Paradigms of Social Justice and Obligation

X. Meta-trends

    Beyond the trends of statistics, quantifiable characteristics, and (verbalizable) abstractions, are dynamics of the very long term or very complicated of which we are only just beginning to be aware. Any system of an interacting multiplicity of elements has certain properties and dynamics - in a global sense independent of its elements - such as stability, periodicity, or functionality. These dynamical rules imply on the one hand, that such a system can be inherently unpredictable [meaning the system is itself the best experiment that can be done], but on the other, that an evolving system can become chaotic under certain conditions. I believe these almost ineffable abstractions are significant for our civilization. Dr. Gabriel Kolko of Harvard concludes that the major trend of American history has been America's growing instability and implacability. [1984] To paraphrase, the more government and society tries to solve its problems, the greater interaction it usually produces, and hence, the greater problems and instability result. Instability means both 1) global variables increase in amplitude or spread [consider everything from hemlines to business cycles] and 2) an ever smaller perturbation can cause an ever greater effect. If the latter, such effects can escalate to social breakdown.

    Meta-trends also imply that discussion and understanding of complicated issues requires several "levels of understanding" or hierarchies of abstraction. One can discuss facts and draw conclusions, but no great meaning is conveyed without also considering presumptions, connotations, the nature of understanding and motivation and obligation, and so on. While the trends in this essay are broad generalizations of innumerable events and tendencies, they are yet aspects of broader or more abstract trends, such as the loss of personal choice and increased social interaction, but also of trends we know little or nothing about. Indeed, every argument should account for what it might ignore. Intentional or not, ignorance always has major implications. A commonplace example is that higher returns are demanded for riskier investments, where risk is simply the unknown future return. The complete argument can never know just what it ignores - just what it does not know, but it can draw conclusions or recommendations based on the existence of the unknown; ignorance demands a safety margin.

    One meta-trend, replete with unknowns, is the coevolution of humans and the environment. Apparently, humans have had a major deleterious effect on the environment for many tens of thousands of years, from irreversible species extinction to permanent desertification. It's comforting to see people beginning to care about their world, but the mere presence of growing populations has innumerable impacts we cannot begin to appreciate. Merely disturbing the surface of the land releases toxic heavy metals, while housing destroys ecosystems. Regardless of expressed concern, the purchase of any product inevitably impacts the environment (out of sight, and out of mind). Most of this country's ecological damage has occurred since this concern became popular. Current controversy on the greenhouse effect splits thus: that we do not know enough about the impacts for cost-benefit decisions or that we must begin to change because we do not know how bad it might become - the very possibility of catastrophe demands change.

    Bound up with the ecological issue is the very stability of society. If people believe authority is failing them on issues of vital importance, clearly a great deal is at stake. Described above, stability describes a system that persists. At the level of individuals, "micro-stability" is the consent to cooperate in a system perceived to generate benefits exceeding costs, plus a "conservative, future-discounted, factor". In other words, when anyone perceives advantages exceeding disadvantages - offset by future uncertainty, they will demand change, to the extent of refusing to cooperate in the system. Benefits and costs include the consequences of their own behavior. What people perceive is more important than what they believe, or know, or decide, because of subconscious motivations - no one sets out to calculate such a cost/benefit analysis. So many delusions about the political/social realm persist because the mass media has such a major impact on perceptions. (Does TV watching really average 8 hours per day per person?!) These stability arguments then depend not on what is, but what seems to be. On another scale, do people's perceptions -massively reinforced by TV - of global interdependencies and spreading waves of instability contribute to instability in the American system?

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