Palestinians, Tanzanians maligning Arabs, Dominicans faulting Haitians, etc. I’m sure many of the same folks also made negative comments about Americans, behind my back or even calling me a ‘big nose’ or ‘foreign devil’ to my face.

Basically, racism is a damaging and potentially deadly way of thinking about others. Racism divides society, treats people unfairly and often results in violence against innocent people. Academics argue about whether prejudice is an evolved human trait or whether racism is learned. I doubt anyone learns to be racist by reading 19th century books on Phrenology or old Nazi propaganda. People who look up old racist literature have already formed their views. Children acquire racial biases as toddlers and pre-schoolers, often unconsciously by observing adults. Some tribal mistake in our instinctual thinking makes us vulnerable to distrust others, unknown to us, and wish them harm. Tribal unity on superficial facial characteristics may have once been useful in outwitting Neanderthals, but in the modern, interconnected global community, it is not just obsolete, it is a deadly plague, pitting billions against billions, all the same species.

Some academics stress the importance of systemic racism, the structures that sustain it, and the leaders who promote racist ideology. But this logical approach has a human weakness, so a systemic solution is asymmetrical to the problem. Most racist adults deny that they are racist. Relatively few risk public shame with overt racism. Racism lurks in the shadows, until it explodes. Some deplorable adults promote racism consciously, but it is hardly an intellectually rigorous movement. While diversity, equity and inclusion are taught formally, racism spreads informally. In my experience, I’ve heard more racist comments from illiterates and drunks than sober academics. Racism spreads quickly among less educated people who lack access to the benefits of vibrant, integrated multiracial communities. W.E.B. Du Bois exposed the real, blunt view of racists behind their fragile intellectual facade of superiority: “they do not like them”. Racism may be an ideology to a few, but it is an instinctual flaw in many.

While racism is still obviously employed consciously as an instrument of political power, its mass effectiveness lies in its unconscious appeal. If folks already have deeply rooted prejudices, it is easier to convince them to act cruelly, even without evidence. Missionaries believed they were doing God’s work to take Native American children away from their parents and put them in boarding schools. Soldiers believed false and grossly exaggerated claims that Native Americans had committed blood-thirsty atrocities, before they machine-gunned women, children and the elderly as they slept, before taking fingers as souvenirs. Slave owners believed their superiority gave them the right to use whips and chains for generations. School boards believed that money was better spent on white children. Mobs believed that an unproven allegation of sexual assault justified days of death and destruction. And many believed that Americans of Japanese descent could not remain free, while Americans of German descent could. The cruelest acts were committed by people motivated to act without evidence.

Any system can become an instrument of racial injustice, if it is filled with enough people with deep-seated racist views. A racist jury will rule unjustly, no matter how the law is written. Political leaders do not adopt racist policies because they were proposed by Ivy League think tanks, they adopt them because they are expedient and popular among ignorant people who support them. Columbus did not wait for the King or the Pope to issue racist proclamations before enslaving the first Native Americans he met, because he brought base racism with him and his crew. And they immediately decided to apply it to the Taíno, because they were different. The root cause of centuries of tragic American history is the false, racist assumption that there was something wrong with the other group of humans. Racism is the instinctual mistake within us that causes us to break the Golden Rule.

So, since racism is fundamentally a problem of instinctual thinking, the first step in solving it is to reveal it within ourselves. We all act instinctually, or we would forget to eat and die. We are all emotional, with a million likes and dislikes, preferences and aversions. We mimic, extrapolate and project. We have a physiological and evolved social need to group together, find similar soul mates, and to feel good about ourselves at the expense of others. Our society enforces homogeneity from pre-school. Sesame Street taught us, “one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong”. But when we defectively apply that instinctual thinking to groups of our fellow humans and feel that someone “just doesn’t belong” in our neighborhood, due to their race or ethnicity, then we are being racist. First, be aware.

Being anti-racist requires honest introspection. If you can find a racist attitude in yourself, understand where it came from, and judge it to be hurtful and wrong, then you can fight it. You can change your words and deeds. And then, you can apply that new skill to the world. Suddenly, you will recognize the next racist thing you hear as racist, and you will have the opportunity to object. You can make a little more effort to understand people who are different, and you might find that you like their food, their humor, music, literature, style, or even some of their religious beliefs. Ultimately, you must apply the same open-minded attitude to all groups of humans.

When I lived abroad, groups of schoolchildren would point at me, giggle and sometimes call me names, because I was foreign to them. Their school uniforms, group behaviors and appearance was equally strange to me, at first, but I was happy that the country stopped burning and beheading foreigners who looked like me some 150 years earlier. Culture shock has two sides, when you fall in love with a culture and when you hate it. Before you really get over culture shock, you need to go through both stages. Then you can stop seeing one group—a single culture—and start seeing the diversity within the group.

The simple truth is that there are good and bad people everywhere, in every group. It is neither accurate nor useful to judge whole groups as good or bad based on superficial characteristics. When groups of people share the same prejudice unconsciously, they begin applying their racism broadly. When groups share prejudice consciously, they organize that racism into a damaging and dangerous force, breaking down a peaceful, fair society, challenging laws and morals, and hurting innocents. Decades later, people may acknowledge that one case was wrong, without admitting that the same instinctual fault still persists.

Isn’t it time for us to admit the full extent of our racism, understand it, and stop it completely? Must we continue to repeat the worst of our history in new ways, for the same old reason? Can’t we finally decide that all humanity deserves to be treated as we believe we should be treated?

Instinctual Thinking

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Hope you had a Merry Christmas! Enjoy this next installment of how to fix our thinking problem by clarifying our four distinct ways of thinking. Lots of us get sentimental around the holidays, so there’s no better time to delve into instinctual thinking.

Observe and mimic

As animals, we follow our instincts, observe and mimic. We underestimate how influenced we are by what we observe. Our species—Homo sapiens—evolved larger brains and more sophisticated vocal anatomy than our predecessors, enabling us to communicate complex ideas through words. But our predecessors—Homo erectus—accomplished much despite their lack of language. They drew art and symbols, crafted tools and weapons, they mastered fire and they organized into communities. Our species began with knowledge of all of these elements of human society, before we invented the words and grammar to describe them. Wordlessly, our ancestors conveyed how to be successful humans, including cooking, hunting, raising families and living in tribes, through observation and mimicry, over thousands of generations.

We still learn this way. Our DNA contains the basic human design, but our species has always augmented that recipe with a sophisticated set of imitated human behaviors we learn from observation: how to use tools, communicate, and behave together. Babies learn very quickly by observing their families, before they learn any words. Parents pantomime behavior they expect their babies to mimic, such as opening our mouths while spoon-feeding. And throughout our lives now, we learn more behaviors while watching videos than when reading, because unconscious observation is the primary way our species has always learned.

Instinctive versus instinctual

Instinctive implies inherited behaviors, like our instincts to survive or reproduce. All humans are the same species, so we share the same physiology and basic emotions. Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise are all easily recognizable human emotions, because our faces express them with eyebrows or lips moving up or down, jaw or cheeks flexing or relaxing, and eyes widening or tightening. These emotions are genetic, universal, unconscious, and evolved over thousands of generations, because communicating our emotions visually helps us thrive.

Instinctual—as I define it—includes both the traits we are born with and adds what we unconsciously learn as humans. While some facial expressions are genetic, others are learned through observation and mimicry. Often our genetic traits are indistinguishable from our unconsciously learned behaviors, so it’s useful to group them both together as instinctual.

Instinctual motives

Think about what motivates you.  Are you devoted to your family, your significant other, your friends or your pets?  Are you working to make your life more comfortable, to enjoy good food, and to have fun?  Do you make an effort to dress well for an event, for colleagues or for any gathering?  Do you wish you were more appreciated, recognized or admired?  Is being in a relationship where you can share your feelings and spend time together intimately important to you?  Do you enjoy supporting your local sports team and cheer when they win?  Afraid of dying?

These are all normal, powerful instinctual motives.  In many cases, the thinking is simply, “I want it, it feels good, so that’s what I’m doing.”  It does not matter whether it is conscious or unconscious, whether it reflects a physiological need or an evolved group behavior, whether you are intelligent or well-educated, or whether you are following the crowd or leading it.  If the root cause of your motivation is physiological or determined by your social needs, then what drives you to think and act the way you do is instinctual.  

Instinctual behavior

Most people primarily behave instinctually, without really thinking. Does such categorization offend you?  Do you want to object, argue or fight about it?  Do you suspect that you are being judged or having your status questioned? Are you preparing to say that all humans are this way and nobody is any better?  Then thank you for confirming. You instinctively feel threatened by a mere description and want to fight about it.  Rather than dispute what drives us, we should welcome our instinctual motives and behavior as what makes us human. There’s nothing inherently wrong with satisfying our basic needs, protecting our child, flirting, or needing group approval.  Our species would not survive without those instincts.

Instinctual motivations are what cause most of us to get out of bed, to groom, eat, exercise, work, rest, have fun and spend time with each other. Instinctual motives drive most actions, longterm habits, rituals, and even desire for change. Without that fire in our gut, most of us would not take that first step to accomplish anything. Instinctual feelings can also depress us, make us give up too soon or paralyze us with fear or doubt. Whenever we interact with others, we take in non-verbal cues and react instinctually, straightening our backs, baring our teeth in a smile, maintaining eye contact while extending an open hand. We instantly adopt a posture of helpfulness, defensiveness, confidence, aggression, flirtation or curiosity.

Our instinctual desires choose how we entertain ourselves: action, comedy, crime, horror, drama, porn, romance or thriller.  We often behave this way at work, when we decide where to sit during the meeting, who to team up with and whether to seek out or avoid confrontation.  Our desire for recognition, to be attractive and to dominate others are common human traits, and they drive our behavior more than other ways, whether we are conscious of them or not.  

Instinctual thinking

The different ways of thinking are primarily distinguished by motive. Instinctual thinking is driven by instinctual motives, consciously or not. We may not be aware of our unconscious motives, but we still feel them. They drive us to act instinctually, including displaying complex social behaviors, towards an instinctual goal, regardless of how much we initially realize what’s really driving us. Later, we often become aware of our instinctual motives simply by observing our behavior. Awareness helps us improve our instinctual behavior, through conscious instinctual thinking.

Those who have a finely tuned sense of instinctual motivations or who send all the right signals have social advantages over those who miss social cues or give off weird signals. Unconsciously we judge each other by tone of voice, stance, handshake and a look in the eye. If they appear confident, then we believe them. Do they remind us of others who were good or bad to us? Who appear to be winners and losers? Our internal instinctual drives often determines who we fear, flatter, imitate, join or avoid. Once aware of the instinctual games we all play, we can control our own instincts, influence the behavior of others and even influence group dynamics on a large scale. In this way, the dominant rule, and the subservient follow.

Instinctually-oriented folks feel in their guts that this is how the world works.

What’s the Big Idea?

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So, we agree we have trouble thinking. What can we do about it?

The Basics of Thinking

Humans think four distinctly different ways: instinctually, rationally, morally and creatively.

  • Instinctual thinking is how we feel human, and it includes all our evolved drives and behaviors, even some complex, internalized group dynamics.
  • Rational thinking is what we learn in school and often use at work: fact-based, methodical logic and calculating profits.
  • Moral thinking is what we should have learned as children and should still apply to every important decision we make: right and wrong, good versus evil, long-run over short-run.
  • Creative thinking is how we come up with new ideas: imagination, invention and inspiration.

Some people fall neatly into one of those four categories and consistently use the thinking methods appropriate to each.

  • Skilled instinctual thinkers are conscious of their own instincts, motives, desires and drives, those of others and the dynamics of how they typically play out.
  • Skilled rational thinkers use accurate facts and apply consistent logic and organized methods to solve problems.
  • Skilled moral thinkers take the long consequential view and judge on firm principles established to promote the general good, to set priorities and proactively intervene.
  • Skilled creative thinkers break rules, make imaginative leaps and invent to create beauty, find a new direction and change the world.

In theory, masters of multiple ways of thinking would approach every challenge beginning with proper motive, use the appropriate techniques, and achieve the right goal. Faced with a multifaceted problem, the master would rapidly run each thinking technique, then consider each conflicting solution, explore possible options, understand why, organize relevant details, arbitrate, optimize and prioritize to choose the best solution and course of action. But honestly, who does all that well?

What Goes Wrong?

Most of us aren’t sure how we think, let alone how the people we interact with think. We may get in an argument, because we’re trying to make a rational recommendation and the other person is trying to make a moral argument. Our creative solution may not work, if everyone just continues doing things by habit. And worst of all, relatively few people think using any consistent method.

In practice, few, if any, have been taught about all four different ways of thinking systematically, have been trained to use them all, know how they each differ and conflict with each other, and consistently apply them all correctly. Even if you are lucky enough to have a liberal arts college education, with degree requirements including ethics, creative arts and psychology & sociology, likely you still specialize in one way of thinking, knowing just enough about the other ways to get your thinking into trouble.

Unfortunately, the rest of us rely on a shifting, ad hoc hodgepodge blend of ‘thinking’, unaware of motives, dishonestly ignoring inconvenient facts, over-ruling our better judgement, and repeating the same old mistakes. We are driven by our instincts, we rationalize to suppress our guilt over having acted badly, and we can’t imagine trying a new path.

Since each way of thinking is different in motive, technique and objective, any blended thinking technique is flawed and unreliable. Just because we stumble into a jumbled solution, doesn’t mean that we’ve got our thinking straight. Think of it this way: you may know how to cook, play tennis and put together an outdoor grill, but you wouldn’t stir nuts and bolts into your chili with a racquet. It’s similarly wrong to let your instinctual thinking take over your moral judgement or bias your rational analysis or reduce your artistic creation into a common cliché. Every tub must stand on its own bottom. Each way of thinking must operate independently to work best. Only then, can they be combined with integrity.

Next Steps

Now that you get the general idea, every other Thursday, I’m going to review a method of thinking, discuss ways to improve it, or consider a relevant case, and then we can move on to mastery. We don’t need to excel in every way of thinking, but we do need to sort out when to use which and not muddle them together willy-nilly. Until we realize what’s wrong with our thinking, we won’t fix it.

The rest of the schedule stays the same for now, with visits on Monday, summaries etc. every other Thursday, and photo summaries every other Saturday. Ciao!

The Trouble with Thinking

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The trouble with thinking these days is that few do it correctly. First, most Americans are chemically impaired, irrational or misinformed. Second, modern conveniences help us do many things every day without thinking. We act habitually, instinctively and follow others, and when nothing goes wrong, we declare ourselves ‘smart’. Third, we don’t know what real thinking requires. For most, ‘thinking’ starts with an unconscious desire, is validated by a childhood belief and is rationalized by something we once heard somewhere. However common, that’s mush.

Don’t feel bad. Few, if any, were taught how to think both methodically and comprehensively in school. Even well-trained academics are often either one-dimensional thinkers or at best employ self-developed, mismatched thinking techniques. After obsessing over mistakes for years, I finally recognized how haphazard and contradictory our way of thinking has become. So, on alternate Thursdays, I’m going to write about thinking: how to do it better, how to make fewer mistakes, and how better thinking is the way to a better future.

[That’s it really, but, if you want to read more, I belabor the point below.]

Most Americans are exposed to chemicals that reduce our cognitive skills. Self medication with products containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, is even higher than prescription antidepressants which have also soared, with over 20% of seniors consuming cannabis and 60+ million Americans consuming CBD. Long term exposure to THC can cause problems with memory, concentration, IQ, and ability to make decisions. 1/2 of American adults today were exposed to unhealthy amounts of lead as children, from leaded gas fumes and leaded drinking water pipes, lowering IQ a few points. And 2/3 of American adults drink alcohol regularly. Obviously all that presents an obstacle to thinking clearly.

But, even if folks got off dope and booze, most would still do the bare minimum of thinking. Our modern convenient lives are filled with routines, absorbing views from others and our habitual responses. Like Forrest Gump in the Army, not thinking is the path of least resistance. The Age of Reason lacks followers. We have returned to an age of Mob Rule, where illusions and emotions drive society. It’s very easy to become deluded today, surrounding yourself with whatever views you like: most Americans believe in aliens or ghosts, many believe in conspiracy theories, and unrealistic expectations are common. Critical thinking, weighing evidence and predicting consequences are ignored, and instead decisions are made by general feelings.

The climate crisis is a good example. Scientists agree that humans burned so much fossilized carbon from eons before we evolved, that we have caused global average temperatures to rise to levels that drive and will continue to drive mass extinctions for long beyond our lives, leaving our descendants to face unprecedented challenges to life on earth. That’s a fact. But even people who claim to be rational, logical thinkers find ways to downplay that threat and avoid taking action to help solve the problem. ‘Alternative facts’ are available online, you can simply refuse to believe evidence, or you can just ignore it and distract yourself with entertainment.

It’s easy and fair to blame politicians, biased media, hostile foreign governments and corporate lobbyists for lying to us. But how did we get to the point where most adults can’t tell fact from fiction, can’t see obvious consequences ahead, and can’t imagine how to solve basic problems like reducing carbon pollution? We can no longer simply raise a problem, discuss honestly, brainstorm and agree on the best solution. Sure, it’s a failure of leadership, but we’re all failing to face the truth and act appropriately. At this point we must admit we all have trouble thinking.

I will tell you the truth.  I am neither an expert in human psychology nor intelligence.  But I have way too much experience making and struggling with mistakes.  Determined to understand what went wrong, I obsessively analyze my own mistakes, specific historic mistakes and the broader, general mistakes humans make.  Frustrated, I travel, visiting sites of beauty and pain, of conflict and success, and of nature and destruction.  Each day trying to see a better way.  Isolated both by choice and by my own mistakes, eventually my view became as clear and honest as a distant peak on the horizon, emerging from the mist and hit by the sun above the wilderness.  

So now I have a few worthwhile thoughts about thinking. Unfortunately, my realizations come a bit too late for me.  Too late to save friendships, my first degree, marriage or my career.  Too late to discuss with my father.  But not too late for you to benefit, if you continue to read this blog.

We do not think how we think we think. Because we think wrongly, we make predictable mistakes. And we become depressed, which also decreases our cognition. But we could change how we think. We can become aware of how we really think and exercise more control over unhelpful ways of thinking. Better thinking could solve problems, help us make better choices, and help us come up with better ideas.  Then we would all feel better about ourselves and our future, instead of medicating ourselves into false comfort in an increasingly troubled world.

While we quickly agree that others need to learn how to think better, our vanity makes us reluctant to believe that our own way of thinking could possibly be improved. I challenge you to read my insights about thinking on alternate Thursdays. Why do I care? I believe we’re on the same side, and I want us to stop making so many mistakes. So I will write for you, so you will think better.  Thanks.

Extinction is a Mistake

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Imagine a universe like ours, except devoid of life. Space, stars, planets, air, ocean and rock. Imagine our Earth, with waves on the beach, wind blown sand, lava, floating ice cap, canyons and waterfalls, spinning each day, heating or cooling each month, year after year, for eons. Structurally, very similar, but empty, without any living things, anywhere.

Nobody would explore it. None would appreciate its beauty, and no one could try to divine its purpose. Without any living creatures to inhabit it, and without us, such a world would be meaningless, neither studied, understood nor experienced. Without life, there is no knowledge.

Without knowledge, there is no life. Every living thing contains within it a recipe, the ingredients and the drive to cheat death. The recipe is our genetic code, passed down from our ancestors. Every living cell in our bodies carries this knowledge, which includes hidden traits and alternate characteristics for future generations, a master cookbook of the adaptations our successful ancestors employed to live, including our survival instinct. All living things carry such ancestral knowledge. Life began when some tiny process replicated itself in a repeatable way—an accident, a trick or a miracle. Life began when the knowledge of that trick was passed on to create the next generation. Life is that knowledge, plus every other trick that worked to keep life going for generations, in all forms, through billions of years of evolution.

Some such knowledge may be useless, dangerous or doomed to fail. In nature, failed ways of life die out, and such mistakes are forgotten. But species that have survived many times longer than mere humanity, have proven their success far longer than we have proven ours. Their lineage is noble, deserving of a place among earth’s great tapestry of living creatures. Our more recent genealogy is dubious, as we have used our supposed ‘superiority’ to create both weapons and pollution that could extinguish most life on earth, including ourselves. In our arrogance, we dismiss all wild species for not having adapted to us, when in truth we should adapt ourselves to sharing this earth with them. The mistake is ours, not theirs.

Life is knowledge. Many living things have learned to communicate, to call for help, to warn, locate and comfort each other. The tactics learned by observation, communication and mimicry become living knowledge of ways to outwit death, shared in community and thus kept alive for the next generation. Our species created written records as yet another path, besides our genetic code and our learned behavior. Some trivial knowledge may offer only a scant promise to enhance some future life with a minor convenience or comfort, while other knowledge may redesign human civilization, if we have the wisdom to discern it. We pursue knowledge to survive, to improve life and to pass it on. Because knowledge is life.

So extinction is the permanent loss of the secrets of life, both the code and the living behaviors. Most species have carried that knowledge for millions of years, long before humans evolved. We have learned from many species, observing how they act, adopting their tactics, and we have used tens of thousands of species to make medicines. We neither know the present value nor can estimate the future value of this accumulated knowledge.

Prematurely and unnaturally extinguishing masses of species, is far worse than simply killing. We do not know which species’ removal will affect other species’ survival in the indirectly connected, mutually evolved web of life. Extinction is the permanent end of life, and the erasure of all the accumulated knowledge used to create, to sustain both that life and the other species that depend on it, and to evolve further into some unrealized beautiful future. It is the silencing of tongues we do not understand, before we could learn what they were trying to tell us. And it is permanent. Forever. Never to be seen or heard again, despite eons of outwitting death. Extinction is the loss of what was, what is and what could have been. Artificial extinction is the ultimate betrayal of life.

By recklessly causing extinctions, we are like barbarians burning down the only ancient library of a lost civilization, full of wonderful ideas, miraculous cures, and priceless books, before we learn to read. E. O. Wilson, Harvard professor of evolutionary biology, once said, “destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”

The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, is being cut down for logging and ranching. We are literally destroying rainforest for hamburgers. Besides the direct extinction of species, we are tipping this critical ecosystem towards desertification, releasing more carbon, raising temperatures, increasing fires, and changing our global climate. There is no wisdom in this course of action, no moral justification, no long-term net economic gain, no rational reason to give up so much for so little gain, no scientific approval, and no appreciation of the beauty of so many forms of life lost forever. And apparently, there is insufficient concern among people today to stop making this colossal mistake.

Which Side Are You On?

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We are all on the side of the living. I am as I write this, and you are as you read it. We eat, breathe and have a pulse, and we have a common enemy: death. When we are in nature, we feel an affinity with the living creatures around us. When I was a boy, a large deer jumped out of the brush, stopped on the trail in front and looked, silently assessing me for a few seconds. As I looked into his large brown eyes and listened to his breath, I recognized our shared experience in being alive. We eat, breathe and have a pulse, and we have a common enemy: death. 

When we encounter other forms of life, we share a living affinity, and perhaps we curiously wonder about our differences. Lichen also photosynthesizes, respirates and circulates nutrients, and it constantly clings to life and struggles to survive. Even predators and prey are on the same side, ultimately. The prey understands the predator’s hunger, even as they evade it. The predator benefits when their prey thrives and multiplies. Both are trying to live and avoid death. Even a parasite or pathogen fights to stay alive in a living host. Every living thing contains within it a recipe, the ingredients and the drive to cheat death and stay alive, even if only for a brief time.

Recognition that all living things are ultimately on the same side is a revelation, a comfort and an inspiration. We are alive, akin to all living creatures who eat, breathe and have a pulse. We are human—all of us the same species, fundamentally members of the same tribe and all on the same team—, so we must want humanity to succeed. We may be a newer species, but we, like all living creatures, evolved in a diverse natural world. Nature sustains us, and our future is inextricably linked to how well we sustain nature.

And yet, somehow, we have chosen to stay on a path that will lead to mass extinctions. Many of us now fail to feel a part of the living world. A few of us are broken, fearful, violent and incapable of empathy, even with our fellow humans. Some are greedy, and selfishly don’t care that they are causing the natural world to become unbalanced. Many deny the need to change sufficiently to stop excess carbon pollution, irrationally believing we can ‘adapt’ to a climate in continuous, precipitous decline. Too many just give up, not bothering to make an effort, which perpetuates the problem. These unnatural views are myopic, and the path we are on leads only to regrets.

Each of us wants to live in a better world, with more life and less death. We don’t want more droughts, floods, hurricanes or wildfires. Our human conflicts are transitory tragedies, that we should try to resolve as a family, however distant or estranged we may feel. But our conflict with nature is existential, with consequences that will last forever.

Each one of us should reduce our carbon footprint, saving both money and life on earth. My car costs less to operate than any internal combustion car. Even when I charge in a state that still burns some coal for electricity, it still produces less carbon overall. Every switch to renewable electricity further simplifies our global task of replacing the fossil fuel infrastructure. And yet, people still resist making any effort to change, even though delay only makes the future worse.

So what madness has tricked us into extinguishing most life on earth? Were the coral reefs not beautiful when they still brimmed with colorful creatures? What temporary insanity has convinced us that making our only world uninhabitable for most forms of life is somehow desirable for us? Have we forgotten that we are part of the natural world we evolved within, inhabit and that sustains us? Do we no longer recognize the beauty of trees? Are we now cruel to animals?

As living beings, we eat, breathe and have a pulse, and our common enemy is death. Why are we allying ourselves with our common enemy against life on earth? When did we switch sides? 

”Our survival is affected as the abundance of life is diminished.” 

Unknown

Whale Blubber & Vineyard Wind

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Butler Flats Light (above) has marked the entrance to New Bedford Harbor in Massachusetts since 1898. It was a clever bit of engineering by a marine architect using a caisson or box to pump out the water for construction, and every day it’s used for navigation by the famed scallop fleet, ferries, the occasional tall ship, and many other boats passing through the hurricane barrier. When the light was built, New Bedford still dominated the whaling industry, sending ships on long voyages to harpoon whales, melt their blubber into oil and return to fuel America.

Behind the light are two wind turbines, which provide electricity today without extinguishing any species. Despite the preposterous claims of fossil fuel industry funded politicians, there is no such thing as ‘windmill cancer’ and bird strikes are rare. But folks who live near the turbines complain that they cast shadows, are noisy or are ugly, so new wind turbines are now built far offshore, south of Martha’s Vineyard. The current project is known as Vineyard Wind, with 62 turbines each generating 13 megawatts when complete. Currently, there’s a pause after a blade broke, requiring inspections and clean up. Massachusetts recently committed to roughly quadrupling wind projects in the area.

The turbine assembly is based in New Bedford, with final installation of the towers at sea. Interestingly, to protect whales from construction noise, they create a circular curtain of bubbles rising up from around the foundation on the seabed. They got the idea from whales, who create a circular curtain of bubbles underneath schools of fish to herd them together into a bite sized meal. Thousands of locals work on the project, in a boon to the economy, and the first project will provide relatively cheap, green energy to 400,000 homes. I’ve observed the gimbaled tower segments and long blades being transported out to sea by huge construction ships on the same routes once used by whaling ships.

Progress is beautiful, especially when it helps save so many different species on earth from extinction. Back in the day, whalers would have argued that smelly whale oil was ‘indispensable’ and ‘higher quality’ than alternative fuels, and they resisted progress. Today, that seems absurd, although now the fossil fuel industry lies routinely to protect its profits. Ironically, during the Civil War, the US government helped launch the fossil fuel industry by buying their new fuel and taxing alternatives to save the Union. Now we need the government to help us transition quickly to green energy to save life on Earth and leave the smelly old fuels unburned.

Pilgrims v. Puritans

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Recently I returned with my kids and my Mom (above right) to Duxbury in Massachusetts, where she grew up. Duxbury is a pretty seaside town with a large harbor on the north end of Plymouth Bay, reflecting the long history of our seafaring roots. When the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, they first landed in Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod, skirmished with the natives and then moved to Plymouth. The military commander, Miles Standish, settled in Duxbury, and his statue stands there atop a large viewing tower on Captain’s Hill. Longfellow wrote a romantic poem about a love triangle between Standish, the cooper John Alden and a recently orphaned teen named Priscilla Mullins. John and Priscilla Alden lived on the homestead above, which is still owned by their many descendants as a National Historic Landmark.

The Aldens were Pilgrims, not Puritans. The Pilgrims had separated from the Church of England, while the Puritans did not. Just before arriving in Plymouth to form a new colony, while awaiting royal permission, the Pilgrims and others aboard wrote an independent contract, the Mayflower Compact of 1620, which was the first self-governing document by British settlers in the now USA, although the British colony of Jamestowne was founded first. The Puritans arrived around 1630, settling in Boston and Salem. Contrary to the ‘mind your own business’ ethos of the Pilgrims, the Puritans were so strict that many left their colony for religious freedom. Such historic differences may seem inconsequential now, but freedom versus loyalty to England would become a big issue in Concord in 1775. And still today, there are conflicts between those who would impose their strict religious beliefs and those who prefer more freedom to make our own choices.

Driving back over the bridge from the beach, we got a glimpse of Miles Standish looking out over the harbor once famed for ship building and a large merchant fleet, before we went to dinner at a haunted restaurant, built before the Revolution. Moments like these improve our perspective, remembering the breathtaking leap of faith our ancestors took to settle here. While not part of the NPS, I recommend visiting the reconstructed living history museum in Plymouth, now called Plimoth Patuxet Museums, as well as other historic sites in the area like Alden House in Duxbury where we enjoyed an excellent tour.

Why Do We Need the NPS to Help Us Tell Our History?

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Often, there’s a local reluctance to allow government outsiders to tell ‘our’ history. Communities will occasionally refuse to cooperate or turn over any control over their sites to the National Park Service. Reagan’s boyhood home famously stays independent, concerned that his legacy might be tarnished. Sometimes politicians get involved directly in changing the way history is told, and even bend the narrative away from self-evident facts, such as at Andrew Johnson’s site. 

Debates often become heated with charges that one side is “revising history” to fit preconceived views. But honest historians do not rewrite history to suit their tastes. A good historian should try to revise their understanding of history, always to make it more accurate. In the UK, “revising” means “studying for exams”, meaning reviewing the material to understand it better. Sometimes a new fact comes along, such as a DNA test proving who is related to Thomas Jefferson. Views and interests change too, which also require us to revise our understanding of history, as we have new questions to answer. Future history books must be updated to include the most accurate information and to address the needs of future generations. 

Bad historians ignore new facts, preferring the old version they learned, even if false. Some even intentionally mislead children to try to hide shameful episodes, claiming to protect them from the truth. Some dishonestly smear historical figures or downplay historic events in order to promote a world view based on propaganda, such as what happened with General Grant. Lying to kids or trying to brainwash the public to further a dishonest agenda is never acceptable. 

But the park service has experience and expertise to help sites reach more people accurately and effectively. They hire researchers to find more information to expand everyone’s knowledge. They conduct renovations carefully to restore sites to how they appeared at specific times. They know how to create films, displays and foreign language brochures. Sometimes the park service gets it wrong, prompting debate, review and new efforts. Sometimes the site is best managed by a specialized local group, often in partnership with the park service, such as the Tenement Museum in NYC. Still, the park service’s job is to preserve, inspire, educate and make sites more fun for all. So typically, it’s at least worth letting them help. 

I have a good education, do extra research on each site and form my own views, but I also try to understand, verify facts and frequently ask questions. Almost always, the park rangers can quickly disabuse me of erroneous views, since they are experts. Occasionally, I meet the odd ranger with views in contradiction to the facts or find errors on display, and I bring those to the attention of other park service employees. Getting the stories right can be difficult, but almost always the park rangers are determined to do their best to tell the story correctly, effectively and well. That’s what they do. 

I mention this now, after visiting the Gulf Islands site. In both Mississippi and Florida, the park service does a good job in accurately telling the history of the gulf coast, including the dark history of the Civil War. Unfortunately, the US military turned over the most important historical sites, Forts Gaines and Morgan, over to the state of Alabama, where I’ve observed troubling patterns. I believe the national park service would do a much better job telling the history.

Visitors to Fort Morgan might not learn which side won the Battle of Mobile Bay or why that matters. The information may be there, but it is not presented effectively. Here are my recent notes. 

  • Website focuses on the history of old fort Bowyer more than the Civil War era Fort Morgan. 
  • Park brochure timeline covers fort’s history but buries highlights in obscure details. 
  • The Battle of Mobile Bay battery site and plaques are not shown on the map. 
  • Civil War panel neglects critical Union victories at the end, such as Richmond, Petersburg and the surrender at Appomattox. 
  • Flag pavilion plaques show the US flag as only operational in 1813, ignoring the period from 1864 to the present.
  • Posters in gift shop celebrate the sinking of the Union ship Tecumseh and the early success of the CSS Tennessee. 
  • Bookstore focuses on Confederate defense of Mobile 50 miles away, rather than on the pivotal Union naval victory of Mobile Bay 50 yards away. 

There are only two ways to reach the Battle of Mobile Bay battery site.

  • 1) go straight through to the far side of the fort, enter a series of tunnels (use your phone for light) on the right, wander through a maze of passageways, pass through several huge empty rooms, find a small doorway around a corner leading outside, return on the grass between the inner and outer walls, cross the moat, climb a ramp (no handholds) to the top of the outer wall, climb steps through some fortifications, climb some more steps, and go around the outside of the fence that appears to block your path. Or…. 
  • 2) go behind the restrooms on the far side of the parking lot, climb up through a different battery of fortifications, walk along to the far left, find a narrow stairway up a hill, climb it even though it appears to be blocked at the top, wander along the top of the outer wall to the outer edge of the fence mentioned in step 1, circumvent it and climb up to the top above Battery Thomas.  

In neither case are there any signs, arrows, map references, guideposts or signals to find the spot, and it’s best to wear sturdy non-slip shoes. Finding the well-written and illustrated displays (e.g. photo above) was a nice surprise, as I only climbed up there because I got lost exploring and wanted to get a look at the ship channel. Frankly, hiding the panels appears to be an intentional effort to obscure or erase the true and important history that led to the end of the Confederacy and slavery. 

If the park service managed the site, I’m sure they would tell the story of one of our country’s greatest naval victories accurately and effectively, preserving that important history, inspiring, educating and delighting future generations. Especially today, on the first day of Black History Month, it’s critical to get history right. That’s why we need the NPS to help us with our history. 

What’s the Point of History?

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What’s the point of history? Why bother learning all those boring facts and dates? Sure, there are some interesting characters and conflicts, but surely all that old stuff doesn’t have much relevance to today’s problems with AI, mass shootings, war in the Middle East and global warming. The world changes so quickly now, so what’s the point dwelling on the past, when we need to fix future problems? 

Glad you asked. 

There’s a common misconception that we have some sacred obligation not to judge the past and just to record it as it happened without questioning it. Out of vanity, many people like to study the history of their ancestors, believing that they were virtuous and victorious, in order to be inspired. We’re passive spectators, taking note of past events, and maybe defending the actions and beliefs of our own ancestors, as if we were cheering for our home team. If someone criticizes part of our history, then we say that nobody should judge what they did using hindsight. We read history in order to validate our beliefs that our origins were honorable, and by not questioning anything, we declare ourselves honorable historians. 

That is all lazy, narcissistic nonsense that wastes our time, misses the point entirely and prevents us from learning anything useful. We do not study history in some vain attempt to feel better about our selves due to something our ancestors did. We study history to make better choices now, so that we can rightfully feel proud that we are doing our best. The dead can suffer some honest criticism, and they do not enjoy being excuses for our mistakes. Rather than being forgotten, I’m sure they’d prefer being inspiration for our future successes. 

The point of studying history is to learn from the past—both admirable actions and atrocious mistakes—in order to make better decisions today. History didn’t have to happen the way it did. As today, people made mistakes, were driven by greed or hate, and acted out of ignorance. They could and often should have made better decisions, but, no matter how flawed they were, we should not simply dismiss and forget them. We must learn from their mistakes. We must constantly apply our highest moral judgements, use our imagination creatively, and draw the most logical conclusions possible, whenever we study history. That way we will learn as much as we can, so that we can apply the lessons of history to our future decisions. 

Above is a Ghost Dance Shirt from 1890, decorated with eagle and owl feathers, worn by a Lakota (Sioux) warrior who hoped that it would protect him from bullets. That December 29th, at Wounded Knee, under a flag of truce, the US Cavalry, driven by settlers’ often imaginary racist fears, machine gunned 250 to 300 men women and children to death. The point of history is neither to let such facts sit dryly without emotion or judgement in a book, nor to toss it in the dustbin, nor to argue that the massacre was inevitable, nor to compare whether your ancestors were more mistaken than mine or anyone else’s. The point of history is to learn from past mistakes in order to avoid the doom of repeating them. 

620,000 men, roughly 2% of the population died in the line of duty during the Civil War. If we apply no judgement as to why they died, then we learn nothing useful. If we are dishonest or allow ourselves to be confused by old misinformation, then we will draw the wrong conclusions. If we understand the plain truth—that the war was fought over slavery—, study its racist roots, and apply our best judgement, then we can fight racism better and perhaps avoid a future war. Learning to be better must be our main goal, after considering the consequences. 

Some lessons can be applied immediately, and others are evergreen. For example, if the safety lessons of Port Chicago had been learned immediately, another similar disaster could have been prevented. The deeper lesson, that bias kills and that diversity can save lives, is one many of us are still struggling to learn. If you can’t learn anything useful from history, you’re not trying hard enough. 

Today’s problem of AI replacing skilled labor can be better understood by studying labor history. The most intractable conflicts today can be understood better by studying hatred and injustice from our past. The climate crisis can be better understood by studying evolution, archaeology, and our few remaining intact ecosystems. History is the reservoir of our past experiences and knowledge, and we must draw on that as thoughtfully as possible, always driven by the need to improve ourselves. That’s the point.