Reason In A World Of Chaos

September 7, 1986
Location Unspecified (Probably Lakeland)

In speaking of reason in a world of chaos, my main point is that unless reason is applied to chaotic social, political, [and] economic conditions, confusion will increase and dangers will multiply.

First: definitions.

By reason I mean the capacity to form clear ideas and come to a conclusion. Reason is examining the cause that makes a fact intelligible.

Theoretical reason is the attempt to grasp the universal from a set of particulars.

Reason is the attempt to distinguish the true from the false by examining and comparing different claims.

Reason is a recognition that facts are stubborn obstacles in the way of grandiose claims or bubble-headed ideas.

There is also intuitive reason where, inwardly a person has an intuition that some idea is true or false, and builds logical arguments on the basis of that intuition or an a-priori principle. For example, if I have the inner feeling that there is a God who cares about persons, I can construct logical arguments to support that premise. But also if I have intuition that such a personal God does not exist and never existed, then similarly reason can supply arguments to logically defend that premise.

Chaos is based in old Greek mythology, where chaos was the prior condition to the forming of the cosmos, a void and formless infinite, undefined and undefinable. I do not speak of such pre-cosmic chaos today.

Rather, I am using chaos to describe the conditions among the people of this planet where contradictions exist, where no universal laws apply, and confusion muddles our thinking.

Not all our world is chaotic, obviously. Order prevails in much of our experiences. Here in this country, at least, we can reasonably expect our salaries or Social Security checks. [We] obey the red, green, and amber of traffic lights. Our shopping malls are well-stocked. Our homes will be there when we leave here. But we do face chaos in many aspects of our lives. If I had been preparing an academic paper, a more correct title would have been “Some Elements of Chaos and the Effect that Logical Thinking Might Have to Reduce Chaos and Promote a More Reasonable Order.” But such a title would have turned me off, let alone all of you.

But there are chaotic events and disorders that shock our reasonable minds. A post-office employee went berserk in Edmond, Oklahoma, and killed fifteen people. [CJW note: but there is a murder every few days in Polk County. If we have reasonable minds, should this not be shocking too?] Two airplanes collided near Los Angeles a few days ago and at least 91 people perished violently. Investigations proceed, air safety regulations are being examined in the hope that more reasonable and effective air safety may be a consequence of the disaster. [CJW note: terrorists attack an airplane in Karachi and a synagogue in Istanbul. We are angered and shocked by such chaotic, violent, and tragic deaths.]

Is it not reasonable also that 50,000 highway casualties annually on our highways represent chaos [and] disorder, also? There are many examples.

This week we voted in primary elections. The grandiloquent claims of candidates who, in their statements on TV commercials where they applaud themselves and vilify their opponents, certainly seem chaotic to me. I couldn’t help being reminded of the story in a past election in the state of Maine where two candidates seeking nomination for governor arrived at the gates of the Bath Iron Works to greet shipyard workers as they came through the gates. The rain was pouring down, but the candidates remained there, shaking hands, leafleting and getting soaking wet. They hoped to impress the workers with their persistence. But one shipyard worker walked past them shaking his head, “I wouldn’t vote for anybody who doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.” (READER’S DIGEST)

Our politics are chaotic, or at least disorderly. But that’s been our American history. Among the famous campaign slogans of American past was “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” William Henry Harrison was Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati, [and] had been an unsuccessful business man. In 1811, he had led 1,000 troops against Indians defending their lands at the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek. 188 of Harrison’s troops were killed in an inconclusive victory. Inconclusive, because after Harrison’s troops went home the Indians re-occupied their lands. Nevertheless, Harrison became the hero of Tippecanoe. (Agar, PRICE OF UNION, pp. 278, 80)

In 1836, seeking a candidate to oppose Van Buren and Webster, some politicians seized on the “hero” of Tippecanoe. After nomination of Harrison, Nicholas Biddle, the powerful Philadelphia financier, wrote a set of instructions:

“Let him not say a single word about his principles or his creed – let him say nothing – promise nothing. Let no committee, no convention, no town meeting ever extract from him a single word about what he thinks now, or what he will do hereafter. Let the use of pen and ink be wholly forbidden, as if he were a mad poet in Bedlam.”

Harrison faithfully followed these instructions, Martin Van Buren was elected, but Harrison carried several states. But as the historian (Agar) put it, “it was plenty to set the politicians thinking of the value of a candidate who was so little known that nobody disliked him and so ambiguous that nobody could attack him with clarity.”

So, Harrison was nominated again in 1840, with the same instructions: say nothing, write nothing. He was elected President of the United States. On a cold March day he was inaugurated. Finally give free speech, he delivered a florid, two-hour outdoor oration, caught pneumonia, and died thirty days later. Ex-President Andrew Jackson’s comment was not generous, but may have been accurate: “A kind and overruling Providence has interfered to prolong our glorious Union.”

This illustrates the obstacles that reason confronts when facing if not chaos, then at least the irrational in our world. In our present-day campaigns, when I become irritated or saddened at political methods, I am somewhat comforted by Churchill’s comment that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

I do not need to ring the changes on the chaos facing our human scene as nuclear weapons escalate, as toxic and nuclear wastes accumulate, as populations in Asia, Africa, and Central America multiply beyond known ways of feeding and care.

The Hebrew scripture of Joel tells how that prophet described the wrath of God and the end of all things using the metaphor of a devouring horde of locusts: “Fire devours them and behind them a flame burns. The land is like a Garden of Eden before them, but after them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.”

Can reason prevail enough to avert the perils of so many possibilities that could ruin or wipe out our human enterprise and all its hopes? I have been singing the blues to you as I frequently sing them to myself. Why share with you again the clouds of chaos appearing on our horizon?

The patterns of our living on this planet do contain pain and defeat. The human venture has muddled through even though disasters have hurt every generation. In Amy Lowell’s sensitive poem, the lady in brocade has just learned that her lover has been killed at Waterloo and cries, “Christ! What are patterns for?” But patterns change as the kaleidoscope of human events turns and turns. Patterns embody hope as well as despair.

What chance for a reasonable world? What hope? We humans on the planet may not meet the test. But one thing seemed true for wise persons in all times. We cannot control much of what we will experience in the years of our lives. But we are free to choose our attitude toward those experiences.

In my files I found a yellowed clipping from a review of a “Guide to Europe” which made this comment: “Much has been written about Pisa’s famous leaning tower, but the visitor need be concerned only with four time-tested approaches to it.

A) You can measure its angle.
B) You can try to push it up.
C) You can try to pull it over.
D) You can adapt yourself to it. There is an old saying – when in Pisa, do as the Pisans do – lean with it.

This guide book clipping is a metaphor in this matter of reason against chaos, logic opposed to irrationality. It is reported that the tower of Pisa is leaning more and more – is it a half-inch per year?

Of course, the most effortless way is to lean with it. It’s much easier to lean with the times, because there’s discomfort in challenging the powers. Many times there’s a personal cost in advocating peace-ways when our war-ways are popular ways. Ambrose Bierce, in his satirical “Devil’s Dictionary,” had a different definition of reason, defining it as weighing probabilities in the scale of desire. In other words, you can always make a reasonable case for what will give you ease or gain, rather than toil and trouble, even though the latter may be more realistic in a dangerous world. [CJW note: “One of the difficulties of humanity is that it has human nature.”]

Then, too, pursuing the Pisa metaphor – leaning with it – will leave one in the ruins with it when it finally crashes.

Another option is to pull the tower over. That is the way of violent revolution. The historical problem is that most violent revolutions not only fail to solve the ills that ignited revolution, but also bring new terrors, pain, and repression.

The third choice is to measure the angle. Take seriously the changes. In other words, know what is happening. In the deluge of words in this Age of Information, what’s true, what is not, and what is irrelevant. How can we protest if we do not know what is wrong? There are many ways to know more about important issues. Many of you are involved in measuring angles on important issues. The need will never end for the public to be informed. I was struck by something Winston Churchill (no radical he) once said about the British War Office in World War I. Churchill said that the British War Office kept three sets of figures: one to mislead the public, another to mislead the cabinet, and a third to mislead itself (Manchester, THE LAST LION, p. 613). My surmise is that such a trinity of deceit has characterized many governments, including our own (and a particular example is Central America). So, continuously check the angle, remembering that Jefferson never said anything more true than “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” One could put it another way, if you don’t pay the price, you won’t have the liberty, or have it very long.

This can be combined with the fourth option in our metaphor of the Leaning Tower. One can prop it up by never tiring of making your views known. Of course, you may be called “liberal,” which is a very bad word today in Florida, according to much campaign nonsense. The real question is not whether a conviction is liberal or conservative, but whether it is closer to truth and reason than it is to falsehood and irrationality.

Easy? Of course not. Discouraging? Yes, when many persons you meet either want to lean with it or tear it down. Not to speak of the temptation we all face to lean with it, because it is less disturbing.

I came across what was to me an inspiring item in AMERICAN HISTORY. In 1828 (sic), there came into being in New York a minority party, the Workingmen’s Party. They were radical men – they stood for such things as free education and abolition of imprisonment for debt. Then, as now, in our system, a minority party has little chance. So the Work Party allied itself with the Jackson Democrats, and were labeled the Locofocos.... I think it is the origin of the slang word, “loco,” i.e., not playing with a full deck.

The Work Party attended a Democratic Party caucus, Tammany Hall, to protest the choice of national candidates and promote their issues. The Tammany Hall bosses had a way of quieting dissent. They would just turn out the gas lights.

But this time the Work Party were prepared. They had brought candles and the then-new friction matches which were called loco-focos. They lit their candles, and the meeting continued. From then on, the Work Party was called the Locofocos. An amusing name, but its real story is one of determination and preparation, two of the prime qualities needed if more reason and less chaos is to prevail in our years and the years to come.