by
lwtc247
@ 30. Jul 2007 - 00:40:31
This article is prompted by the 1992 (MCMXCII) documentary called "To the brink of eternity" by Adam Curtis as part of the Pandora's box documentary series. It was an excellent piece of work and provided encouragement to me in the way I look at the universe and the plight of man. To assist you through this commentary, I've provided a childish, yet relevant diagram. to aid visualisation of my view.

This post touches on a number of issues.
1) The mathematical nature of the universe
2) Man separates rational thinking (evident, provable) from irrational (unexplainable) thinking.
3) Rational thinking is the domain of man, Irrational thinking is a further step on the path towards God.
7) Rationalization provides a fertile ground for atheism and agnosticism.
4) Bipolarization lies within the realm of rationality.
2) The nature of man is overwhelmingly bipolar.
3) The manipulation of mankind utilizes bipolarization.
Please do not misunderstand the sense in which I am using the word irrational.
I have a belief that the vast majority of ordinary people are strongly mentally manipulated, and the method by which this manipulation is achieved is bipolarization.. That so many are manipulated proves its effectiveness. It is easy to manipulate people this way because bipolarization is in tune with or species. It appeals to our sense of being. We are very much binary people.
Life - death
Microsoft - Apple
Boeing - Aerobus
Democracy - Communism
West - East
Intel - AMD
Labour - Conservative
Republican - Democrat
Liberal - conservative (small c!)
Loyalists - republicans
White roses - red roses
Positive liberty - negative liberty
"With us or with the terrorists"
crucially: IF - THEN
There may be a 'third way' in those choices, e.g. the Liberals alongside Labour and the Conservatives in the UK, but if a third choice is present, it is very often of little relevance. And please do not confuse the expression 'third way' with mass murderer Tony bLiar's so called "third way", which as it transpires, meant cloaking oneself in the colours of socialism yet pursuing a far right wing agenda.
I have come to believe that the closest we can get to 'seeing' the universe, and the creation of the universe is not just via mathematics, but mathematics itself! Math is the most fundamental subject - the central point of existence. Physics is the application of maths towards physical matter and systems. Chemistry is the consequence of physics in relation to atomic scale systems. Biology is the Chemistry of living systems. Art is chemistry, biology, sometimes physics, and perception. Perception being one of the irrational fields. Etc. Everything is mathematical and one could argue that, as everything can be simulated in a computer, therefore it demonstrates everything can be represented by 1's and 0's. I see it as no surprise that many philosophers were also scientists.
The documentary:
I have now seen many of Adam Curtis's documentaries. They are invariably political - Good!, and seek to explain why and how politics progressed along various lines following the second world war. They are excellent sources of information and highly relevant even to our lives today, particularly as westerners. Which brings me to a slight criticism, in that, they might have been even better pieces of journalism had they, where appropriate, incorporate a non-western viewpoint. But nothing's perfect.
Moving on, The documentary proved reassuringly useful to my own view because it dealt with a highly bipolar phase in human history - that of the cold war and therefore acted as a case study and revealed things about how man operates in such conditions.
In "To the brink of eternity", Curtis reports that After WW2, the US political fraternity came to believe the science of rationality/logic/statistics/systems analysis (choose your favourite term), could give significant levels of previously unavailable control, destiny and of course, advantage, to shape the world. The RAND {Research and Development} corporation, a 'scientific' think tank in California, were instrumental advocates of this political philosophy and soon became hugely influential within a number of US administrations from Kennedy even up to today?s incumbent, global killer, George W Bush. For a time, particularly over the three decade span from the 60's up to the 80's, US foreign policy became highly encapsulated sealed into this way of thinking.
[01:09]
Sam Cohen, Inventor of the neutron bomb, RAND Corporation 1947-1975:
"They believed, I think honestly at the beginning and fraudulently at the end, that they could create a better world and have control over this process of recreating the world through their science and their mathematics, because it all sounded so damn rational and so damn reasonable, as to be unassailable". A sort of ironic statement from Mr. Cohen it must be said.
As the documentary progresses, we are given more insight into the minds of these rationalists. Such as the strategist, Herman Khan, who believed you could control (and win) a nuclear war:
[07:53]
Albert Wohlstetter, RAND Corporation 1951 - 1992(min), one of the main men at RAND (*CHECK* that) who proposed these rational systems, in context of the cold war strategies, said: "I drew the analogy with the western gun duel. The gunmen and the sheriff were not necessarily morally equivalent, in any sense, but they each might find themselves in a position where they had to draw first in order to survive. And this would be a rational act if they found themselves in that position. So I wanted to design the posture where it would never make sense for an adversary on his own terms to attack"
[14:34]
Curtis says Under the strategists new plans, Soviets military targets would be annihilated first. Americas remaining missiles would be held back to threaten Russians cities and force the soviet government into submission. The most notorious proponent of these plans was Herman Khan left RAND and set up his own institute near New York. He was convinced a controlled nuclear war possible."
[15:02]
Herman Kahn, Consultant to Department of Defence, early 1960s: "Just because you go to war, that in itself may be an irrational act, or may not, but even you irrationally decide to go to war it doesn't mean you have to fight it in a wildly irrational fashion." The interviewer asks: "Many people feel that even if they survive a nuclear war, that things are going to be so awful and life is going to be so destroyed everywhere that they'd actually rather be dead." Kahn replies: "That's a almost completely standard reaction its really a reaction to try and prevent thinking about the subject. And I'll make a comment which gets me into a great deal of criticism let me make it anyway. Objective studies indicate that the post war environment, while hostile to human life, more hostile than the pre-war environment will not be so hostile as to quote "preclude normal and happy lives"
His daughter, Debbie Kahn gives a scenario of the strategists:
[16:00] said: "[say] There's an accident. We [the US] drop a bomb on Kiev. It was a fluke. We didn't mean to. The Russians believe we didn't mean to. Then There's a negotiation about where can we drop a bomb on something that?s of equal value of Kiev. IF we {the Soviets, in response} drop a bomb we can stop now. If we destroy something equal, we can sort it out."
[17:50]
Sam Cohen again: "These analysts were human beings. They were no ordinary human beings. They had more than a smattering of megalomaniacs, Herman Khan being one of them, Albert Wohlstetter, another megalomaniac. There was this feeling that they could gain control and a huge degree of power by doing these studies. and so these animists did indeed achieve their grandeous dream They were in full control." {i.e. advising the US administration and this administration lapping up}. More irony, None the less the point is there."
The Cuban missile crisis and the fact the planet had been brought to the edge of oblivion, showed serious flaws of the "rational" method they had employed to try forge America's way through the latter part of the 20th Century. In fact, or so it seems, it was an irrational act by Kennedy that averted likely global destruction.
[21:33]
Curtis: "In the End, president Kennedy ignored any idea of controlled {Ed: rational} war. Instead, he told the Russians that if they launched just one missile from Cuba, he would retaliate with Americas entire arsenal. To the strategists, this threat was irrational and humiliating."
[21:50]
William Kaufmann. RAND Corporation, Consultant to Secretary of Defence 1961-1980:
"My only Recollection is that one of disappointment. I mean President Kennedy indicated that the US had the capability to engage in massive retaliation. Which lead several of us to wonder why he had used this particular language and why he hadn't gone to what at least we though of as the more powerful and rational approach to deterrence. It seemed to me that it would be utter folly for us to go in what my colleague Herman Khan called a ?wargasm? and try and destroy everything we could because that in effect would sign the death warrant of the united states."
So we see the 'systems analysis' approach was applied to the cold war was a dangerous failure.
But actually the philosophy of the RANDites or RANDies if you prefer, WAS essentially actually correct!. Note: I am NOT saying the policies based on systems analysis were correct, or ethical - clearly they were not, but the idea that prediction and control could be achieved was correct because it was based on math, the playing field of the universe. Where they went wrong, was that their models were not good enough. This is understandable given the complexity of life, and humans.
Similarly, Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara?s blinkered application of rationalism was the foundation in their decision to bomb Vietnam.
Curtis narrates that the Vietnam war corrupted the scientific method for the sake of the politicians power. The corruption being that the military didn't follow the correct procedure according to the model. An example was given when a scared, old, Vietnamese woman, was shot in the back simply for fleeing a US platoon. Her manslaughter was ultimately recorded as being a VC member. The data feeding the model was corrupt. But still, this attribution to the failure of systems analysis because of this is erroneous, as the model was fundamentally flawed to begin with. The corruption I would say, merely accelerated the exposure of the model failure.
And Curtis makes another big contradiction, because he shows it was Kennedy's irrationality [21:33] that saved the day yet, later, [44:48] he says: "The strategists were part of an age that believed political problems the could be solved by the application of knowledge. Their success in preventing Armageddon, seemed proof that it worked. But they were lucky enough to inhabit a world that was simple. frozen by the deadlock between the superpowers. That odd moment in history is over and with it has gone the optimistic faith that the world was being changed for the better" But it was the use of irrationality that saved the day. The strategists had failed, and as we have seen - twice!
Here's some more on the minds of these analysts:
[26:15]
Futurist Herman Khan: "I would guess in a hundred and certainly in less than 200 years, if all go at all well, 90 or 95% of the worlds people will be living than current american standards of living. Your men will grow up in everywhere poor, everywhere the danger of hunger, starvation, through a life in which the technology largely insulates you from nature" {Ed: i.e. he's saying technology will remove the problems of starvation etc}
[25:25]
1967 Dr Olaf Helmer (*check name*) of the RAND corporation: "We wind up with world which has the following features: fertility control, 100 year lifespan, controlled thermonuclear power, continued automation, genetic control, man-machine symbiosis, household robots, wide band communications, opinion control and continued urbanisation."
Now this is spooky. These words are 40 years old and yet they mention wide band comms, genetic control, man-machine symbiosis, and most chillingly of all perhaps is "opinion control"!! - Must check up on Dr Olaf Helmer (*check name*)
Later in the programme, The Regan "Star Wars" years are mentioned, which essentially was a recycling of recent history of Khan's controllable and therefore winnable nuclear conflict. Lying sleazebag Donald Rumsfeld was also influential in the Regan administration and did a SECOND repeat of 'Khan history' with GW Bush missile defence shield and controllable conflict - Iraq. In Regan?s administration, a senior player in Star Wars strategy was Edward Teller. I'd guess Rumsfeld and he were associates.
[40:18]
Dr Hugh DeWill, Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. : "There were a small number of x-ray laser tests done underground in Nevada, but these tests were failures as weapons and that in no way could thing be made into a weapon force and used in space. In that sense they were failures, yet in spite of this, Edward Teller wrote glowing letters to high government officials under president Regan
[40:38]
Edward Teller: "This X-ray laser is a remarkable invention." Congressional testimony??
Teller wrote: "For instance, a single X-ray laser module the size of an executive desk, which applied this technology, could potentially shoot down the entire Soviet land based missile force, if it were to be launched from the (module steel lebeu??).
The war criminal, Robert McNamara, resigned in 1967, not because he was instrumental in the killing of countless Asians, but because he didn't meet the desired objective. Sick - I know.
In Montréal, McNamara said in a speech
Who is man?
Is he a rational animal?
If he is, then the goals can be achieved.
If he isn't,
then there is little point in making the effort.
Can you spot the problem with what McNamara says? Sure it looks sound when you read it, but the point is, he's STILL applying rationality. Of course he is - rationality is the domain of men. Not only that, he offers only two answers as the only possibilities, demonstrating bipolarization! We are locked into this way of thinking. McNamara should had addressed a third point in which rationality and rationality were both present. Irrationality needs to be factored into the model somewhere then the model will become strong enough to yield those results and control they are after. But irrationality is by nature, difficult (if not impossible) to penetrate. Even then however, if the desired control and order is achieved, the irrationality of people may result in strong rejection of an increasingly ordered world, and rightly so I'd argue. We are rational beings, but contain irrationality so the absence of absence of rationality or irrationality is against the human spirit, and when the balance between them is disturbed by a political lurch towards one side occurs, then that's when the problems start. I believe this idea is not new and is mentioned in oriental philosophy of Ying and Yang.
One reason why the lurch towards rationality may happen is because of lack of God consciousness. Belief in God/spirituality etc being irrationality side of us - an essential ingredient for balance.
[23:20]
George Ball, US Under-Secretary of State in Kennedy Administration 1961-1966: "I think the Americans have made a kind of theology about using scientific means to solve political problems. The belief that this is a kind of substitute for religion that you turn to these mysterious forces which we have begun to harness for the first time, and you can become the mater of everything and we don?t have to worry about other things"
When I heard George say these words, my thoughts on this matter came together and I was pleased with the result.
The non-believer has this world only to live in. His time is limited. He may feel that he must get the most out of it in the short time that he has. If so, he more likely to a very calculating person - employing rationality. To this person, the ends may well justify the means. Of course there will be exceptions - there has to be, because the irrational component in us is I believe in-extinguishable. The strong non-believer has the potential to become a believer. Non-believers may also want to leave the world a better place than they found it and may do acts of good, again because of irrationality. Rationality and irrationality are not evil and good respectively, but I'd say are amplifiers of good and evil. Those more willing to believe in things which may not be explainable, I believe will be closer to believing in God (of some description) and more likely, on the whole as being good people.