I was going to kill this blog when I accepted the medical beat in late September. Actually, I did kill it for a few months.
Now I’m back. At least for a bit. We’ll see how it goes. If no one reads, then I’ll likely bury it for good.
But now that life is getting much more difficult for everyone — including our newsroom staff at the Arizona Daily Star — I decided to try juggling Desert Beliefs along with my medical coverage.
It seems we all need a little faith, of whatever flavor, at the moment.
Maybe I’ll even add a few blogs about values in the world of health care. THAT could be a blog in and of itself.
The Faith and Values beat, which I covered for eight years, is now the hands of Patty Machelor, who works part-time. But in keeping with these leaner times, she’s also supposed to be covering families, so that doesn’t leave her with much time to blog. Hopefully she’ll occasionally be a contributor here, though.
Speaking of tough times, my first “I’m back” blog is a piece written by the Rev. Dave Wasserman, who’s one of the co—pastors at Trinity Presbyterian Church in the university area of Tucson.
“The number one issue our country faces is not the “money crisis”. It is the moral and civil decay that has been exposed. Rampant individualism, bowling alone, boundless greed, an inability to live in community: this is the illness we face.
We are all complicit. Highlighting the stories of the most self-centered among us (CEOs of failed and bailed out financial institutions) accomplishes nothing, not even the satisfaction of our anger, until the spotlight turns inward into an examination of our own part – our own versions of individualism, greed, refusing to treat the stranger as neighbor.
I don’t envy the lonely life of luxury – of wealthy people, justifying their existence with legalistic excuses, retreating from the world in a self-indulgent lifestyle at the expense of others. Shame on them.
And shame on us if we wait around for politicians and Wall Street wonks to do the hard work of turning our lives – and our country – around. You and I, through neighborhood associations, merchants’ associations, religious communities, city districts, need to start talking – and listening.”
Dave makes some interesting points. One of my friends recently commented that we are in the midst of a spiritual shift. Even though she’s a small business owner, who is suffering as much as anyone, she thinks all of this bleakness will have a good outcome.
Many of us who have been around the block more than a few cycles are painfully aware that we have lived through recessions before and we have thought these same bleak thoughts too many times.
Wealth, you see, is a subjective phenomenon. The stock market “lost” a trillion dollars in a week. Bit where did the money go? Many people are asking.
What money? No TRILLION dollars changed hands. It was imaginary money, signatures on documents, the kind of money we blithely think of as “real.”
The loss was in peoples’ perceptions. Those changed overnight and poof the wealth evaporated.
The value of any “thing” is a perception, NOT a definable reality. If you try to define value you will realize that your definitions themselves are perceptions, they are not facts.
This is why media reports of gloom and doom actually CAUSE further loss of value as they discount perceptions of value still further.
The turnaround will come when enough people perceive plausible rays of hope, when dreams reacquire their reality, when actual projects are launched and millions of people are rehired.
There are lots of good ideas out in the intellectual wilderness that have not been tamed or harnessed.
America’s infrastructure can support incredible efforts, and can make those efforts successful if only there is a consensus perception that the efforts will produce the benefits as promised.
If we decide to build roads, they will get built.
If we really want unlimited water we will take it from the ocean, desalinate it, and deliver it wherever it is needed.
If we need more energy we will put tremendous effort into nuclear-electric technology that will culminate in unlimited energy at lower and still lower cost.
While nuclear fission and fusion development is running through its learning curve, we will freely exploit at lower and still lower cost the tremendous natural resources of North America IN North America, particularly natural gas and coal.
If our farms need to produce more, we will apply genetic research to double and redouble our production of whatever is needed.
There are two counter currents to this “can do” philosophy. The first counter-current is a belief that we can have what we need by telling ourselves we need less. We can choose to restrict the demand instead of enhancing the supply.
The philosophical battle lines for that issue are drawn at the word “sustainable” on the one side, and “achievable” on the other side. I believe that “sustainable” is an idealized unrealizable fantasy; while others believe that “achievable” is not sufficient reason to do it, whatever “it” might be. With them I disagree.
“Sustainable” is easily shown to be impossible if we cannot control our geometric rate of population growth, so it isn’t a serious part of the overall debate.
“Achievable” on the other hand is what it claims to be, because we are who we are — Americans.
The second counter current to “can do” progress is purely subjective although it claims a patina of rational “science.” It is in fact a mass hysteria, a carbon phobia that is based on a specious fear of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
The best and quickest rebuttal is that human carbon emissions are a relatively minuscule factor in the Earth’s carbon cycle. Human emissions as yet have no significant proven Greenhouse Effect. They are a transitional phenomenon that will be naturally much lower a century from now, thanks to upgrade trends in energy technologies.
In the meantime a mass hysteria to “cringe in fear” should be resisted, because if unchecked it could lock out the free-wheeling cost-effective innovations that would save us from the current economic doldrums.
So you see, the whole of our present problems are indeed subjective. They are not based on shortages of materials or fundamental limitations of capacity or ability. They are the result of our own perceptions.
At this point in human history, we are our own boogeyman.
Many of us who have been around the block more than a few cycles are painfully aware that we have lived through recessions before and we have thought these same bleak thoughts too many times.
Wealth, you see, is a subjective phenomenon. The stock market “lost” a trillion dollars in a week. Bit where did the money go? Many people are asking.
What money? No TRILLION dollars changed hands. It was imaginary money, signatures on documents, the kind of money we blithely think of as “real.”
The loss was in peoples’ perceptions. Those changed overnight and poof the wealth evaporated.
The value of any “thing” is a perception, NOT a definable reality. If you try to define value you will realize that your definitions themselves are perceptions, they are not facts.
This is why media reports of gloom and doom actually CAUSE further loss of value as they discount perceptions of value still further.
The turnaround will come when enough people perceive plausible rays of hope, when dreams reacquire their reality, when actual projects are launched and millions of people are rehired.
There are lots of good ideas out in the intellectual wilderness that have not been tamed or harnessed.
America’s infrastructure can support incredible efforts, and can make those efforts successful if only there is a consensus perception that the efforts will produce the benefits as promised.
If we decide to build roads, they will get built.
If we really want unlimited water we will take it from the ocean, desalinate it, and deliver it wherever it is needed.
If we need more energy we will put tremendous effort into nuclear-electric technology that will culminate in unlimited energy at lower and still lower cost.
While nuclear fission and fusion development is running through its learning curve, we will freely exploit at lower and still lower cost the tremendous natural resources of North America IN North America, particularly natural gas and coal.
If our farms need to produce more, we will apply genetic research to double and redouble our production of whatever is needed.
There are two counter currents to this “can do” philosophy. The first counter-current is a belief that we can have what we need by telling ourselves we need less. We can choose to restrict the demand instead of enhancing the supply.
The philosophical battle lines for that issue are drawn at the word “sustainable” on the one side, and “achievable” on the other side. I believe that “sustainable” is an idealized unrealizable fantasy; while others believe that “achievable” is not sufficient reason to do it, whatever “it” might be. With them I disagree.
“Sustainable” is easily shown to be impossible if we cannot control our geometric rate of population growth, so it isn’t a serious part of the overall debate.
“Achievable” on the other hand is what it claims to be, because we are who we are — Americans.
The second counter current to “can do” progress is purely subjective although it claims a patina of rational “science.” It is in fact a mass hysteria, a carbon phobia that is based on a specious fear of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
The best and quickest rebuttal is that human carbon emissions are a relatively minuscule factor in the Earth’s carbon cycle. Human emissions as yet have no significant proven Greenhouse Effect. They are a transitional phenomenon that will be naturally much lower a century from now, thanks to upgrade trends in energy technologies.
In the meantime a mass hysteria to “cringe in fear” should be resisted, because if unchecked it could lock out the free-wheeling cost-effective innovations that would save us from the current economic doldrums.
So you see, the whole of our present problems are indeed subjective. They are not based on shortages of materials or fundamental limitations of capacity or ability. They are the result of our own perceptions.
At this point in human history, we are our own boogeyman.
— Peter Vokac 01/05/2009 11:50 PM #