They are all as dumb as rocks.
Last week I suggested that the concepts and implications of a “Mother Nature” could provide the foundation for a set of new stories guiding us away from an Armageddon-style bottleneck.1
“Story” is an umbrella term for variable mix of ideas including history, experience, explanation, rationale, paradigm, and plans. The development of new stories requires an ability to recognize, process, and respond to change. Imagine for a moment that you lived your entire life inside a marshmallow. There would be no difference anywhere or at any time. Could you develop any story at all? Stories can only develop in the context of difference. If there is no difference, there can be no story.
Gregory Bateson called the ability to recognize, process, and respond to change “mind”, and mind was a characteristic of life, all life. The oak tree outside my window has mind. At some point in the Fall, the oak recognizes a change, processes that change, and responds by shedding leaves. Without nerves, nor brain, the oak rarely, if ever, makes a mistake.
A story for a seed is gravity is always down. The seed always puts green up there and roots down here. Gravity is essentially unchanging. A tree never changes the story. It never reverses course. Unless it is on the side of a hill with soil-creep. Soil-creep does not exist in the oak’s universe. To the oak, gravity is shifting, and the tree responds by changing the story, bending, and changing direction so growth is away from gravity.
Therefore, the first step in building new stories is the recognition of change. That might be the easiest part of the whole process, but it may also be the most difficult. We build our lives on a series of foundational stories we assume are true. Stories we are told by parents, teachers, friends, compadres, and others. Stories we tell ourselves, and stories we experience. Weaving those stories together creates our identity. Our stories are who we are, and we most often hold on tenaciously.
Part and parcel of the recognition of a change is the process of assigning meaning or value. Is the change a random, non-repeating event, is it real or imaginary, is it trivial or important, etc.? If the recognition of a change inside or outside of ourselves demands a change in our stories, we can continue on and hope for the best, or we choose a new story that generates a new response
To choose a new story, we need to have a range of histories, experiences, explanations, rationales, paradigms, and plans. We gain this range from the informal, formal, and experiential education we gain as we grow up, age, live life, and gain exposure to the World. Again, think about living in a marshmallow-like world. Where would we get that education? Where would we get to experience change, process it, and respond to it?
Gregory Bateson is a hero of mine. He came into my life when I knew nothing and did not know it. He took the time and made the effort to show me a vision of a world I could not understand and am still learning about. It pains me to say Gregory Bateson was wrong.
Trump, Musk, RFK the lessor, Lutnick, et al, have grown up in, have diligently created, and maintained their own marshmallow worlds, white, almost all male except for semi-visible transients and servers, featureless, empty of change, and bereft of decisions. This is what happens when you get rich enough that you do not have to compromise or choose either/or. You build an intellectual, psychological, and social shield wall. Your view of the world is never challenged.
The net result is, they, and the rest of the scavenger oligarchs, see no-change, hear no-change, and imagine no-change. They have no resilience, and they boast they will never change. They are alive but have no “mind”.
They are all as dumb as rocks.
1) https://dexterchapin.substack.com/p/mother-nature-a-path-to-the-future?r=9qaw3