Retrospect: 2006

I don't much care for all the usual year end baloney, person of the year, year that was, etc. I tend to think of life as an on-going process, not determined by calendars, holidays or other humanly contrived events. But, for me, this year marked a number of significant changes in my outlook and my life.

What has had the greatest impact is the seemingly irretrievable step-down in my physical condition. I am typing this with just two or three or four fingers, making many mistakes requiring many corrections. I have trouble holding onto things, most recently coffee cups. Money always slipped through my fingers; now shiny, smooth things do so as well. I stand on rubber legs, which makes walking a tedious and uncertain business. I recently replaced a patio door - yes, I can still do things - but it took me several days instead of the less than one day I expected, and I am not yet done with adjusting, fixing and trimming. Using power tools such as saws has become a scary business. Keeping my balance while handling tools and parts is more and more of a problem. These limitations extend to the kitchen as well, where chop, cut and pare have become dangerous operations. I also have to take special care handling pots full of boiling stuff and hot pans in the oven, as I have practically no feeling in my hands.

A year ago, I had nearly full use of my hands. I didn't wobble on my legs, and I had a much better idea of where my feet were. I don't know what is going on, although the doctors attribute most of the symptoms to the advance of diabetes. Nonetheless, as previously reported, using insulin actually made things worse, not better. I am still trying to figure out whether METFORMIN helps or hurts, or does nothing. It used to help a lot, but now I think it only helps a little. I spend a lot of time taking pills, making measurements and trying to correlate treatment with results. However, I am convinced I am on a slow, inevitable slump into the ground.

I am fortunate in several ways. I bought kitchen gadgets that take most of the danger out of cooking, although Shiow complains they occupy most of the working counter. Of course, one does not need as much counter space when using an electric slicer instead of doing it with a knife and board. It turns out there's also less clean up work after using these plastic, no-stick machines. Using machines, I can make salads, soups, meats, breads, deserts, etc quickly with less waste than before. I actually reduced meal preparation time, although it still takes much longer than in the days of yore.

I don't need household help, yet, but that word "yet" reflects a major change of perspective. I won't be doing any more construction projects, although I can cook, clean and manage myself. In the future, I will have to find the money to pay people to do whatever I cannot or let it go. I dread anything else in this house breaking or wearing out. That is the change of perspective. A year ago, I compared myself to the world of active, working people. Now I compare myself to the disabled and aged who need household help, assisted living, nursing care or last rites. This is very difficult to accept. It is said that diabetes adds twenty years to one's age, and it certainly feels it.

I think very few people are prepared for old age as now lived; we all assume we are 21 forever. When I was in my twenties, I assumed I would live to 65-70, which was the age most men died in those days. Since then, more people are living much longer. This creates the problem of living an extended life for which I never prepared, and for which it was unreasonable to prepare. I took more steps than most people to provide for retirement, including a high rate of saving and investing, but all that effort was wasted. I did not plan for a market crash that would take away most of my retirement assets, or an unforgiving market which still leaves few opportunities for recovery. I did not think I was taking a lot of risk, but it turned out otherwise. I am just one of millions fleeced by the rich and wealthy since the Bandit took office, which is one reason I have no compunctions about taxing the rich and wealthy to pay the cost of welfare.

Because I felt it was late in my day,  I wrote GSQ so as to cover most of what I believe. I take it as a summary, not a detailed examination, of the many issues raised. For example, I believe my criticism of Capitalism was proven long ago, so the case merely needed to be stated not investigated. I had high hopes the cost of my effort would at least be justified in sales; i.e., I would at least break even. That has not been so. Very few people are interested in anything I have to say, so I was disappointed. Also, I was not surprised to learn that sales of newspapers and most books are declining: those industries have fallen on hard times. Apparently, people spend their time watching TV and don't read things, not even on the Internet. Young people, especially, get their news from Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" (Comedy Channel) and opinions from Youtube. None of that comports very well with a lengthy book. Despite all that, I will probably print a few more hard bound copies of the re-edited GSQ, the third printing now in paperback.

I don't know where that leaves me about Moral Agents. In refreshing my memory and reading through work in ethics since my graduate school days, I note a definite shift in point of view. I left off my graduate studies in philosophy about the time John Rawls finished and published his A Theory of Justice. At that time, contractualism was all the rage in social services circles, a first step in what became the Conservative politicization of social services, including welfare, social security, etc. Since those student days, apparently philosophy has become both more conservative and hard headed as well. On the one hand, there has been a rebirth of Virtue Ethics, founded by Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics. That book was intended as a guide to proper conduct for male scions of the elite classes, such as Aristotle's students. It wasn't intended for the masses, but it remains required reading for philosophers of all classes. On the other hand, recent philosophy also emphasizes our descent from the apes and the enduring influence of primate behavior on H. sapiens. In other words, there are beautiful young men, and then there are beastly apes. I am definitely not in  sync with those views of the world. So, this time, maybe I will just print a few copies of the book, if I decide to organize it for official printing. (It's a lot of work to edit a book into an officially printable version. If I had the money or a volunteer, I'd hire an editor.) I have no expectations whatever about interest in my ethical views. That's a shame, since, as nearly as I can determine from my review of the field, I have fairly unique ideas about ethics. That is, some of what I think is actually new, not a rehash of this or that theory. Those interested can e-mail me.

I learned this year that the interests of academia eventually overwhelms its members. The Philosophical Society is still as stuffy as it ever was, and primarily concerned about the employment of professional (that is, academic) philosophers. Philosophy is not supposed to get out of control. One good thing about the invasion of the biologists is that philosophy is now careening around the official guide posts, one of the few times that has happened since the days of Plato, Aristotle, Confucius and Mencius. Free thought - what this site is all about - is actually not that popular in academic departments. Freethinkers have an unfortunate tendency to undermine certificates and position, which is why we have Peer Review. Thomas Kuhn noticed this and applied the term "paradigm." I have often wondered whether holding a job in the Swiss Patent Office made possible Einstein's revolutionary 1905 papers on gravity and quantum effects. Academia is about preserving and transmitting the wisdom and work of the ages, goals which I heartily approve. But that work requires the dedication of monks, or personal bearers of books as in Fahrenheit 451, which is not conducive to original thinking. Where Clark Kerr's Multiversity sponsors or administers original research, the hired guns are usually ensconced in a sharashka separated from the classroom by work schedules, security checks and many miles. Even today, much of the original work in technology and science is sponsored by industry and government. for competitive, unfriendly or diabolical reasons, not to fulfill the intentions of academia. How do I know this? Because I worked in one. Because Alexander Solzhenitsyn worked in one.

I am reminded that, in 1963, I was kicked out of the Philosophy Department by an independently wealthy Professor of Metaphysics. He inadvertently discovered my crime: holding a job to support myself and a wife. In his conception of the world, philosophers were not supposed to work. The Department even had a rule against it. Appointing himself judge and jury, he revoked all my registrations in the Department's courses. I believe that Professor was later adamantly opposed to the Free Speech Movement, one of whose leaders, Mario Savio, was an undergraduate student in his Department. Somehow, I associate those Professorial views with Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics.

Finally, apart from my mortality and insignificance, I reverted to the position of my graduate school years and many years thereafter. Having disaffiliated from the Democratic Party, I accept in earnest the socialist thesis: Democrats and Republicans are two faces of the same (Capitalist, Imperialist ...) coin. That is a way of saying they are two faced, but stamped on the same underlying material. I am no longer concerned with the composition of  that material, as I am convinced it is poisonous for ordinary people. I spent most of my life as an independent, politically and otherwise. (I was a GDI in college, and lived alone more than not.) I spent some time with Democrats in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but became disenchanted in 1995 when Clinton signed on with the Republicans. I realized the unfortunate truth that a lust for power (ambition, sometimes megalomania) is often disguised by words depicting concern for people. The begged question is simple enough: which people?

In my arrogant isolation, I have come to believe the disinterest people show in my and similar works reveals History in detail. Processes engineered and powered by the people themselves will bring about certain conclusions. I cannot stop them. I doubt anyone can stop them. It is only possible for Cassandra to learn what is likely to happen. The ancient advice about packing one's bags is still the best available.