Previous articles in this series:
Assaying Entropy II: Dying During Covid
Assaying Entropy III: Thinking about Covid
Assaying Entropy IV: Covid and America
Assaying Entropy VI: Democracy in America
Assaying Entropy VII: American democracy
Assaying Entropy VIII: Education in America
Assaying Entropy IX: Reading, writing, and arithmetic
Assaying Entropy X: Science, non-writing, expertise, discussion
Assaying Entropy XI: Language and Covid
Assaying Entropy XII: Individuality, choice, and hierarchy
In 2022, the CDC counted 243,710 Covid deaths based on death certificates. While there are many possible causes of inaccuracy in this figure, the uncertainty is less than it was two years or three years ago because locally (death certificates being local) we’ve learned to specify cause of death from Covid more accurately. Excess death numbers are still being calculated, but they will likely show the death certificate count is just a slight bit low. At any rate, it is a large number of people dying. It makes Covid the third leading cause of death among us, after heart disease and cancer. Yet, we are about to end the emergency officially.
The counts for the whole pandemic look like this:
2020: 385,666 Covid deaths out of 3,390,039 all cause deaths.
2021: 463,199 Covid deaths out of 3,471,759 all cause deaths.
2022: 243,710 Covid deaths out of 3,251,501 all cause deaths.
Clearly we are doing better, and clearly for now, it is because the vaccine saves more lives than it takes. The reduction between 2021 and 2022 mostly (along with less virulent viral mutations) reflects the vaccine’s affect since we certainly did not lockdown or personally increase our vigilance this past year.
In January, 2023, the still unvetted death certificates tentatively showed 9,378 Covid deaths. That’s about 112,000 deaths we will be looking at this coming year. I fail to see how the pandemic is over. Put in terms of Sierra County, our share of this death toll will be between 3 and 4 elderly dying this year. Given the amount of evidence showing the advantage of vaccination over non-vaccination, these random 3 or 4 people will die because we have instilled in this county a heavy dose of vaccine hesitancy and fear, because we as individuals are unable to respect our limitations in knowledge and thought and at the same time refuse to listen to others, because individually we want to return to normal, not wear masks, socialize, and forget who those 3 or 4 people will be because chances are they won’t be us, because of our collective carelessness, and because in this collective carelessness and care for the self we believe that we are behaving as we ought in a free and democratic society, choosing to do what we want in regards our own future.
I have been arguing that our choices should first consider the benefit of the whole, that we think of preventing these 3 or 4 people from dying before we think of what we individually want. I see this point of view as a minor strand in American history and culture, but losing that perspective is what I am calling carelessness, not directly intentional. That loss is a loss in social cohesion, which is why I introduced the idea of entropy at the beginning of this discussion.
Entropy is an irretrievable loss of energy. It derives from calculations of heat movements in cyclical engines that use the changing relationships between the pressure, volume, and temperature of a gas to produce work. Because these relationships are mathematical, I found it difficult to give an example of entropy that gave imagistic and easy access to this concept, and so, I thought of using my “dropping the shoe” analogy, a mechanistic rather than thermodynamic system. The basic reason you cannot make perpetual motion is because of entropy. I want here at the end of this series to give you another image of entropy which may be closer to an example and less an analogy (though as an example, it also has its flaws). It comes from statistical mechanics where, again mathematically, it turns out that entropy measures randomness.
Imagine a small box full of a gas inside a larger, empty box. That is the initial state of this isolated system. If all the gas molecules are bouncing around the small box randomly, the level of that randomness might be expressed as the probability of finding at any given moment the presence of a particular molecule at a particular location. We then open the little box, so that the gas fills the larger one. This is the end state of this natural process in which the system’s temperature and pressure will have dropped. The probability of finding one particular molecule at a particular location is much less because the space is greater and the molecules are traveling slower. That reduction in probability shows that randomness has increased: the final state is less ordered than the initial one in the sense that it has greater multiplicity of possible configurations of molecules. The whole process is not reversible without putting energy into the system. Mathematically, the entropy of the whole system is increased by the process, and that increase corresponds to greater randomness.
Our carelessness in regards the deaths of these 3 or 4 neighbors because of our mores of individuality is entropic. It increases randomness and multiplicity in our society. I have identified the historical and cultural sources of this growing randomness as a conflict between views of how the nation is constituted, whether it is conceived collectively as a union or whether it is conceived individualistically as a random group of separate and distinct people. I argue that for historical reasons, our culture has seen a recent growth of the individualist view, which has fractured the cohesiveness of the society. This loss is, for me, figured in the breakdown of language, a major glue of social relations. Thus, I looked at loss of communication in reading and writing because the tools this society has in the past used for cohesion are precisely the abilities associated with written language. I do not say that oral language does not create its forms of social cohesion, but in the western world, written texts have formed its pillars.
Written texts, documents, whether in science or law, structure this society. Unlike fleeting, vanishing speech (we need to think about recordings), written language allowed, (in fact) created, the possibility of reexamination and therefore critical examination. Since it existed independently of the writer, it also allowed a certain freedom from the personal power of speech. Analysis and analytical thinking depend on having a text that fixes language and thought in an objective way. We have all experienced the decay of oral argument between intimates that degenerated to a you-said-I said unresolvable conflict. Rational argument begins with a text. It is notable that Greek democracy and the critical philosophy of engaged debate arose after the invention of writing, ironically projected by Plato into oral language in his Dialogues. In western history, orality is associated with uncritical repetition by rote of myths and poems; that is, the values of the culture are sustained and perpetuated through memorizing the words of the past and the authorities of the past. Writing created the possibility for a different way of preserving the past but one which includes the kind of critical discussion that changes the authority of the past.
On the other hand, writing, because it is the product of education, has been usurped as an instrument of elitism and power. Authorship, the production of documents, becomes authority and thus upholds authoritarianism. Therefore, it is not surprising that anti-authoritarianism adopts instinctively an oral style of language. But that choice is a mistake, I am saying, because it entails an entropic dismissal of those very aspects of language that we need to rise equitably to a common hazard such as Covid.
This really reminds me of a book I read discussing the debate on the merits of Relativity between Einstein and Bergson. And to me it highlighted the continuing decline of the influence of philosophers, as the scientific method and logical positivism began to supplant the more subjective, personal and complex impressions and interpretations of the world as seen from the conflicting viewpoints of many literate, intelligent and powerful (at the time) men. These pieces have components of both views, the scientific and the philosophical. And one (the scientific) seems to be used as a bulwark for the other
I just received this email today from my colleague, Deb Nicoll, and the linked article seems pertinent: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/11/health/covid-pandemic-seniors.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
Intriguing Information. I suppose you have read Buknin? Seems familiar to me. Also feels hopeless.
The professor didn’t respond when I asked if he was a liberal. Guess that was a response. I’ve reviewed this article a couple times and finally came to a conclusion myself. It appears to be more about showing the intellect of the writer verses providing any useful information. Even though he does provide supporting data, “that even the laypeople can read”. So we haven’t done as good a job on Covid as we should because we’re selfish. The underlying reasons remind me of a cartoon an old friend mentions often when he tells me something which pretty much sums up my opinion on the articles. Picture an old man, like the professor, sitting cross legged and commenting to one hoping for some wise advice. And he says “I’m not going to reveal to you the true meaning of life if you keep saying BS after everything I tell you”. I have been similarly enlightened by the cartoons that use to appear in the Citizen.
That’s funny. I remember answering Larry about being liberal and liberalism, but then being a doddering, old professor, I might misremember. And, I certainly don’t remember having said that we did poorly on Covid because we are selfish. Maybe my talking about carelessness suggested selfishness, but one doesn’t have to be selfish to be careless. Maybe subjectivity is related to selfishness. I don’t know, but I’m pretty certain that in the eighteenth century when the culture was dominantly objective – that is, when people thought of the world as objectively out there rather than just reflecting their own subjective perceptions – there was just as much selfishness as now. I don’t think selfishness has anything to do with hierarchical structures in themselves or with statistical reasoning. So, ye olde professor denies that he was trying to talk about how we all became selfish over the years (even if it were true that we are selfish).
The most interesting point Larry makes seems to me his distinction between lay people and academics. This was certainly not a distinction that the writers of the Constitution would have recognized. Public discussion of society, governance, policy, etc., as evidenced by the discussions at the Convention, made no such distinction. Intellectual debate that exercised historical knowledge, philosophical positions, logical formats, reasoned conclusions did not get labeled professorial but was engaged in by all, as lay people. How did it come about that two hundred years later the same kind of discourse conjures up memories of the schoolroom? Perhaps to add to what I said about language change and the movement away from written discourse to oral speech mode, one should think about how, over the last centuries, we have institutionalized intellect, bricked it into the ivory tower, and thereby erased the public intellectual from our midst.
I’m afraid that Larry’s satirical cartoon of my articles is much more subtle than Kyle seems to think. But leaving aside the irrelevancies of ad hominem responses, Kyle’s belligerence hinges on a misunderstanding of what I wrote.
The intent of this series of articles has been to uncover the ways an overly strict belief in individualism has undermined the ideal of democracy. I’ve acted on this intent in several ways. First, I’ve framed the argument with a law of thermodynamics, implying that human actions follow inevitable processes beyond our control, either collectively as humans or individually by choice. Second, I’ve set the argument in historical terms to show, again, that who we are and who we think we are are formed by the past in ways that we, individually, have had no say in; that is, we are creatures of history and not agents of history. Third, I’ve carried on this historical demonstration in structural (not individualist) terms, in political, social, and cultural formations such as capitalism, militarism, philosophical schools of thought, etc., rather than treating history as a series of individual heroes. This is all to say that while we in our own skins think of ourselves as individuals, our individuality is something of a personal myth in so far as our attitudes, opinions, thoughts, and actions are greatly constrained by history, political, social, and cultural forces.
The terms of this discussion are abstract and conceptual, that is, intellectual, as Larry rightly recognized with his satiric metaphor of ye olde professor because as the Oxford dictionary also recognizes – but Kyle denies – “intellect” is commonly associated today with the academy: “the faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially with regard to abstract or academic matters.” Further, Larry very specifically complains that I write to show off my intellect, so Kyle is quite wrong to say that I assert the institutionalization of intellectuality. It derives directly from Larry’s correct recognition of the association.
Because this discussion’s subject, its procedure, and its terms undermine the notion of individual choice and therefore also of individual responsibility, it seems totally strange to think, as Larry and Kyle say, that I attribute the cause of our carelessness to selfishness, which, after all is an individual trait. The whole point of the discussion is to remove what is happening today in our society from the agency of individuals to the agency of larger forces of structure.
A necessary corollary to this de-individuation is the collective notion of equality (the very basis of democracy). We as individuals are equally subject to these larger forces, of society, or culture, ultimately of the language we think in and speak. And that equality denies the applicability of blame because it is something we cannot individually correct. I object to Larry’s summation of what he recognizes as “underlying causes” in terms of selfish behavior because it leads to blame. The ease with which the notion of selfishness as cause of our predicament allows Kyle to assert that I blame “racist republican rednecks” [deconstruct that one]. Democracy is precisely a social way of sharing responsibility and ridding us of the moralizing blame-game.
I wonder if Kyle recognizes himself in Larry’s cartoon as a disciple sitting at ye olde professor’s feet saying, “BS” to everything. It’s an image that captures the oddity that Kyle keeps reading and commenting on this despicable person’s writings. He likes to read BS? It also captures Kyle’s type of “opinion”; eschewing the model of, say, a legal opinion where the judge lays out the ground for a judgment by establishing facts from a bevy of evidence, interprets legislative and case laws for legal principles and theories, and applies the law to the facts to arrive at an opinion, Kyle prefers a single utterance: “snob” or “BS.”
Once again Kyle’s harangue reads like another example of excessive individualism (in spite of his references to class and race, or maybe because of them), a world without social or intellectual engagement where everything is personal likes and dislikes, where discussion is only a hodge-podge of conflicting, individual “opinions,” and where human relations are reduced to joining with the like-minded and ranting against those that you disagree with, what I have called throughout these assayings, a “careless world.”
Much as I think Kyle is wrong about the institutionalization of intellectual discussion in this country, I agree with his sentiment that it should not be, that intellectual discussion should be at large. But I also recognize that in the past, when intellectual discussion happened outside the academy, it was because education was elite and exclusive. Kyle is also right to think that higher education is still that even though the proportion of Americans with degrees increase every year, up to about a third now. Part of the reason for that expansion is the work and self-deprivations of hundreds of thousands of students who struggled to go to college but are demeaned by Kyle, who, nevertheless, fancies himself a champion of the working class. [And don’t forget their families’ sacrifices.]
At the same time as more people are educate in colleges and universities, the emphasis on functionality and utility in higher education has undermined the capacity for intellectual discussion both in and out of the academy. Most degree holders never learned to research, reason and write about public issues. For a thousand years, the university’s only social function was to promote civic discourse. We gave that up under the pressure of democratization, but we have not replaced it with a democratic system that focuses on civic discussion and thinking nor have we created conditions that foster public intellectualism (remember Kahneman’s fast thinking or the anti-intellectualism of the frontiersman). What we have instead is reportage of intellectual discussions in the academy by academics or media. If Kyle insists that public intellectual discussion outside the academy is common, I’d certainly like him to demonstrate some of it.
This “discussion” is hard to read. I feel a little naive to believe there may actually be something healthy about the exchange, but that’s the theory I’ll use to try again. This time through, I’ll remind myself not to consider any of the following words or expressions to be dirty, derogatory, or inflammatory:
Liberal
Conservative
Democrat
Republican
Socialist
Socialism
Communist
Communism
Free Enterprise
Capitalism
Exploit
Exploitation
Intellectual
Unsophisticated
Bureaucracy
Bureaucrat
Politician
Politics
Statesman
Political
Legislator
Philosophy
Philosophical
Argument
University
Farmer
Cowboy
Hard knocks
Snob
Lay Person
Bum
Bumpkin
Beg
Begging
Beggars
Aristocrat
Aristocratic
I think they might all be useful descriptors in a respectful discourse of unlike perspectives.