YOU CANNOT PUSH THE WATER

YOU CANNOT PUSH THE WATER

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© May 10, 2010

“One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.”

Eric Hoffer

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For the past quarter century or so, I have subscribed to the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS. It introduced me to Isaiah Berlin and Garry Wills, among others, resulting in my reading a good share of their published works. I’ve been a peripatetic reader most of my life and have been changed by books. That said books are never the answer.

I came back from South Africa in 1969 after forming a new company for my employer a changed person. The combination of Afrikaner Apartheid and the imperialism of America corpocracy was too much, and so I retired in my tender thirties.

Jeremy Rifkin’s essay in The New York Review (May 27, 2010) intrigued me while I was appalled by the advertisement in the same issue, “Crimes Are Crimes No Matter Who Does Them.” A group of prominent celebrities and intellectuals signed the ad, which I suspect was intended to legitimize the rationale of ad's content.

My wonder is if any of these signers ever commanded anything, ever had to be in the hot seat and make split decisions, had to weigh the pros and cons and come up with an expedient answer? My guess is none of them. Intellectuals can bark but have no bite.

After South Africa, I took a two-year sabbatical. At the end of it, I went back to school full-time for six years immersed in academia and found it every bit as much a factory as had been the corporation, only without the executive clout.

Intellectuals can push ideas around with impunity, but have little sense of the people they try to fit into their garments.

I come out of a technical tradition and so was intrigued with Rifkin’s “Entropy” (1980). I enjoyed his attempt to apply thermodynamics to world order. I read his “Algeny” (1983) in which he puts Darwin on notice and flags again, a new world order, only now with bioengineering. Then I read “Time Wars” (1987), which is about time and, yes, a new world order.

“The Empathic Civilization,” which is the title of the NYR article, and a new book, looks at global consciousness and once again, a new world order, developing a chronology. It was surprisingly unsatisfying. I wondered at my unease.

In my walk today, I decided it was that Rifkin knows little about real people. In fact, as much as he touts “Entropy,” he even knows less about first principles or natural law. You cannot push the water. Nor can you push empathy.

Moreover, that appalling ad that denigrates Bush and Obama indicates those listed know little about power or the execution of power. Power has bark and bite.

In any case, it is engineers, not intellectuals, who are designing our way into the future. They are doing it according to Natural Law with foresight thinking, not hindsight assessments.

Fine sounding as empathic civilization is in reality the natural drive of man is self-preservation. This is hardly empathic. We don’t need utopia or dystopia to see that engineers, not scientists or intellectuals are foraging ahead by looking ahead.

Conflict not empathy holds us together. It must be managed and controlled. Eric Hoffer knew this from life. It is the reason I open my remarks quoting him. Hoffer is without pedigree but a pedigree thinker. We have a society built on the infallibility of pedigreed based hindsight education. Bush and Obama both know that doesn’t work in the hot seat. .

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posted by The Peripatetic Philosopher | 1:03 PM