On Reading “The Rational Optimist” by Matt Ridley

I’m going to attempt a review of Matt Ridley’s book, and try to work my way towards a new way of looking at the future. 

What has happened to me is that just as I had found a story about the current situation of the world that worked – a scenario in which all the pieces fit and made sense – I have had to fundamentally question the whole edifice. It was a pessimistic prognosis based on a human population crash. Some of its supports began to give way as I worked through Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of our Nature”. Here was an academic I absolutely admire showing quite clearly that throughout the world, despite the world wars, the genocides, the overpopulation, the suicide bombers,  we are living in the least violent society in human history.  This has undermined one of my basic analogies with the natural world: that overpopulation will inevitably lead to increased violence. One of the most important engines for the reduction of violence has been the growth of good government. I’ll come back to this point later because it tends to contradict Ridley’s conclusions.

A few years ago I got about half way through Bjorn Lomborg’s “The Sceptical Environmentalist”. Even then I had to admit that he was right about some things, but it became clear as I ploughed on through his relentless glorification of “progress” that even if he was right, the sort of world he looked forward to – one of constantly increasing prosperity for all – was not one I would want to live in. He seemed to have little knowledge of evolutionary cycles in the natural world, and could see nothing that could not be improved by human effort.

Ridley’s message is much the same; even his title has an echo of Lomborg. He gives a brief complimentary nod to the book, and uses many of the same statistics. However, at least for me, there are major differences. My way of looking at the world is conditioned by 40 years of immersion in the world of “Green” politics, and Ridley could easily be seen as one of the enemy – one of the massed ranks of the proponents of “business as usual”. He is a passionate exponent of the free market, which on the face of it puts him in the same camp as Thatcher, Reagan, Cheney, Hayek et al. Yet astonishingly his concluding chapter could almost have come from the Occupy movement.

Green politics is about the conservation of the natural world, and whereas the “Environmentalist” in the title of Lomborg’s book is not a type we would recognize, Ridley’s environmental credentials are pretty good. He cares passionately about the preservation of species and habitats. In his view it is the increased use of fossil fuel which has enabled us to satisfy our needs for food and raw materials from a decreasing area of land. If we try to supply our current energy needs from sustainable sources we would have to use most of the land currently used for food production, and that would leave nothing for species preservation. Having read David McKay’s “Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air” I am convinced that there is not enough land on the planet to sustain anything like our present energy use without fossil fuels. One of the big fault lines between Ridley & co and the Green movement is the Green belief that we can all live well on very much less energy.

Another big fault line is climate change. Ridley is unusual amongst the “anti-Greens” in that he does not query the overwhelming scientific evidence of man-made climate change. He refuses to get involved in that argument. Where he differs from the Greens is his belief that the effects of it have been much exaggerated, but that even the worst case scenario would still be better than a return to low energy self-sufficiency. 

I began my attachment to green politics with the self-sufficiency movement in the 70s; in particular with Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful”.  I still admire the character type of the self-sufficient. I would have been a good frontiersman myself – able to turn my hand to all manner of skills to earn a living. However, the more I read about the way human society has developed the more clear it is that Ridley is absolutely right that throughout history and in every country, whenever the rural self-sufficient peasantry have been offered the choice they have always preferred life as wage slaves in the city slums to life scraping a living on the land. 

I still cherish a romantic notion of the self-sufficient life, but accept that it is not something that could or should become one of our social goals.  I also still believe that the “Tipping Point” scenario is very probable, but accept that the Green movement have cried wolf far too often.  We can passionately believe that our greed will lead to a crisis, but must remain agnostic when it comes to predicting the crisis point and what form it will take. 

I remember once writing a piece in which I tried to show that the whole idea of Trade was a nonsense.  I certainly don’t believe that now; indeed I think Ridley’s central premise is right: that unique amongst the animals, humans prosper by the division of labour and the trading of their skills.  What I have learnt about the natural world and evolution over the last 10 years has tended to show that differences between humans and animals are far less than we humans had thought, and that research was continually closing the gap. (Ridley himself has written 4 books on that theme). Here though, the research seems to show that bartering (giving up something you like in order to obtain something you like even more) is uniquely human.  One experiment shows that human infants are much more likely to share and swap food items than infant Oran Utans, and another that Chimpanzees have no notion of the value of bartering. 

It is this unique human characteristic which is central to Ridley’s argument. Unlike other economic growth enthusiasts (and most of the general public) Ridley is fully versed in the science of evolution. He understands how evolution works, and makes a clear distinction between genetic and cultural evolution. His claim is that we evolve culturally by acquiring the freedom to trade and barter. We regress when that process is impeded whether by dogma, tyranny, overpopulation or bad government. One of the many fascinating insights into history that Ridley presents is the example of countries in Asia in the eighteenth century which had experienced rapid population growth as a result of the development of technology and trade, but had run into a Malthusian trap and had been forced to retreat to more self-sufficiency. With surplus population, human labour becomes cheap and technology expensive. Japan evidently abandoned the plough and even the gun in favour of the spade and the sword. That this did not happen in Europe is largely down to the opening up of America and the use of coal.

Another important pillar in Ridley’s argument is the inexhaustibility of knowledge. He begins chapter 8 with a quotation from Thomas Jefferson:

“He who receives an idea from me receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening mine.”  I have always loved efficient technology; as a woodworker I toyed with but rejected the idea that hand work is better than machine work.  Ever since I discovered  computers in the 90s I have been an enthusiastic gadget freak, and am still delighted that I can read this book on my phone. The phone is sitting in its stand on my desk and I am referring to my notes on it now. There is no Malthusian trap in the growth of knowledge, and to me one of the triumphs of our age is the rapid advance of knowledge about ourselves. We now know how we came into being, we understand much of ecology, we have deciphered our genetic code, and we are well on the way to understanding how our brains work. The irony is that we also understand clearly why it is so hard for most of us to take this knowledge on board. We know why many people behave in a highly irrational manner; why emotion and prejudice count for more than facts.

Unlike, it seems to me, most American conservatives Ridley is a passionate believer in the rational, and in line with Pinker in his belief that thieves, tyrants and bigots will always be with us and will always act against the tide of human betterment. He has no time for “chiefs, priests, thieves, financiers and consultants”! He sees the future in the bottom-up sharing of information. Large corporations, political parties and government bureaucracies will wither away and herald the “Catallaxy”, Hayek’s word for spontaneous order created by exchange and specialisation. He sees this in the “dot communism” of the web, where bartering takes place without the use of “real” money. This is very much in line with the philosophy of the Occupy movement and campaigning organizations like Avaaz which mobilise public support against all kinds of oppressive regimes and corporate greed.

So, there is much to agree with, BUT a profoundly different idea of what constitutes an attractive future.  

He is an enthusiastic exponent of economic growth and can see no benefit in a sustainable society. This is the familiar argument of most of the “business as usual” proponents, and climate change deniers. Economic growth, fuelled by the rapid exploitation of fossil fuels, is the only way to enable us all to live in reasonable comfort. The combination of the “demographic transition” – the process by which birth rates stabilise and decline – and the knowledge explosion will eventually enable us all to live decent lives within our means.

Ridley sees nothing wrong with the mountains of cheap products being produced in China and thrown away by us. He praises Walmart for bringing cheap goodies to the workers. Despite his views on the bottom-up society he still sees GDP as a measure of human prosperity and economic growth as a desirable aim in itself. 

This is where I have to part company with him. I do not want ever increasing material wealth for myself and I certainly don’t want it for the mass of humanity. It seems to me there is much greater happiness to be had by living in harmony with nature rather than constantly “eating our future”.

It see a fundamental flaw in the argument of those who promote economic growth. I can see that it makes sense to use fossil fuel to create the framework of a better future – to use it as a capital resource to create the technologies of a non-fossil fuel future. Yet the idea that our kind of prosperity – material wealth - can go on increasing indefinitely doesn’t make sense to me. At some point in the future we have to get back in balance.

Ridley sees the eco-pessimists as being the mainstream, at least amongst the thoughtful. I see a vast majority promoting the idea of economic growth. Of course it could be that most of these are people who give little if any thought to the future, who think of the climate and population as being someone else’s problems. 

Matt Ridley bravely attempts a look into the future while admitting that most predictions say more about the time they were written than the time they are writing about. There are two aspects to futurology: we can try to predict what we think is probable and we can look to what we think is attractive. Ridley tries to look at how political decisions might be made in the future. I think this is the right approach but it seems to me that his notion of Catallaxy runs counter to the conclusions which Steven Pinker comes to when looking for the causes of the reduction in violence which the world now enjoys. It is, according to Pinker, honest and trustworthy institutions of law and order which are vital to a reduction of violence. It seems to me that in a world of “dot communism” there are too many openings for the parasites, ideologues and tyrants. 

Among those who understand evolution there is wide agreement that there is a serious mis-match between the ecological niche we evolved to fit and the way we actually live now. The brains and bodies we have inherited give us all the characteristics we need to survive and procreate in a society of small hunter-gatherer tribes, but leave us at the mercy of inappropriate instinctive behaviours in the post-agricultural industrial world. 

One of our deepest needs is to belong to the equivalent of a tribe, and one of the most difficult of these tribal groupings is that which opposes the political tribe of the left with that of the right. I have just watched a short film set in East Jerusalem which shows left-wing Israelis supporting Palestinians being evicted from their homes by right-wing Israelis. This situation is a tragedy for the whole region.  In its potential to cause massive suffering this division is rivalled only by opposing religions.

Although fiercely critical of the “loony left” and what I call “hippie bollocks” I have nevertheless always seen myself as belonging to the tribe of the left and in opposition to the tribe of the right.  Does the fact that I am here praising a writer who appears to belong squarely to the other side mean I am moving rightwards – becoming more conservative with age? 

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Get me going on our class-ridden education system and I sound like a raving communist! What it means, I think, is that I am moving towards the breaking up of these two great tribes. If we are to come to terms with the potentially catastrophic situation we find ourselves in we HAVE to stop thinking in terms of “us and them”. If Lomborg and Ridley and the other proponents of an abundant future are saying things which are factually correct then we should not dismiss them with phrases like “well they would say that wouldn’t they?” 

A joke I cherish is “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me”, and just because some of the loony right have a massive vested interest in “business as usual” doesn’t mean that everything they say is wrong.

Towards a non-Christian Church

Plans are afoot in Cilycwm village to put part of the church to secular use. This has made me think hard about how I feel about the church and its place in our communities.

Being part of a religious community is something that has been woven into  the social fabric of human life for as long as homo sapiens has been around.  Until very recently various forms of religion offered the only way we could come to terms with the mystery of our existence, and they have always required their followers to believe in something – to have a creed. The Church (in its broadest sense) has always been about belief.  As a lifelong atheist I can only believe in things for which I can see some evidence.  If something is mysterious I suspend my belief until better evidence becomes available, and science has produced a rising tide of better evidence.  Most of the mysteries of life have been unraveled and this puts those who hold a religious faith in a very difficult position. Faith – the belief in some inexplicable supernatural power which shapes our lives – seems to me to be moving  in two opposing directions.

On one side we have the typical British village church with its dwindling congregation of ageing believers, and on the other the aggressive fundamentalist believers, the Tea Party Christians and the Muslim suicide bombers. The village church congregations are dwindling because, in our society, the science of evolution has moved into the mainstream.  It now offers a completely convincing explanation for all the complexities of life on earth. It is very difficult for educated people in Western democracies to justify a belief in God in purely rational terms.

Here in Wales we live in a society which is largely tolerant, peaceful, secular, materialist and rational, and we are very fortunate that we do. The attempts by Evangelist Christian groups to re-fill the chapels have so far not succeeded. Even the old animosity between church and chapel has largely died out. It is not uncommon for the small church and chapel congregations to share the best building available to them. As in much of Britain, churches and chapels are only full at the special times: funerals, weddings, Christmas and Easter.

Why do so many of us suspend our disbelief on these occasions? Some see this as a convenient hypocrisy, but I think it shows us something very important. We all have an instinctive desire to celebrate the important turning points in our lives with some kind of ceremony – something which raises our spirits, heightens our emotions.  We need a connection to the sublime, the holy (a word derived from “whole”).  This has always been the function of Art, and it is no accident that Art and Religion have historically been close bedfellows.  Great Art takes us out of ourselves, connects us to the universe, raises our spirits (note the holy metaphor in “spirits”) and makes us feel that our lives have purpose.  Yet why should we feel obliged to believe in something called God to make us whole?  Isn’t the miracle of life on earth sublime enough?

Increasingly in our society we are not obliged to believe, but if we want the religious community to continue to relieve us of this obligation, we should reciprocate: we should accept in humility that for very many of us the sublime cannot be dislocated from the notion of God.  In previous centuries it was commonplace for Christians to persecute other Christians for heresy – for believing in a different way. Even in places like Northern Ireland or the Vatican it would be difficult to find anyone professing to be Christian who  believes we should kill and torture other Christians because they worship in a different way. Religious tolerance has been one of the great achievements of our times, and if the biggest division now is between the Religious and the non-Religious then the same spirit of tolerance should operate. In such a climate it would be impossible to recruit suicide bombers. I do not believe in the concept of evil, but it is hard to find a better way to describe the mindset of those who indoctrinate suicide bombers.

The whole idea of suicide bombers is totally alien to our culture, so let us Thank God or Thank Goodness for that, and let us pray or plan that it never takes root here.

Why do children misbehave?

And why do parents punish them for it?

As with most aspects of human behaviour, evolution has the answer, and yet again I’m indebted to the inestimable Steven Pinker for illuminating it in “The Better Angels of our Nature”.

He charts the history of violence against children, and concludes that mental and physical torture of children “for their own good” was common until very recently.  Starting from the evolutionary axiom that our behaviour is conditioned by the survival of our genes,  it seems odd that we should attack our offspring who represent our only chance of passing on those genes.  Look a little deeper and the answer is clear and simple. It is certainly in the parent’s interest that the child survives, but the best chance the parent has to pass on its genes is to have many children survive. The parent must therefore share out its time and resources with the children it has now and those it might have in the future. 

The interest of each child however is quite different. The child is in direct competition with its siblings for the food and protection of the parent and is instinctively driven to demand more than the “fair share” which the parent wishes to give.

This conflict between parent and child is unavoidable and can only be resolved by constant negotiation in which each side will use whatever arguments or tricks it can to prevail. 

Why has it taken us so long to understand this simple truth?

What's the risk?

Reading Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of our Nature” is a lesson in the life affirming properties of good statistics. His subject – violence –is one that arouses strong emotions, feelings that constantly lead us to conclusions that are wildly inaccurate. The danger of terrorism is a good example. He almost gets emotional stating the case that the threat of terrorism in America is tiny compared to almost all other dangers to life and limb.

“The number of deaths from terrorist attacks is so small that even minor measures to avoid them can increase the risk of dying.” He quotes a study that concludes that 1500 Americans died in car accidents because, fearing terrorist attacks, they chose to drive rather than fly. Less than 3000 people died in the 11/9 attacks (I refuse to use the illogical US method of abbreviating dates) yet every year more than 40,000 Americans die in traffic accidents, 20,000 in falls, 18,000 in homicides etc.

His thesis is counter-intuitive: that we are now enjoying the least violent period in human history. On page 235 (of 1025 – it’s a hefty read) he lists the “twenty  worst things that people have done to each other” and most of them we’ve never heard of.  Top of the list is the An Lushan revolt in 8^th century China which,  over a period of 8 years,  killed 40 million people –two thirds of the country’s population and a sixth of the world’s. Its modern equivalent would be 430 million.

If you think our society is violent just imagine that 8 years ago, ( in 2007, the year I think of as the “year of the mud” because of awful effect the wet summer had on festivals) an inner city riot escalated into a full scale rebellion, which has just petered out.  In this short period 40 million of us have died, and only 20 million remain.

The worst the 20^th century could manage was the second world war which including, as all the figures quoted do, deaths from starvation etc. killed 55 million.  Since then, according to Pinker, it’s been downhill all the way.

Thanks to modern statistics we can now get a very clear picture of what has actually been going on since life began. Even taking the view that there is no such thing as absolute truth, simply by collecting information and comparing it with other information we can arrive at conclusions which are much closer to absolute truth than were possible in previous centuries.  You don’t, for example, have to “believe” in evolution; the build up of statistical information shows quite clearly that it is the best explanation for the development of life.

The problem is our brains have not evolved to adapt to this situation. It was instant emotional reaction which enabled the first homo sapiens to survive in small bands of hunter-gatherers, and George W Bush’s “War on Terror” is a symptom of the damage this mindset can do in the 21^st century. To quote Pinker: “The 9/11 (11/9!) attacks sent the United States into two wars that have taken far more American and British lives than the hijackers did, to say nothing of the lives of Afghans and Iraqis. “

Why have we permitted our media to behave as if this accumulation of knowledge didn’t exist? Why do so many parents think that their children are at great risk from strangers when the statistics show that family members are a far greater danger? Why do people think that old ladies are in constant danger of physical attack when the danger is much greater to young men? The answer to these and many similar questions is that the media get more money by exaggerating our instinctive fears than be giving us the facts.

Why I hate Christmas (and why I don’t)

If I could change it, my Christmas would focus on the good things -

“Peace on earth and goodwill to all men” (and women of course)

It’s a time when we suspend our normal lives for a few days. We suspend the strife and stress of everyday life, we try to see the good in people we have little in common with – especially family members.

It’s a winter festival – so we celebrate the joys of winter – good food and drink, real fires, clear frosty nights, the muted colours and clarity of the landscape in winter.

It’s a time for parties, feasts, warmth, love and friendship

We would sing together and laugh together.  

But the rest would have to go:

It would have nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Nobody knows when Christ was born but the least likely date is mid December.  I’d still call it Christmas though because to change the name would offend lots of people I like and respect.

It would not be Pagan either – we don’t need any religious or pseudo-religious excuse to celebrate the turning of the year.

There would be no Christmas shopping. We would give gifts to those we love but not things we had bought.  If I couldn’t make or write or picture something for them I would give them something I already owned.   People would stop spending ridiculous amounts of money giving people STUFF they don’t need.

We would refuse to adopt American ideas of Christmas like SANTA CLAUS, and those horrible Christmas songs like “White Christmas”.

We would do away with all the “Dickensian” rubbish and return to an older more austere form of celebration. Dickens would go back on the Eng Lit bookshelf where he belongs, and all the mawkish Victorian carols would be banned.

We would stop sending Christmas cards to people we scarcely know and wouldn’t recognise in the street.  We would write personal messages to people we like and admire who otherwise we might lose touch with.

We would get rid of everything fake -  fake snow, plastic santas, fake conifers, fake log fires, fake goodwill, false sentiment

People would be fined for wasting electricity on gaudy lighting displays

Bah Humbug! Scrooge was right about the humbug but recognised in the end that the real message of Christmas was a good one.  So why not get rid of the humbug and keep the good stuff?