Caste the First Stone

The Hindu caste system tends to give most of us Americans (and members of other Western cultures influenced by American ideology) a serious case of the crawlies; we like to believe that we are free to define ourselves, and the idea of being born into a social stratum seriously ticks us off. As it should; being restricted to the circumstances of one's birth, with no opportunity to earn elevation, is a massive injustice that no right-thinking human being should stand for. However, a caste system is capable of existing without such hereditary assumptions. As a utopian philosopher, I have reason to believe that our society could benefit from an acknowledgment of the fact that people are different and don't deserve to all be treated exactly the same; what's kindness to one may be oppression to another. As long as a caste system gives one the freedom to choose which caste one occupies, even if it's not as simple as just saying "I'm an X now", so long as there's some sort of mobility possible to provide free choice, and account for the fact that people change over time, these castes could be nothing more than a series of guidelines for how people have chosen to define themselves.

There are some people who enjoy following orders, and others that like to lead and blaze trails, and still others that shun social entanglements altogether. None of these is a wrong way to live; they all deserve to be supported. This is only one of dozens of layers that a sufficiently advanced caste system would need to account for in order to begin to represent humanity's full diversity. Those who crave stability should be organized into hierarchies, while those who desire freedom of expression should be given a free range in which to work.

To put all this into motion, two things are required - access to accurate and complete information about the world's resources, including human ones; and sufficiently sophisticated tools for analyzing an individual's personality and preferences, so as to protect against both that individual's own biases and the possibility of administrative overbearance (I think that's a word). When we have the capacity to accurately understand ourselves, classify ourselves in a fashion that never underestimates our importance or restricts us from being anything we deserve to be, and also know how many people of each type there are and how many roles exist for them to fill, we can begin to create a system of actual justice where people are free to be what they were meant to be.

Well Shoot, What Do We Do Now?

There's an old truism that runs "When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail." What do you think happens when all you have is a gun?

We live in a country that's founded on freedom, so naturally that means we have the freedom to go around splattering each other's brains on the wall, right? What about the freedom to go out in public and NOT have to worry that someone is going to find the slightest excuse to splatter our brains on the wall? If everyone has guns, whoever's fastest on the draw is free to loot the corpses. Whoever's most unflinching, most coldly and calculatingly willing to hold a gun to your head, take your own gun away, and have you at their mercy, will be free to do anything they want to you, just because they had a fraction of a second of extra warning that you were there before you spotted them. Guns make murder easy, and the threat of murder even easier.

Guns make it possible for people to kill who have not earned that power (whether there is any kind of killing power that is earned, guns certainly aren't it). Guns make it possible for the tiniest slip of the tongue to become fatal. Someone cuts you off in traffic? Blow their brains out. Someone's looking at your girlfriend? Shoot 'em in the balls. Boss passes you over for a promotion? Shoot everyone in your office who had the nerve to be better at their job than you. No matter how stable and well-adjusted a person is, they get angry sometimes, and if they have a gun in their hand, one second of anger is all it takes to initiate a killing spree. Which, once it's started, might as well continue, because they've ruined their life and are going to die or land in jail anyway, so heck, why not up the body count, since it just takes one extra squeeze of the finger to get rid of another person they don't like. And all this is aside from the issue of accidents. They say an armed society is a polite society; I say pleasantries extracted through the threat of murder aren't really polite.

They also say that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns, and this much is true. So outlawing guns isn't really the solution. Not unless you outlaw the manufacture of guns. Not unless you police the entire world and carefully monitor the flow of resources necessary to make guns. You know, kind of the way we do for nuclear weapons. Nukes enable a few people to kill a lot of people, and guns are only slightly smaller in scale. Perhaps we ought to consider treating anything that can enable one person to kill two as serious as we do nukes and biological weapons. Perhaps we ought to try and shut down the entire weapons industry, which believe it or not could be done through peaceful means, just by refusing to sell food to anyone whose money has blood on it.

Or perhaps we should take the opposite tack, and instead of trying to stop guns from existing, just try to stop them from being useful. What would it take to make truly bulletproof armor? Can science find a way to invent padding which absorbs and redirects the kinetic energy of a bullet, so it just stops when it reaches the perimeter of your being, falls harmlessly to the ground without transfering the force of the blow and knocking you over? Could that armor then be made light and flexible enough to make into normal clothes, maybe even little helmets? Heck, maybe we'll accidentally make a cheaper and better space-suit in the process. I think this is a good research project all around.

Or maybe, just maybe, we could make the use of guns undesireable by actually educating people, indoctrinating them if need be, to understand intuitively and unquestioningly that violence is NEVER a solution, NEVER acceptible under any circumstances. Seems to me a fellow named Gandhi got pretty good results with an approach like that.

Whatever we need to do, it isn't to inform the rest of the world that they can pry America's guns from its cold, dead hands. Because they might just decide that this is a reasonable prerequisite, and proceed to complete the deal.

(Obligatory memetic exemplification of that last sentence.)

Play Giarism To Win!

One of the greatest metal bands in American history, in my not-so-humble opinion, is the legendary Metallica; I recently picked up one of their old CDs which I hadn't previously owned, the cover album "Garage, Inc.". Listening to it, and then reading the insert which details the origin of each song, I was surprised to discover that many of Metallica's most famous hits, songs that were on the radio for the first time when I was getting into rock music originally in the mid- to late-nineties, were in fact created by bands I had never heard of. I found myself wondering (and Tweeting) whether those bands, who languished in obscurity while songs they wrote came to be considered among Metallica's bannerpieces, were honored to have been immortalized to an extent they couldn't manage on their own, or pissed that someone else was succeeding with works that should have belonged to them. I'm inclined to guess the former is more likely, since to my knowledge none of these bands ever slapped Metallica with a lawsuit and thus I'm guessing legal permission was obtained for each of the covers they wanted to do. But ultimately, it's entirely possible that neither Metallica nor the bands they borrowed from even bothered to involve the law; they might have just been musicians hanging out and jamming, swapping their creations to see who could make them sing, the way artists less famous often do without having to get a bunch of lawyers arguing over the outcome.

It is often the case that what one has made, another can make better. We should never be afraid to let people copy each other's works, so long as the sincere flatterer's version is clearly labeled to ensure it is not confused with the original. Being the first to achieve something is worthy of regard, but so is recognizing quality in older works and bringing a new touch of genius to them. If the new version is better, it could not have existed without the first, so each retains a distinction in its favor. And if the new version is less good, it still offers an alternative which everyone benefits from the ability to choose from.

The abolition of intellectual property laws is an axe I never tire of grinding; I want to see a day dawn when everyone who wants to listen to a song can, and anyone who wants to try their hand at recording their own version of that song and publishing it can, and the original artist is flattered for all the attention and glad to have made so many people happy and gotten them to take an interest, and a bunch of small-minded lawyers and economists don't get in the way of this interaction between artist and audience. A grubby, pragmatic, ultimately meaningless thing like money should never come between the human race and a richer range of choices in how to enjoy our lives - and the small-mindedness that leads to control-freak tendencies, which might object to this much free expression, is a virus in our collective consciousness which we're overdue to inoculate ourselves against. It is time for the human race to grow up, stop playing games of mean-spirited greed, and recognize what truly matters in our lives. Put down your writ of injunction, your cease-and-desist letter, your lucrative but frivolous lawsuit; join the party and rock on, because in the immortal words of the band itself, "Nothing Else Matters".

How To Invent Your Own Religion

I have faith in a higher reality, but I will be the first to admit that I have absolutely no sane or sensible reason for believing in it, and even I don't do so at all times without question; I am simply easily reconvinced. Others without that advantage are not to be blamed.

I am witness to the higher truths of a better reality, truths such as "all human beings should be equally happy, according to their unequal definitions, and should all increase that happiness constantly at an equal rate". I travel around to spread this word (via the Internet, a convenient transportation system in that it avoids the need to haul a bunch of biological cargo around with youself), telling my Truth to everyone who I can get to listen, in the hopes that every once in a while, one of them will see the virtue in what I say. That most will not is no great surprise; if it was easily understood, I wouldn't need to say it because everyone would already know. But even if never in my life do I actually cause anyone to see the light, I can go to my grave knowing I gave it my best try, and thereby rest content.

The Divine has appointed us a mandate to break down the barriers imposed on us by nature; the way things are has brought us into being, but we must now do away with it.

You don't need to know a person's whole life story to call them a friend, and you don't need to know the totality of God in order to worship him. The different religions almost always extol humility as a virtue, yet they're almost never willing to admit that God might be too complex for them to understand him fully.

I understand faith; I have a kind of it myself. But it's important to remember that faith is like any other feeling a person has - it's true and meaningful to them, but sometimes it can steer them wrong if they don't fully understand it.

Another Poor-Me Rant

I want to live a lavish lifestyle; there's too much fun to be had in the world for spending a couple thousand bucks a month on enjoying oneself to be an unreasonable wish. And I am sick and tired of seeing society starve for cash because a bunch of lawyers and realtors and advertising execs, not satisfied with simply cheating customers out of money in exchange for doing basically nothing, also squat on their treasure hordes like nesting dragons, refusing to spend a single penny on anything but status symbols to prove how extravagant they are. I could have a million dollars and still dress the way I do, live in a three-room apartment, and go everywhere on the bus. Yet am I permitted to save up my spare cash and go on a vacation now and again? No, because a bunch of spoiled fatcats have decided they're entitled to my mad money so they can pay country club dues or buy an Armani suit. What must it take to bring some joy and enlightenment to this world of stifling mundanity?

The Genius and Folly of Comic Book Naming

I make no secret of the fact that I have a deep and abiding love for the superhero genre of comic books (I say it this way in a futile attempt to get this country to finally remember that there were about one and a half decades in the 20th century when comic books consisted mostly of Westerns and romance stories with barely a superhero in sight). The idea of "right makes might" and "power begets responsibility" that lies at the heart of most superhero tales has always appealed to my sensibilities, and I rank the very finest superhero tales (mostly those written by Alan Moore and Kurt Busiek) among the true classics of modern literature. But while there are hundreds of great superhero tales, there are thousands of bad ones, and even the finest epics usually contain a few groanworthy nods to the long term fans...those who fell in love with comics during an age when it had never occurred to anyone that they should be taken seriously or make any kind of realistic sense.

All of which is a longwinded and excessively highfalutin' way of saying that a whole lot of the stuff in comics of superhero stripe is just plain silly, and indeed many fans even more hardcore than me (the well is deep) point out that half the fun of being a comic-book grognard is mocking the absurdities and abominations that the publishers used to (and still often do) get away with.

For example, let's consider this handsome fellow:



This is Black Bolt, an acquaintance of the Fantastic Four who somehow has not yet managed to make it into a movie with Jessica Alba. It might have something to do with the fact that he's also the king of a race of what would certainly be regarded today as mutants, had Marvel not already decided upon a specific in-universe meaning for that once-obscure word. So instead, Blackie's people are known cleverly as "Inhumans", and he is their leader (or at least has been for most of the 40-odd years since he was written into being; I have no idea whether he's still in charge as of the current storyline, but either way I think that what's been true for longer than my lifetime should be considered a reasonable assumption overall).
So my point in bringing Bolty here up is to highlight an aspect of the character more interesting to non-fanboys (and occasional -girls) than his incredible sonic power or the dramatic history between his deranged megalomaniac brother and his girlfriend who does that thing with her hair. This most salient fact is Mr. Bolt's "real" name, for he wasn't always the Inhuman king, once he was just another powerless infant citizen of Inhumania, having not yet earned any powers (or, as far as I know, a costume, though who knows what passes for toddlers' fashion in a regime willing to go by such a name), let alone a "totally radical" codename. So what did the parents of the future Black Bolt decide to name their then-ordinary child?

BLACKAGAR BOLTAGON.

Holy crap, that's Inhuman alright. I mean the worst thing about this name is that it sounds so almost-cool that I kinda hate to make fun of it, but it nonetheless marks young Master Boltagon Esquire as a textbook suffererer of RANS (Ridiculously Appropriate Nomenclature Syndrome). This condition is also known as Edward Nygma's Disease, in memory of the unfortunate young man whose parents' decision to call their little boy E. Nygma was undoubtedly a factor in his decision later in life to embark on a career of brainteaser-centric crime as the nefarious Riddler; had the Nygmas gone with Robert as a name, Gotham might be just a little safer today. And while Black Bolt's name doesn't precisely appoint him a destiny in the same fashion, it nonetheless comes across as being clearly ridiculous in a manner that weakens the reader's suspension of disbelief that much faster. We can accept the physically impossible easily enough in a fictional context, but the socially unreasonable bothers us, because we know it to be applicable not only to the character but to those responsible for writing him.

RANS is a recurring affliction which is endemic among a huge percentage of the superhero population. It afflicts heroes (Doctor Steven Strange, the flaming Ghost Rider who was born Johnny Blaze, or John Henry Irons aka Steel), villains (besides Riddler, famous sufferers include Victor Von Doom, mad scientist Thomas Oscar Morrow, and perhaps most famously, Otto Octavius, who has four pairs of limbs), innocent bystanders, love interests, sidekicks, and even cities or countries. There is some justification for the latter, of course, as many geographical regions are named for a salient local feature - Iceland for its ice, Greenland for its green ice, Finland for the fins on the tips of its mermaid citizens' tails, and America for the ickiness of its native Amers. But sooner or later, when an entire book is filled with nations named Evilstan and Crueltonia, you have to start asking yourself why the local chamber of commerce has never hired a consulting firm to help them improve their image. And it's even worse when you see it happening to people; it'd be strange enough to have a guy named Cal F. Ornia living in the Golden State, but if we were living in a comic book he'd be a shoo-in for the governor's office.

Disgustipated

We are all flawed, fallible, and not to be trusted, and we are also all spectacular, irreplaceable, and capable of untold wonders. This suggests that the best thing to do is to keep us in gilded cages, happily playing and doodling and telling stories, while something that lacks our frailties does all the work of keeping us alive and imprisoned until we grow the fuck up enough to actually run the world, instead of just running it into the ground. As long as we are twitchy, narrow-minded, and lazy, as long as we are forced to compete over limited resources and tempted to kill each other over doctrinal disagreements, as long as we can't control ourselves, preserve our world, or protect each other, we do not deserve to be masters of our own destiny. We should always crave freedom, but we should have to earn it, not simply seize it when no one is stopping us. Our lives are not to be squandered by hatred or fear; our uniqueness must not be snuffed out through intolerance or misfortune; we must have a world which protects us, even if it can only do so by fossilizing us. Better to have the possibility of a perfect life someday, even if someday never arrives, rather than the actuality of a lousy one right now which is the only one we'll ever get. Let the Matrix come true, and let us wait a thousand years for Neo to show up; I say we deserve it.

You may thank racist cops and rigged juries for this post; that's what's got me in a sour mood today. Every time I try to exalt in humanity's potential, I am ground down by the millstone of our depressing actuality. When will Superman come impose his iron rule upon us for our own good? When will the aliens put us in our kennel and housebreak us? How much longer are we to be trapped like six billion rats in just one cage, up to our eyeballs in our own filth, scratching and biting at each other out of hunger and rage and paranoia? Why must we wake to a nightmare every time our dreams fade away? I say let it end; let it all end, and let us be judged by what we wished we could have done, rather than what we were forced to actually do.