Why Learn History?

History is the experience of humanity. To be ignorant of it is

to form one’s world views as a child. To live life in ignorance of history is like picking up a book, turning to some random page and reading it out of context. Without knowledge of the past, there is no conceivable way one might make any sense of our own time for our present society is the product of a complex sequence of events that preceded us. A frequent question put towards history is: “Why should I care about all those dead people?” After all, all of that is come and gone, never to be seen again. This approach, however, evidences an extremely shallow understanding.

To many people, history is indeed synonymous with memorizing names and dates. To be fair, this is a common scholastic approach, a source of rote work that effectively inures millions to one of the most valuable storehouses of knowledge—that of collective human experience. True enough, history in the classroom tends to be reduced to an insipid swill of superficial facts and state indoctrination. Too often though, this becomes an excuse to dismiss all that came before as irrelevant information about dead people. It is a poor excuse because without understanding how our present reality came to be, one can neither understand the present nor have any insight into the probable courses of the future.

Without the barometer of history, one is slave to the fashions of the hour. In ignorance of the long term and the larger scale, there can be no means of distinguishing a transient cultural fad from the deeper truths of human nature. There can be no determination whether one’s pervasive local society is representative of a larger whole or merely an anomaly. For instance, many cultural attitudes taken for granted as universal truth in Western industrialized societies have existed for less than a century. Ideas such as the ‘fact’ that teenagers are always ‘surly, angry, and lazy’ is one such fabrication. ‘Teenagers’ for instance is a term that didn’t exist until the mid twentieth century. Closer examination tells one that this current widespread attitude is an insignificant blip against the larger human experience. For most of human history young people have been active participants in society, so much so, that only recently in the English language was there a word to distinguish them as a specific group loaded with connotations of materialism, selfishness, and rebelliousness. Without knowledge of history no such critical examination is possible. Thus, in ignorance, one is prisoner to a host of fleeting ‘truths.’

For this very reason, there can be no such thing as an informed citizenry without an understanding of history. Without knowledge of history, one becomes the dupe of demagogues. Without any means of evaluating the truth of claims about past states of society or even the essential needs and nature of humanity, even the most absurd claims can be put forth by the sufficiently charismatic and powerful as serious propositions. Without history, there is no means by which a citizenry might judiciously decide the course of the state. As much as autocracy is looked down upon in the West, the founders of the American republic understood all too well that a body of uninformed, shallowly reactive citizenry can be even more capricious, tyrannical, and shortsighted than any single person. These founders were likely quite familiar with the tendency of the ancient Athenian citizenry to destroy their greatest generals and philosophers the moment something went wrong. An illustrious career in service of the people or works of genius mean nothing against a transient aggregate tantrum. Thus, a great lesson of history is that ignoring the past is to be the unwitting pawn of fleeting fashions and passions, whether evoked by chance or through the deliberate manipulations of the clever.

The moment someone says ‘the lessons of history.’ One gives an inward, if not an entirely audible groan and one’s eyes begin to glaze over. After all, common wisdom is that the “lesson of history is that no one ever learns from the lessons of history.” What’s the point? From this perspective, the whole thing is dismissed as a waste of time anyway. Once again, such an attitude is merely the result of common misunderstandings perpetuated by rote academics. When one thinks of ‘lessons of history’ the age old chestnut “Never get in a land war in Asia” comes to mind. We instantly think of Napoleon, then Hitler, then the board game, Risk and say to ourselves “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.”

However, this sort of sentiment is not an example of how one should learn from history. , It is silly advice to begin with. Why should the German Wehrmacht have backed out of its Russian invasion based on Napoleon’s experience? It was a different time with different circumstances, with different logistics and equipment when it came to making war. The Germans were not the 18^th century French, nor were they led by a Corsican, and they had the means to reach Moscow before winter ever came. Why suppose beforehand that the result must be disaster and defeat as eventually occurred?

The trouble with such ‘lessons’ and the reason why they are uninspiring is because they only ever seem to apply in armchair hindsight and rarely, if ever are any use in the present. Upon further reflection one realizes these ‘lessons’ are indeed more or less meaningless. After all, the Mongols had a long series of extremely successful land wars in Asia; conquering the Russian principalities was a relatively minor task for them.

The misconception here about ‘lessons of history’ is that it presumes a cyclical, repeating, predictable human experience.

History according to the traditional Chinese perspective was based on the concept of dynastic cycles. Now, there are no more dynasties, the cycle upon which their very definition was based is broken. True historical study on the other hand, allows one to transcend the historical cycles and patterns of one’s isolated time or culture. The sentiment “History repeats itself” is taken far too literally. What it really means is that the fundamental forces and principles driving human beings are constant and that certain trends and types of trends will therefore appear across generations and civilizations. It is not the events in history that repeat, but the principles behind history. Critical analysis of history provides a reliable guide to human tendencies as well as plenty of extremes and departures from the norm that give one a far more expansive and accurate idea of human potential.

The German defeat could be used as a warning against cyclical thinking: The Fuhrer had enjoyed so many easy victories that he was lulled into overconfidence by expecting the same result would continue to follow. The Germans proved woefully unprepared when events failed to conform to their leader’s highly optimistic plans. Unlike the rather unhelpful ‘never fight a land war in Asia’ the lesson that unbroken success can lull humans into making fatal mistakes can be applied across times and places, in an office or on a battlefield. It is a weakness in human nature that if recognized through the study of humanity, can be accounted for.

One of the most important principles that can be learned from history is among the reasons why one should study history. Benjamin Franklin succinctly sums it up as “The present age is never the golden age.”

Those detached from the past and thus without perspective tend to look back with longing on ‘the good old days’ and be ungrateful of the good in the present. Without knowledge of history, there is no possibility to appreciate the ways in which they live more happily than their ancestors or the ways in which quality of life has degraded across the generations. Their lot is merely a dim dissatisfaction which they are powerless to remedy. Without perspective, one can feel no more satisfied with a sewing machine than a prehistoric human felt with the first crude bone sliver to serve as a needle.

Thus through studying history, one increases their wellbeing through knowledge as well as their potential to do good in the present. One expands the domain they live in far beyond their immediate surroundings. A student of history becomes an active citizen of humanity across time. Examination from historical principles allows one to see the larger human nature that one’s time and place can only hint at. To eschew history as the irrelevant study of ‘dead people’ is in a sense to divorce oneself from the continuity that is humanity and by so doing to actively choose ignorance of one’s own nature and identity.

Misconceptions of Childhood as Social Pathology

It cannot be forgotten that every child has a full time job: to learn everything they need to know to survive as an adult.  In affluent western households, children are often treated like household pets.  They are most valued for being ‘cute’ and generally encouraged to remain in that state for as long as possible.  Through most of history children have been free labor.  The romanticized idea of an ‘innocent,’ ‘magical’ childhood is a relatively recent concept that began to take hold in the late Victorian period among an affluent few.  As the West enjoyed mass affluence in the 20th century, this view became dominant and in the 21st century it grows to ridiculous proportions.

Children must be taught early on that they are not pets.  They are apprentice
humans who must contribute to the family as soon as they are able.  Their parents are there to teach discipline and train them in the habits that will make them strong and successful, not to be their kids’ best friends(this can come later in life).  Putting children to work is of critical importance.  There may not be a family farm to look after any more, but many children grow up seeing their wellbeing come out of nowhere.  They grow up as part of a family they have invested nothing into.  As soon as they hit adolescence, family regresses to little more than a part time job.  Children are showered with gifts but not expected to give anything back.  Thus, they grow up disconnected from the give and take that is the foundation of any lasting human relationship.  As adolescents and adults they end up learning that they must earn their way through life in contradiction to an entire childhood filled with ‘magic’.  Suddenly, just as they must begin thinking about caring for themselves, the adolescent must in an instant unlearn everything he or she has ever been taught.  The adult world they are growing into is jarringly and completely different from the world of children.  This disconnect is taken for granted in the 21st century Western world, but certainly it should not be.  In generations past, life went through its stages, but from birth, one’s experiences were part of a coherent continuity that fed directly into adult life.

In Victorian times, the ‘magic of childhood’ type of thinking was a reaction to the extremes of the day.  With the industrial revolution, children were commonly being placed on adult length shifts in dirty, dangerous jobs.  Because children’s hands were small, they were just the right size for reaching inside machines.  Because their bodies were small, they were just the right size for crawling through shafts in coal mines.  To top it all off, hiring kids was ridiculously cheap and if separated from family, they could be coerced into even longer shifts and into performing especially undesirable jobs.  An entire generation of children began to emerge from factories and mines with missing appendages, stooped and beaten frames, and in general, malnourished, sickly, and weak.  Those who had the privilege of living above the lower levels of society did everything they could to distance their own children from this nightmare existence.  A new ethic of shielding children from the world’s realities and keeping them in a safe, happy place until adulthood emerged.

While the misfortunes of industrialization were important in inspiring modern thought, just as critical were advancements in medicine.  Well into the 19th century, child mortality was quite frequent, an indisputable fact of life.  Spending lots of time obsessing about one kid just wasn’t worth it; getting too attached was just a way of getting hurt.  Chances were high that any given child would be dead before age 5 or 6.  As childhood mortality dropped off drastically with the beginning of the 20th century, interest in the early lives of children increased sharply.  With the vast move from rural family farms to suburbs in the 1940s and 50s, there was no longer much incentive to have children work, it was actually easier to keep them in the home as ‘innocent,’ ‘magical’ pets.  Still, children remained reasonably independent and spent much of their time learning by playing outside all day long, freely taking risks, and occasionally getting hurt.

Unfortunately an attitude that began from revulsion towards backbreaking child labor in hazardous environments passed down unchallenged from generation to generation, its original purpose all but forgotten.  More and more laws were made protecting children and their sheltered status.  By the 1960s a vast chasm had grown between the world of children and the adult world.
In the 21st century, adult life is an utterly foreign land that many do not truly see until their early twenties, after college.

If given half a chance children will grow to be hardy and strong.  However, they consistently fail to thrive when protected to the point of suffocation.  The same principle emerges in every aspect of childhood.  Studies have shown that children who are raised in a scrupulously sanitary environment grow up to be sickly because they never developed immunities.  Meanwhile, children who were allowed to go outside and play in the dirt become resilient and develop strong immunities to the pathogens they come into contact with.  Whether it is the immune system or their mind and character, children are inherently meant to be exposed to challenges at an early age.  Not only does it not harm them, it is a critical part of healthy development.

In Western society, it is taken for granted that adolescents are dictated by the very laws of nature to be surly, neurotic, depressed, and lazy.  Is this any surprise if children are never shown the basic rules of the adult world:  that one must work to eat, that one must compete to live, that one must give to receive.  Of course they feel put upon when the time comes to work when they’ve never had to do it before.  Of course they’re neurotic, depressed, and surly when they finally have to put in their share.  Of course life becomes highly stressful for adolescents when the entire life they grew up with turns out to be nothing more than an illusion and they have to begin again from day 1.  Having grown up without expectations, they prove to be weak, wilting, hothouse plants when it comes time to contribute as an adult.  To even begin to do so they must unlearn every habit they have ever been raised with, a process that is bound to be both tumultuous and painful.  Can it be taken as any surprise that the most privileged generation in history is committing suicide and falling to mental illness in droves?

In the past, children, and especially adolescents would have spent plenty of time in company of their peers, but the focus of their lives would have been their family and the need to be able to succeed one day in the world of adults.  From the earliest age possible, children were begun in the precursors of skills that would make for a successful adulthood.  Their education took place in the presence of adults, their standard of conduct was set by adults, and adults were inevitably their role models.  Under the current system, children grow up in artificial third world societies governed by children.  I call them third world societies because the notion of merit is foreign; status is decided based on who can claw their way to the top through corruption, deception, and brute force.  Personal worth and rank are defined by ‘popularity’ and other arbitrary criteria.  This environment is completely isolated from the adult world and the values it encourages are inimical to long term success as an adult.  It severs the continuity between child and adult, dividing life into two disparate parts that render one another nonsensical.

In throwing crowds of children into one building so they can raise each other in a dysfunctional civilization of their own making, I reflect that those who implemented the system might have been true believers in the ‘magic of childhood.’  This philosophy contains the notion of child ‘innocence.’  This is an egregious misunderstanding of young humans.  Children are not innocent.  In fact, they are most likely to openly express humanity’s worst impulses.  Children have yet to be socialized.  Socialization includes the development of moral inhibitions.  Children are amoral.  Unless taught otherwise, they feel perfectly entitled to do whatever necessary to realize their ambitions.  By the very undeveloped nature of their brains, they are narcissistically self-centered, unremittingly cruel towards any in whom they sense weakness, and willing to forcibly take anything they calculate is not adequately protected against them.  They fly into a rage every time they do not get precisely what they want; they have yet to learn patience.  They have no sense of justice or fairness.  They are outraged when punished for infractions against others and are again outraged when those who wrong them are not punished completely out of proportion to their offense.  Childhood is not to be perpetuated, let alone glorified.  The correct approach is to instruct children in the ways of adults as soon as possible.

‘Innocence’ is often understood to be a lack of knowledge of the less savory aspects of existence, yet ignorance is not bliss as it is so often said to be.  Any reflection on childhood or observation of children quickly reveals the true nature of things—ignorance is fear.  Children are typically afraid of everything because they do not yet understand the ways of the world.  As far as they know, anything could happen and thus, even the shadows at the bottom of the closet seem a possible threat.  In reminiscence on living through that less developed stage, it’s amusing, but if we reminisce a little deeper, we realize the fear was quite serious at the time.  It is the lot of a child to live in an open-ended universe with no guarantees and the fearful unknown lurking everywhere until they begin to acquire knowledge and understanding.  There is nothing romantic about this difficult phase of development.  It is certainly not to be described as ‘innocence’.

Not only is this ‘magical childhood’ perspective blatantly backward, it demeans the rich and rewarding experience of adulthood.  This is a pity because adulthood, the chance to be wise, strong, skilled, and loving is the good part of life, not the beginning part where we do all the initial learning.  The feelings of confidence, security, and peace we feel as adults are unknown to children.  When we have mastered the fears that abound in an inexperienced mind, only then is the way to real enjoyment of life opened.

Ultimately, it is foolish to shower a small child with lavish gifts in celebration of a ‘special’ time of life.  Such a new apprentice human is just as happy with two oddly shaped sticks as with the latest primary colored, loudly shrilling gimmick.  A child approaching adulthood should be given many gifts that will help him or her pursue their dreams, peace of spirit, and development as a human being.

Since I have made many criticisms, I have also turned my thoughts to solutions.  There is no longer a family farm that makes child labor necessary.  However, there are still plenty of household chores to be done, especially if both parents are busy at work.  There are plenty of ‘traditional’ aspects that could be brought back into life by employing one’s children.  One could teach their children how to grow a vegetable garden, how to bake fresh bread, how to fix meals.  All of these skills drastically reduce the cost of feeding the family.  Since girls are no longer taught to cook and clean, it is an important set of basic skills for both sexes.  And to be realistic these are things many adults have never been taught.  Thus it has the potential to be a learning experience for all involved.  Such skills have the potential to become part of a family heritage, an heirloom that can be passed down to the next generation and give a solid feeling of identity in a liquid age.

If the family owns a business, it is a good idea to get the kids involved right away.  For instance, I recently visited a small family run shop where the kids were allowed to work at the cash register with their parents nearby to lend a helping hand if necessary.  A business allows children to see the adult working world in action from the very start, and they love having the opportunity to emulate adult behaviors.  It is a lesson they can learn while small that many college students still have not been taught.

If one had their home near some local businesses instead of miles away from non-residences in the suburbs, the kids could be sent to get groceries, take clothes to the cleaners, and run all manner of errands.  It could be a social experience for the children and an opportunity to deal with adults outside of the family.  These sorts of practices could save endless time and fuel for busy parents.  The less busy the parents are, the more time they have to actually be around their kids and have more influence in their upbringing.  If people are willing to be open to a different lifestyle, it is quite possible to bring change to the current dismal situation that so many people take for granted.

As a final consideration, I do not advocate what many refer to as a ‘soccer mom’ lifestyle: a way of existence in which children are constantly being taken to different activities and lessons.  In themselves none of these activities are bad, but children must go out into the world and obtain knowledge and understanding.  The explorations they undergo themselves are the most fruitful of all.  To have kids constantly locked up in classrooms and learning activities, even outside of school, is just another instance of the social pathology of smothering children through obsession and overprotection.  At lessons, children are under the direct control of an authority figure at all times.  In an environment that encourages healthy development, children are given responsibility and freedom by degrees as they master the skills they are taught.  When their obligations are fulfilled, they ought to most certainly be free to explore their world as they will.  It has all but been forgotten that children must be given space if they are to develop as strong, independent individuals.  All they need be given is half a chance, and they will grow without the defects, disorders, and neuroses that have become commonplace.  It has all but been forgotten that human beings, especially young ones, are incredibly resilient by nature.  To be allowed to discover the difficulties of the world for themselves, to have the opportunity to fail, to get scraped knees, and then to learn is all that is required.  The widespread obsession with ‘protecting children’s innocence’ is nothing more than taking what’s fixed and breaking it.

The Anthropology of Nerd Societies: Formation of New Group Indentities Within Industrialized Civilization

I

It is not uncommon that those immersed in the culture of sci fi and twenty sided dice are subjected to a high degree of skepticism and even outright disgust. It strikes many as strange and even offensive that these people would be so far outside of the popular scope. It strikes people as pointless when they see that someone has gone out of the way to remember the names of even the most obscure starships in several different franchises, the precise geography of a dozen fictional countries in as many separate fictional universes, and the biographies of characters that are present in only a few seconds of screen time. To critics, this seems like time profligately wasted on obscure trivia that no one will ever care about it. Rarely do they ask, what value or purpose do these ships, lands, and characters serve or why these nerds dedicate themselves with nearly nationalistic fervor. More often than not, they write these nerds off as rather conspicuously maladjusted human beings.

The first step to approaching the answer is examining a likely critic of these nerds, someone who feels in contact with that which is considered mainstream. It is safe to say they are in possession of a wealth of information, useless trivia one might call it, concerning their favorite stars in film, athletes, musicians. Such a critic is likely to know who their favorite people are married to, who they’ve divorced, and how they’ve embarrassed themselves in public. One could make the argument that these people have the distinction of at least being attached to individuals in the real world, but this really isn’t true. The mainstream critic knows these people only insofar as they appear in performances onscreen and on stage. Furthermore, even these celebrities’ public conduct directly affects their show careers and is inevitably bound up in contrivance. The main difference between the critics and the nerds they look down upon is the number of subscribers to their group.

Each social group has its language of acceptance and shared values. Members dedicate themselves to mythology, the heroes, the music, the religion that best represents their culture. If one compares demographics, a disproportionate number of black people prefer rap or other types of music made chiefly by black people. One could conclude that black people have a ‘rap gene’ or far more plausibly that such music serves as a means for black people to connect with their group and distinguish members from outsiders. Familiarity with a common repository of stories and personalities helps foster cohesiveness and a sense of unity. Most groups of friends in American society overlap in preferences to at least some extent and are not usually distinctive enough to be coherent entities and certainly not enough to appear clearly outside of the accepted canon. If the Main Stream has a width, a spectrum so to speak, it is readily noticeable when one encounters those who are well outside of it. To critics, the presence of nerds is offensive because they are clearly disconnected from the larger culture.

A disproportionate number of nerds are physically awkward, socially awkward, or both. This is because they possess traits that make social acceptance at a young age extremely difficult. Such woes are commonly dismissed as a mildly irritating, passing aspect of childhood, but this is done without considering long term implications. When one is excluded from a social group during key formative years, it only becomes harder to catch up. At a certain point, the excluded ones admit even to themselves that there is never to be any reconciliation. During those key years, they grew apart from everyone else. Excluded by their peers in the real world, they discovered far away worlds and galaxies populated by peoples wholly alien to the order that rejected them. In these alternate realities, they find stories of hope and acceptance, lands where those traits which are considered impediments in ours could actually be an asset. Sooner or later, these people begin to meet and coalesce into groups. Finding a place is generally more difficult for these nerds and once they do so after a difficult time growing up, they devote themselves with a degree of enthusiasm that seems unsettling to outsiders. Critics understandably find it difficult to understand how anyone could become filled with excitement at the prospect of mastering a fictional language that no one outside of a small circle would ever know of or care about.

What critics do not understand, is that the obscurity and hence the exclusivity of such information is precisely the point. Made to feel shame in the early part of their lives, nerds create something they are all proud of, a culture and folklore that both provides entertainment, stories and metaphors pertaining to their lives, and which sets them apart from the main stream in which they never found acceptance. Nerds take exquisite pleasure in participating in a social environment in which they do not feel intimidated or pressured. After being cast out they finally take it upon themselves to return the gesture by actively shutting out and rejecting the widely accepted lore and culture and replacing it with something that fits with their personalities and interests. Certainly, it is conceivable that some of the disapproval expressed by critics results from a sense of indignation at how completely conventions have been deliberately shunted aside and ignored.

II

Nerds are a phenomenon that results from the structure of Western industrialized civilization. It is in this society that children spend most of their time around other kids in their age group rather than the family. Even where there is the luxury of a stable nuclear family, obtaining optimal employment means moving every several years. Thus, contact with extended family tends to be sporadic at best. Both parents are likely work full time jobs and are often preoccupied with satisfying the obligations of the workplace even after hours. Cell phones and laptops ensure no minute of the day is sacrosanct. It is certainly possible to regulate one’s life, but parents live in an environment that is particularly conducive to workaholism. Detached from family most of the day with only a handful of adults superficially involved in their lives, children develop in a scholastic environment isolated from the adult world outside. Left to form their own society, an environment dominated by the most physically able and socially clever individuals results. Those who are unable to compete become members of the lowest class in this brutal hierarchy.

Nerds are generally seen as a group of human beings that inevitably spring forth, but such a phenomenon is a product of the Western model. Only in such an environment does social failure at school mean complete isolation. The nerd very likely has parents who are constantly busy, if indeed they are both present in the household, lives in a suburb that is deliberately located as far as possible from anything non-residential. In such a neighborhood, the neighbors are generally casual acquaintances at best. There is little to no commonality or sense of community. Most people there will have moved somewhere else within a few years. The neighborhood was designed in the interests of adults and the safety of very small children. For children who have grown older, there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. In small Western families, there are not likely very many siblings to help care for and in an industrialized economy, no substantial way for children to contribute directly to the wellbeing of the family through labor or by learning trades. Relegated to the lowest tier in the social sphere that dominates life—school—nerds find themselves in possession of a wealth of leisure time. In this time, they become experts on everything from computers, to science and mathematics, to star trek trivia. Perhaps the origin of a nerd begins with being rejected, but over time the individual is more attached to the values they have acquired in isolation or with a few others of their persuasion. Eventually, they make the final choice to split off completely.

As youth life progresses into high school, participation in society becomes more of an obligation than ever before. To get attention from the most important and influential people, one must be a regular in the social and party scene. To even have means of meeting the requirements of this social life one must have a car. Teens who own cars must hold jobs outside of school just to scrape together enough to cover the expenses incurred by their vehicle. None of this is enough; a teenager must change around his or her wardrobe every few months as fashions change or be left behind. The lifestyle necessary to acceptance demands every spare scrap of a teenager’s time; it allows virtually no room for reading or independent study. A nerd, someone for whom these things matter most finds him or herself no longer desirous of participating. Succeeding in high school social life requires absolute devotion and constantly battling against fierce competition. Even if a nerd had a complete change of heart at this point, he or she simply would not have the necessary qualifications to operate even at the entry level. Without first mastering basic fashion, the right way to talk, the right way to carry oneself, the right way to walk, the right TV shows and music to like, there is no breaking in. Fortunately, most nerds are by this point not regretting the choices they’ve made that have led them down a different path, at least not as much as they used to. Even if it is lonely and painful to be as they are, they begin to accept themselves and in the larger high school environment begin to encounter those who share their tendencies. A distinctive nerd culture cut off from the rest of society results.

III

Nerds possess a great deal of knowledge, some of which makes them highly competitive in the workplace. However, they tend to lack people skills and have more trouble than average doing well at interviews and keeping good relations with co-workers. They are more likely to be in their cubicle laboring away, rather than creating a network of useful contacts by socializing. They will never meet a great many people who could help them with their work or even promote them.

The members of the mainstream on the other hand are extremely adept in social matters and have everything they need to score a job for which they have lower ability or qualifications. The years they spent fighting to get on top of the social heap left them without any time to develop professional skills. They are accustomed to cutthroat social competition, but they developed in an arbitrary society formed by children. Many of the values they learned are useless in the real world. In the professional environment there is an expected style of dress in the workplace. An expertise at following fashion trends honed over years of practice suddenly becomes obsolete.

In the long run, those who grew up in the mainstream still come out on top. Nerds are a small minority and fitting in even in the real world outside of school is always going to be an uphill battle. Any given hiring manager is highly likely to be somewhere within the mainstream spectrum. When faced with hundreds of resumes and dozens of interviews, they are going to choose those who walk, talk, and act like an ideal employee, in other words, a normal person. Qualifications and claims on paper can be embellished or even lied about. Personal presentation is going to be the ultimate decider.

Not only does the mainstream person have the advantage in grabbing jobs, but also in relations with the opposite sex. They’ve had years of practice in opposite sex social interactions while most nerds are barely getting started in college.

Though crippled and stunted through their adverse developmental experience, nerds take a fierce pride in their identity. They are more than willing to make sacrifices in life in order to be the people they feel they were meant to be and to be as true as possible to themselves. When they come together, they create a society in which mainstreamers would immediately appear hopelessly inept and crippled if ever they tried to participate. Perhaps critics are disturbed by the fact that there is more than one path to social legitimacy besides the one upon which they labored with such intensity and for so long.

Though mainstream people have the edge, everyone loses under the current system. Well qualified nerds are ignored because they lack the skills to get attention and form connections. The socially adept get hired but find themselves minimally prepared for their work. The businesses lose because they have difficulty finding candidates who are well balanced between social acumen and hard skills. The fact is that society at present does not encourage the formation of the well balanced individuals they are looking for. If society were a business, its manager might very well be fired for gross incompetence. In real life, things became the way they are because they were left to form arbitrarily according to the forces of nature. That anyone ever expected an ideal form of society to come from such an approach evidences a fundamental lack of thought, or at least that this system was itself a random aggregate product of many individuals acting with varying degrees of coherence, motivation, and influence over the course of generations.

IV

An examination of nerds and their surrounding environment is by necessity a study in anthropology. In this situation an entirely new society with different if not directly conflicting values forms within the bounds of the one already established. This phenomenon has come about not in small tribes or provincial villages, but in dynamic sprawling civilizations composed of millions of citizens. Ironically, a small group seems to be better suited to integrating all of its members. When there is a small community, even the eccentric and socially inept are known to all and can over time be accepted for their redeeming qualities. With a small stable permanent population, it is possible to have a real sense of community. With all members contributing directly to the wellbeing of the whole, it is much easier to have a genuine sense of unity. In such an environment, mere idiosyncrasies and divergent hobbies do not in themselves merit ostracism. In a larger environment, however, people must compete even for recognition of their existence; those who are awkward get trampled. The first impression is frequently the only chance one gets and as a result, the range of behavior society can tolerate must narrow if there is to be accepted social standards across larger populations. Furthermore, when a society counts its numbers in the millions, there can be no direct supervision of successful societal transmission by family and neighbors. Cohesion must be forced by formal institutions, ideological abstractions, and the fear of social unacceptability, which is for many humans greater than the fear of death.

A mass society with an excruciatingly specific agenda of how one is to behave inevitably creates a disaffected underclass. Human beings are incredibly adaptable, especially in social matters, so the percentage of those who simply cannot make it tends to be small. Those who fail thus see most everyone around them meeting with greater success and are very likely completely isolated. By the very design of a mass industrialized society, the conditions are right for the formation of new societies that better suit the needs of castaways, minorities, and splinter cells.

The more specific and rigid a mass society becomes, the fewer people it suitably serves. With increasing numbers of ostracized individuals, resentment pools and the nerd phenomenon becomes more likely: a new type of sub-society forms. One that actively rejects the values and the culture into which its subscribers were born. Thus it could be said concerning mass industrial societies that consensus breeds antithesis.

There is an Aesop’s Fable that warns how attempting to please everyone pleases no one in the end. This moral applies to societies because humans identify with tight knit tribes on a more visceral level than they do with nation states and mass cultures. No single institution or cultural entity can represent the views and needs of all or even a majority of citizens. Though only a small minority is unable to make it or refuses to participate, they can safely be considered the tip of an iceberg of discontent. There are many others who are only just able to meet the minimum qualifications and live a high stress life on the lower tiers of acceptance. There may be only a few who break away, however, particularly difficult times or the right catalyst could easily amplify the trend.

It would do critics well to cultivate a better understanding of nerds and other social fringe groups, because so long as current conditions prevail existing minorities will grow in number and new groups emerge. If millions of people collectively hold a custom that eating salad with an almost imperceptibly smaller fork is the only right way to do things, there will eventually be those who do otherwise. The dominant custom is enforced through overwhelming weight of numbers, but if it becomes a source of pressure by the very fact that it is a widely held standard, deviation follows. There needn’t even be any huge dissatisfaction and certainly not protest or consciously assembled social movement. People do what comes to them most easily and naturally, a cuture that comes to pressure millions can only hold sway for so long in such a varied and volatile environment.

Vegetarianism: The Elitist Idealism

Those who are vegetarians for ideological reasons are typically brimming with good intentions; to lessen the amount of suffering in the world for animals and sometimes, for human beings. Their movement addresses aspects of human society in which there are genuine issues to be considered yet it founders and remains confined to a narrow group of liberal, highly educated, middle to upper class citizens in Western democracies. While their intentions are good, they pursue their goal with an incredible naïveté that could only arise from disconnection with temporal realities. They focus on emotional appeals before well-reasoned arguments to support their cause, propose alternative strategies that are detrimental to or simply not feasible for the rest of society, make deeply mistaken assumptions concerning human physiology and diet, and alienate those who disagree with them by adopting a moralistic fervor, or sometimes even an air of downright rudeness and snobbery.

A few years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant where a huge, beautifully prepared roast hung on a spit in plain view. Customers could order a slice of meat from what they could see right there, a great setup. One person at my table, a vegetarian referred to it as “that carcass over there.” I was a bit taken aback at this. It is not very polite to comment on other people’s food preferences during a meal. Certainly, it was a piece of dead animal, but the word ‘carcass’ implies it is rotting, laying out in the open, fit only for vultures. It was demeaning, insulting, inappropriate behavior. It can perhaps seem justified, though, when one’s culinary regimen is also part of a moral crusade. If one views eating animals as moral wrong, then it is not only proper, but a matter of civic duty to educate, criticize, and even chastise the rest of the world. It’s a rather simplified way of approaching a complex issue. No doubt there is a certain thrill in adopting morally exclusive eating habits while everyone else is living in the dark ages. Thus, one who lives in such a way is quick to point out to others the error of their ways.

It is common for vegetarians to argue that meat is unhealthy, unnatural, and unnecessary to the human diet. They therefore contend that such foods should be replaced with plant substances. It is indeed well established that people can live without animal products, but should they? A vegan(one who uses no animal products whatever) must rely upon a profusion of exotic beans, nuts, seeds, and even supplements to get enough protein and all the necessary amino acids. Any unenlightened lout can get all of that from one piece of meat. Clearly, for fulfilling certain nutritional requirements, meat is overwhelmingly superior to plant products. If one thinks about the matter in terms of common sense: what is an outstanding source of stored energy and certain building blocks for a creature of flesh and blood? Answer: flesh and blood taken from another creature. The common claim of vegetarians that meat is unhealthy and even poisonous is quite simply a flight of fancy. I would suspect that they are simply reacting to the typical Western diet in which an excess of meats and other fatty foods combined with a sedentary lifestyle leads to an unhealthy result. This doesn’t do any good for the vegetarian argument because an excess of anything is bad and a sedentary lifestyle is unhealthy no matter what one eats. Meat is a perfectly healthy food and an excellent contribution to the human diet.

Meat may not be necessary for human survival, but neither are plant products. The Mongols, Colonial Argentina, the Inuit are all examples of cultures that depended predominantly if not exclusively on animal products for their survival. The Inuit, Laplanders, and other Arctic peoples in many cases lived on such a diet until well into the 20^th century. They were found to be in perfectly good health and without vitamin deficiencies. In fact, maladies such as tooth decay were virtually unknown among these peoples until sugar and starches, both derived from plants entered their diets with the coming of modernization. Indeed, consuming plants and their derivatives comes with its own possibilities of malnutrition and illness. In parts of the world where people live predominantly on rice, vitamin deficiencies are a real problem, particularly when subsisting on polished grains. Vegetarians may point to meat borne diseases and high profile recalls as proof of its unhealthiness, but vegetables come with some of the same problems. Leafy greens, especially spinach have undergone several recalls in the last few years. Even with recalls, the meat experience is overwhelmingly safe, especially with systematic regulation. Every now and then a few people die from eating bad meat. I honestly find this statistic incredible. A food eaten by hundreds of millions of people and it cannot be connected to substantially more deaths than occur from tipped vending machines! When one examines vegetarian claims that eating animals is dangerous for humans, one finds a supremely impressive record of safety. The probability of dying from or even being poisoned by meat is negligible in comparison to the risks of everyday life.

Ideological vegetarians are fond of taking ridiculous claims even further by insisting that eating meat is an unnatural part of the human diet. They look back to prehistoric times when people supposedly traipsed naked through the forest hugging trees and gathering up acorns.(No vegetarian or vegan hunter gatherer societies have ever been found) One of their silly arguments is to point out that human hands are not particularly well suited to killing living things. This is irrelevant considering that hominids used tools long before sapiens existed and considering that meat eating is thought by paleontologists to have started out as scavenging. It is hard to know exactly what hominids ate in prehistoric times, but examination of teeth generally furnishes researchers with a pretty good idea. Location is also important. Hominids were best suited for living on the plains not in the forest. In that sort of environment, plant sources of food are not incredibly abundant while animals are often present in gigantic herds. By the time sapiens actually showed up, people were not only indisputably eating meat, but actively hunting it down as well. To claim that meat is unnatural for humans, an unfortunate result of domestication, is moronic when one considers the many species such as woolly mammoths, giant sloths, and North American camels that were all hunted down to extinction in the prehistoric past. Eating meat can in no way be said to be bad or unnatural for human beings; it is not only one of the original human foods, its consumption predates our species.

Ideological vegetarians rely on these poorly reasoned justifications as inspiration for an elaborate menu full of foods that are difficult to obtain and in many cases impossible to afford for the average citizen, even in a wealthy country. Organic foods, a staple of the vegetarian table are an excellent example. Many items instantly double in price the moment the organic label is slapped on them. Most people already have enough expenses to take care of without paying enormously more than necessary just to put food on the table. For people who do not read extensively about food products, ‘organic’ doesn’t even make much sense. Certainly almost any food product is organic in the sense that it contains biological substances. Even when one learns it’s about returning to older agricultural practices, one who is unindoctrinated might stop to wonder why that’s a good thing and why it’s worth paying more for it. Other typical mainstays of a vegetarian or vegan diet have to be imported at great expense from foreign countries or simply rank among the most expensive of fresh items at the supermarket. Fresh items in general are indispensable to the ideological vegetarian. Baby spinach is an instant hit, but canned spinach is liable to remain untouched. Fresh food of course is much more expensive than canned food and only lasts a few days. To be able to live a lifestyle full of costly foods that are delicate and spoil quickly, one must have both lots of money to buy them and lots of leisure time in which to plan out their consumption and to prepare them. Yet another requirement is constant trips to the health food store, a feat difficult to pull off for those who don’t live in the big city. The diet that ideological vegetarians adhere to and expect others to adopt is impractical for all but the rich and idle. Altogether, it is inherently hostile to the poor, the busy, and the rural. Ideological vegetarianism is by nature elitist.

Vegetarians insist their way of eating is ‘natural’ albeit with lack of evidence and in the face of glaring contradictions. When the reasoning is this flimsy it becomes clear that many of the proponents of the system must have other reasons for subscribing to it. Sophisticated, educated, urban are all images that come to mind when one thinks of common stereotypes associated with vegetarians. It is a trendy behavior associated with the wealthy. People in every age and place have a tendency to attempt to imitate the most ‘successful’ members of society. When only the rich could afford enough food, it was fashionable to have some extra body fat(look at Venus or Eve as portrayed in old paintings). Now, when only the rich can afford lots of time for physical activity, it is fashionable to have as little body fat as possible. When only the rich could stay indoors all day, it was fashionable to be pale(the classic Victorian look, the classic Geisha look). Now, when only the rich have time to be outdoors all day, it is fashionable to be tanned. When only the rich had frequent access to meat, it was fashionable to put anything that could be killed on the table.(venison, peacock, pigeon, pheasant…) Now, when anyone can cheaply buy enough meat to feed a family, it is fashionable to live on only exotic vegetables. Although ideological vegetarians have multiple motivations for their eating habits, class consciousness is certainly among them. Not only does ideological vegetarianism allow its subscribers to feel sophisticated but it comes with lots of added bonus points for moral superiority. Whether their diet makes sense or not, vegetarians can still make the big claim that killing animals for meat, clothing, gelatin, or medical research is a violation of their rights and therefore immoral.

The whole notion of animal rights is ridiculous. To participate in a system of rights, one must be able to hold their end of the bargain. This cannot be done unless one is a moral agent and conscious of one’s actions. Of all species on earth only human beings meet this criteria. Animals cannot be expected to participate in such a system and humans have only one moral responsibility to them: not to cause harm and suffering without cause. There are cases in animal husbandry when humans may sometimes overstep moral bounds, but this does not justify running around telling people that eating meat is intrinsically immoral. Undeterred even by this shortcoming, vegetarians turn to emotional appeal before argument, routinely showing footage from slaughterhouses in attempts to inspire knee-jerk reactions. Such grand theatrics seriously undermine their position when there really are serious issues and legitimate grievances associated with the sometimes murky world of factory farming. The ideological vegetarians, however, are their own worst enemies, however, in adopting fallaciously justified elitist diets combined with hysterical moral crusading and lightweight tactics that shy away even from honest discussion.

One of the biggest problems of factory farming is the treatment of workers in the meat industry. Conditions are often unhygienic, conducive to any number of diseases, musculo-skeletal disorders from repetitive motions, and injuries inflicted by moving machinery or the animals. Furthermore, these workers are usually paid poorly and have very little in the way of benefits or injury compensation. It’s not the sort of job that most people want and meat producers of course wish to keep wages and thus cost as low as possible. Therefore they turn to illegal immigrants, even going to great pains to have them smuggled into the country. Once present, the immigrants are virtually slaves because they can be threatened with being revealed to the authorities if they do not cooperate with the company’s every demand. Vegetarians do sometimes address this issue concerning the human beings involved but usually as a footnote to their larger concerns for the animals. More often, people only enter the discussion as the terrible tormentors of the poor creatures.

Then, there is the issue of pollution. When thousands of animals are kept concentrated on one small piece of land, the amount of waste produced is enormous. Factory farms produced more waste than can be used as fertilizer and end up storing the extra on site. If there is any breach of the storage containers, the local ground water, lakes, or rivers can become seriously polluted. Furthermore, ammonia fumes and gases escaping from waste storage are also dangerous contaminants. Clearly, there needs to be better technologies and more regulation for dealing with the waste.

A further problem are defining and identifying possible abuses of the animals in factory conditions. A particularly popular example might be gestation crates. These are metal boxes in which breeding sows spend most of their lives. It serves a cause of producing as much pork as possible, as cheaply as possible, but the pig spends most of its life in a space too cramped to turn around in, living in its own feces. Certainly, measures should be undertaken to find a way of generating the desired product that is better for the animal while negatively impacting the good of humanity as little as possible. In fact, it is even feasible for humans to pay slightly more for pork so that breeding sows at least have a space that can be moved around in. Indeed, some European countries and state governments in the US have already passed laws prohibiting gestation crates.

The meat industry like any other has the potential to move to excesses. Laborer treatment, pollution, and animal abuse are all potential problems but the solution is to introduce regulations that ensure the best possible situation for producers, animals, and the consumers. Reacting with inflammatory aversion and proclaiming that the solution is for no one anywhere to eat meat ever again is laughable. That is a textbook case of excess. It is likewise overreaction to insist that overcrowded animals be completely turned out of buildings and made into ‘free range’ livestock. Sows ought not to be made to suffer every moment of their lives in cage they barely fit into, but a small pen with room for walking is probably all that’s necessary to solve the problem. A popular refrain of vegetarians is “What if you were ____?” This is a question that exhibits a critical lack of understanding and represents yet another low emotional appeal. Animal desires and psychology cannot be considered synonymous with human needs. So long as animals feel safe from predators, have food to eat, and water to drink, they are perfectly content. Thus, one might ask whether factory farms compare unfavorably to being ‘free’ out in the natural world. In nature, starvation is a constant threat, the search for food takes up every minute of every day for all of life. As if that’s not enough the slightest mistake means death by predators. In this, there is no stunning shock administered nor is the animal killed within moments with a single slice of the jugular. In many cases, its intestines are ripped out while it’s still fully conscious. The weather can turn for the worst and keeping warm or cool is essential to keeping alive. All these stresses together make the task of raising young supremely difficult and draining. Chances of surviving to reproduce more than once are not terribly good. The lifespan is typically quite short, if the said specimen beats the odds and actually survives infancy. After a closer examination of what a life out in the wild actually means, it could be said that humans actually carry out a moral good by both benefiting themselves and saving animals from a brutal life at the mercy of nature.

The needs of animals are based on the requirements of survival. Concerns of dignity and fussing over living arrangements are simply not part of their psyche. Vegetarians frequently criticize the meat industry for treating its animals like production machines, as if it were somehow demeaning to the animals. Animals have no concept of machine or industry let alone the ability to associate such abstract concepts with their own state of being. Once again the vegetarians rely on an emotional appeal. Worrying whether animals are happiest in building or in a field is immaterial; they really don’t care so long as their basic needs are fulfilled. Pigs are the one agricultural animal that might merit special attention due to their high level of intelligence and as is indicated by worldwide responses to gestation crates, that problem is receiving considerable attention.

Vegetarians’ focus on hysterically emotional vilification of factory farming is so prevalent that they do not address, let alone try to refute some of the benefits of factory farming.

-Every animal can be overseen at all times and kept always fed and watered.

-Every animal is indoors and proteceted from predators and the elements

-Meat is produced more cheaply on less land.

-Without free range livestock related problems such as overgrazing, erosion, driving out native species avoided.

-Complete control over every animal at all times ensures unprecedented power in upholding set quality standards.

Factory farms are an extremely efficient and effective means of providing meat, perhaps the only way to supply millions and even billions of people reliably on a regular basis. Fortunately, vegetarians at this point actually start submitting arguments again:

-If only people ate more plant products instead, factory farms would not be necessary.

-If only all the land used for livestock were turned into green farm fields instead…

-Farm animals are fed more food than they produce. Net loss. Bad for all the starving people.

-As for the first point, the vegetarians are not able to persuade everyone that their way is the only way to eat. Likewise they also are not able to convince everyone to cut back on meat consumption. Therefore, for people to all reliably eat less meat and more plant products, world governments would have to enter citizens’ homes and tell them what they can eat in what quantities. This program would not only violate basic freedoms, it would be exceedingly difficult and expensive to enforce even in a totalitarian state.

-Grazing land is typically made into grazing land because it is unsuitable for agriculture. Furthermore, factory farms more or less solve this problem by eliminating the need for grazing land.

-Farm animals are fed great quantities of foods such as soybeans and sorghum in a minimally processed form. The land growing these foods is not needed in countries such as the US which have gigantic crop surpluses. In countries where it is not practical to grow feed, animals are grazed in non-arable land. There already is more than enough food to feed the entire world, but it is not readily transportable from wealthy countries to poorer lands because the local leaders cannot be relied upon to distribute donated food to their people. Wealthy countries possibly could invent huge and expensive replacement bureaucracies to distribute food to millions, but the local leaders would certainly shut down any entity competing with their power very quickly. The only option would be to invade every poor country in the world and force food to be distributed with a massive government imposed by the conquerors. With the fighting, chaos, sectarian violence, and uprisings countless thousands would die in the constant warfare. Infrastructure would break down and the goal of supplying food to the starving remain out of reach. In fact, there would probably be more starving people than before.

The net loss of food cannot be as great as vegetarians seem to think. Besides meat, there are also dairy products and eggs to consider. Furthermore, one may be losing crude grains unfit for human consumption in return for some of the best sources of protein, amino acids, calcium, and the elusive vitamin D. That certainly does not seem like a good description of a loss.

The ideological vegetarians have their arguments concerning the economic and political factors of meat, but they typically spring from total ignorance of the world and its basic realities. The very fact that they believe farm animals should no longer be killed for their valuable products is the ultimate testament to their astounding lack of comprehension and sheer depth of disconnection. Farm animals are domestic animals. As domestic animals they cannot survive if people do not give them food and protection. People will no longer feed livestock if they serve no function. Therefore several species and all their hundreds of sub-varieties would quickly starve to death en masse. If ideological vegetarians are to attain their goals, they must be in favor of massive extinction. A few strains would perhaps be preserved in zoos and nostalgia ranches, but their once great range and population would be a thing of the past, their continued existence a rarity and a curiosity. They would for all practical purposes be gone.

Only a few animals could be retained if they served no practical function and produced no profit. The rest would starve in countless millions. There would be far too many to euthanize, shock, shoot, or gas within a short period of time. The animals would waste away, suffering every moment until death. Their meat, hides, hooves, organs, milk, and eggs would go unused; they would be suffering for no cause. Therefore it would be the most egregious case of immoral treatment of animals in human history. I suppose I could pretend I was a vegetarian for a moment and propose a scenario in which the government imposed additional taxes on the populace to support millions of useless farm animals until they died of old age. This is so far on the side of the absurd I feel the need to stop its further consideration.

Ideological vegetarians are typically brimming with good intentions, but they do little more than create unfounded moral quandaries from the top of their exclusive ivory tower. Their case is a powerful example of how well-meaning people made overzealous by emotionally driven, reckless idealism can easily come to formulate solutions and reforms with disastrous implications. They end up creating worse problems than the ones they attempt to solve and even end up with results that are opposite of what they intend. If those who are vegetarians for ideological reasons were allowed to enact the reforms they so naively and stridently attempt to impose on others, they would cause the mass extinction of the very animals they are attempting to save and worst of all, bring about the greatest immoral suffering humans have ever inflicted on animals.

Being ideological is not a bad thing. It is good that humans are able to dream about a better world even if it is not consistent with the present reality. In conjunction with measured reason and careful consideration, an idealist’s dream can become a shining accomplishment. These are people who really change the world and who many people look to as role models. Not one of them could have succeeded, however, had they not also been denizens of the earth who understood how to integrate their visions with the realities of life.

Neatness: The Religion of the Rectal-Linear

For some years I have come to think of neatness as the Western version of Feng Shui. It is an ethic of lining things up and setting them in just the right way for the preservation of harmony. The similarity with Eastern superstition could not escape me, its arbitrary rituals seemed like ceremonial obeisance to some celestial denizen. While Chinese folk traditions are brimming with colorful language and portents of auspicious days and locations, the Western Feng Shui clearly lacked similar imagination and vitality. My comparison between the two philosophies derived solely from their shared emphasis on mystical knowledge of the proper way of things. There was an element of irony in thinking of neatness in this way, I could think of all the wise sages exhaustively sorting out every item in their possession.

For a time I was content with this cool, bemused, relatively indifferent stance towards the neat, but there was something about their ways and Western society’s widespread encouragement of such habits that continued to bother me. Not only did something strike me as fundamentally wrong about it, but I ceased to dismiss it as purely irrational and began considering the issue more closely.

In the professional environment, it is necessary to have a rigid structure to keep track of every order, plan around a just in time inventory, and make sure every cent of revenue is spent as prescribed. In the workplace a strict system of organization and cleanliness has a clear place and function. Adopting a philosophy of neatness is most effective in the corporate world, but inappropriate as a personal creed. When individuals adhere to such a method, they end up spending more time and energy maintaining their system than they could ever gain from it. Supporters of neatness often make claims about the time saved by organization without taking all the upkeep into account. Keeping everything placed perfectly straight, always in the same place, and spotlessly clean is a boon when a hundred people are using the same resource and sharing the burden of maintenance, but detrimental and pointless when there is one person. For an individual to maintain such a system is a constant thankless chore that brings joy to no one and which fails to achieve its declared objective of saving time. There is ultimately no clearly defined end goal or fulfillment, so it is hard to imagine that neat persons can feel much satisfaction with their labors. Furthermore, a neat person must be perpetually dissatisfied with all other human beings. When a system of organization defies reason, those who are not mind readers are hard pressed to conform to a neatnik’s imaginary kingdom of order. It is unsurprising then that such an eternal spring of dissatisfaction tends to spill from one life into others.

Most people are content to live and let live. They could care less how other people arrange their personal matters, less still about their personal spaces. One trait in common among neat people is that they believe themselves endowed with the right to waste the time and energy of others as well as their own for the sake of their philosophy. A messy person doesn’t care if his neighbor is neat. A neat neighbor probably experiences a significant rise in blood pressure every time they see the lawn next door getting too long for their taste. It seems characteristic of neatness to be aggressive, even invasive in nature. It is such patronization and presumptuousness that make the much praised proponents of cleanliness so often obnoxious. They behave in their informal, personal life as though they are still at the office and hold others, who desperately desire time away from work to similar standards. Their preferred style of living is contrary to the spontaneous nature of relaxed human beings and inevitably clashes with the personalities of almost everyone around them. The supposedly successful routines of rectal-linear persons are in fact anti-social and outright rude.

The behaviors of the neat send a message of contempt and dismissal to the rest of humanity. Both delicate and inflexible, their system is perfectly conceived for regular disruption at the slightest intervention of an outside force. The involvement of people is thus practically inimical to their way of life. They get upset at fellow human beings for so much as moving a single item out of place, a reaction that suggests they hold their arbitrary order in greater esteem than their guests, relatives, neighbors, and roommates. One must also consider the very fact that neat people like everything to be set perfectly straight, in perfect rows, in perfect order. The place they like for themselves and for others to live in is something that might be created by a machine. The rectal-linear in effect strive to erase all that is typically human from their vicinity. Organic materials, including people are unwelcome in their sterile environment. When a host is bent on eliminating any sign of their guest’s presence with all possible speed, the guest must begin to wonder if in fact he is welcome. It comes across as impersonal and dehumanizing when one treats people the same way they do their paperwork: something to be cleared out of the way. The rectal-linear find the irregularities and idiosyncracies of individuals to be fundamentally odious and

offensive. Any element that they cannot control to the utmost degree of precision rankles them to no end.

The residence of one who is neat is typically empty of personality; one could possibly wonder if anyone even lives there. A clean and tidy domicile is more of a barracks than a home. The vast majority of the space is empty and what items cannot be thrown out are stored away in specially designated boxes and drawers. Messy people, understand that the floor is the best storage place. Every available surface in fact is to covered with every conceivable item of use. This way, everything is out in the open and instantly accessible. No effort at all is spent systematizing; there’s no need when one makes full use of available space. An empty floor serves no function at all, it is simply undeveloped real estate. So long as one is able to walk across the room, there is no problem. The eight foot long journey has to become rather difficult before it merits thought, let alone effort.

A messy person never searches for dust and dirt. If it can’t be seen or smelled without actually looking for it, there are undoubtedly more important, more fulfilling uses for one’s time. If chasing dust is the best activity one can conceive of, it is necessary to seriously reflect upon one’s life. Besides, a little dust adds scent and character to things. Where would old books be without a little dust? The neat of course have no room or time for old books; they are thrown out with everything else that is not of immediate use. Messy people like to have miscellania on hand that can give ideas, inspiration, memories of times gone by. They understand that one cannot always predict what will be of use in the future. Ultimately, the messy approach entails both minimal effort and regrets.  Possessions are cleaned up or thrown out only when there is a clear reason to do so. Cleaning brings joy to no one, it takes up time, it is never to be done for its own sake. The spontaneous, informal way actually is a system of organization, one that is flexible, varies widely from person to person, and requires minimal maintenance. It is thus far better suited to the needs of an individual.

Neatness, having no clear justification is ultimately practiced to for its own sake. The full absurdity of this condition becomes clear in certain instances of paradox: Rectal-linears go through great effort to see to it that their lawns are perfectly cut, trimmed, and manicured. A reasonable being would suppose that they would then enjoy the fruits of their labor by spending ample time out on the plot they worked so hard on. Perhaps they would go out to play horseshoes or set up tables and chairs for an outdoor picnic. Astoundingly, the contrary is true. The neat person avoids so much as touching the lawn and becomes absolutely livid if anyone so much as steps on this pristine piece of green. The neat person completely forgets that the very purpose of a lawn is to have a place to feel soil underneath one’s feet and have an area for recreation even in the city. There is also no reason that stepping on a lawn should inspire any great ire. One could walk on it all day without causing any damage at all. It’s grass. Such an instance demonstrates both the arbitrariness and petty spitefulness of the neat. For little more than groundless superstition they treat both themselves and others with a poor and miserly spirit. Rather than promoting neatness as correct conduct in Western civilization, neat people should be encouraged to seek counseling and instruction in basic social skills.

 

Video Games Are High Art and a Beneficial Addition to Society

The advent of computer and console gaming in the last 30-40 years has brought upon the world an entirely new category of art, the greatness and implications of which have not yet been appreciated by the vast majority. In fact, video gaming has been a nexus of controversy since its inception, a new technology that has caused unease, fear, and even revulsion in its detractors. It has been blamed for obesity, violence, addiction, breakdown of morality, reduction of intelligence and creativity—a slough of claims with varying degrees of validity. Though, electronic gaming can be abused like any other technology, it will with the passage of time be recognized for the great invention that it is.

I

 

In painting, the cubist movement superceded traditional conceptions of perspective and space. In electronic media, gaming has challenged traditional forms of experiencing art. Traditionally, art is appreciated by a passive observer, one who by definition enacts no change upon the work in the act of experiencing it. Video gaming is a form that goes beyond the standard of voyeurism and by its very nature entails the exploration of new realms.

Perhaps the reader has wished to go inside a painting or book—has desired that a beautiful sculpture come to life. Not only is this longing futile, most forms of high art have ropes, signs, guards, thick glass, proximity alarms; multiple layers of protection to keep the work strictly unchanged for the next observer. Even to touch, in these cases, would be impossible. Video gaming, however, is by definition hands on and the player is actually in a sense ‘within’ the work.

A video game is intricately crafted, a synthesis of many art forms that is closest in nature to architecture—a team of designers and engineers create an elaborate and spacious structure designed to weather any foreseeable event, which is then decorated and brought to life by master craftsmen and artisans. The result is truly greater than the sum of its parts, a work of art that not only is participatory in nature, but which can be changed in form by the will and actions of experiencer. The potential in electronic gaming for amorphism has resulted in works that mold themselves to the choices and preferences of each player. No two people will gain exactly the same impression from a painting or imagine things the same way when reading a novel; yet such works are regarded as being intrinsically static in nature. Video games, on the other hand, capitalize on the fact that no two observers are alike.

II

 

Computer and console games, unfortunately, have not yet been accorded their proper place among the other widely acknowledged forms of great art. As of yet they are dismissed by many as a waste of time and are far more frequently associated with society’s problems than inspiration and enlightenment. This state of affairs is regrettable since the benefits and potential benefits of electronic environments far outstrip any harm that comes from its abuse.

Perhaps most frequently, video games are blamed for numerous negative effects in children. Certainly, children are immature and prone to many types of excess if they are not guided by adults. Video gaming is no exception, but one must consider that a gaming console or computer is far beyond the financial means of most children as are the games. Many offended adults not only purchase gaming consoles but allow their children to use them without restrictions. The problem is thus easily solved where it arises. And when done in moderation, video gaming, like any other good thing, confers its many benefits upon people of all ages. Computer and console games require constant problem solving, quick and effective reaction to the most adverse circumstances, well planned, efficiently executed strategies, a knack for creativity and improvisation, thorough exploration, and in general the ability to rapidly analyze and piece together a comprehensive whole from a great amount of information. Playing a computer game is not only entertaining; it is a demanding cognitive process that sets the mind pleasantly abuzz with activity.

I have on occasion seen people try gaming for the first time. Almost always, the reaction is complete bewilderment and frustration. They are mentally unprepared to deal with the array of processes that faces them. The real time strategy game, for instance, is a well known format to almost any gamer and is easy enough to master. I once convinced my own father to try Age of Empires II for awhile, an effort that quickly fell flat. After some thought, I realized that one must acquire a sophisticated set of skills before even attempting to play a computer or video game. It occurred to me that it is not so simple to learn to play real time strategy. One must know which buildings produce which units for how much of which resources as well as how to begin with maximum speed a balanced economy that provides these resources in the correct quantities. The level of knowledge I just described covers no more than the first few minutes of a given game, but all it takes is a moment’s consideration to come the realization that gaming is a rigorous mental exercise and a wholesome influence on any human being.

 

III

 

Like other art forms, video gaming has the potential to render the fantastic into our reality in an immediate and moving fashion. That video gaming excites such controversy is a testament to its power. The advent of games such as Mortal Kombat scandalized a nation; it was not long before a ratings system similar to that used in cinema was created for electronic games. The impact made even upon detractors of the medium is so great that they routinely express deeply held fears of video games adversely shaping the behavior of human beings. Their concerns, however, are misguided not only because of a misunderstanding of gaming, but also of human nature.

One role of art is to satisfy the human desire to engage in fantasy. Ordinary life builds up many frustrations in each individual—frustrations which result in violent impulses that cannot be freely expressed. Critics blame gaming for anti-social behaviors because they do not understand or are unable to accept that anger and violence are a normal part of the human psyche. No human impulse is a bad thing until it is expressed in a destructive manner, and art—gaming included—is a means of providing human beings a constructive channel for pent up energies. Children of the 21^st century enact frequent play violence through use of their gaming machines. As recently as the 1950s and 60s, life was not so easy. My father had his front teeth permanently damaged in a fight over control of a treehouse. Animals were tortured, scrapping over turf with other bands of children was commonplace, and shooting targets and live animals with BB guns went without saying. After considering actual human play behavior, it is absurd to see fantasy enacted through video games as any kind of threat. People have a need to explore and test out the parameters of their surroundings, an endeavor that sometimes calls for forceful methods. Not only do video games satisfy this need, they allow human beings to enjoy godlike amounts of power without any responsibility and to break taboos at will. This very characteristic is most alarming of all to critics, but ultimately they are prudes. Being a ruthless dungeon overlord for a couple of hours is a truly enjoyable experience in which we gleefully acknowledge and indulge our deepest fantasies; it is an activity that leaves us refreshed and ready to cope once again with the rigors of a societal existence.

 

 

IV

 

Since the creation of electronic worlds is yet a young technology, what wonders or dangers will come is a matter of conjecture. One day, the process of making an electronic space down to the last intricate detail will become so easy and inexpensive that anyone will be able to create one. At the opening of the 21^st century, the production of video games has some parallels with the baroque and classical periods of Western music. A composer in Europe two to three hundred years ago required a rich and noble patron in order to pursue his trade and have access to an orchestra. Today, it requires the resources of a wealthy enterprise to assemble an orchestra of programmers, artists, composers, and writers and to release a finished product on the mass market. The current era has, like the classical or baroque eras, produced many masterpieces, but the medium of electronic gaming will flower even more spectacularly when improvement of technology frees it from the necessities of profit making and demographic appeal.

As a closing consideration, following video game technology down its logical course leads to a time when those spectacular electronic worlds can no longer be distinguished from reality. This is a time that has often been addressed in nearly every canonized form of art and which will surely present adventures, dangers, and opportunities for humankind. Such an age may very well dawn during my life and I would attempt not to make the mistake of turning away with reactionary fear, instead approaching with curiosity coupled with a healthy sense of caution.