Quantum of Solace

British physicist Stephen Hawking once made a bet with another physicist that we would never discover the Higgs Boson, also known as the "God particle," because it was the one missing link in the Standard Model that would make everything else make sense.  It was assigned the task of giving all things mass.  So it was something of an all-or-nothing proposition:  Find the Higgs Boson and everything falls into place, or don't find it, and everything is still lacking in any singular sense of order.

Then Hawking theorized something else, and it was reported just yesterday.  He believes that the Higgs Boson and the field it occupies is set at, or contains, a set amount of energy.  This very specific setting has it perched between two opposing contingencies.  If it acquires more energy, then everything spins out of control.  If it loses energy, then everything spins out of control.  It may also somehow "tunnel" from one trough in the energy graph to a lower trough, thereby neither gaining or losing energy in the conventional sense, but everything spins out of control nevertheless.

This spinning out of control creates a super vacuum that begins expanding at the speed of light until it consumes the universe.  For you and me, sitting in our homes on a little insignificant rock, third one from an insignificant star, out on a spiral arm in an insignificant galaxy, which is also out on the fringe of an insignificant supercluster of galaxies, we would never see it coming.

We would be literally annihilated in a instant.  The expanding vacuum would have hit us at the speed of light, so there would be no warning.  In fact, no warning would be possible.  To make Hawking's theory even more tantalizing, this vacuum disturbance may have already occurred somewhere and is expanding -- it just hasn't hit us yet.

And what is striking about this entire expanding theory is not just its subject matter.  What is striking is the ability of theory to expand outside of known contingencies to explain (or create) another possibility.  There are possibilities that are not yet known, but that must be theorized and (if possible) tried.  Theory builds upon theory, and other realms of possibility can come into being to explain something that was limited before.  These are possibilities that are not yet immediately readily apparent.

Could the same be true for problems we face today as a people?  Could the same be true for problems we face today as a civilization?  Could the same be true for problems we face today as economists, politicians, social scientists?

In the 1970's and 80's, we saw the massive destruction of the Earth's ozone layer.  When scientists investigated the cause of the problem, it was discovered to be chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's).  These chemicals were used as a coolant in various applications by consumers and industry.  When they escaped into the environment, they destroyed the delicate layer of O3 that loomed in the upper reaches of the atmosphere and that reflected dangerous ultraviolet spectrum rays from the Sun.

So government regulators sprang into action.  This was a time before the Republican party was hellbent on killing anything that prevented the wholesale and free use of the environment as an externality by their donors, Big Energy and Big Mining.  They were able to pass actual bans on CFC's -- something that the Republican party as agent of Big Energy and Big Mining would never, ever allow -- and get other nations to join.  Many thought that, even though the bans were accomplished, there was still too much damage already done to the ozone layer.  At most, its destruction could be slowed, but never stopped.

A report that came out eviscerated those concerns.  The ozone layer, almost as a living, breathing, organic thing, has not just ceased being depleted.  It is slowly -- every slowly -- beginning to recover itself.  This shocked environmentalists and politicians alike.  And it shows, most importantly, that there is another realm of possibility outside that in which we currently operate.  Things may actually work.  There are some actions we can take, and they may be successful.  All is not necessarily lost.

These days, this, at least, can give us some quantum of solace.

The Dumbing Down of America -- The Great Experiment

"I've always believed that the mind is the best weapon. "  -- John Rambo

Recently, an article appeared called "America Dumbs Down," discussing the attack on intellectuals, intelligentsia and the tradition of the "Brain Trust" in America.

In every aspect of American popular culture and society, hyper religion and extremist fundamentalism have taken the place of rational thought, expertise and the hegemony of reason.  Superstition and snake oil have supplanted cognition and science.  The ultimate degradation of the Middle and Lower Classes has taken place.  America undergoes an overhaul.

One of the reasons why the U.S.'s entry into World War II was so critical was its educated work force.  The Middle Class in the U.S. enjoyed the benefits of a free public education.  This allowed the U.S. to mobilize faster than any other nation on Earth.  It also meant that U.S. troops would be outfitted with the greatest weapon of all.  The Golden Age of American History may be attributed, in large part, to this particular utopian dream realized from sea to shining sea.

And ever since that time, it has been under attack.  Because the uber-wealthy never needed an over-educated working class.  They are better served by the hyper-religious, jingoistic and hyper-nationalist ideologues that sublimate their economic distress into  more war or a hatred of foreigners and minorities.  And so very few of them will be able to discern this trap.

It is the reason for the Liberal Arts education.  And this is also now under great attack, especially from the Republican Party and its uber-wealthy agents, Rick Perry, and his attack on higher education in Texas and other parts of the U.S.  A Liberal Arts education allows its recipient to see society with an understanding of its power structure and with its class underpinnings.  Without it, and without the critical and theoretical mindset it engenders, one really is lost in the shadows on the wall. 

The ability to distinguish and differentiate between things that a preacher says about fiery places and what actually happened on a specific date and time are lost.  Even perhaps more importantly, the ability to draw lessons and knowledge from those two things is unattainable.  The non-Liberal Arts educated individual is, in some sense, a buffoon, and imbecile, left to be led around by the nose without any sense as to what is really going on around him or her.

And so that is the goal of Rick Perry and the other imbeciles -- to create and more easily manage a large populace that will do what it is told when it is told, and will not question why or what it receives in exchange.  It is a better labor class, but not the anachronism of dirty factory workers. 

No, these are armies of people wearing slacks and oxford shirts, speeding to their cubicles in the morning, listening to Christian Contemporary as they work, and then rushing back home in their SUV's to listen to the 21st Century version of the Old Time Gospel hour, the latest "bible-based" church on any of dozen media to choose from.  This is your Labor for the 21st century, here to manage your assets and operate the machinery that operates the machinery.  Karl Marx had it right, but he was just off by a century or two. 

So education has to change.  Lobotomize the Middle Class.  Remove its voice and its ability to question and to see what you are doing to it, then have your way with them.  But this is critical -- you must not let them find out.  Change higher education to fanciful and glittering trade and vocational education.  Begin the lowering of the Ivory Tower into the depths of Hell, and invert it. 

No more inquiry.  Take away their greatest weapon.  We learned that lesson watching the campuses in the 1960's go up.  Sure, you can call it a university, but it is really no more than an idiot garden. 

And the game plays on.