The Speed of the Pendulum

The pendulum has been a revisited concept in several posts over the years.

In “Interference 2021” on 18Jan21:

Societal and political pendulums swing, and there has been one constant throughout human history: there is no permanent utopia of ideology or governance.

In “Causality” of 19Jan21, it was posed as both a warning to “beware of the pendulum,” as well as an analogy to the “the most beautiful compositions.”

In “Observations and Reactions” on 9Jun19:

Politics and social movements are a pendulum which BOTH sides of the spectrum seem to not appreciate. What is forced into law or as a truth today will be a point of contention in the future and a weapon to beat over the heads of the opposition when that pendulum swings. All because we don’t stop to think about the perils of emotional responses…

In “Conversations with Walt” on 29Jun19/ “Controversy and History” on 22May2017:

What truly bothers me about this whole debate was the potential of the ‘pendulum swing’ when it comes to things like this that are so passionately viewed by some.

I share these links not only for the sake of the reader, but as a reminder of the repetition I both want to avoid as well as need to highlight – that the changes in society are inevitable but should be tempered by an understanding of past instances where emotion has overruled logic.

Over the last few weeks, with each exposure to the limited social and traditional media I have allocated myself, the extremes are getting pushed further and further apart… because… “reasons…” I guess. We all have our perspectives, our biases, and our allegiances, and this will never change.

However, I cannot help but wonder if anyone else is noticing the artificialness of it all… the saccrine-like quenching of a justification and, while noting the difference, settle for it on face value because it satisfies a promoted need…

My wife and I were talking about the rise in uptick in violence against Jews in New York City by pro-Palestine folks and she pondered about how far back should people go to determine who the rightful occupants of an area should be. The same could be said about the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in South Caucasus, the Native Americans in our own history… pretty much any region where people have lived for thousands of years and were ultimately displaced for one reason or another.

My response was typically short and enigmatic:

“People should be like dogs.”

Dogs are pack animals, and territorial, but the latter is usually typical behavior towards all breeds. Labs don’t discriminate against other labs, there isn’t a rift between Dobermans and Rottweilers, and chihuahuas hate everyone and everything… it is all a matter of “can I sniff your butt or not?”

True, this is overly simplified and problematic – as I was typing this, I realized that the issue of territorialism comes from the benefit/threat to each dogs’ immediate social network and resources… which… yeah… is pretty much the same thing for humans… but the previous analogy helped break the seriousness of such a larger problem.

What it all boils down to is simple and another recurring theme here on this blog:

Identity.

This one fact pulls us into the orbit of those who share the same values, perspectives, goals, and philosophies. Regardless of whether or not we consciously seek to validate who we are by the company we choose to keep and the opinions we publicly and privately share, that one factor – who we are – has compelled every aspect of our plans, actions, and interpretations throughout our histories. It is the deafening static which envelops, guides, and – inevitably – blinds us.   

Of course, this leads me to clarify something which I have alluded to and referenced before, but have never simplified:

RAND’s 2018 report: National Will to Fight – Why Some States Keep Fighting and Others Don’t

Why do I keep returning to this one report?

Simply put – it offers one of the best descriptions on not the reasons why we fight, but the perils of where we are headed as a society if the internal divisions and societal pendulums keep a-swingin’ away.

An appropriate quote comes to mind – Lincoln’s speech before the Republican State Convention on 16Jun1868:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Previously, I have equated the physical slavery of the past to a newer and more insidious form:

However, in following the media (again, traditional and social), I am starting to maintain the opinion that slavery hasn’t really gone away, it just transitioned from one form to another; instead of being physically bound, American society is being intellectually chained. Slavery for the mind, and the media has become the Master.

Today, our slavery is one of spirit and our lack of desire and ambition to be better people, free from the preconceived ideas and attitudes we are encouraged to maintain. 

My interpretation of the significance of what the authors of the RAND report is that, the pendulum isn’t merely a featureless weight at the end of a string carried by mere momentum, but that it is a bladed edge fraying away at the ties that bind the solvency of our society – propelled by (possibly) malicious individuals, nations, and states… both foreign and domestic… which will diminish our capacity, ability, and desire to enter into the next internal and/or external conflict. That the division of the house is both intentional and a facet of a never-static society, and that the rate of change might be slowed to a more rational and commonly acceptable pace before things become completely untenable…

Or…

I could be writing this all as a future “told-you-so”…

After all, one could look at another example from recent changes to see where we presently find ourselves: the evolution of playgrounds.

I’ll give you a moment to pause and go back to see if you missed anything.

I remember playground equipment of the 70s as being dangerous: hot steel slides, those wooden slabs hooked to chains which sufficed for swings, monkey bars which felt like they would allow for terminal velocity to be attained, and those metal spinning carousels of bully-induced vomiting…

These were all as dangerous as they were a natural progression towards safer child recreation from the even more perilous playground items of the past, all the way back to when the first kids were warned about the risks associated with why mammoth skeletons were not the best climbing structures.

Into the 80s, playgrounds shifted into the wooden monstrosities that were still enjoyable, but with their hazards – splinters, a careening repurposed tire swing, and the inevitable finger-pinching of chain ladders…

Something happened along the way, however: safety and litigation became the prime drivers and design goals. Plastic, plastic, and plastic… all at boring heights and over impact-reducing surfaces.

In the process of this shift, the generations of children were deprived of some of the best self-developmental tools: risk identification/management, accountability, and consequences.

Whereas sharp edges and splintering wood were areas which required attention and, in some cases, playground remediation in the form of banging the protrusions back into harmlessness with a rock or whatnot, this skill – and the immediate feedback provided when not acknowledged/practiced – perished. Poor footing and handholds no longer elicit the lesson of it not being the fall to be feared but the abrupt stop at the end. Pushing beyond one’s capabilities in both height and ability doesn’t necessitate reliance/cajoling from parents or peers to think towards a self-motivated solution. And the bloody and sometimes frightening injuries sustained, witnessed, or accidentally caused are no longer a reminder of ones’ own inattention or malice; with the latter, the repercussions were trimmed away as parental responsibility/authority slowly shifts to whatever the local laws dictate.

Of course, these are generalizations to illustrate a larger point: the kids we have in the streets today, for the most part – advocating for whatever cause du jour is posted on the menu – were never given the opportunity to learn the hard lessons of causality and were given very little opportunity to fail, and, as a result of those failures, to actually learn how to anticipate, prevent, and deal with the injuries which are part of life.

In short, over time, we failed them… and now we all have to deal with it.

The same could be said about politicians, really. We failed them because we continued to demand and elect without taking into account risk identification/management, accountability, and consequences. Are the policies promised worthy of the group rather than the loudest subset? How have they represented and led in the past? How accountable are they – or will they be – domestically and or internationally?

None of this is new – that is both the fascination and tragedy of human nature, that we have been down this road before so many times but fail to realize that what appears to be a untrodden path is just a broad and pulverized circle.

I was looking up one of my favorites – Plato’s story of the cave (Book VII) – when I found this in Book VIII:

By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong.

Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him?

Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.

Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.

(This latter quote is very problematic in that I got sucked back into reading more on why the statement of liberty passing was relevant.)

Returning to the original idea: the speed of the pendulum…

Can you – or I, or we – stop it?

Probably not… there is too much political momentum to be maintained and profit to be made in the chaos that requires reporting on it all for it to be halted.

What we can do, however, is understand our role in either keeping it going or slowing it down and focusing our efforts on managing the effects which may impact us in some form or another.

We can also remain viciously – and doggedly – optimistic…