Bad Hobbit
It is really a bad idea to force ignorance onto others
With Miroslaw Manicki
It is easy to get in a rut these days. Many things seem to have changed. We are still largely limited to what we can sense around us, though. We navigate through seasonal changes that are mostly the same; we work through the days in repetitive ways with the exception of smart phones that entice many of us to look inward to be informed outward. Mostly, though, we continue to cycle through days, as seen below, with little impetus to break out of the circle.
To the extent that we enjoy a peaceful existence, there is a tendency to become complacent. The hobbits from the “Lord of the Rings” as conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien represent an example of this. Living in their lush, idyllic world of the Shire, they immersed themselves in the realities of a bucolic, agricultural life and enjoyed the bounties of the earth. Living on Earth as seen below, they experienced the longevity and peace that come from generations of — well, peace.
By Ryan/Adobe Stock
Under such conditions, what might they consider as to global affairs? Probably nothing. This would be why the four notable hobbit leaders got this look upon returning to the Shire after their brave exploits among the people of the world under the most complex and dangerous of conditions.
This was, of course, one of the high points of the entire saga — the deep irony of the situation. Edvard Proudfoot, the hobbit in question, likely thought that they had simply been out on a lark — funny business. For sure, they had not been sticking to their business as demanded in hobbit society.
Good hobbits on the international stage?
What kind of stiff wind would the hobbits had faced had they known what was going on? Could they have conceived of it? Perhaps they would have a general understanding and fear of the forces of the unknown. They might have been proud of them, but would they come to comprehend why? Would they have been able to discern the differences as to form of organization and governance — the risks, for example of living under Sauron and his great eye and dominant exigencies?
In 1989, I had the great honor of studying under a great scholar named John Ruggie. The course he was teaching was “international politics”, an area in which he was a world leader. He was a professor at Columbia University at the time, on loan to the University of California, San Diego in part to teach the course I attended, a required course for all in my program. This was a most challenging course, with vast scope and onerous reading requirements.
Dr. Ruggie was master of the field and he established an unrelenting pace in the course. It was thrilling to be there and frightening should you be called on to contribute. He was not mean, but you could feel the standard of rigor in the air and it was occasionally humiliating to a classmate that had fallen into a pit of ignorance or suffered from lack of preparation.
After a break one day, he came in to announce that Albania had just quit the Soviet sphere. Class members cheered and clapped. Those were and these are exciting, but highly challenging times. My partners and I have worked with the current administration of Edi Rama there to continue efforts at improved governance in a complex and often hostile world; it is an ongoing project there and elsewhere. It is seldom obvious as to what needs to be done.
Here is one section from the course outline:
The core concepts and analytical approaches of the field of international politics are combined [in the course] with diplomatic history in order to address questions such as these: What in general are the bases of order in international politics? What were the specific features of the postwar international order and how were they instituted? How has the postwar order evolved and what factors best explain its evolution? What lies ahead, for the international order, and for the place of the U.S. within it? UCSD course IP/CORE 410 under Dr. John Ruggie, 1989
Some may wonder if there are such things to be learned. This is certainly the kind of question that would have faced hobbits that had not been among the “Mighty Four” of Frodo, Samwise, Pipen, and Merry as they carried out their deeds. What was the difference between the aforementioned Sauron and the old, troubled aristocracy of Gondor? What of the Rohan? How could the long-established ally Saruman be considered with respect to their prospects? What of Elrond and the Elves? Furthermore, the Dwarf-kingdom was highly organized, a form of monarchy and aristocracy.
Who could be trusted and why? What of countries and kingdoms — or societies beyond knowledge and understanding. Did such things even matter to the hobbits and the Shire, long-lived beneficiaries of peace and plenty.
Bad hobbit pathway
We live in a funny world when people think they can skip all that. Well, that is not entirely true. What is novel is that they think they can foist their ignorance on all of us, upending in the process even the conception of knowledge as a useful tool. This is the ‘bad hobbit’ problem.
They favor diving into a path with no constructive thought as to where it might lead. Were they hobbits, would they look to Sauron for peace and security? Perhaps not but is more likely that they would appeal to Saruman, who they had known and trusted for a long period. Naive, they would thus fall into a pit. They faced many more risks outside of their comprehension.
Perhaps universal mistrust could fill any possible void in the minds of would-be hobbits. They justify this by casting judgment on observed failures, if not perceived ones. They lacked natural curiosity, rejecting outright Gandalf’s fun tricks. That blocked them from ever understanding his serious, profound side. Seen from this perspective, they were in many ways a silly people.
Of course, without some kind of concept, some kind of framework, it would be very difficult to even evaluate the success or failure of an act, or of related policy. In the haze of complex current affairs — which look increasingly problematic with every observed sign of prosperity of people who are not supposed to prosper — some form of magic appears on our front in lieu of genuine efforts at understanding: Firepower.
This points to the dunderheadedness of it all, what happens when they face ‘other others’ with bigger guns than their own?
Even this misses the point. The idea in that community is to not think of such things. The point is to celebrate sensory overload. There is no way to avoid the impact of firearms. They deploy loudly; they are dangerous; they cannot be talked down. They end the argument.
There is the old tag that Samuel Colt made people equal with his powerful handgun. Firearms are now used to ‘make people smart’. There is no need to study, nor to understand. There is no need to think, “where does this lead?” The question is a situational one. Bad hobbits have an answer to dialogue going on above their heads. They can end arguments with a simple finger twitch, or at least the threat of one.
Deep water
This brings us to Professor Ruggie and his consideration of the question of international order. Can we observe that there is such a thing? What are its parameters, what makes it “tick” if something is a failure or a success. This can be considered generally as in the Arthurian legend; the magician Merlin indicates to young Arthur that he needs to learn “what makes the world wag”.
Unfortunately, I just noted that Dr. Ruggie died last September at the age of 76. Thus, his work and personality start to fade into our memories and dusty shelves and hard drives. We who remain must carry on the legacy.
What are the observed paths that existed then and now? Where do they lead?
As you live in the real world, interacting using just your eyes and ears and reacting to heat and cold and that which is sensed naturally, you will likely miss this. You will note cycles, such as with the weather. You will miss the phenomena that drive the cycles.
This precedes even the question of international order. This is to say, what are the primary factors for natural order and for understanding the aspects and requirements of living systems, of which we form an important subset? This is important for our own purposes and likely for the well-being of the rest, given powers of good and ill with respect to nature’s bounties.
The hobbits seem to have been as effective as might be expected with respect to nature’s cycles. A synthetic world, it nonetheless reflected Tolkien’s understanding of old languages and old cultures. Within the bounds that they faced and learned that they could rely, they were clearly up to the task. Their world was abounding with food, and they had ample time to socialize.
They probably wouldn’t have dealt with a non-terrestrial happenstance such as a meteoroid, or a substantive adjustment to temperature and climate. Their principal risks lay in human behavior and the potential for human malfeasance. To this, they had precious little in defense.
In the United States, this is not the case among the common folk, but there is still substantive fear of the “other,” of the “unknown”. There are great fears from such unknown and partially known social forces. This can be contrasted with Tolkien’s depiction of the hobbits, which rings true regarding human behavior. The point is, the hobbits were not afraid, although they would have been well-served to be so. Orcs, for example, were not far away and they were the most uncivilized of creatures.
What could the hobbits have done? An army would have been nice, but it may not have served as much of a deterrent or a force, given the slight stature of their race and their rudimentary technologies. There were forces afoot in the story represented by Bilbo Baggins’ forays throughout the Middle Earth and by Gandalph’s attention to the Shire and the Baggins family. Connections existed there; there was knowledge, although not acknowledged in any way by hobbit leadership, such as it was.
This comes to the question of how are we to behave? Are we best served by retaining relative ignorance, but perceived vigilance?
Let’s take the question of borders, for example. Many are fit to be tied about our southern border (not the northern one, a glaring curiosity) and full of concerns about it. They perceive social risks as to the nature of the physical national border more so than tangible ones. This they do out of unexplored fears. They fear for their children. This is reinforced by the daily news, where atrocities are regularly reported.
Solutions
Are domestic societies and cultures so weak in their own right so as to open the door to such feared outcomes? Are immigrant cultures and societies so weak as to lack support and nurturing so as to mitigate the risks of depravation? Raised in the protective embrace of our families, religions, and societies, why would they leave? A standard response to this is what if they are taken? This is a valid concern with the little ones, to be sure.
From a ‘hobbit’ standpoint, outside influences may seem to be “someone else’s problem.” They key in their minds may be to simply keep such outsiders out, but this may have direct consequences in areas such as the food that we all eat. We are not hobbits in this; or food is derived from others, the self-same others that we otherwise fear.
Would Americans be more settled if only they had to return to the fields to do their own harvesting, thus keeping out the ‘others’ permanently? This opens an avenue of another border, less tangible in some sense, but closer to home. They see a constant violation of economic borders and social barriers that they have so carefully set up and so carefully husbanded. The wrong people are hauling big tech home from the box stores; the wrong people are sitting on judicial benches and occupying positions of power. Under such conditions, it is impossible to think that the ‘proper people’ would spend time in the fields.
To Americans, we live in the middle of our own ‘Middle Earth’. We think of ourselves as exceptional, better than the rest in every way we can think of. We are more ‘hobbit’ than Ruggie-like in this — but we take it several steps further. We consider it natural to expect the rest of the world to fall in line with us and what we want. According to this frame of reference, it is up to them to figure out what this means and where they fit into our priorities.
That is assumed to be a part of their burden. We don’t mind calling this a meritocracy as long as we can manage the rules. Based on this frame of reference, we are that special 4.5% of the whole that has a divine right to rule. We offer evidence of this, particularly in our rise to power and prosperity as we gained dominance of our space in the 19th century, followed by our actions to “save the world” at least two times and possibly three.
America’s own cooperative roots
There was a great deal of semantic drift in our rise to power. The American experience meant many different things to different people as the region took on new social forms through mass immigration high-growth social development. Many forms of organization were employed — I documented 57 different cooperative regimes, for example, which had much to do with successes of the American people as they established themselves in this new world [https://tinyurl.com/4y2tjvp8]. Many if not most of those were ‘stamped out’ in the drive toward financial-centered capitalism as the dominant form of commerce in the latter decades of the 19th century.
Like the surging powers of native American tribes, vestiges of those plans and programs continue to exist, something of a challenge to the general contemporary position as to what Americanism means. Forced preeminence of finance-centered capitalism was accompanied by a major promotional effort to coopt the magic and romance of commerce and entrepreneurial effort by finance mavens. The beginnings of the ‘merger-and-acquisition’ pattern presented themselves. Acquiring existing companies, trust-makers combined their product lines and employee corps and pared both back under the rubric of savings. Legitimate savings via increased productivity resulted to be sure, but there was also despotic stripping of value while hiking prices, both of which efforts erode all that they touch.
The financial condition of the people had been weakened in the early 19th century by policy; mostly they had had to buy land on credit during the westward settlement, where homesteading would have helped them along better and allowed them to become more independent, repaying for land that was mostly gained through conquest of native societies at relatively low cost to the government. Family wealth thus suffered in a vast concentration of wealth, which reverberates to current times. Had homesteading been allowed, the government could have received payback via conventional means of taxes and management of infrastructure that served a thriving culture. We don’t hear anything of property debts and mortgage payments among the hobbits in Tolkien’s tale. In this way, they were strong, and their society was stable.
Americans retained more of the cooperative working model than is generally understood — although that is being continuingly whittled away. The romance of commerce and trade for mutual benefit is continually being carved away by the great usurpers, the extreme capitalists that insist on a perpetual imbalance characterized by constantly increasing rates of gain. This is someting foreign to our friends, the hobbits, who principally only had to account to Nature herself, and to bargain among themselves to make up the difference.
Waking up to the world’s complexities
In 1989, Dr. Ruggie assigned us to read the paper “Regimes, interpretation and the ‘science’ of politics: A reappraisal” by Friedrich Kratochwil, a dense, 20-page publication from the summer of 1988. In this, Kratochwil considers three coexistent worlds that we live in: (1) the world of observational facts; (2) the world of intention and meaning; and (3) the world of institutional facts. Observational facts are not by their nature democratic, as scientists and specialists can extend their observations using specialized equipment in ways that the rest of us cannot. The recent Netflix movie “Don’t look up” demonstrates this nicely.
To come to understand Kratochwil’s message it is useful to return to the distinction by Ferdinand Tönnies between communities (Gemeinschaft) and societies (Gesellschaft). Communities are longstanding cultures, the religions and societies and ethnic bindings that underscore the actions and beliefs of people. These are good at ‘acts’ and not-so-good at ‘facts’. Societies are the second kinds of groups. These are common interest groups, including scientific research organizations and social networks. As a rule, they are more attuned to delivering ‘facts’ and less able to navigate the complex patterns by which people live (which is to say, ‘acts’). It is difficult for individuals to be members of more than one community, but it is entirely possible to participate in many societies.
Such distinctions can help us navigate through Kratochwil’s points.
- The world of observational facts
As mentioned earlier, observation itself is a complex factor. Who is doing the observation and what tools do they have to carry out the task? We live in a time of extremes, as in the 20th century much was learned as to the power of the most intricate of phenomena and the most miniscule of measures. Ours is also the time of ultimate denial. For the most part, the intricate part is a manifestation of societal behavior, of Gesellschaft. Gemeinschaft, or communities, typically are the ones doing the denial.
Science would be well-served come up with better deliverables. Kratochwil refers to this, challenging the perception that ‘positivist’ scientific findings can be taken at face value. He recommends a softening of the message, a wider lens of context to account for the difficulty of making conclusive identification of conditions.
This is a context problem to be sure. Where detailed phenomena present themselves, contextual tools need to reflect and retain all of this. As scientific endeavor reveals nuance, technology must be deployed to reflect flux and detail. The lack of this not only curtails belief in and commitment to scientific solutions, it undermines the legitimacy of science-based policy in general. There are patterns, which has not been a strong point with respect to scientific endeavor. Statistical analysis has favored analysis-of-variance, an assumption of linearity of things. The General Linear Model lies as the source of this. It helps in evaluating one phenomenon as long as there are not very many variables. After five or six of these, results bring less utility. Without some systematic means of recreating the context of the one phenomenon, observed results can be easily misunderstood and misapplied.
One thing that affects us the most cannot be seen. It isn’t necessarily evident with scientific instrumentation, either. It surrounds everything and it determines all outcomes. The reason it cannot be seen is simple: It is a pattern and not a thing. This thing was best identified by Alfred North Whitehead, a 19th century scholar from Cambridge, then Harvard. He noted in his work that all phenomena are based on processes. These are sets of logical relationships that can present themselves over and over. These are not trivial; in one case, such a process may reflect incoming data in one way. At another time, it might behave entirely differently. Knowledge of the phenomenon is based on knowledge of associated processes, which are dynamic and not static.
This is news for even contemporary scientists. Many continue to narrow their efforts to the General Linear Model. Some have broken out into the study of networks, which is helpful in characterizing complexity, but doesn’t really flesh out the particulars with regard to process.
One notable exception is the work of James Grier Miller, as seen below. A student of Whitehead, he mapped out system relationships for living systems at all known levels. This is an important development in the organization of scientific information in useful forms. The analysis employs a graded approach from top to bottom, from cells to organs, organisms, groups, organizations, societies, and supranational system.
This is a holistic effort like no other. In fact, in later publications, Miller expanded somewhat on the levels. One factor with respect to the Whitehead/Miller model is observation of commonalities at the various levels. Miller notes that various processes can be observed at all levels. There are matter-energy processes in his model, information processing models, and a few processes that incorporate both. These can be seen below.
Subsystems which process both matter-energy and information: Reproducer (Re); Boundary (Bo).
Subsystems which process matter-energy: Ingestor (IN); Distributor (DI); Converter (CO); Producer (PR); Matter-energy storage (MS); Extruder (EX); Motor (MO); Supporter (SU).
Subsystems which process information: Input transducer (IT); Internal transducer (IN); Channel and net (CN); Decoder (DC); Associator (AS); Memory (ME); Decider (DE); Encoder (EN); Output transducer (OT). Miller, 1978, 2.
Such information is of substantial importance as science and its use. This is information processing that works as apart from bright ideas by technologists with little or no knowledge of or commitment to either the biological or physical implications and effects of their work. I have long held that to support the legitimacy demanded by nature and society, schools of business in particular could well be nested within schools of biology and physics. This kind of analysis underscores such a development.
2. The world of intention and meaning
The world of intention and meaning is a world mostly of communities, of Gemeinschaft. Loosely-construed social media tools have made intention and meaning far too slippery. It isdn’t that semantics isn’t a matter of study in information processing, but it is not presented in such a way as to support the power of the word. Actual system behavior is controlled by ‘if-then’ statements that may or may not have anything to do with the subject at hand.
Using such models, it is easy to see how context can be lost. Furthermore, understanding of such models is not likely to add to useful toolsets of scientists and policymakers. Although such models are useful for establishing a technology infrastructure, they do not contribute significantly to resolution of the world of intention and meaning.
There was a great effort to resolve this problem in the 19th century. A key proponent of improved semantic management was Polish engineer Alfred Korzybski, who publish a massive work called “Science and Sanity”, which lays out concepts and requirements for making use of semantics to clarify meaning. Ultimately, he lamented that there was no systematic way to integrate mathematics in with semantics in useful ways.
3. The world of institutional facts
It is no secret that institutions have gravitational effects on facts. They serve to bend them. There is some of Gemeinschaft in government and some Gesellschaft as well. Perhaps this is why German corporations have two boards of directors to reflect the two perspectives, Gemeinschaft for social responsibility and knowledge of social matters, and Gesellschaft for innovation and applications of facts and knowledge of nature. You need Gemeinschaft to underscore appropriate acts; Gesellschaft underscores means of arriving at and supporting facts.
Institutional facts apply in the context of rules; if you do not understand the rules, observation of actions is of little value. Consider the description of an American football game without a knowledge of its rules. Observation may be interesting, but it will have little to do with the nuances of player movements and acts and understanding of outcomes. Contemporary governance takes place under guidance of a myriad of rules and a forest of institutions.
To conceive of interactions in terms of legal relations not only provides a certain rhetoric for the actors’ communication with each other for making or criticizing demands, for voicing concerns, for justifying actions, and for pursuing their self-chosen interest. What is even more important is the fact that legal conceptions become constitutive of the very practices the actors share by engaging in the ‘game’ of international relations. Thus, who can be an actor, what procedures are necessary to ‘recognize’ a new member of the community, what rules actors have to follow when they wish to connect certain consequences to their official acts (law of treaties), how ‘rights’ are allocated, and how ‘titles’ to possessions — ranging from territories to other goods — can be transferred; all these actions are possible only through the acceptance of rules which constitute this ‘form of life’. Kratochwill, 1988, 271.
These are intrinsically social. How, then, do such rules-based actions dovetail with science and society without losing intention and meaning? Surely, this is a detailed matter. Preserving context, time-based processes must be seen to roll out, each to its own purposes.
We can look to the arts to see how such a thing might be done. Over the centuries of modernistic music composition, much has been learned as to the dynamics, range, tone, and effect of the different instruments. Furthermore, the requirements for performing in each case are very different. Questions of performance with respect to brass instruments vary widely from those of the strings, woodwinds, and percussion. The same can be said for the human voice and the requirements of vocal performance.
Nonetheless, these have been woven together in a common performance framework. This is musical notation, which has been organized to accommodate the requirements and idiosyncrasies of each instrument and instrument type. Similarly, in the service of good public and private ends, processes could be designed to accommodate the requirements of nature and of administrative life. Similarly, it could be engineered and configured to support both semantic structure and mathematical logic.
Tips for good hobbits and others
How does this apply to the hobbits among us? Sadly, not many of them have probably lasted this far in the article.
Should they learn these things? Sure, more rational understanding of the requirements of peace and prosperity.
Perhaps it is enough for them to know that these things are going on while supporting such processes. This would only be possible as conditions improve. In that sense, this message has more to do with those responsible for private and public initiatives to increase the legitimacy of country-level actions in particular.