The Doubter's Companion (24 page)

There is an alternative to this self-defeating argument. It would involve treating the differentiation between reason and instrumental reason as interesting semantics. It would also argue that we have more than two options—that a critique of reason does not have to be a call for the return of superstition and arbitrary power. Finally, it would suggest that our problems do not lie with reason itself but with our obsessive treatment of reason as an absolute value. Certainly it is one of our qualities, but it functions positively only when balanced and limited by the others. See:
HUMANISM
and
REASON.

INTELLIGENCE
   The ruling élite's description of its own strengths. It follows that this is the primary measure of
SUPERIORITY
among humans.

In the late twentieth century, superior intelligence apparently resembles ascending multiples of the crossword-puzzle mind. Its strengths are mechanistic, rational and linear. It tends towards narrowness, is fearful of the uncontrolled idea, person or event, as well as of intuitive or creative characteristics, and thus of
HUMANISM.
The exclusive is preferred over the inclusive. Controlled mediocrity is more intelligent than either original or sensible thinking because it is responsible to existing structures.

This can be seen in the standards, exams and competitions which control entry to the various levels of power: for example, in the SAT exams which serve as the primary entrance barrier to American universities or in the
concours
which control admission to L'ENA, the school which dominates France's political, administrative and business élites.

Those who support this approach might argue that these are the inevitable deformations of the ideal by reality. After all, the origins of the word intelligence can clearly be traced to the Latin
intelligere,
“to understand,” or literally, “to choose among.” In other words: to understand in order to choose among the various options.

But our contemporary understanding of intelligence seems to be obsessed by choosing but terrified by understanding. We concentrate on methodology, information and control, while fleeing the entertainment of doubt, which is central to understanding.

Is this a deformation of the idea of intelligence? Language is a reality, not an abstraction. It could be that if Western civilization decides to treat a narrow range of skills as if these were intelligence, then to all intents and purposes they are, unless someone else comes along with a more accurate reading.

Can mediocrity or what amounts to functional stupidity be turned into intelligence? Why not? Societies do with themselves what they wish. In the long run, their applied definitions of intelligence constitute a will to live or a form of suicide. We seem to be increasingly interested by the second option.

IRA
   The immediate image provoked by those letters is of Christmas shoppers—women and children—being bombed in central London. This pathetic scene could lead to two inaccurate conclusions. First, that the English are interested in the subject. (This definition will be the one least read in England.) Second, that blowing up women and children has harmed the IRA. Nothing in history proves that being seen as the good guy will help terrorists or militant nationalists accomplish their goal. A good image didn't help the Biafrans or the Kurds; lack of it is unlikely to hurt the IRA.

This is all the more reason for Ireland to interest the English. Yet the complex Irish questions—a Protestant-Catholic split within the North and between the North and the South; parallel class divisions in the North; the presence of the British army, to name only a few—are rarely raised in England over dinner tables or at business lunches or on country weekends. A novel written on this very rich ground is almost certain to fail. The only recent film to break through (
The Crying Game
) did so by using a black English soldier and a beautiful transvestite and setting almost all of the action in London.

Despite this general silence, there have been 3,000 murders in twenty-three years, 1,800 by the IRA. The total figure for 1992 was eighty-four.

The professional—political or administrative—interpretation of the situation turns upon specific issues such as arms shipments from Libya, ambitious Irish politicians, American funding, links with organized crime and tiny groups of fanatics. These groups believe that the desire for compromise found in all mainstream élites, who primarily want to protect their positions, can be destroyed by existential acts of violence which empty the centre of public debate. No viable ground then remains, except at the extremes. In such cases, the professionals see themselves as problem-solvers.

The professional analysis usually requires a sophisticated understanding of terrorist structures. As a result, weapon supplies may be cut off, organized crime exposed, financial sources blocked and messianic terrorist leaders eliminated. Yet somehow these clear and impressive victories almost never produce a decline in the power of the extremes. After a few months the terrorist structures mutate and a new bombing or assassination campaign begins. The authorities are momentarily discouraged, but soon factor in the new events and reanalyse the enemy.

However, the weapon supplier, whether Libya or another, was never the problem. Removing Khadaffi and his weapons from the equation was no doubt satisfying, but it was also irrelevant. There are always other arms to be had. The world is awash with them. And what terrorists need is not expensive.

Somewhat more important than terrorist structures is the weight of history. This is discounted by the professionals because neither political debate nor administrative process with its hunger for solutions has any use for the past except as a mythological dump from which fragments can be occasionally retrieved to dress up propaganda. The professionals think of society as a rational construct made up of three parts: bricks and mortar, systems or structures and individuals.

This approach eliminates the possibility that society might also be treated as a live body which has evolved out of the past. Many options for change lie ahead. The ability to respond to that future is limited, however, and often governed by what has gone before. Soldiers gassed in World War I did not enter track-and-field events after the armistice. Very few people denied education in their first twenty years go on to become intellectual leaders. Those who suffered personal tragedies in their youth are very different in later life from those who did not.

Societies are not very different from individuals. They cannot ignore or escape from their past. And if it contains great wrongs, then it may take generations and great care to escape the effects.

Even our problem-solving élites know this. Why else would they refer endlessly to the genius of Frederick the Great and Garibaldi; to the glory of France and the mission of America? If they don't believe in the relevance of the past, these positive memories are meaningless jingoism. If they do, then they must also accept that the IRA is the inevitable product of Cromwell's massacres and the virtual outlawing of an entire population's religion in the eighteenth century.

The more blindly vicious the actions of an extreme group over a sustained period, the more likely it is that they are the unconscious reverberation of some unresolved past. This does not mean that the English ought to feel sorry for the IRA or show leniency. It does mean that they will not solve the Irish problem by defeating them. Above all, it means that the English posture of boredom, contempt and lack of interest whenever the Irish question is raised reveals much more about the English than about the IRA. See
SOLUTIONS.

IRONY
   Not long ago an American president addressing Congress equated Saddam Hussein and the Iraq war with Adolf Hitler and World War II. Yet no one applauded his deft use of irony. They didn't even laugh.

Like the subjunctive, irony has been dying a slow death. In a civilization devoted to expertise, the emotional pleasures of contradiction are impossible to sell. What people want are the facts and truth.

Serious people believe they must take everything seriously as befits professionals. The only forms of humour which work now are either heavy-handed comedy or in-jokes, as befits a civilization of inside specialists.

It may be that the single option left for serious writers is to avoid irony and the big questions altogether and concentrate instead on re-evaluating in a sober and modest manner the simple words we use every day, for example, by writing a
DICTIONARY.

IRRADIATION
   Done to dead chickens to prolong their lives.

Particularly popular among Americans. In other countries, vegetables are more likely to benefit. By being radiated in this way, animals and plants receive what Christianity has so far been unable to deliver to humans—an eternal shelf-life in supermarket purgatory.

Irradiation has pitted scientists, technicians and the food produce industry against most farmers and health groups. In spite of the general public's naturally positive feelings towards chickens and vegetables, they may be tempted to react in a surprised manner with such simple questions as—Why bother? What's the rush?

The answer apparently is that irradiation kills bacteria. The produce, like Sleeping Beauty, is thus frozen in time. In the process, unfortunately, the chicken becomes an eternal ghost of the free-range, grain-fed bird. This is because bacteria aren't all that bad. To remove them is to remove the temporal and interesting aspects of life. That's what undertakers do to humans. Irradiated chickens are roughly the equivalent of mummified bodies in an open casket.

But for the hungry, taste is a secondary matter. Production levels are what count. However, Western agriculture is in a long-term crisis caused by overproduction. This has driven down the prices paid to producers so far as to make farming unviable. The real question is therefore whether we actually need more food hanging around longer.

In abstract terms it can be argued that irradiation is a product of progress and is therefore a good thing. If the result is that only large industrialized farms can break even, then so be it. That is the truth of the market-place and must be accepted as such. That is also the ideological premise of the ongoing world-trade talks known as the GATT.

However, the more we convert to industrial farming, the more overproduction drives down prices to uncompetitive levels. How can low prices be uncompetitive? If they are too low to provide a livelihood to the producer, then the industry has been rendered unviable and therefore unable to compete in a real market. What's more, industrial farming has major environmental side-effects which create a real cost for society as a whole. If factored in, that cost makes this abstract market still more unrealistic.

The real market wants less, not more. The scientific procedures used before, during and after production are all expensive. Insecticides, herbicides, industrial fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics and post-production treatment such as irradiation raise the cost of production while ensuring the overproduction which causes wholesale prices to plummet. Pesticides alone represent a cost to producers of some $20 billion per year.
⁵

The point is not that all of these advances should be done away with. That would mean a return to underproduction and highly uncertain farm seasons. But between two such extremes there is a great deal of sensible middle ground.

By carefully and selectively reducing the use of these products, production expenses would drop, as would surplus production. The total costs might well remain the same, but instead of being inflated by industrial overheads and subsidies, they would reflect real farming expenses. The result could be a reasonable number of people staying on the land, an appropriate quantity of production, a far more stable market and a shrinking need for public subsidies.

As for consumers, their choice of available produce is greater than ever before in history. We neither need nor want more. What we do want is better produce—food which instead of looking like swollen wax sculptures actually has a taste and may even be good for us. The post-modern miracle of science, the
APPLE,
is losing its appeal.

Consumers worry about the real long-term effects of industrial agriculture on their health. They don't really want to think about the 20,000 yearly “unintentional” deaths from pesticides or the 3 million cases of “acute severe” pesticide poisonings.
⁶
They know “agricultural run-off” is among the leading causes of water pollution. Even water tables are contaminated, thus raising doubts about drinking water. Thus to argue that industrial agriculture must be accepted because it represents progress is self-contradictory.

As for irradiation, the longer these dead chickens live, the less they taste like chicken. See:
PROGRESS.

J

JOBS
A job is a result, not a cause. It is produced by a combination of factors such as investment, research, development, markets, consumption levels, disposable currency, political stability and a positive economic climate. Jobs cannot be created. Economies are created and they in turn create jobs.

The levels of
UNEMPLOYMENT
   throughout the industrial world have been at unfinanceable levels since 1973. This is endemic or structural unemployment. Officially the level in the early 1990s is some 30 million. In reality it is closer to 50 million. Authorities have disguised the full extent of the crisis by repeatedly redefining the term “unemployment” to keep the numbers down.

In Britain the rules have been changed thirty-two times since 1979. Thirty-one of these changes narrowed the definition of who is unemployed. The official figure in the early 1990s was some 3 million. Under the 1979 rules it would be 4 million.
¹
A more interesting way of stating this problem of definition is that 30 per cent (some 820 million people) of the world's labour force is either unemployed or not earning a subsistence wage.
²