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The Stupidity of Practicality and the Practicality of Stupidity

/ Bruno Martins Soares / Leave a comment

The latest sexy idea I’ve been hearing about the American economy is that it is running a K- shape-economy. And economy where the middle/poorest classes are losing systematically, but where corporations and the richest Americans seem to be flourishing. It seems that the American economy is constantly flirting with stagflation, but GDP keeps growing north of 2% with stock market indexes constantly in record highs. In my view, this is a complete illusion. Economic downturn is already here, but the illusion of growth and prosperity is maintained by two simultaneous short-term factors: the first is the massive transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest created by the advent of tariffs, tax breaks, and exploding public debt – arguably the largest of such transfers in American history – which, ironically, increases the velocity of money in a very Keynesian way. The second is the immense debt bubble of the AI tech firms who have been massively borrowing to the edge of collapse. I’m afraid this flailing illusion can implode at any moment.

I think the American are vulnerable to this illusion as they have been completely overrun by short-term pragmatism. For all its virtues, this pragmatism, this obsession with problem-solving and usefulness of action is fundamentally stupid. Intelligence demands not only problem-solving abilities, but an understanding of complexity, cause and consequence, and critical thinking. Otherwise, short-term action can often do more harm than good.

Controversial psychologist Elliott Jacques (ironically lauded by his service in helping to structure one of the world’s most successful organizations: the US Army), equated intelligence with the ability to project in time the consequences and effectiveness of one’s actions. As such, the more intelligent someone is, the more he or she is able to predict the future and think how their actions will play out. Geniuses as Budda or Jesus Christ, would be able to think in terms of a very long time, perhaps eternity. A very intelligent person would be able to think in terms of years or decades. A simpleton would only be able to foresee a day or two.

From a different perspective, Hannah Arendt, analyzing the personality and attitude of Nazy officer Enrich Heichmann, seems to link the emergence of Evil, even the banality of evil, to a determination not to think. Not to think in moral terms and in principled terms. Heichmann, in her view, simple obeyed orders and did his job to the best of his ability – never mind that his job was to plan and execute the Holocaust. Thinking if this was right or wrong simply was not useful to him.

Speaking of the Human Condition, Arendt reflected on how life splits into three kinds of action: labor (as it pertains to everyday actions to eat, bathe, grow, reproduce, etc.), work (pertaining to our job and function in society), and action (pertaining to political action) – which she believed demanded a decision to think. Beyond her approach to vita activa, Byung-Chul Han refers to vita contemplativa: that ability to contemplate, meditate, reflect, value idleness and the simplicity of life which supports our ability to learn, to create, to develop spirituality, to love, and to give space to the Other, connecting us, as he puts it: “to the experience of being in which what is beautiful and perfect does not change or pass”. More than overcoming our need to think and get involved in political action, according to Han, our blind dedication to labor and work tramples our vita contemplativa, leaving us in a state of perennial activity, in profound tiredness, total exhaustion, devoid of choice, prisoners to our self-servitude behind the bars of our own success. In other words, it leaves us stupid, drowned in pragmatism and practicality. And also, drowning in debt, consumerism, depression, and anxiety.

This stupid focus on the short term is also very useful and practical. It allows for realpolitik. We could even say that Donald Trump’s major talent is one of recognizing stupid, understanding stupid, and performing to stupid. This frees political discourse. Truth and facts are no longer an issue.  If we don’t win, it’s a fraud. If we are losing, we are winning. If we are convicted, we are not sentenced, or the judges are betraying us. If we don’t want files, there are no files. If we want Venezuela, we get Venezuela. If they don’t like us, they are bad guys. If they question, they are attacking us. No obvious consequence. Long term consequences are for others. If there is no plan, there is a plan. Paraphrasing one of the famous “Don Tzu” memes: if there is no strategy, the enemy will never discover it. Confusion and incoherence are normalized – our day-to-day needs are a priority that shall not be ignored – we will not focus on anything else.

For this, faith is helpful. In a particularly pragmatic American way, William James would state that if faith brings comfort, morality, hope or a sense of purpose, it is already useful. This, I would say, precluding the need for a connection to reality, objective facts, or critical thinking, let alone the ethical standard of scientific knowledge. Again, practicality as an absolute virtue.

In this panorama, technological innovations emerge that enhance the unbalance. Atomic bombs are not particularly practical. They are expensive, difficult, and you can allude them to cause fear, but you can’t really use them. Drones, however, especially AI operated drones, seem harmless until they’re not. And they’re particularly practical. War making will be easier and easier to start if all we are apparently risking is a piece of machinery.

The same with the Internet: it apparently brings us all the information collected by Mankind to the palm of our hand. But most people, maybe even all of us, are not equipped to deal with that. We either allow ourselves to become confused or we slouch in exhaustion as we revel in cat videos, car crashes, bicycle prowess’s, or people intentionally hitting their own genitals on camera. We let the algorithm manipulate our views on politics, economics, history, and science. Having the information, it turns out, is not the same as having the education. Discussion is good and discuss we should. We should have opinions and we should trade them. But criticism is not the same as critical thinking – which implies rationality, questioning ourselves and others, understanding facts, be able to logically link causes and consequences. Nowadays students of all ages spend less hours in the class, study less, and learn less, even though they have higher grades. Our education systems are so behind the curve, we have no idea how to prepare our children for the world of today, let alone the world of tomorrow.

And then, there is AI, threatening to make all education obsolete. Why would we need books and education if AI solves all the problems? Why learn when you can prompt? This naïve infantile question has been uttered, as Big Tech corporations buy millions of old books and blindly destroy them to train the machines. They salivate as they envision a world that would be The Matrix, Fahrenheit 451 and Orlwell’s 1984 rolled into one. By destroying old books that no one is reading, they are making these pieces of paper useful and practical. The same thing with the art and texts created by artists and writers – mere consumer products that can be imitated by machines, if you think pragmatically enough. Mere uploads. Never mind the human connection, the creativity that led us through History, or the future of ideas and ideologies. Never mind dreaming of other worlds and exploring the core of the Human soul. These are not practical elements at all. It’s all a question of feeding consumers and submit them to spend.

(Data Dr. Gloria Mark at the University of California, Irvine)

Already in 1957, Hannah Arendt worried about this advent of automation. She worried about the divorce between knowledge and thinking. We would become “defenseless slaves”, she wrote. And defenseless slaves we are becoming, defeated by burnout, Mental Health issues, and, most of all, by the practical and useful stupidity of everyday life.

A Second Superpower Falls

/ Bruno Martins Soares / 4 Comments

After a decades long effort to undermine Western democracies, Vladimir Putin is now sitting back, crossing his legs, and remembering the old Napoleon’s adage: never interrupt an enemy when he’s making a mistake. And maybe even wondering: can Russia outlast Western democracy itself?

When I was young, there was some kind of certainty. The certainty that two major superpowers ruled the world. The United States of America on one side (the brilliant good guys) and the Soviet Union on the other (the cruel bad guys). This certainty wasn’t necessarily a good thing. There was a good chance, a frightening chance, that we would all die in a tragic smoldering nuclear war. In fact, in my lifetime, as it turned out, unknown to most at that point, we were very close to nuclear war at least a couple of times. And the fear was always there, way worse than the feeling some have today that we will parish from climate change catastrophes.

When Mikhail Gorbachov came to power in 1985, a refreshing new start seemed possible. Maybe a new peaceful détente, less dangerous. That the Berlin wall would collapse withing four years and the Soviet Union would collapse within six years was still completely unthinkable. And yet, it happened. The good guys won.

What was equally unthinkable at the time, and maybe even very recently, was that American democracy and American values could collapse in the same way. And yet, just before our eyes, we are seeing the collapse of a second superpower. Curiously enough, ironically enough, at the hands of its old foe. Putin often refers to the fall of the Soviet Union as the worst tragedy of the twentieth century, and he’s doing whatever he can to recover the global power he once knew as a KGB officer. To do so, hurting America and the West is high in his priorities. It’s very doubtful that Donald Trump would have won his first election, let alone the second, without the dutiful help of Putin’s Russia.

Obviously, many people, including myself, underestimated the decades long decay of American values within American society, which is now undoubtedly plagued by old ghosts: racism, religious fanaticism, nationalistic isolationism, blind cultural and social defaultism, economic hubris, ignorance and censorship, the degrading arrogance of empires. All terrible things that are contrary to the most democratic and liberal American core values, and which Americans had been able to fight off for some time – with mixed success in the past, and now utter failure.

Whatever helped Trump climb to power, though, the fact is that he is systematically and effectively undermining USA’s superpower status, which means we are now witnessing, to my utmost surprise, the collapse of a second superpower from within. Trump is doing brutal and pernicious violence to the system, and this will have lasting effects on America’s strength. He has inspired enemies and rivals to action and convinced allies to stay away and fend for themselves. He has alienated friendly partners, like Canada or Japan, and emboldened tyrants and dictators, like North Korea’s or Iran’s.

Electing Donald Trump not once, but twice, is the worst single mistake America ever made.

Sometime in the past, I believed in Trickledown Economics. I believed that an economy would strive if investment surged and companies hired more people. That belief died in 2008, as banks were bailed out, quantitative easing led to flowing liquidity to the banks (not the economy at large), and no one was charged with any wrongdoing. Instead of an increase in investment and hiring, what we saw was companies buying back stock and saving themselves – enjoying the spoils of a major wealth transfer scheme and leading to increased inequality through the whole system.

Now, we are seeing something similar in the US. Trump’s tariffs represent the largest tax hike since 1968 (according to JP Morgan), and Trump’s corporate tax cuts are the largest in American history. An incredible wealth transfer scheme from the poorest to the richest.

Of course, the markets are loving it, not only because the scheme will increase their profits, but because they’re enjoying buying back their stock. However, they’re not hiring – knowing this is poor economic policy and will eventually lead to a downturn. And inflation is growing – so the engine of American economy, the American consumer, is being squeezed. The dollar is going down the drain, dumped all over the world. And nobody is buying US debt, as everybody seems to guess where the country is heading. It will not be pretty. It’s not pretty already, and American agriculture will be the first to suffer. It’s already suffering, in truth, with some saying it is crumbling under a ‘financial calamity’ (Reuters). Until the end of the year, and beyond, we’ll see it get worse and worse.

As I’ve written before, I believe that the biggest threats in the world today are old enemies: Aristocratic Thinking, Elitism and Corruption. And they fuel all other kinds of monsters: inequality, dwindling ethics, cronyism and nepotism, racism and xenophobia, inaction in face of Climate Change, Famine, Disease and Genocide, slow down of innovation and development, war, populism and cultish fanaticism. And, of course, Donald Trump is the poster child of Aristocratic Thinking, Elitism and Corruption.

It’s a pity. I believe the world needs a strong and effective United States of America. One that champions the Liberal Agenda enshrined in its Constitution. One that doesn’t stand on realpolitik and convenience, but on principle and democratic values. And now, as it is collapsing faster than we would ever imagine, we still hope it wakes up and rises from the ashes. And we hope Europe and its allies stand out and hold up, protecting democratic thinking, equality and solidarity.

As Winston Churchill would say, Americans usually do the right thing in the end, after exhausting every other option. I hope Donald Trump is only the latest option to be discarded, and I hope it is discarded in time. A fleeting hope… Trust, that fragile, essential, valuable gem, will take a long time to restore.