THE SOCIAL FUTURE:
PART 3: Completely Unauthorized Possibilities
The irony is, cellular phones probably aren't much of a brain cancer risk.
Companies that make cellular phones recently weathered a small storm of
controversy over whether the portable phones might be inducing brain cancer
with their electromagnetic fields. This came at a time when researchers in
Sweden released a new study showing strong links between electromagnetics,
microwaves, and cancer in people.
Executives for companies profiting from portable phones snorted with
contempt and outrage at the accusation. Deriding the "hysteria and
paranoia," they acted as if they just couldn't understand why there
should be such a flap.
By extension, they seemed to be asking: Why does the American public break
out, at intervals, in a rash of suspicion about the degree of
responsibility business feels for the public's health and well-being?
As the saying goes, it is to laugh. The American public is suspicious of
business because, in a general way, the public is not stupid. It's been
burned before. It's burned every day. It's been a learning experience.
There may have been a touch of paranoia over the concern about cellular
phones--but this paranoia does not originate in a vacuum.
Again and again and yet again, American business--particularly big
business--has shown itself to be stunningly indifferent to its
responsibility to the community.
That's really the point. Responsibility to the community. Keep a finger on
that thread. There's more to that platitudinous expression than meets the
eye.
The public has learned. The contempt corporation PR liaisons have for the
public attention span is almost palpable; still, people were paying
attention when it was revealed in the 60s and 70s that most major
manufacturers were poisoning us with pollution; people were paying
attention when it was revealed that those manufacturers dragged their feet,
and bit and scratched and struggled, when they were told to curtail their
pollution. And people noticed, when industry shrieked with wholly
unconvincing outrage when it was told to clean up the toxic waste mess it'd
already made.
People noticed. It sank in. The millions that the government--and by
extension the public--is forced to spend on clean-ups was noticed. The
astounding obliviousness to forethought in the Exxon Valdez disaster did
not go unnoticed. The culpability of Union Carbide in Bhopal did not go
unregarded. The endless struggle to get automotive companies to build for
safety was duly noted.
The public can see that most corporations just don't care unless they're
forced to. Those who care to look can see that, despite what may be touted
in TV commercials, for every insignificant effort from an oil company on
behalf of the environment, there are ten new environmental atrocities
somewhere, ten efforts on the part of industry lobbyists to squelch laws
demanding accountability, ten attempts to suppress research linking cancer
with environmental toxicity.
It goes on and on and on. Business has always had to be forced to be
responsible.
Even when irresponsibility leads to the likelihood of causing hundreds of
thousands of deaths.
Cancer strikes one in three Americans and kills one in four. According to
Samuel Epstein, professor of occupational medicine at the University of
Illinois School of Public Health, five million people have died during the
last decade in what Epstein calls "this cancer epidemic." Cancer rates, he
says, are "particularly high among blacks, the urban poor and 11 million
workers in petrochemical, metal and the nuclear industries--and also among
their children."
According to the American Hospital Association cancer will become "the
leading cause of death by the year 2000 and medicine's `dominant
specialty.'"
Epstein indicates that "there is plenty of evidence that the cancer
increase is due to progressive permeation of air, water, food and the
workplace with cancer-causing industrial chemicals and pesticides. There is
also well-established evidence that a substantial proportion of all cancers
is avoidable."
George Bush, as Chairman of the 1981 Regulatory Relief Tax Force, and later
Dan Quayle, fronting his Council on Competitiveness, worked to weaken
federal regulatory agencies that should have kept carcinogens in check.
Epstein reports that:
In 1989 the administration--at the behest of business interests--revoked
a ban on deliberate contamination of food with carcinogenic pesticides.
According to the administration's new set of indicators for levels of
toxicity in our food, dangerous cancer risks became "acceptable" risks.
In March 1992 the White House--again at the prompting of industry--blocked
proposed OSHA standards for more than 500 carcinogenic and toxic air
contaminants in agricultural, construction and maritime industries. "In a
bizarre `wealth is health' theory, the administration maintained that the
proposed standards would damage workers' health by forcing industry to cut
wages and jobs."
In April '92, Rep Henry Waxman accused President Bush of gutting the Clean
Air Act. According to Epstein, "Meeting secretly with industry lobbyists,
Quayle's council developed loopholes permitting oil refineries and
thousands of other industries to vastly increase emissions of carcinogens."
And "a report last summer by public interest groups charged that federal
researchers, including the Centers for Disease control, conducted hundreds
of *deliberately* inconclusive studies on the relationship of environmental
pollution to cancer and other diseases. Flaws included the hiring of biased
researchers and conducting studies too small to produce significant
findings."
An industry spokesman who is a former senior official of the Bush-appointed
National Cancer Institute stated: "We have to use an economic test. If it
is useful to society, we will not call it a carcinogen."
If you're thinking that all this is irrelevant now we've got the Clinton
Administration, think again. Clinton has been backing off on his
environmental promises and he isn't likely to have the determination or
courage to do what's necessary to dismantle this aspect of the system; this
leaky exhaust pipe of the Ford Pinto of State.
I can only speculate as to what happens in the minds of researchers who
blot the facts of their own studies. Perhaps our researcher knows what's
expected and so modifies the figures in a way that both soothes his or her
sense of self-worth and gives corporate and federal sponsors what they
want. Our researcher can do that because he or she has no over-riding
allegiance to the community to counter the need to view things according to
professional convenience; no social counter-current to urge for honesty.
It's acceptable, it's business as usual, everybody does it.
This is of course in line with the trend I sketched in the last
installment, our tendency to accept deception as natural and normal, no
matter the scale.
And the public knows about all this; some by direct apprehension, some by
collating bits and pieces: a general accumulated sense that grotesque
irresponsibility is going on in business, in government, and in the
background of our lives.
So sure, the public is paranoid about cellular phones.
It may be that those who're ripping off the public on a mass scale, who're
risking lives and even *knowingly sacrificing lives* by *knowingly*
permitting the release of needless carcinogens, have, like our hypothetical
researcher, convinced themselves that it's all for the sake of a healthy,
unimpeded economy. Why, people would starve without industry.
In some secret, time-shared corner of their hearts they know full well that
we could have industry, and jobs--even more jobs--without polluting,
without toxifying, without cheating people, if we make the needed
investment. (Technology doesn't have to pollute. It's like a dog that
hasn't been housebroken.)
Acknowledging that realization, though, would be to curtail their major
drive in life: Greed, in all its manifestations. The world is their
smorgasbord.
Getting in touch with the conscience that's buried at the deepest level of
all is particularly difficult for such a person. These are the same sort of
people, understand, who recently seriously proposed putting vast mylar
"billboards" in orbit, so you'd see *Macdonald's* or *Union Carbide* blazed
across the stars at night. Such people must be soulless.
Regulation of commerce and manufacturing is necessary, in the end, but it
would be better to solve the problem of rampaging community
irresponsibility in the *beginning.* Ethics are etched into the foundation
of the psyche, or they don't exist at all. They're learned early on and
they're taken in almost at the cellular strata--although for some people
they may be generated by contact with a more objective force: the
spiritual.
We'll need punitive regulations. But we need something more, something
lasting, something impregnated into our beings: the recognition that we
aren't alone, and all its ramifications.
To that end and that beginning, here are some suggestions, highly
unauthorized, from merely me, simply another human, with no official
designation as expert. But as part of the intuitive and badly-burned public
referred to earlier, I'll make recourse to some other authority, and I'll
speak. And I'll make three suggestions.
First, the obvious.
A THREE PART PROGRAM Laws. Tougher laws, harsher laws, yes, even seemingly Draconian laws with
respect to *certain issues.* In my opinion, large-scale pollution should be
an unspeakable crime. Ripping off the public with overt and subtle fraud,
cutting corners on public safety, risking oil spills to save money,
covering up the toxification of the environment as well as the risks it
magnifies ... Increasing the risk that children will die of cancer ...
You should be jailed for it. Your company should be taken over and broken
up. Eg, Union Carbide should no longer exist as such. Until business ethics
become integrated into the American fiber of being, we will have to weave
them in by force. The relevant laws simply need to be more severe than they
are, and more rigorously enforced. This would not be necessary if we were
all adults, of course, as the Libertarians like to pretend. But business
has shown it cannot be trusted to regulate itself, and history has shown
that competition (a Libertarian theory is that unrestricted free enterprise
itself will somehow eliminate polluters from the marketplace) is not enough
to regulate it either. There are very few adults in the world; until we
grow up, we need to be put in "time out" if we misbehave in a way that
threatens the lives and livelihoods of others.
Second: The Previous
Previous, in the sense of ancient, even prehistoric. I suggest we utilize a
social device that is either under-used or mis-used. The making of
taboos.
Taboos may seem primitive, but they are complex, efficient and
self-perpetuating, as are other tribal values.
Before I get to the inevitable list of New Taboos, we have to understand
one premise: a thing being forbidden on the surface is not the same as its
being truly taboo. A real taboo, worked into the weft and weave of the
social fabric, programmed into the very conceptual master-molecule of
psychological drives, is much more powerful than simple superficial
disapproval. How do you feel, in your gut, if someone literally craps on
your doorstep? Your revulsion, chances are, is profound. That's the
profundity of taboo and an aesthetic reaction. Violations of taboos are
also violations of our aesthetic sense--Damn, that thing is ugly. It may
well be that the most refined, evolved taboos are deep aesthetic responses.
We have attached a certain cachet and glamour to "taboo-breaking"--I've
basked in that dubious glamour myself--and some taboos are indeed
pointless, even socially toxic. The old taboo against talking about sex was
surely destructive to healthy psychological development.
But taboos are a tool, and any social tool has its constructive
application. Japan has more than its share of taboos, some unhealthy, some
healthy. Shoplifting is, happily, so taboo in Japan that security guards in
department stores are nearly unknown. When a Texas college marching-band
recently visited Japan, it was detained before it could return to the
States because literally dozens of these sterling American students had
shoplifted thousands of dollars worth of electronic goods from the
underguarded Japanese stores. The Japanese were horrified that anyone would
do such a thing.
A new slate of taboos could be designated by general proposal and
consensus, then laid down in children through parental drill, and, so far
as possible, in adults. We would incorporate the new taboos along with such
taboos as the one against defecating on the sidewalk, public masturbation,
peeing on people from rooftops, or more gravely: murder, child molestation,
arson, wife beating, cruelty to animals, and the like. Some of these latter
may be all too prevalent despite the taboos--but they are not so prevalent
as backward business ethics and greed.
It is unlikely, should we apply this curative, that we'll use the term
"taboo" for it, since the term has an atavistic ring. I use it here for
clarity. We'll call them something else; but taboos they will be.
A short list of some needed taboos:
It shall be TABOO to toxify the environment. In the short run the
severest application of this taboo will be against major polluters; in the
long run the other great polluter, the individual with his use of household
toxins, will also accrue a black mark, less harshly meted.
It shall be TABOO to lie or IN ANY FASHION DECEIVE in the process of
accumulating money. Business and deception should go together like adult
sexuality and children: not at all. The thought of deceiving people to make
money off them should be sickening to us. Currently it's regarded as a
"marketing skill."
It shall be TABOO to use political influence for personal gain. It's
already disapproved of, even illegal--but to make it taboo is another step.
Taboo, remember, goes to the core of our beings, because of the way it's
incorporated into society, by doleful repetition and psychological
reinforcement, early on.
It shall be TABOO to hide someone else's theft or fraud in order to
protect one's own part in the system. Only a deeply entrenched
psychological revulsion for this sort of thing can
eradicate this almost universal tendency.
It shall be TABOO to discriminate for on the basis of race. Self explanatory.
It shall be TABOO to make an unreasonably large profit. Which is arguably
a form of theft. What constitutes "unreasonable?" I'm talking about ten
dollar aspirins in hospitals, outrageous health care generally, and
under-taxed profits by the major corporations. Why is it that Clinton's new
budget proposals include only a 2% raise in corporate taxes, the readiest
source of cash flow for the country?
It shall be TABOO to permit unnecessary health risks for workers just for
the sake of cutting costs. From factories to ... movie productions. If the
producers of The Crow had been more concerned about lives than cash flow,
Brandon Lee would still be alive. I have personal reasons for using that
example.
Taking Care of Business is one thing; one must be tough and competitive in
order to be responsible to oneself and one's family. But lying, cheating,
and homicide by negligence (or by sheer cost-cutting callousness) do not
constitute Taking Care of Business.
I had considered adding: "It shall be taboo to carry out a war or other
violent international depredations purely for business interests disguised
as national interest." But admittedly this is often a fairly subjective and
highly politicized call. I considered also a proscription against dealing
with countries who commit torture--but it's not clear that proscription is
the best way to get them to stop torturing.
I imagine I now hear the voices of those who, in their imagination, carry
the Don't Tread On Me flag about with them; they're reacting to my
proposals with weary irritation, or even fury. Just what we need, another
way to impose on us, more people telling us what to do.
But taboos should be used (till we mature past the need), only for those
social issues we pretty much all agree on--issues even the most
Libertarian, Don't Tread On Me people agree on. Look at my list of taboos,
and you see I've only taken basic kindergarten rules of behavior and
extended them to the bigger playing field of commerce and politics: You
don't poison the other children. You don't lie, children, or steal. You
don't hurt the other kids just to get what you want. You don't take more
than your share of the dessert.
On the adult scale, we have laws against some of these social
transgressions, but much of the time they're unenforceable. Taboos--if we
really integrate them into our society--enforce themselves, for the
majority of people. If the taboos are deeply ingrained enough, we don't
need the laws.
But how do we punish those, in our hypothetical new system of taboos, who
are in violation? Most of the time, we do it the way the UN does it: with
economic sanctions. That is, you just don't do business with people like
that.
If the new taboos are really in place, it will be queasy and revolting to
do business with a polluter. Just to think of it might make you physically
ill. Do business with someone who, in the long haul, is responsible for
increasing leukemia in children? What a revolting thought!
The very concept of pollution will be repugnant to us. Nowadays we think
with horror on the gutters full of feces of medieval Europe, and the
commonplace use of torture--someday people will think the same way of our
own sluicing of pesticides into the rivers and seas, of our toxification of
the air, and our radical diminution of forests. How could they have done
that? It's ... sickening. That's the way we should react, as well, to
corporate ripoffs, like the defense industry's treasonous willingness to
sell bad parts that risk the lives of young men and women in the Armed
Services. It should sicken us. We should react to our marrow.
It can be argued that a general atmosphere of everyone-for-themselves--even
the social milieu found in the Mafia and street gangs--is in part generated
by the corrupt societal role models who parade before us; and that as a
result these people are to a degree responsible for some of the streetlevel
crime and lawlessness and brutality in our society. Environmental crimes
have such long-reaching consequences that the human race may never see
their finality. And these crimes can only be uprooted if we promulgate a
reaction of revulsion for this behavior at the most basic levels of
interaction.
In order to lend weight to our reactions, we must respond, as a society, to
violations of serious ethical and environmental taboos in ways that are
clear-cut and strikingly apparent, like dire monuments in the landscape of
civilization.
Hence, as indicated, taboos for some violations should come equipped with
very serious consequences, beginning with complete economic and social
ostracism. All this might at first be regulated by officials of the courts
working with a community-based court-of-the-people, who vote on violations
of basic social taboos. Eventually infrastructure for the transmission of
the New Taboos would be unnecessary.
But of course it could be carried too far; perhaps we imagine we're too
refined to stone people, but if we get carried away we could instead find
ourselves wrecking their property. At the outset it would be permissible to
destroy a man's physical home and cars, for example, if he has used his
business to rip off the community. If he's knowingly caused others to lose
their health, he might lose all rights to health care. It could deteriorate
from there, to violence against people. Such excesses must themselves be
taboo.
Third: The Numinous
Taboos are necessary for now, but they should not be necessary. They are a
sociological mechanism designed to modify behavioral mechanisms. If we were
what we have the potential to be, taboos would be superfluous.
There are those, myself among them, who believe that most of the world is
asleep, even when it thinks it is awake. According to this theory, far more
of our responses are mechanical--purely automatic--than we realize. The
exploitation of others is a conditioned reflex; the rationalization of
corporate theft or environmental ravage is also conditioned. This mechanism
is implicitly difficult to escape without the powerful leverages of such
tools as taboo and harsh laws.
But there are also those who believe that destructive, psychologically
mechanical responses lose power and eventually fall away if we awaken from
this walking, waking sleep. In the process of this Awakening, we may find
we are capable of hearing a voice that is inaudible to the man or woman who
responds to the world like an automaton. This voice is called Conscience.
True conscience is not the same as "a feeling of guilt." It is sourced in
eternity.
If we look to see how we might be psychologically mechanical, and how we
might be asleep (though ostensibly "awake"), and how we might, instead,
choose to be fully aware of our lives moment by moment, living in the now,
recognizing choices as they arise ...
We might just find our Way to real Conscience.
Should we find it, should we manage to hear that voice, we will not need
Laws, or Taboo.
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