An enlightening discussion with a friend today on the issue of the spread of democracy in the world helped me to clarify some of my thoughts on the matter and to come to a few (as yet, not fully developed) conclusions. Of course, we had to begin with the neoconservative experiment on exporting democracy to troubled states, and of course we began with Iraq.
Marjane Satrapi, author of the delightful book Persepolis (made into an equally delightful movie), once said during a lecture before an MIT audience two years ago that you cannot bring democracy to a people by first bombing them. Her assertion was correct but how then can democracy spread? Each country is different, we need to at least acknowledge as much, some in profound ways and some in minor ways. Territories that have been peopled by the same ethnic group(s) continuously over long periods of time have their own unique political histories. When
Martin Luther, a German monk, posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle in 1517, he set into motion seminal events -- most notably the
Protestant Reformation -- that would radically alter the trajectory of European history & politics. Five hundred years ago the seeds for modern
European democracies, a
"government by the people for the people", were established whose fruits including freedom of speech, separation of church & state, independent judiciaries, checks & balances, people in free societies take for granted everyday. The reformation represented a movement to question authority, to disavow privilege, to emphasize rationality, and most importantly to respect individuality. A period of profound instability ensued spanning four centuries involving endless wars & massive destruction and eventually culminated in the triumph of modern republican ideals through populist revolution and overthrow of monarchies. The Islamic world, at the time in the sixteenth century a comparably devout though culturally advanced medieval society (as evident in numerous achievements in
mathematics, astronomy, visual art among others), never experienced such an awakening and one could argue that its legacy is manifest today. And so when on
March 19, 2003, American troops poured into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's government, the incontrovertible dichotomy of many centuries of political evolution reached a boil. Now of course I am glossing over many, many events & details, but I simply wish to make the point that a serious failure to fully appreciate the nuances of the regional situation lead to such a catastrophe whose history is currently being written. The United States & other European powers had been continually
meddling in the region since oil was discovered in the early 20th century. Autocratic, despotic regimes ruled by tyrannical dictators - the Shah of Iran, the Saudi Royal family, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and Saddam Hussein himself -- had been continually propped up in order to guarantee access to cheap oil, that most vital of commodities driving the world economy in the post Industrialization age. Is it any wonder then that such cruel suppression of the people gave rise to such violent extremism, fanned by the flames of fanatical religion? I am continually puzzled when I hear native-born Americans tell me that their government is not acting in the interest of its people when pursuing such deleterious foreign policy. Yet it is usually the same people who demand cheap fuel for their oversized, gas-guzzling automobiles or insist on paying almost nothing to consume meat (produced from animals raised on very cheap corn harvested by fossil fuel-based fertilizer). There is indeed a "hidden" (and ugly) cost to the rampant consumerism that exists and I am not suggesting that capitalism and by corollary globalization are ills to be singled out. I am only suggesting that we raise our consciousness, to borrow a phrase from Richard Dawkins (though used in an entirely different context), and be mindful of the ramifications our materialistic lifestyles.
There is a fascinating
Nature podcast interview this week with the noted Harvard (formerly of MIT) cognitive psychologist
Steven Pinker on the origins of modern swear words. Pinker, celebrated author of the influential book
The Language Instinct (on my summer reading list this year) is an expert on what language reveals about human cognition and he is at his best when dissecting grammar, figures of speech, syntaxual formalisms and the like. He begins by remarking that the quintessential swearing idiom in the English language (f--- you!) has no universal meaning. Moreover, statements like ``close the f-ing door'' make no logical sense at all and we must ask how the f-word came to have such uses. Pinker argues that in every context in which the f-word is invoked, there exists a "religious antecedent". That is, in former times when religion held a more ubiquitously prominent role in society, it was conventional that items of little value that needed to be disparaged were damned by God (``close the God-damnned door''). Over time, as Western societies embraced liberal, secular traditions, the choice of religious associations began to lose poignancy and thus had to be replaced. Furthermore, synonyms like feecees (I use the incorrect spelling because of a censure worm running on the blog server) & sh-t were necessary to distinguish intended effect since the latter word has strong offensive connotations while the former word is strictly objective. Pinker's eloquence and seamless choice of pertinent examples help him convey his ideas with ease. Additionally, he discusses how language is suffused with particular world views that science has been forced to readdress. As an example, he points to the anthropic nature of language to instill ``beingness'' in cats which is counter to all known findings of evolution. I look forward to exploring more of his works in the near future.
Have you ever thought to yourself during a typical day in the urban jungle: why is my environment so unnaturally loud? As long as I can remember I have had very sensitive hearing and as I have grown older I have become keenly aware of their inevitable degeneration. Last year for the first time in my life, I had a thorough auditory exam at MIT following concerns that I might be suffering from
tinnitus. I was made to sit in a soundproof room and identify a range of tones at a multitude of volumes in both ears (thankfully, I was deemed to have perfectly normal hearing). My love for language & music necessitates that I keep my auditory range as robust as possible & I aspire to maintain the high quality of auditory sensory perception that I have been genetically endowed with well into old age. More recently on my daily commute to campus, a brisk 10 minute walk across the main traffic artery linking Cambridge to Boston -- the (in)famous Massachusetts Avenue -- I have become increasingly attune to the harsh, booming sounds made by a never-ending assortment of tractor trailers, buses, honking automobiles and the perennial construction. Unnaturally loud sounds bother me in many ways: in addition to damaging my hearing & jolting my thoughts, they give me nasty headaches. When I was in Europe a couple of months ago, I learned that the European Union has very stringent labor codes that prescribe maximum noise levels in the work place. To my knowledge, there are no such standards in the United States at the federal & state levels. Responsibility in this libertarian minded society lies with the individual & so I took it upon myself to start thinking more seriously about this issue. I am convinced that today's iPod generation will be suffering from widespread hearing loss in a few decades owing to the ever increasing volume of music from sources placed within the ear canal. I am sure we all have experienced sitting next to someone on a bus or walking past them and hearing the booming music from their ear buds at a distance (nevermind the raucous automobiles that are fitted with the highest wattage speakers that blare trite music). The problem here lies in our tendency to increase the volume above the natural limit to dangerous levels without realization so as to overcome ambient noise. The ubiquity of portable electronic devices, cell phones and MP3 players in particular, have placed increasing strain on our hearing system to cope with unusually high volumes placed at very close distances to our ears for prolonged periods of time. I gave up listening to music on headphones several years ago because I was alerted to this issue by a roommate of mine in my junior year at the University of Toronto whose mother was a professor of speech pathology (at the University of Western Ontario) who had advised her son never to wear headphones (rather austere, but nevertheless beneficial in the long run). I now wear ear plugs whenever I walk to campus or go running outside & have noticed that they have immeasurably enhanced my enjoyment of being outdoors. Some might think it strange to wear ear plugs while engaged in strenuous physical exercise, but I highly recommend it for you will be listening to your pulsating heartbeat and can better assess your workouts (try it if you haven't). I have experimented wearing ear plugs wherever I go and have discovered that I can have normal conversations and still hear necessary sounds (perhaps a tribute to my ultra sensitive hearing). Lately I have begun to wonder whether I could design a device that can
selectively attenuate acoustic frequencies. My dream is to be able to stand in an airport runway and have a conversation at normal speaking volume with someone standing next to me. In other words, what if you could remove certain frequencies (like the bassy, rumbling sound of a jet engine) but admit vocal frequency ranges? Perhaps this can be done, but it would have to be manufactured cheaply to compete with inexpensive foam ear plugs which identically attenuate all frequencies. This is an interesting idea that I am pursuing.