The Economist: In Praise of Geeks

This article in The Economist is fascinating reading. In many areas, including high tech positions and entrepreneurial ventures, so-called "geeks" are dominating the ranks and business initiative of creative and innovative people--and many share traits similar to Asperger's, autism and ADD. Really.

An excerpt from the article:

IN 1956 William Whyte argued in his bestseller, "The Organisation Man", that companies were so in love with "well-rounded" executives that they fought a "fight against genius". Today many suffer from the opposite prejudice. Software firms gobble up anti-social geeks. Hedge funds hoover up equally oddball quants. Hollywood bends over backwards to accommodate the whims of creatives. And policymakers look to rule-breaking entrepreneurs to create jobs. Unlike the school playground, the marketplace is kind to misfits. 

Recruiters have noticed that the mental qualities that make a good computer programmer resemble those that might get you diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome: an obsessive interest in narrow subjects; a passion for numbers, patterns and machines; an addiction to repetitive tasks; and a lack of sensitivity to social cues. Some joke that the internet was invented by and for people who are "on the spectrum", as they put it in the Valley. Online, you can communicate without the ordeal of meeting people. 

---"In praise of misfits," The Economist (6.2.2012)

Link to full article:
http://www.economist.com/node/21556230?fsrc=nlw|hig|5-31-2012|1977420|36652682|NA  

CNN/Fareed Zakaria Interviews Simpson & Bowles

Good friend Sandy Parker put this interview up on Facebook. (The link is below.) It is a must-read interview with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles by Fareed Zakaria on CNN's GPS. It provides an understanding of what's at stake in the budget process at the end of this year, which is essential for anyone who is concerned about a prudent and effective approach to our national budget, strengthening our economy, and working our way out of an outsize budget deficit. 

The Simpson-Bowles committee recommendations of late 2010 comprised just such a balanced approach. But both the Republicans and Democrats responded reflexively, dismissively, because it required too much compromise on their own sacred policies and programs. President Obama, the interview makes clear, supported it, but recognized that the congress was not ready for reason and compromise--as we all found out in suffering through the ugly, embarrassing process of raising the debt ceiling. But now, with approximately $7 trillion dollars (2% of GDP) in "economic events," budget issues, presenting themselves for decision at the end of this year, the right balance of legislative wisdom and compromise must be brought to bear in addressing these budget issues and policies--or the country will likely be the worse for it. 

Click on this link:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1205/27/fzgps.01.html

On My Dad's Passing

My Dad, a force in my life and a week short of 94 years old, passed on a few days ago.  Yesterday, the funeral and saying-goodbye process with family and friends came to a close. He is gone, but will always be with those of us who loved him.

He was strong, fiercely self-reliant, willing himself and others on. He was proud of his service as a paratrooper in WWII and his 50 years a Mason. He built and prospered his Hudson's Dry Cleaning business with the help of his devoted wife and partner of 68 years, my mother Polly. He was a sportsman: a wing shooter, a fisherman, and he continued to play competitive golf until he was 91. But if he was a force in my life, I never fully acknowledged or even understood how much until it was finally clear to me that he was not really immortal: on the day that he died.

He faded notably in the past year, and quickly the last month. He had become so frail and weak that he could not quite speak a word, but just utter sounds approximating one. We brought in the Hospice folks a week and a half before his passing. They were wonderful. Over the last three days, I sat with him during the day, and my brother, Gary, during the night, 12 on, 12 off. My sister, Loretta, also spent hours with him, too. We brought my mother to be with him whenever her dementia-Alzheimer's and his deteriorating condition offered an opportunity. They nonetheless shared some sweet and touching time holding each other's hand, kissing and expressing their lifelong love.

As it became too clear he would not be living forever, or even another day, as I began to realize what a force in my life he had always been, his fragile, life-exhausted body finally gave in, and he passed on. It happened as a gentle, caring Hospice Chaplain and I were holding his hands and praying for him and for we who must carry on without him. He took his last breath as we finished praying. There was one more half-gasp, then nothing. He was no longer there. The sense of loss and unexpected flood of emotions were overpowering. It affected all who loved and respected him in the same way. But he died leaving a full, rich life and no complaints or regrets behind, and with the assurances of his faith held close. He left it all on the field of life.

The next day, he felt present to me again; and I expect he will for the rest of my life. He was present in all my hurried steps preparing for visiting hours, family sharing time with clergy, a graveside service with military honor guard, and the interment of his ashes. After committing his ashes to the earth, we gave thanks for him, reached down and pulled up as much joy and thanksgiving as we could muster for a family-and-friends celebration of his life. Only good wines, and the most joyful, edifying stories and remembrances would do. Dad would have enjoyed that; I know we all did. 

Thanks for listening. I needed to share it, and I felt you'd likely be okay with that. In the midst of it all, I've taken refuge from my emotions in busywork, attending to his needs, administering the preparations for the necessary next steps in the funeral and saying-goodbye process. But at the end of that prayer, at the time of his passing, the emotions and tears flowed. I'd unconsciously been shaped by him to be something of a next-generation, stoic swamp Yankee. And often, that served me well. But I'd also been graced by the influence of a Southern Baptist, sweet-hearted and kindly mother from North Carolina who used to send me to elementary school with bags of clothing for the poorest members of my class. I am both people. But at that moment, it was my mother's honest, earnest and compassionate heart that held sway over my emotions, my respect and, yes, my expression of love and loss. There has been richness and life affirmation in this process of his passing, as well. I'm sure I'll be unpacking and processing the experience for some time to come. 

Greg

On Mitt Romney, "Jobs Creation" & Economic Realities, and He as President

I need to share some reflections about Mitt Romney, "jobs creation," economic realities and the half truths from both sides, and then his likely brand of Presidential leadership, too. I just had to write about these things and send it to some folks. You drew a short straw.

On Presidents, "Jobs Creation" & Economic Realities

First, I've recieved a few e-mails from the Obama campaign countering Romney's claim to better qualifications to "create" jobs based on his experience as CEO of Bain Capital. But, while Romney's use of this campaign tactic, and the Obama camp's response, are both well within acceptable campaign bounderies, it all has much more to do with campaign issue creation than jobs creation. And both sides are dealing in half truths and suggestions that go beyond the realities. The simple truth about the limits of Presidential leadership in "jobs creation" would be much more informative and useful to voters, even if much less entertaining politics. Most of you know this, of course. But it is just another of those stupid, insulting and tortured bi-partisan treatments of an important issue, much like all the stupid opinions and comments made about the well-settled judicial review implications of Marbury vs. Madison. (And they even came from President Obama, who taught constitutional law. I was embarrassed for him and all of us.)

Let's begin with the simplest, clearest of facts. All businesses and businessmen are in business to make money. That is their primary goal, not "jobs creation". When they do it well, or are lucky enough, their businesses grow and they have to hire more people--and employment rises. But more important to employment levels is the economic environment within which businesses operate. When the economy is on the strong side of the cycle, businesses are more likely to make more money, grow, and therefore to hire more people. Jobs are "created", some might say. On the other hand, when the economy is on the downside of the cycle, when it is weaker, businesses are likely to make less money, contract, and some employees are fired or furloughed in order for the business to remain profitable and viable. Jobs are "killed" or "destroyed", in the vocabulary of some. 

So, it's most often not about businessmen creating or destroying jobs; it's most often about the economy and, in turn, resulting business profitability and sustainability. In that way, it is the economy that ultimately drives the need for more or fewer employees--and there is little the businessmen and businesses can do to change that fact. They can only respond by adjusting to it--including adjusting the numbers and types of employees.  

And government can only do so much to support the economy through monetary or fiscal policies that either help strengthen a weak economy or keep it from falling into disaster, or avoid overheating a healthy one. For example, under the right circumstances--like the recent financial crisis--and within workable longer-term debt limits, government economic stimulus can help (i.e., putting more spendable cash in more people's hands through higher government spending and, if taxes are not already too low, lowering taxes). Within those limited circumstances, government action can help avoid deep economic recession (or worse, depression) and prime the pump of recovery. But beyond that, a weaker economy must heal and strengthen itself--and that can take time. And even Presidents can't change that. 

All businessmen understand that--or they should. Much of the campaign hype you hear is just so much political breast-beating and posturing trying to suggest that Presidents, other politicians or candidates for office know more and can do more to improve national employment levels. But it's just not true; they can't. They all have the best economists in the country to help them do what can be done to support or tweak the economy, or help keep it from economic contraction. President Obama's team, and notably Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, have done an effective job of keeping us out of disaster and stabilizing the economy. But now, we appear to be at that point where only the economy itself can slowly build itself back to strength. (Of course, failure of remedial, collective action in the Eurozone may yet produce an international economic disaster that adversely affects the U.S. as well.) 

Now, it's also true that Mr. Romney did not work for the kind of company that makes money by manufacturing and selling things or providing services to the public. His company, Bain Capital, is what is often called a "financial player." According to Wikipedia, Bain Capital is "a Boston-headquartered alternative asset management and financial services company that specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit and public market investments." That means they invest in or buy outright everything from start-up companies to blue-chip public companies. The companies they buy may be managed for some period of time, restructured, or reshaped, then resold at a profit. Sometimes they will buy a few companies in the same or related businesses, restructure and repackage them, and sell them as a new, integrated business.  

But here's the rub: in addition to the changes in employment dictated by economic conditions, financial players like Bain often "restructure" the companies they acquire to make them as profitable as possible in the shorter term. And that often includes reducing the number of employees to the short-term minimum, or having the company take on debt to pay dividends or management fees to them. Then they sell the company, arguably weakened but appearing profitable, for more profit. In that way, they often reduce employment, not increase it; and often, they weaken companies rather than make them stronger. To be sure, that's not always true--many times these acquired companies have grown and employment has increased under Bain management, but that's not so often the case. Regardless, that's just what they do, and how they make money. And Bain has done a good job of making money on the vast, majority of it's deals and investments. It's altogether perfectly legitimate, and many would argue it plays a healthy role in reshaping and sustaining many of those businesses. 

So, it's hard to see how any of that should suggest that Mitt Romney doesn't understand about economic cycles and how businesses grow or contract in those cycles--or that he doesn't understand about the economy and other business factors affecting employment levels. Quite the contrary, it suggests he likely understands it as well or better than most businessmen, politicians and political candidates. 

However, what economic policies he might actually embrace as President would likely have more to do with his ideological or philosophical bent and--most importantly--what course and positions will most likely get him elected as a Republican. And improving employment levels is especially important to voters these days, so it will likely enjoy his full attention. But a very ideological Republican Congress that he is inextricably tied to will likely have more to say about all that than him--and they are embracing the Ryan budget proposal that would phase-out or dramatically reduce social welfare programs, social security and Medicare programs in the U.S., and over time privatize them as much as possible. Not a good approach--not for providing public goods and social services, not for societal welfare and strength, nor for productivity, consumption-spending and the economy generally, not from my perspective, anyway. And a lot of jobs would likely be lost under those proposals, both in government and the private sector.  

Therefore, on the subject of jobs, Romney can only continue a course of misdirection, obfuscation, and half truths. And the President will continue to play along with the "jobs-creation" ruse, satisfied to argue over who will do a better job at something that, ex officio and given the economic realities, they can only influence in the positive or remedial sense to the same limited extent. Of course, if unwisely informed, they can also take actions that make worse an already weak economy. That's what happened in the Great Depression, that is what has been going on with Germany's austerity prescriptions in the Eurozone, and that is likely what would happen if the Republicans actually were to pass something like the Ryan budget. Surely, you say, they must understand the potential for significant long-term societal and economic damage. But then, we are talking about ideological true believers, aren't we. 

On Mitt Romney as Presidential Leader 

So I would ignore all the puffing and posturing about Romney's prior work life and pay more attention to what he is likely to do, and why. The Obama camp would still try to bring you back to the way he managed Bain Capital to make money as the best indicator of the approach and values he would bring to Presidential leadership, and what his views about economic and employment policies might be. But these are very different mandates, the CEO of Bain and the President of the United States, and don't we have evidence that Romney surely does recognize and adapt easily to a different mandate? Don't we have his very different orientation to his public service as Governor of Massachusetts? And the judgment on his performance during his tenure there was mostly that of a good and effective moderate governor. And I heard little complaint about his economic views or approach to employment-related policy positions. But, he was governor of a generally progressive state and represented a more moderate Republican party. In fact, the real problem is that he is more than flexible and resilient; he is all too capable of managing a complete change in orientation and agenda. He adapts frighteningly well to an easily redefined political identity and mandate, and allows that mandate to redefine his goals and success, as well. And he has a long record of success. 

As our President, one who will represent and be dependent on a dominant and stridently ideological Republican Congress, I fear the worst in leadership from Mr. Romney. As we have observed, he has proved very much an unabashed and unapologetic political chameleon, and he will likely take any position he feels necessary to appease those who control his election and agenda--and that begins with those Republican leaders in Congress. He appears to be perfectly okay with becoming that kind of leader, really more a proxy for Congressional Republican leadership. It's just about becoming President, winning in that sense, and then succeeding in his new political identity and mandate. It is very difficult for me to trust or respect that so readily changable aspect of his political identity, or to expect much of anything in the vein of independent or moderate leadership from him.  

And that's the evolving feature of the Mitt Romney resume that should concern you--doing whatever he was hired to do, becoming whatever changed political identity he feels he needs to be associated with, and doing it very successfully. And that's been true whether it's making lots of money for Bain or representing a moderate Republican party and more progressive agenda in Massachusetts. And if elected President, it will likely also be true in fulfilling his mandate to successfully advance the agenda of a throwback Republican Congress that appears the antithesis and the ideological enemy of anything progressive. This analysis may well comfort the most conservative or ideological of today's Republicans, but it frightens the hell out of me. 

Former Republicans & Their Republican Friends

As we acknowledge our increasingly divergent economic and social policy preferences, we nonetheless strive to reflect personal integrity and honesty, and protect our mutual regard and respect. But it's often not easy, not when the dialogue is between former Republicans and their still-Republican friends.

Friend Marc Schulman explains some views to a Republican friend, below. Marc is a fellow former Republican--the kind of Republican who was a concerned advocate for the effective, efficient and fair functioning of a vibrant market economy, but also of government in its important roles of social support and protection. And that includes provision of the public goods and services that form a material part of the social contract and foundation that supports and strengthens that market economy. But there was also a clear sense that government needed to function more effectively, more efficiently, with more budget and cost accountability.

But that Republican Party doesn't exist any more, and therefore, neither do many of those kinds of Republicans. The new GOP even has a name for those few that remain: RINOs, Republicans In Name Only. I chose not to be one. Here's how I saw and experienced the extinction: 

It was evolving well before President George W. Bush, but he changed things, materially, in abandoning budgetary integrity with unjustified tax cuts (albeit done in the name of the Gipper), his misadventure instigating an unjustified war in Iraq, and the resulting unfocused approach to the war in Afghanistan. And all the while, he turned a colder, more insensitive shoulder to the needs of the poor, infirm, aged and unable. His inherited budget surplus became a gaping budget deficit, and he left the world a more dangerous and unstable place while damaging America's credibility and role in global leadership--and he left it all with no resolutions in sight. (Although, in fairness, he does get credit for a flawed but well-intentioned education initiative in "No Child Left Behind," and better providing for prescription drug coverage for the poor and elderly.)

Evolving behind Bush and beside him was a new-wave Republican Party that sought ideological purity around rigid, often superannuated political, economic and societal values. Those values appeared to some of us to abandon all sense of public responsibility and accountability, and any appreciation for the importance of strong and effective government in a world of increasing economic and societal complexity. Yet, their prescriptions failed to acknowldge the need for more effective, more equal education, healthcare and social services to support that society and economy, and that it would take more effective, more efficient government, and in some areas greater government resources, not less. In fact, their views were very much to the contrary, as was their agenda.

More, it seemed clear to many, and to me, that the challenges of world leadership increasingly required a more consultative process. But the U.S. under Bush chose unwisely to go its own way--to cowboy up--and arrogantly try to dictate to the world.  They actually succeeded in bullying their way through for a time. But the folly of it all became apparent as the fruit of that arrogance was realized in broadly soured international relationships. (Fortunately, President Obama has healed and restored trust and respect in those allied relationships and shared leadership on global issues.)

In that context, and in all those areas, the new GOP appeared to many of us to be looking back to the past rather than forward to the future for its ideas, motivations, and vision for our country and its leadership. And in the financial crisis, when they looked back to the economic policy responses to the Great Depression, and the recession within a depression, most Republicans ignored the research findings, the understandings gained, the lessons learned. 

(Now, here again I must pause and give credit to President Bush for calling on and trusting the well-informed work of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who along with Timothy Geithner and Hank Paulsen ably led us through the early days of the financial crisis. But with the election of President Obama, and his wisdom in keeping Chairman Bernanke (a Republican) on the job, and appointing Timothy Geithner Treasury Secretary (another former Republican, now Independent), the Republican congress would turn on both Bernanke and Geithner. And more, they would ultimately embrace and advocate for the society-rending Ryan budget proposal and the policies dictated by it. They have put on the table the phasing-out or material reduction of essential government social services. It's become about purity of ideology and party.)

That view of the GOP today, that analysis and those opinions, unavoidably register as misguided understandings, misperceptions, or fighting words for most new-wave, 21st-century Republicans--including some of our old Republican friends. But as you likely know, we are not uninformed or fools. You know there is a substantial percentage of highly successful executives and professionals who hold those same views, whether now Democrats or Independents, many are also former Republicans. Having traveled and lived on most sides of the issues and arguments, we like to think we understand and appreciate both sides better than most. We are now Democrats or Independents, many with extensive educations who have spent our careers at the centers of market capitalism, whether on Wall Street, in major multinational corporations, in the legal, financial or management consulting firms that advise them, or in the government agencies that regulate them. But, as Marc says below, we do see society, the world and the future differently.

Marc comes out of a Wall Street career that put him at the center of thinking and data on capitalism, the market economy, and corporate competition and culture. He was a highly regarded stock analyst on Wall Street, where he worked for some of the biggest investment banking houses. I spent 18 years as a tax and financial executive for major multinational corporations, and sometimes led M&A projects. We are advocates of strong, efficient markets--but that also means we understand the necessity that they be intelligently, effectively regulated. And we understand why universal education, universal health care, and financial support of the poor, infirm, unable and aged, are essential for the lowest cost, most effective work force, and the most stable society. (And if it took us some time for these understandings to evolve, if that evolution at all coincided or overlapped with our professional retirements, it might be surmised that the interests and demands of our professional environments reshaped--or co-opted--our views to emphasize more the interests and concerns of those market environments--views that later, more freely, migrated back toward their more natural disposition and balance.)

And scholars propose that those natural dispositions are largely dictated by biological and environmental factors, or more accurately, by the attitudes and identities resulting from them. Some researchers of the genome have found combinations of genes that appear associated with attitudes toward the individual, society and government. And social scientists point out the powerful conditioning and shaping effects of family identity and associations. Some combinations of these factors are more associated with the view that "it takes a village," a strong sense of the value of shared, supportive community, and the importance of supportive, protecting government roles viewed as critical to both individual health and success, and to that of the polity and country. Think Democrats. Another group of gene's and factors appear to be associated with the need for a strong sense of individual independence in choice and action, of self-determination, and more an aversion to community requirements and government dictates. Think Republicans. Now, I have taken some liberties in my paraphrasing and fleshing out these ideas and implications, but these same types of observations have been made by researchers in a range of fields.

So it appears our political identities and and social policy preferences may not be so much a purely deductive, intellectual decision making process, choices we intelligently make. (Might it be relevant, then, that I was born to a multi-generational New England Republican family, and a fiercely self-reliant father who was an entrepreneurial small businessman? But also that my mother came from a Southern Democratic, Southern Baptist background and was always emphasizing the desperate circumstances and needs of the poor--and the importance of helping provide for them? Hmmm.)

Others have noted that my migration of policy emphasis was temporally associated with two other experiences. The first was retiring, yes, but to pursue a doctorate in higher education policy at Harvard. (Due to illness, I left after two years with an Ed.M.) The thinking goes that I was misled and brainwashed with too much liberal thinking. If that means being exposed to credible research findings, convincing evidence that advanced some of my thinking, I can only agree and be thankful for that. The second was a more personal movement in my faith or spiritual life, placing more emphasis on contemplative, prayerful reflection on the most basic charateristics and teachings of Christ, including love/charity, forgiveness, compassion, and generosity in helping provide for the poor and to heal the sick. And if I'm accused of embracing more and internalizing more deeply these spiritual callings, and if my orientation to social policy is better informed as a result, I can only be thankful for that as well.

Regardless of the mix of reasons and processes that may have led me and others here, it is both dispiriting and politically unhealthy that there is no room for people with our evolving views in today's Republican Party, and has not been for some years. We like to think our reasons are well thought out and compelling in their support of both markets and the society they serve. Naturally, some of us now feel much more welcome and at home in the Democratic Party, and most all of our central views now track more closely with those of the Dems. Others of us feel safer, their integrity more self-defined and protected, as Independents. I prefer to see myself as an independent, pragmatic fiscal centrist and social progressive, more or less. But regardless, I do support President Obama's re-election. He is the only hope for views and values such as mine. That does not mean I agree with all his policies or views, but just that he has proven himself a good, strong and pragmatic president in extraordinarily difficult times--and that he will likely prove to be the president we need to lead us into the best directions in the areas that matter most to America, the world, and to me, at least as I understand them.

Still, I will hold close my sense of friendship, or at least friendly relationship, with many old Republican friends--however strained or more difficult it can become in public policy discussions. Staying among the Republican ranks means they must toe the line to what I see as an ever more rigid ideological and backward-looking conservatism. And I increasingly travel, read and share views with a range of people with different economic and societal orientations than those. But in all this, I have found that good people are still good people, whoever they are and wherever you encounter them--and many of these old friends are still just that, good people. I hope they still think the same of me.

So, we keep working at respectful exchanges with these old friends, people we otherwise still like and respect. I include below Marc's views shared with a Republican friend, views his old friend does not, likely cannot, share. But can there still be respectful listening and understanding, or at least patience and tolerance, when each rightly feels as much moved by personal integrity as personal regard and respect to share openly and honestly? Yes, there often can be, but it can also be frustrating. It's just difficult when we live in worlds of increasingly different, often mutually-exclusive, economic and societal values. Of course, we could just ignore the elephant in the room, just talk of common experiences, interests and views. There's nothing wrong with that. And that's exactly what we try to do when it's the only way to preserve a valued relationship.

Greg

And now, this from Marc:

----- Original Message -----

From: Marc Schulman

To: Marc Schulman

Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 1:49 PM

Subject: Try this argument on independents and possibly persuadable Republicans

I've been having an email debate with a good friend who sees the world very differently than I do. In other words, that friend is a Republican – and a Republican who voted for someone other than Romney in the Florida primary.

Here's the latest installment from my side of the debate:

I agree that spending growth must slow. This will hurt the middle class and the poor, who are the primary beneficiaries of government spending. The wealthy aren't nearly as dependent on government spending. if spending reductions are the only way we attempt to get our budget deficit under control, everyone except the wealthy will bear the burden. That's what the Ryan budget proposes.

So, if you believe that everyone must sacrifice for the sake of our children – and you say you do – how can the wealthy sacrifice? There's only one way: by paying more taxes. Then everyone bears the burden: the middle-class by taking less and the wealthy by giving more. That's what I call fairness.

Take a look at the following chart, which tracks the top 1 percent's income share. The U.S. (in black) has the greatest concentration of income in the hands of the top 1%. Income concentration has been trending upward since the early 1980s, which explains why the wealthy have been paying a growing share of income taxes. In the U.S., income is now as concentrated as it was in 1928 – and we know what happened in 1929.

--Marc

Top 1 Percent Income ShareSource: Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, Paris School of Economics' World Top incomes Database

Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying (And Believing)

This article courtesy of daughter, Laura:

"What the hell?" you're probably thinking, if you're somehow both rich and reading an article with this title, "I didn't crash the economy!" You might even be tempted to take to a microphone, to defend yourself and your wealthy friends. But before you do, I want you to stop and ask yourself, "Will this make me sound like an out-of-touch douchebag?" 

---"6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying," by David Wong, Cracked.com (3.5.2012)

You really must read the whole article (just click on the highlighted title, above)--not merely because it hits right at that raw nerve of truth when it comes to the defensiveness of many of the well-heeled, but also because it does so with such blunt, ironic humor and fun. And since I am possibly one of those people at whose expense he is poking this ironic fun--and since I am sympathetic to, and more than a little amused at, his observations--it is easy for me to see and understand that it's mostly true! 

Unfortunately, so many of those fortunate folks in the top 1% or so of income don't tend to see themselves as all that fortunate, or having benefited from their circumstances and the help or direction of others. But more, it appears very important to their sense of self-determination and personal accomplishment that they make clear their winning superiority has come at the expense of other's losing inferiority. It's all about what they single-handedly did and most others didn't or couldn't do.

About six years ago, I felt the need to share some thoughts about the realities of all that, and why, in a most real sense, the accomplished and successful were no more the authors of their success than the poor and less able were of their lack of success. And further, why that substantial chunk of reality should create the realization that any real community--and the successful within it--have a financial interest and owe an obligation to help provide for those less successful and in need. And it rings even more a true and fair judgment today. Here's some of what I wrote:

It's not a fabrication, a lie. It's just not the whole truth. And the part that's been omitted—--or is it just ignored?—--should provide the basis for us to consider providing better for those most in need. I'm speaking of our unwarranted overemphasis on personal merit and, as we've discussed elsewhere, freedom of choice.  

It really does appeal to us, all of us. It panders to our self-esteem, our sense of self-determination and self-sufficiency, our self-congratulatory tendencies. We want to believe that we earned what we have—that we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, mapped out our plans, prepared ourselves, then worked hard, harder than the next guy, earning our way to our definition of success. And in a very real, experiential sense, it is true. (Most of us feel that's exactly what we've done!)   

And what of the poor, the competitive failures of whatever stripe? Why, they just suffer the natural consequences of their own failings and failure. And that's not our fault, either. How could it be? (So, why should it be our responsibility?)  

Of course it's not your fault or mine, —at least not most of the time. But most often, neither is it theirs. Notably, in a most real sense, we are no more the author of our successes than they are of their failures. Heresy, indeed! But let me briefly explain why, in more empirical terms, this is also true.  

---"The Limits of Merit & Choice," Cassandra's Tears (2006)

Yes, I've provoked you and left you hanging short of my explanation, hoping you'll also click on the link and read the rest of this piece, too (which isn't much longer, really). And then, you might also read the related, companion article that follows it, "See Me, Help Me," on the topic of the public interest and economic wisdom in public goods and programs like education, health care, and subsistence income and support for the infirm, aged and unable, all of them, but also all children. That's the kind of stuff, the realities, that too many tax-averse, high-income folks just don't want to hear or understand.

A Personal Note: The First 24 Hours: So Much More, So Much Less

It's Saturday night. We've been back in RI for two days, but the first 24 hours were both much more and much less than we'd hoped for. First, we missed our flight out of Ft. Myers. Half an hour to get to the airport, okay. Ten minutes in the check-in line, okay. Fifty-five minutes in the security line? Oh, no. They closed the doors three minutes before take-off time, and pushed away a minute early. The supervisor and desk folk actually did a high-five at their efficiency as eight of us ran to the gate just as they closed the door. Sorry, they said with such self-satisfaction, but you should have been here two hours early. They were right, of course; it's all about on-time departures.

But they did get us on later flights, and I'm grateful for that. We arrived in RI about 11:30 pm, the house was found half-empty (of course it was; we shipped stuff to FL), and the specter-threat of the break-in was palpable as we tried to find our way to sleep about 1:30 pm. We got some sleep; but about 8 am, there was a thunderous sound that awakened us, the earth and our house shook--almost as if a vehicle had run into our house. But it was only a large tree in our front yard that fell toward and over the street, but in the process taking the power and other lines with it--oh, and the force of it snapping off a telephone pole, the top of which crashed to the road with transformer attached, and all the hazmat-type stuff flowing out in the street. By evening all would be replaced and power restored--but still no phone, TV or internet. All that would be restored today, Saturday.

About 11:30 am of that first morning, about 24 hours after it was clear to us we just might miss that flight, our broker came to visit because she thought bad news should be conveyed in person. Old school. Well, it turns out that our contracted buyer had a problem, and the closing date was no longer on the calendar. He had been fired that morning. He had left his job in Texas to bring his family East for a better opportunity--he thought--had found the house he wanted for his family (ours), only to be fired a couple months or so after selling his Texas house and moving here. If we were disappointed to have the sale of our RI house pushed off into the future yet again, we can only speculate about the pain and despondency visited upon the prospective buyer for whom our house was a part of an exciting next phase of their family life now dissipated, terminated, denied, like the hopes of so many people in recent years. We mourn and pray for their situation.

Later that same day, I visited my elderly parents, 93 and 89. My mother is now in an Alzheimers unit of the same assisted-living facility where my father remains in the assisited-living suite they'd shared. Both were in much worse physical condition than I expected; both were on God's time and at His door. It was a terribly sad and unwelcome experience. They will pass on soon, whether a matter of days, weeks, or a month or two, and I am relieve to have 45 Downing Street as my strong fortress right now, my emotional base from which to work through this difficult passage. The sale of the house can wait a while; I'm pleased to have the additonal time here, especially at this time.

But, as an old friend used to assure me, this too will pass. Life will have its way--we will say our goodbyes, we will sell the house, we will spend time with older friends here, then we will return to our new house, friends and life in Naples. Life goes on.

I hope to see all those friends somewhere in this process. Thanks for being there, and being who you are to us.

It Depends On What You Mean By "Free Will"--And What You Do With It

[Warning: Another lengthy treatment of an elusive reality. Fair treatment denies brevity, I say. But there is also the matter of how much appetite and patience you have for such topics.]

From the Chronicle Review (of the Chronicle of Higher Education):

Free will has long been a fraught concept among philosophers and theologians. Now neuroscience is entering the fray. 

For centuries, the idea that we are the authors of our own actions, beliefs, and desires has remained central to our sense of self. We choose whom to love, what thoughts to think, which impulses to resist. Or do we? 

Neuroscience suggests something else. We are biochemical puppets, swayed by forces beyond our conscious control. So says Sam Harris, author of the new book, Free Will (Simon & Schuster), a broadside against the notion that we are in control of our own thoughts and actions. Harris's polemic arrives on the heels of Michael S. Gazzaniga's Who's In Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain (HarperCollins), and David Eagleman's Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain (Pantheon), both provocative forays into a debate that has in recent months spilled out onto op-ed and magazine pages, and countless blogs. 

What's at stake? Just about everything: morality, law, religion, our understanding of accountability and personal accomplishment, even what it means to be human. Harris predicts that a declaration by the scientific community that free will is an illusion would set off "a culture war far more belligerent than the one that has been waged on the subject of evolution." 

--"Is Free Will an Illusion?" The Chronicle Review (3.18.12)

And don't forget the folks most recently studying the genome (which prescribes those neurological, biochemical processes), or the classical and operant conditioning folks, the last-generation students of learning, behavior and acculturation. All have had their reasons and their proofs why so many of our behaviors, including thinking, preferences and choices, are a function of genetic prescriptions or predispositions, or what in one way or another is conditioned or learned in our cultural, social environment. As individuals and as communities, can we work at all well with the notion that an array of deterministic forces render us more complex, but self-deceiving automatons than crafters and directors of our own destiny?

Let's take a look at some excerpts from those recent articles, and try to sort out what neuroscience now adds to this dialogue--and what remains of notions or experience of freedom of thought, choice and behavior. Or does it all depend on what we mean by "free will," the nature, context and focus of the inquiry, the purposes and designs for its conclusions and applications? Of course, I have some thoughts on the subject which I will offer at the end.

First, from Jerry A. Coyne, a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago:

The term "free will" has so many diverse connotations that I'm obliged to define it before I explain why we don't have it. I construe free will the way I think most people do: At the moment when you have to decide among alternatives, you have free will if you could have chosen otherwise. To put it more technically, if you could rerun the tape of your life up to the moment you make a choice, with every aspect of the universe configured identically, free will means that your choice could have been different. [But there are other meaningful conceptual understandings and definitions of "free will." GH] 

Although we can't really rerun that tape, this sort of free will is ruled out, simply and decisively, by the laws of physics. Your brain and body, the vehicles that make "choices," are composed of molecules, and the arrangement of those molecules is entirely determined by your genes and your environment. Your decisions result from molecular-based electrical impulses and chemical substances transmitted from one brain cell to another. These molecules must obey the laws of physics, so the outputs of our brain—our "choices"—are dictated by those laws. (It's possible, though improbable, that the indeterminacy of quantum physics may tweak behavior a bit, but such random effects can't be part of free will.) And deliberating about your choices in advance doesn't help matters, for that deliberation also reflects brain activity that must obey physical laws. 

To assert that we can freely choose among alternatives is to claim, then, that we can somehow step outside the physical structure of our brain and change its workings. That is impossible. Like the output of a programmed computer, only one choice is ever physically possible: the one you made. As such, the burden of proof rests on those who argue that we can make alternative choices, for that's a claim that our brains, unique among all forms of matter, are exempt from the laws of physics by a spooky, nonphysical "will" that can redirect our own molecules. 

[...] Recent experiments in cognitive science show that some deliberate acts occur before they reach our consciousness (typing or driving, for example), while in other cases, brain scans can predict our choices several seconds before we're conscious of having made them. [Some behavior scientists would cite their own research proofs that many such phenomena are a function of classical (Pavlovian) or operant conditioning triggered by conditioned discriminative stimuli--which, of course,  is just another deterministic process and force. GH] 

[...] So what are the consequences of realizing that physical determinism negates our ability to choose freely? Well, nihilism is not an option: We humans are so constituted, through evolution or otherwise, to believe that we can choose. What is seriously affected is our idea of moral responsibility, which should be discarded along with the idea of free will. If whether we act well or badly is predetermined rather than a real choice, then there is no moral responsibility—only actions that hurt or help others. That realization shouldn't seriously change the way we punish or reward people, because we still need to protect society from criminals, and observing punishment or reward can alter the brains of others, acting as a deterrent or stimulus. [This is what some behaviorists have called "vicarious learning," a demonstrable phenomenon which also implies that as behaviors can be learned or conditioned, they can also be changed or extinguished, even by just observing the context, conditions and results of a situation. Of course, this is no revelation; we've all observed it, even experienced it. GH] What we should discard is the idea of punishment as retribution, which rests on the false notion that people can choose to do wrong. 

The absence of real choice also has implications for religion. Many sects of Christianity, for example, grant salvation only to those who freely choose Jesus as their savior. [There is very much in question the concept embraced here, what is meant by any particular Christian or Christian tradition when referring to "free will." There are differences and ambiguities. And then there are the many confusing, antithetical, yet authoritative Biblical references to a more deterministic, "predestined" path of faith for the "elect" among professing believers--whether from various Calvinist understandings and supporting Scriptures found often in Paul's Epistles, or other sources like Psalm 139. GH] 

And some theologians explain human evil as an unavoidable byproduct of God's gift of free will. If free will goes, so do those beliefs. But of course religion won't relinquish those ideas, for such important dogma is immune to scientific advances. [Yes, and it is also likely immune because of the ambiguities in Scripture and teaching I last referenced, and the insulating mystery in the faith understanding that God's ways and understandings are not our ways and understanding. GH] 

[...] Although science strongly suggests that free will of the sort I defined doesn't exist, this view is unpopular because it contradicts our powerful feeling that we make real choices. In response, some philosophers—most of them determinists who agree with me that our decisions are preordained—have redefined free will in ways that allow us to have it. I see most of these definitions as face-saving devices designed to prop up our feeling of autonomy...  

---"You Don't Have Free Will," by Jerry A Coyne, The Chronicle Review (3.19.12) 

That's one clear, direct point of view, even if it does not deal with the alternative arguments or views sufficiently. Next is Alfred R. Mele, a professor of philosophy at Florida State University. He is the director of Big Questions in Free Will, an investigation of the science, philosophy, and theology of free will, supported by a $4.4-million grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Is free will an illusion? Recent scientific arguments for an affirmative answer have a simple structure. First, data are offered in support of some striking empirical proposition—for example, that conscious intentions never play any role in producing corresponding actions. Then this proposition is linked to a statement about what free will means to yield the conclusion that it does not exist. [As in the first essay. GH] 

In my book Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will (Oxford University Press, 2009), I explain why the data do not justify such arguments. Sometimes I am told that even if I am correct, I overlook the best scientific argument for the nonexistence of free will. This claim, in a nutshell, has two parts: Free will depends on the activity of nonphysical minds or souls, and scientists have shown that something physical—the brain—is doing all the work. 

As the majority of philosophers understand the concept, free will doesn't depend at all on the existence of nonphysical minds or souls. But philosophers don't own this expression. If anyone owns it, people in general do. So I conducted some simple studies. 

In one, I invited participants to imagine a scenario in which scientists had proved that everything in the universe is physical and that what we refer to as a "mind" is actually a brain at work. In this scenario, a man sees a $20 bill fall from a stranger's pocket, considers returning it, and decides to keep it. Asked whether he had free will when he made that decision, 73 percent answer yes. This study suggests that a majority of people do not see having a nonphysical mind or soul as a requirement for free will. [Is that satisfactorily proved by this study uncontrolled for whether the participants have fully accepted and internalized the notion that brain equals mind completely? GH] 

If free will does not depend on souls, what is the scientific evidence that it is an illusion? I'll briefly discuss just one study. Chun Siong Soon and colleagues, in a 2008 Nature Neuroscience article, report the results of an experiment in which participants were asked to make simple decisions while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. The options were always two buttons, and nothing hinged on which was pressed. Soon and coauthors write: "We found that two brain regions encoded with high accuracy whether the subject was about to choose the left or right response prior to the conscious decision," noting that "the predictive neural information preceded the conscious motor decision by up to 10 seconds." The science writer Elsa Youngsteadt represented these results as suggesting that "the unconscious brain calls the shots, making free will an illusory afterthought." 

In this study, however, the predictions are accurate only 60 percent of the time. Using a coin, I can predict with 50-percent accuracy which button a participant will press next. And if the person agrees not to press a button for a minute (or an hour), I can make my predictions a minute (or an hour) in advance. I come out 10 points worse in accuracy, but I win big in terms of time. 

So what is indicated by the neural activity that Soon and colleagues measured? My money is on a slight unconscious bias toward a particular button—a bias that may give the participant about a 60-percent chance of pressing that button next.

Given such flimsy evidence, I do not recommend betting the farm on the nonexistence of free will. 

---"The Case Against the Case Against Free Will," by Alfred R/ Mele, The Chronicle Review (3.18.12)

There appears more than enough flimsy evidence to go around in that point of view. Next up is Michael S. Gazzaniga, director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author, most recently, of Who's In Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain (HarperCollins, 2011).

Neuroscience reveals that the concept of free will is without meaning, just as John Locke suggested in the 17th century. Do robots have free will? Do ants have free will? Do chimps have free will? Is there really something in all of these machines that needs to be free, and if so, from what? Alas, just as we have learned that the world is not flat, neuroscience, with its ever-increasing mechanistic understanding of how the brain enables mind, suggests that there is no one thing in us pulling the levers and in charge. It's time to get over the idea of free will and move on. 

Understanding the mechanisms of mind is both daunting and thrilling, as well as a central part of modern knowledge and life. We humans are about becoming less dumb, and making better decisions to cope and adapt to the world we live in. That is what our brain is for and what it does. It makes decisions based on experience, innate biases, and mostly without our conscious knowledge. It is beautiful to understand how that happens. 

But brain determinism has no relevance to the concept of personal responsibility.

The exquisite machine that generates our mental life also lives in a social world and develops rules for living within a social network. For the social network to function, each person assigns each other person responsibility for his or her actions. There are rules for traffic that exist and are only understood and adopted when cars interact. It is the same for human interactions. Just as we would not try to understand traffic by studying the mechanics of cars, we should not try to understand brains to understand the idea of responsibility. Responsibility exists at a different level of organization: the social level, not in our determined brains. 

Viewing the age-old question of free will in this framework has many implications. Holding people responsible for their actions remains untouched and intact since that is a value granted by society. We all learn and obey rules, both personal and social. Following social rules, as they say, is part of our DNA. Virtually every human can follow rules no matter what mental state he or she is in. 

[...] We should hold people responsible for their actions. No excuses. That keeps everything simple and clean. Once accountability is established, we can then take up the more challenging questions of what as a society we should do about someone engaged in wrongdoing. We can debate punishment, treatment, isolation, or many other ways to enforce accountability in a social network. Those are truly difficult issues. Establishing how to think about responsibility is not. 

---"Free Will is an Illusion, but You're Still Responsible for Your Actions," by Michael S. Gazzaniga, The Chronicle Review (3.18.12)

Okay, that one was more about the notion of personal responsibility assuming the neuroscientist are right than the reasons why they are; but a conversation worth having. Next is Hilary Bok, an associate professor of philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Freedom and Responsibility (Princeton University Press, 1998).

As a philosopher, I often find speculation about the implications of neuroscience for free will perplexing. While some neuroscientists describe free will in ways that I recognize, others, including some distinguished and thoughtful scientists, do not. Thus Benjamin Libet: If "our consciously willed acts are fully determined by natural laws that govern the activities of nerve cells in the brain," then free will is "illusory." [Ah, more definitions, conditions and conclusions. GH] 

Most philosophers disagree. [With what, exactly? That last statement, and only that? GH] 

Among philosophers the main division is between compatibilists, who believe that free will is compatible with causal determinism, and incompatibilists, who believe that it is not. Almost all compatibilists think that we are free. Most are not determinists, but they believe that we would be free even if our actions are fully determined. 

With the exception of those who work within a religious tradition, philosophers tend to be naturalists who see individual mental events as identical with events in our brains. When we say that a person's choice caused her action, we do not mean that she swooped in from outside nature and altered her destiny; we mean that an event in her brain caused her to act. On this view, the claim that a person chose her action does not conflict with the claim that some neural processes or states caused it; it simply redescribes it. 

For compatibilists, therefore, the problem of free will is not that neuroscience reveals our choices as superfluous. It does not. Nor do compatibilists deny that our choices cause us to do things. The problem of free will for compatibilists is not to preserve a role for deliberation and choice in the face of explanations that threaten them with elimination; it is to explain how, once our minds and our choices have been thoroughly naturalized, we can provide an adequate account of human agency and freedom. 

How can we reconcile the idea that our choices have scientific explanations with the idea that we are free? Determinism does not relieve us of the need to make decisions. And when we make decisions, we need some conception of the alternatives available to us. If we define an alternative as an action that is physically possible, then determinism implies that we never have more than one alternative. But since we cannot know in advance what we will choose, if we define "alternative" this way, we will never know what our alternatives are. For the purposes of deciding what to do, we need to define our alternatives more broadly: as those actions that we would perform if we chose them. [Hmm. More conceptual and conforming to our perceived experience, this is also a more welcome and comforting treatment. GH] 

A person whose actions depend on her choices has alternatives; if she is, in addition, capable of stepping back from her existing motivations and habits and making a reasoned decision among them, then, according to compatibilists, she is free.

Whether this view provides an adequate account of free will is not a problem neuroscience can solve. Neuroscience can explain what happens in our brains: how we perceive and think, how we weigh conflicting considerations and make choices, and so forth. But the question of whether freedom and moral responsibility are compatible with free will is not a scientific one, and we should not expect scientists to answer it. [Ah, but that very statement is very much at the heart of the different understandings of the questions, context, methodologies, purposes and implications. GH] 

Whatever their views on the compatibility of freedom and determinism, most philosophers agree that someone can be free only if she can make a reasoned choice among various alternatives, and act on her decision; in short, only if she has the capacity for self-government. 

Neuroscience can help us to understand what this capacity is and how it can be strengthened. What, for instance, determines when we engage in conscious self-regulation, and how might we ensure that we do so when we need to? If the exercise of self-government can deplete our capacity for further self-government in the short run, what exactly is depleted, and how might we compensate for its loss? Does self-government deplete our resources in the short run while strengthening them over time, like physical exercise, or does it simply weaken our ability to govern ourselves without any compensating benefit? 

Neuroscience can answer those questions, and it can provide causal explanations of human action, but it can't resolve the question of whether or not such explanations are compatible with free will. 

---"Want to Understand Free Will? Don't Look to Neuroscience," by Hilary Bok, The Chronicle Review (3.18.12)

Not bad; not adequately responsive to the points of the scientists, but relevant and worthy considerations. Not bad. Next, Owen D. Jones, a professor of law and biological sciences at Vanderbilt University. His book Law and Neuroscience, with Jeffrey Schall and Francis Shen, is forthcoming from Aspen Publishers next year.

The problem with free will is that we keep dwelling on it. Really, this has to stop. Free will is to human behavior what a perfect vacuum is to terrestrial physics—a largely abstract endpoint from which to begin thinking, before immediately moving on to consider and confront the practical frictions of daily existence. 

I do get it. People don't like to be caused. It conflicts with their preference to be fully self-actualized. So it is understandable that, at base, free-will discussions tend to center on whether people have the ability to make choices uncaused by anything other than themselves. But there's a clear answer: They don't. Will is as free as lunch. (If you doubt, just try willing yourself out of love, lust, anger, or jealousy.) 

All animals are choice machines for two simple reasons. First, no organism can behave in all physically possible ways simultaneously. Second, alternative courses are not all equal. At any given moment, there are far more ways to behave disastrously than successfully (just as there are more ways to break a machine than to fix it). So persistence of existence consistently depends on one's ability to choose nondisastrous courses of action. 

Yet (indeed, fortunately) that choosing is channeled. Choices are initially constrained by the obvious—the time one has to decide, and the volume of brain tissue one can deploy to the task. Choices are also constrained by things we have long suspected but which science now increasingly clarifies. 

For example, human brains are not general-purpose proc­­essors, idly awaiting culture's activating infusion of consciousness. Evolutionary proc­esses pre-equip brains in all species with some information-processing predispositions. Generally speaking, these increase the probabilities that some combinations of environmental circumstances—immediate physical and social factors, contexts, and the like—will yield one subset of possible (and generally nondisastrous) behaviors rather than others. 

Also, we now know that brains, though remarkable and often malleable, are functionally specialized. That is, different brain regions have evolved to do different things—even though they generally do more than one thing. As a consequence, impairments to specific areas of the brain—through injury or disease, for example—can impede normal human decision-making. And those impediments can, in turn, relax inhibitions, increase impulsive and addictive behaviors, alter the ability to make moral judgments, or otherwise leave a person situated dissimilarly from the rest of the population. 

Which brings us to law. How will insights from the brain sciences affect the ways we assess a person's responsibility for bad behavior? Answer: only somewhat, but sometimes significantly. Many people assume that legal responsibility requires free will, such that an absence of free will necessarily implies an absence of responsibility. Not true, as many scholars have amply demonstrated. Full, complete, utterly unconstrained freedom to choose among available actions might be nice to have, but it is not in fact necessary for a fair and functioning legal system. 

This is not to say that degrees of freedom are irrelevant to law. Science hasn't killed free will. But it has clarified various factors—social, economic, cultural, and biological in nature—that constrain it. 

The existence of constraints very rarely excuses behavior, as when a person in an epileptic fit hits someone. But evidence of brain-based constraints—which can vary from small to large—can be, and indeed have been, relevant in determining the severity of punishment. For example, some jurors in a recent Florida case reported that evidence of abnormal brain functioning warranted a murderer spending his life in prison, instead of being executed. 

All behaviors have causes, and all choices are constrained. We need to accept this and adapt. Brain sciences are revealing complex and interconnected pathways by which the information-proc­essing activities of multiple brain regions coalesce to influence human decision making. But this poses an advantage—neither a threat nor a revolutionary transition—to the legal system. In the near term, these complexities are more likely to inform than to utterly transform law's justice-driven efforts to treat people fairly and effectively. 

---"The End of (Discussing) Free Will," by Owen D. Jones, The Chronicle Review (3.18.12)

Well, his frustration with the overworked and redundant arguments in the discussion quickly give way to furthering the arguments in the discussion--and advance the discussion very well he does. Now last, the estimable and entertaining Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University. His next book, Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, will be published next year by Crown.

I have a genetic condition. People like me are prone to violent fantasy and jealous rage; we are over 10 times more likely to commit murder and over 40 times more likely to commit sexual assault. Most prisoners suffer from my condition, and almost everyone on death row has it. Relative to other people, we have an abundance of testosterone, which is associated with dominance and aggression, and a deficit in oxytocin, associated with compassion. My sons share my condition, and so does my father. 

So, yes, I am male. The neuroscientist David Eagleman uses this example to illustrate how our genetic blueprint partially determines our actions, including our moral behavior. The rest is determined by our environments; by the forces that act upon us throughout our journeys from zygotes to corpses. And this is it—we are physical beings, and so our natures and our nurtures determine all that we are and all that we do. 

This conclusion does not feel right. Common sense tells us that we exist outside of the material world—we are connected to our bodies and our brains, but we are not ourselves material beings, and so we can act in ways that are exempt from physical law. For every decision we make—from leaning over for a first kiss, to saying "no" when asked if we want fries with that—our actions are not determined and not random, but something else, something we describe as chosen. 

This is what many call free will, and most scientists and philosophers agree that it is an illusion. Our actions are in fact literally predestined, determined by the laws of physics, the state of the universe, long before we were born, and, perhaps, by random events at the quantum level. We chose none of this, and so free will does not exist. 

I agree with the consensus, but it's not the big news that many of my colleagues seem to think it is. For one thing, it isn't news at all. Determinism has been part of Philosophy 101 for quite a while now, and arguments against free will were around centuries before we knew anything about genes or neurons. It's long been a concern in theology; Moses Maimonides, in the 1100s, phrased the problem in terms of divine omniscience: If God already knows what you will do, how could you be free to choose? 

More important, it's not clear what difference it makes. Many scholars do draw profound implications from the rejection of free will. Some neuroscientists claim that it entails giving up on the notion of moral responsibility. There is no actual distinction, they argue, between someone who is violent because of a large tumor in his brain and a neurologically normal premeditated killer—both are influenced by forces beyond their control, after all—and we should revise the criminal system accordingly. Other researchers connect the denial of free will with the view that conscious deliberation is impotent. We are mindless robots, influenced by unconscious motivations from within and subtle environmental cues from without; these entirely determine what we think and do.  

I think those claims are mistaken. In any case, none of them follow from determinism. Most of all, the deterministic nature of the universe is fully compatible with the existence of conscious deliberation and rational thought. These (physical and determined) processes can influence our actions and our thoughts, in the same way that the (physical and determined) workings of a computer can influence its output. It is wrong, then, to think that one can escape from the world of physical causation—but it is not wrong to think that one can think, that we can mull over arguments, weigh the options, and sometimes come to a conclusion. After all, what are you doing now? [Hear! Hear!]

---"Free Will Does Not Exist. So What?" by Paul Bloom, The Chronicle Review (3.18.12)

I and my views find more compatibility and comfort with Mr. Bloom and his take on it all. But, as threatened, I reserve the last word for myself. Since a good friend finds it irksome when I use pullquotes from something I've written before, here I will just share with you some long-held views, although you will find very similar ideas and language, but more of it, in two pieces called "Choices"  and "The Limits of Merit & Choice" written by someone or other some years ago.

Your freedom and choices, it appears, may be more limited than you think. What remains to you is the constant drumbeat of scholarly research that informs us we are each bound in our own Procrustean bed, genetically-defined, fixed more-or-less, and further limited by the environments we were reared in and live in.

That unwelcome, deterministic reality is an earnest finger poked in our chest, demanding to be heard, attesting repeatedly to the inherited and conditioned responses and qualities that characterize what we do, what we think, who we are. A more euphemistic sentiment might allude to the limits and conditions on the freedom of man. A more direct and fatalistic disposition might charge that what the genes don't dictate, the environment will. And if the genetic brand of determinism is incomprehensible or unacceptable to you, don't expect to find more comfort in the world of conditioned behavior and beliefs. Or do you believe that the realities of family and cultural conditioning are any less powerful than your genetic endowment?

So do not deceive yourself or be deceived. The power of our genetic endowment and the behavioral conditioning of our environment are great indeed. With compelling research in hand, science would reasonably advise you that your very personality and many of your personal traits and predilections are influenced significantly by your genes. So is your predisposition to pursue certain types of vocations or interests, or fall prey to certain illnesses or diseases. And the ubiquitous power of the environment, the impact of family and culture as explained by the learning and conditioning sciences, has been well understood much longer.

Of course, many are simply in denial. They would wish it all away, dismiss it as exaggerated in impact and import. But that's a fool's errand, whether born of intellectual ignorance, emotional defensiveness, or worse, a stiff-necked, misguided mission to carry water for various ideological, religious or social agendas. They greatly underestimate the near uncontrollable, deterministic power of genetic inheritance and environmental conditioning. But operating under a self-constructed illusion of freedom—denying, distorting or reshaping the truth—has never been the right answer, or even a workable answer. Then you are working with a lie, and have no chance at all.

You might well conclude, then, that the natural condition of man is an utter lack of freedom, the absence of real, voluntary personal choices—or, put another way, that any sense of freedom exists only in ignorance.

Moving Toward a Reality of Freedom

If all this is just too emotionally confining and personally limiting, too threatening to your notion of freedom and identity, potential and possibilities—it should be. Oh, it's not that this is all bad science, a cruel, controlling hoax, a lie. No, in large part it is too true. And the only real uncertainty is how large a part each factor plays in influencing the understanding of our alternatives and the making of our choices. But it isn't as bleak as it sounds.

In a real sense, you can enjoy and exercise more real freedom. Your freedom is first in knowing what has made you who you are, the way you are—and how. You can better understand your genetic predispositions and prescriptions; more is being learned about such things every day, and you can have your genetic endowment examined and explained to you for a reasonable price at commercial providers of such services.

It is also in knowing how your family and cultural environment has shaped you, conditioned you, to be who you are, the way you are. You can learn more about such processes, which makes alternatives more real--the potential effect on you of different places and people, different thinking and ways of doing things. Your freedom is in that knowledge. You can also read what different people are reading, listen for what they are saying, watch for what they are doing. In this way you can learn more about what you need to know, and better understand.

You can, then, see yourself and others in a different, more interdependent way, a more understanding and sympathetic way. And to the extent you know the ways you and others are a product of your changeable circumstances—family, culture, your time and place, the box you are in—you have a blueprint for personal change.

You can have real alternatives and choices to make. And you can have better-informed reasons to believe in and make your choices. If there is anything more to your notion of freedom than a hollow log, you can know that there are better choices you can make, actions you can take, to access better opportunities to grow—or not.

And the scope of the alternatives you entertain and understand, and the particular choices you pursue with understanding, also define your freedom, don't they? A choice to refrain from expanding your experience, knowledge or ability is, in effect, a choice to limit or deny your future choices—and therefore the future scope of your freedom. So it is also with choices to indulge foolish, anti-social or base desires and emotions. They can threaten life or health, result in imprisonment or legal limitations, or compromise your honor, trustworthiness, or self-esteem in ways that limit your future relationships and opportunities. These acts, too, limit your future choices and freedom. And they can be better controlled.

So, you can plan your way toward readiness to take the first steps out of the behavioral box you're in. You can plan your way to choosing better alternatives and expand your possibilities, that they are real and waiting for you—even calling you.

Move, literally. Change the physical place you are in and the people around you. Seek people and situations that will expect more of what you want to expect of yourself. They can notably change your actions, what you do, change your thinking, and to some extent, who you are. And the more you know about yourself—about those influencing factors—the more readily, competently you will make choices for effective change in your life. And yes, that honest knowledge will also have to acknowledge your limitations as well as your potential. That's important, too. But, most often, there will be some better alternatives, some better choices.

Please make some choices that work for other people, too—people you probably don't know or don't know well. To one extent or another, you share with them some of the same space, even if not the same experiential boxes. Make some choices for tolerance or, better still, acceptance and civility. Or, go crazy: think about respect and caring and serving.

Make some choices for community and your best contribution to it. Consider more charitably the poor, the immigrant, the stranger, the prisoner. Consider again issues of access to education and health care, and stewardship of our environment. Be part of solutions, not problems; building up, not tearing down; caring, not neglecting or, worse still, hating. You can do this. But you need to embrace a new sense of responsibility, some knowledge of the alternatives and possibilities—your possibilities. And you have to make some choices.

The Limits of Merit & Choice

Now, let's take a look at another application in the broad arena of social policy that begs for understanding of these deterministic forces in the lives of individuals and groups of people. It's about how ignorance about such things, or unwillingness to understand, leads us embrace social half-truths that harm us more than help us, both as individuals and as a society.

It's not a fabrication, a lie. It's just not the whole truth. And the part that's been omitted—or is it just ignored?—should provide the basis for us to consider providing better for those most in need. I'm speaking of our unwarranted overemphasis on personal merit and, as we've discussed elsewhere, freedom of choice.

It really does appeal to us, all of us. It panders to our self-esteem, our sense of self-determination and self-sufficiency, our self-congratulatory tendencies. We want to believe that we earned what we have—that we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, mapped out our plans, prepared ourselves, then worked hard, harder than the next guy, earning our way to our definition of success. And in a very real, experiential sense, it is true. (Most of us feel that's exactly what we've done!)

We also want to believe that it's not our fault if the next guy wasn't as ambitious, didn't prepare himself as well, didn't work as hard, wasn't as able. It's not our fault if he was too lazy or irresponsible, lacked discipline, character or interpersonal capability. It's not our fault if he wasn't intelligent, talented or savvy enough. It's not our fault if he was too different, unstable or disabled. We each get what we earn, what we deserve. (Isn't that right?)

And what of the poor, the competitive failures of whatever stripe? Why, they just suffer the natural consequences of their own failings and failure. And that's not our fault, either. How could it be? (So, why should it be our responsibility?)

Of course it's not your fault or mine—at least not most of the time. But most often, neither is it theirs. Notably, in a most real sense, most often we are no more the author of our successes than they are of their failures. Heresy, indeed! But let me briefly explain why, in more empirical terms, this is also true.

You understand the continuing discussion and research about nature and nurture, of course. We discussed it in Choices. You're familiar with the debate about how much of the way we are is the result of the genetic legacy of our parents and forbears, and how much is the result of the way we are conditioned and schooled, what we learn in our families, communities and cultures. What is not in doubt is that the combination of our genes, family, culture and education determines who we are, how we act, and the likely limits of our potential and achievements. And if most everyone still has some alternatives, some choices, those afforded the least able of our brethren, the least fortunate, are so many fewer and so much narrower, and their ability to act on them is so much less. 

The irony is that we discuss it, make casual affirming observations about it in everyday life, even ponder it with personal satisfaction or dismay, but then go about our lives dealing with each other, making personal and organizational decisions and crafting public policy as though we didn't know it or didn't believe it. The truth is that the power and perceived importance of our public, cultural half-myths trump what we instinctively know and what science more resoundingly than ever confirms. The truth is inconvenient and unwelcome to our sense of independence, accomplishment and self worth. It can coexist only uncomfortably with those cultural values.

So, just how right, how defensible, then, is that laissez-faire foundation on which we stand? How fair or egalitarian, how ethical and moral, how humane and intelligent are our assumptions about getting what we earn or deserve? How even is the playing field, how just the result? Is it not true that there, but for the deal of the genetic cards, the spin of the birth-place roulette, go I—dross in the crucible of our competitive society, failed or failing, and much in need of the help and support of my community, my more fortunate brethren? Shouldn't the integrity of an accountable, civilized society demand a full understanding and honest acknowledgment of this reality? Wouldn't it respond honestly, responsibly, and effectively to the needs of the innocent poor, infirm and unable? Wouldn't health care, education, and subsistence living be their right as it would everyone's?

(My Christian faith informs me that we are each just who God intended us to be based on the dictates of our singular spiritual paths, and the genetic endowment and life circumstances that deliver us there. And more, we have responsibilities and accountabilities for one another. That is the signal characteristic of faith community, and any real community. No one left behind.)