Filters Against Folly

April 6, 1986
Lakeland

One definition of immaturity is to prefer immediate gratification and ignore longer-range goals and goods. FILTERS AGAINST FOLLY was written by Garrett Hardin in 1985. Garrett Hardin is Professor Emeritus of Human Ecology at University of California – Santa Barbara. The sub-title of FILTERS AGAINST FOLLY is “How to Survive despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent.”

Some of you may remember the difficult choices Garrett Hardin offers, when a couple of years ago in Wednesday night discussion group we talked about the “Tragedy of the Commons” and the “Lifeboat Ethic.” Hardin’s rigorous thinking cuts at the core of some of our idealistic generalities. Because in a brief time today I can only touch base with the range of Hardin’s arguments, Wednesday nights April 16, 23, and 30, the conditions will be more fully explored.

Hardin notes that we have been experiencing an ecological revolution, but it has at times “attracted more enthusiasm than understanding.” He asks, “How are we laymen to survive in a world increasingly dominated by experts?” He also reminds us that as “everybody is a layman in some areas, let us accept the term proudly and see what measures we can take to extract some truth from the depositions of experts.” (p. 11) He emphasizes the “greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically.”

What is the “environment,” that word so frequently used? In the author’s view, “environment” refers to two sorts of relationships: “First, there are the relations of human beings to the non-human world, a world that makes no allowances for human desires. The discipline of ecology studies these relationships. Second, there is the internal environment in which human beings are the environment for other human beings. This world is the object of study [in] economics, political science, and ethics. The combined study of both kinds of relationships is the province of human ecology.” (p. 12)

What is folly? Foolish actions. Barbara Tuchman, in THE MARCH OF FOLLY, wrote of the invariable wooden-headedness of those headed for tragedy. “We want prophylactics against folly.” (p. 15) It is Hardin’s contention that “many of our mistakes can be both understood and avoided if we are acutely aware of three intellectual filters available to us in our dealings with reality.”

The three filters against folly he proposes are: the literate filter, the numerate filter, and the ecolate filter.

Literate – what are the words?
Numerate – what are the numbers?
Ecolate – and then, what?

First, the literate filter - “the principle function of language is to promote communication between people and that it serves to further than interior communication we call thinking.” (p. 27) Hardin points out, however, that there is a greater truth: “Beyond communication, language has two functions: to promote thought and to prevent it.” (p. 28) He quotes Oliver Goldsmith, “The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.” Hardin cites an instance how certain promoters can thwart the law through language. In New York City, calling a certain kind of business a “massage parlor” invites trouble with the laws against prostitution. One ingenious owner of such a parlor in Manhattan’s Times Square named his facility, “Fellowship for Human Happiness”, incorporating as a religious corporation. But in order to inform potential male customers of the real nature of the business, leaflets were handed out to men on the street with the inviting message “to be captivated by your own personal, glamorous, tranquility angel in the seclusion of our temple.” It took two years for the law to catch up.

On a more serious level, Hardin points out how literacy or words can speak folly. He cites three brief examples (pp. 30-31):

“In 1909 the U. S. Bureau of Soils issued this statement: ‘The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possesses. It is one resource that cannot be exhausted, that cannot be used up.’”

The he quotes a recent opponent of abortion: “Moral law spells out the sanctity of life in very specific terms, attributing infinite value to every innocent human life. Infinity is indivisible. Any fraction of infinity remains equally infinite.”

Third, in 1967, the Secretary of Defense testifying before a Senate committee was asked, “how long can the U.S. Afford the gigantic financial cost of the major ground war in Southeast Asia?” The Secretary of Defense replied, “I think, forever.”

Infinity and forever are the common speech elements in those three statements. The term “infinity” may have a certain usefulness to mathematicians, but is neither informative nor helpful in the examples given. Operational answers in these cases have been paraphrased:

Agriculture bureaucrat - “It is ridiculous to suppose that the soil could ever be exhausted. I refuse to talk about it.” (p. 31)

Abortion opponent - “I am not interested in assertions that abortion may sometimes be the lesser of two evils. I refuse to talk about it.”

Secretary of Defense - “Don’t bother to try to figure out the domestic consequences of continuing to pursue the war in Vietnam, I refuse to talk about it.”

In terms of the resources of our planet, “infinity” is both irrelevant and misleading. Our world is finite, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” As Hardin put it, “Language is action: it serves the demands of the ego whether it is used to promote or prevent thought.” (p. 34)

Nor are those who stoutly defend conservation exempt from building language traps. The great naturalist John Muir said, “The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest, transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.” (pp. 35-36)

Beautiful statement, right? But operationally, would you think of it the next time you squash a cockroach or swat a mosquito?

Hardin points out that there may be ten millions of species of plants and animals. As one habitat after another developed, 1/3rd of the world’s species will be destroyed by the year 2000. The smallpox virus is one transmicroscopic creature. Is the world incomplete because a few years ago we may have eliminated that virus? (p. 36)

The literate filter against folly has to balance conflicting goals. Rhetoric like John Muir’s may be wonderful, but how operational is it? Hardin remarks, “it is when ecological rhetoric is most beautiful that we must be on our guard.” (p. 37)

His second filter against folly is the numerate. He defines “numeracy” (p. 38):

“1) The act of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning variables in order that practical decisions may be reached. 2) That aspect of education which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality.”

Because Hardin’s discussion of numeracy will be clearer on newsprint and in discussion, today only brief observations will be made.

“Where is the dividing line between safe and unsafe speeds for an automobile? What is the safe amount of radiation for a human being? At what level should we start worrying about acid rain? Nature is silent. Nature does not tell us when ‘safe’ steps into ‘unsafe.’ Men and women reasoning together must legally define ‘unsafe.’” [CJW note: 41, 55, or would 52 or 60]

But numbers are used by human beings, and human beings are fallible. “In the mid 1970s a $2 million study, The Rasmussen Study, concluded that the probability of a significant nuclear reactor accident was less than the probability of a person’s being hit by a meteorite. But the Rasmussen report failed to deal with human unreliability.” (p. 51) Then, March 1980, Three Mile Island – we do not know the human cost – that may not be assessed for years. But the cost of repairs, evacuations, emergency measures, etc., were hundreds of millions [of dollars]. When that accident was investigated, the conclusion was “except for human failures, the major accident would have been a minor incident.”

It seems probable to me that the report on the disaster of the orbiter Challenger will come to a similar conclusion.

Human beings are part of the total system, and failure to recognize this constantly will be grave and disastrous neglect indeed. Numbers are not enough.

Then there is what Hardin calls the Ecolate filter. Ecology is a rather recent value, or at least hardly emphasized before the second half of this century. You are aware of the term “side-effect,” which Hardin believes is language to discourage thinking about total effects of a new medicine, pesticide, or a new public works project, when some of the consequences prove embarrassing to the promoters. (p. 53) But to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, “an effect is an effect is an effect.”

The disaster effects – not “side effects” - are numerous. Many of you are familiar with the bad effect of the Aswan Dam on the Nile which was built for a good purpose. The question never asked – after the dam is built, then what? (p. 54)

During some of that same period, the Volta River in west Africa was dammed and followed by an enormous increase in the black flies, together with their parasites, which cause outbreaks of river blindness – a dreadful disease. DDT was used, but it killed the insect enemies of the black flies as well, resulting in a worse outbreak of river blindness. And then what?

These and other disasters could be labeled as “progress gone sour.”

Thus the warnings of the ecologists need to be taken seriously. The physical resources of the planet are no greater than when Homo Sapiens first emerged, but there are a great many more people in the world. (p. 57)

In 1963, Hardin proposed a “First Law of Ecology”: “We can never do merely one thing.”

“An important part of the ecolate filtering apparatus is semantic. Many conflicts over environmental matters can be cleared up (more) quickly once the semantics are straightened out:

[CJW note: read p. 67]

The limits of time make it necessary to postpone to our Wednesday night discussion group important observations Hardin makes -

such as vested interests
such as the idea of progress
such as slippery slopes and camel’s noses
such as the human time bind
such as a tragic distribution system
such as compassion and principle
such as Belshazzar’s Feast and the Greenhouse Effect.

[CJW note: GBS quote, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.” ]

[CJW note: the Double C – Double P game]

... why do we say there is a shortage of food, rather than a longage of people?

I believe that filters against folly are the disciplines we will neglect at some cost to ourselves, but at much greater cost to those who come after us. There are tough questions and difficult answers. Actions will be painful because the prospects are that everyone will have to live with less of what we may believe to be necessities, but may prove out to be luxuries. And most of us won’t like that. We are part of a human and natural environment, and everything we do affects the human environment and the natural environment. We are being measured and counted. There is handwriting on the wall. Plain thinkers like Hardin can broaden our perspectives and deepen our sense not only of how beautiful is the Earth, but also how necessary is wise and thoughtful stewardship. It’s not too late.

Loren Eiseley’s physicist put tortoise back because as he said, “I have tampered enough with the universe.” I’m sure he felt that deeply, but the inescapable reality is that we can’t stop tampering with the universe. But we can attempt to use filters against folly so we may use the resources of the planet in a more ways that will sensibly conserve, rather than selfishly waste.

Jacques Cousteau once said, “If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.”