Fools' Wilding

Once upon a time, people looked up to the better educated. Religious people were better educated, scientists were sublime, but industrialists, who were considered awfully important to our economic wellbeing, were regarded rather more as egotists who loved power. Still, we tended to abide by them.

Eventually, the clerics once graduated from our most elite colleges, where religious principles were paramount, morphed into that once-beloved Jeffersonian dream as climbers in the meritocracy. Sublime moral merit then became intellectual merit as bestowed upon those whose families - according to Protestant premise and pretense - had demonstrated merit by their wealth. Clerics became uneducated big-box fools or tools.

By now of course, the hoi polloi began to have a hard time trusting these merited folk, once they learned to cash in on the family franchise. Even scientists seemed to be gunning for gold. No-one had the public good in mind, or so it did seem. 

Maybe too much power was bestowed to politicians, and maybe they liked that power a bit too much. The man became the image, first in politics and then in general. Image was something that could be manufactured and cleansed and cultivated and finally made distinct from the man, and later from the woman. 

As our economy grew so grew the advertising industry, which helped to separate ourselves from our images, never mind the image of a brand name. After being bought and oversold, brand-names lost their identity too.

This is the process which I call wilding. The funny thing is that the actual wild is always in a kind of dynamic balance. Just now the earth herself is trying to put our intense and mechanically powererd human gyrations right, on the way toward homeostasis, which is alwaays the way of life. The forests burning is not something we can fix, any more than we can fix the weather. Anyhow, we've put NOAA out of commission, which just seems stupid.

I'm a strange one myself. I've never seemed to have a lot of interest in inventing myself or my future. I love things most which happen along, almost never assuming that I could do better if I just had the right kind of want and went for it. 

My "intelligence' has been certified in a variety of ways. Just as college had become more and more competitive - merit-based, as they called it - I was admitted to MIT, CalTech and Yale among others. Silly me, I chose Yale, which still had a fine engineering school and seemed to want me. I spun through engineering and physics before landing on Chinese Literature and then landing in a school for gifted children where I became headmaster. 

By now, were it not for some inheritance and a loving family, I would be very poorly off indeed. Perhaps I'd still be wandering with my little camper, which I do sorely miss. I can't imagine it would be any worse than the life I now have, though I do really like my own realization of eclectic mid-century modern in a very old house. 

Anyhow, our newly reborn mechanistic wilding, now powered by Artificial Intelligence, will indeed allow the globe to recover from us as we get pesticided, parasited, climate marauded and therefore burned and frozen out. As our politicians increasingly find scorched earth preferable to letting go of their power and wealth. Racism is the best prod toward inhumanity, but any kind of polarization will do if you wish to manipulate we the people. 

Like the tuxedo-wearing drowned once aboard the Titanic, our wealthy will look very silly scrabbling to survive. Social climbing isn't much help as an exercise toward survival. Sure, you may live longer on your super yacht, though that will only get you a front row facing earth's end. You won't know a thing about joining in to man the lifeboats.

And yes, I do mean to say that nature is running her course and that there's nothing we can do about it. We also are a part of nature and not apart from it, or did you really think we would somehow understand everything and set ourselves apart? That dream has gone all wet.