Here’s a line from Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning”: “It belongs to them/Let’s give it back.” Heartwarming thought, isn’t it? Really socially acceptable. I assume that the members of Midnight Oil are sincere in their efforts to clean up the environment, but they do play electric guitars and use electrically charged speakers in their concerts. To what extent can anyone truly “give it back”?
I like the song because of its powerful beat, and I like the lyrics somewhat, even though they teeter on the edge of nonsense. The sentiment in the words is that we screwed things up with all our civilization stuff, that we took from those who owned Earth before civilization, and that somehow we members of civilizations have a debt to pay to all aboriginal peoples. We’re burning our beds without even knowing, and we’re not fair.
And there are many who take the song’s lyrics as a social philosophy that speaks to their sense of fairness in a world of lopsided material wealth and imbalances in resources. The idea is that somehow we don’t have the right to have. That having is in itself an evil and that having is what separates people. Some have more. Someone else has less. And you, no matter what you might have, probably have something more than someone somewhere who has less. Pretty selfish of you. I think you should, in the words of Midnight Oil, “give it back.”
The physicist Richard Feynman ran into the same thinking at a conference. As he listened to the pontifications of a number of professors on ethics and inequality, especially inequality in education, Feynman came to the conclusion that education was about making us unequal. As he writes, “In education, you increase differences. If someone’s good at something, you try to develop his ability, which results in differences, or inequalities. So, if education increases inequality, is this ethical?” (281)*
And then in the conference Feynman listened to a keynote speaker argue that “the big differences in the welfare of various countries, which cause jealousy, which leads to conflict, and how that we have atomic weapons, any war and we’re doomed, so therefore the right way out is to strive for peace by making sure that there are no great differences from place to place, and since we have so much in the United States, we should give up nearly everything to the other countries until we’re all even” (282).**
So, you turn on the TV today, and you see someone protesting because there are those who have more, and they have less. And there are those protesting because those who have, have because they took. And those who took are evil because they took from someone who had some sort of aboriginal right of ownership.
Let’s give it back. Way back. Back beyond Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo floresiensis, back beyond Homo sapiens neanderthalensis; beyond Homo sapiens (heidelbergensis) and Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, and Homo georgicus; back beyond Homo habilis and Paranthropus (Australopithecus boisei) and Australopithecus robustus; back to Australopoithecus aethiopicus and contemporaneous Australopithecus garbi; way, way back to Australopithicus africanus and even to Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy), and--why not?—to Australopithecus anamensis, Ardipithecus ramidus, Orrorin turenensis, and Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Sure, we should listen to Midnight Oil and redistribute everything, return everything. We might even try putting resources back in the ground (Oh! Wait. We do that in landfills).
I think the next time I encounter someone who wants to “give it back” or to “redistribute,” I might ask for the person to set an example for me to follow. I’ve heard the “give it back” philosophy from people who have more than one car and more than one TV and radio. From the perspective of the destitute, such people should “give it back.” Even in a world of the destitute, there’s an unevenness, an inequality. Live in a house with 20,000 square feet? There's someone who lives in one with 19,000 square feet. Live in one with 550 square feet? There's someone who lives in one with 450 square feet.
Is the principle of equality really a principle of ethics? Is it not based on a notion that there is limited wealth, that people can’t make more wealth? If that is so, shouldn’t the DOW be just $30, that is, a dollar for a stock in each of the 30 companies?
There’s an arguable ethics with regard to charity and sharing, but there’s nonsense in the principle of “giving it back.” We’ve seen what happened in Cuba and Venezuela. Envy is not going away. If Turkana Boy (H. ergaster) saw something that H. heidelbergensis had, the former would envy the latter.
Let’s not confuse responsible exploitation of resources with irresponsible exploitation. We occupy the planet just as the sequence of various ancestor groups occupied it. From the perspective of Homo futureensis, aren’t we aboriginals? And if we are the current aboriginals, isn’t all this stuff ours?
*Feynman, Richard P. as told to Ralph Leighton, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character and “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” Further Adventures of a Curious Character. New York. Quality Paperback Book Club, 1988 and 1991.
**Ibid.
I like the song because of its powerful beat, and I like the lyrics somewhat, even though they teeter on the edge of nonsense. The sentiment in the words is that we screwed things up with all our civilization stuff, that we took from those who owned Earth before civilization, and that somehow we members of civilizations have a debt to pay to all aboriginal peoples. We’re burning our beds without even knowing, and we’re not fair.
And there are many who take the song’s lyrics as a social philosophy that speaks to their sense of fairness in a world of lopsided material wealth and imbalances in resources. The idea is that somehow we don’t have the right to have. That having is in itself an evil and that having is what separates people. Some have more. Someone else has less. And you, no matter what you might have, probably have something more than someone somewhere who has less. Pretty selfish of you. I think you should, in the words of Midnight Oil, “give it back.”
The physicist Richard Feynman ran into the same thinking at a conference. As he listened to the pontifications of a number of professors on ethics and inequality, especially inequality in education, Feynman came to the conclusion that education was about making us unequal. As he writes, “In education, you increase differences. If someone’s good at something, you try to develop his ability, which results in differences, or inequalities. So, if education increases inequality, is this ethical?” (281)*
And then in the conference Feynman listened to a keynote speaker argue that “the big differences in the welfare of various countries, which cause jealousy, which leads to conflict, and how that we have atomic weapons, any war and we’re doomed, so therefore the right way out is to strive for peace by making sure that there are no great differences from place to place, and since we have so much in the United States, we should give up nearly everything to the other countries until we’re all even” (282).**
So, you turn on the TV today, and you see someone protesting because there are those who have more, and they have less. And there are those protesting because those who have, have because they took. And those who took are evil because they took from someone who had some sort of aboriginal right of ownership.
Let’s give it back. Way back. Back beyond Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo floresiensis, back beyond Homo sapiens neanderthalensis; beyond Homo sapiens (heidelbergensis) and Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, and Homo georgicus; back beyond Homo habilis and Paranthropus (Australopithecus boisei) and Australopithecus robustus; back to Australopoithecus aethiopicus and contemporaneous Australopithecus garbi; way, way back to Australopithicus africanus and even to Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy), and--why not?—to Australopithecus anamensis, Ardipithecus ramidus, Orrorin turenensis, and Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Sure, we should listen to Midnight Oil and redistribute everything, return everything. We might even try putting resources back in the ground (Oh! Wait. We do that in landfills).
I think the next time I encounter someone who wants to “give it back” or to “redistribute,” I might ask for the person to set an example for me to follow. I’ve heard the “give it back” philosophy from people who have more than one car and more than one TV and radio. From the perspective of the destitute, such people should “give it back.” Even in a world of the destitute, there’s an unevenness, an inequality. Live in a house with 20,000 square feet? There's someone who lives in one with 19,000 square feet. Live in one with 550 square feet? There's someone who lives in one with 450 square feet.
Is the principle of equality really a principle of ethics? Is it not based on a notion that there is limited wealth, that people can’t make more wealth? If that is so, shouldn’t the DOW be just $30, that is, a dollar for a stock in each of the 30 companies?
There’s an arguable ethics with regard to charity and sharing, but there’s nonsense in the principle of “giving it back.” We’ve seen what happened in Cuba and Venezuela. Envy is not going away. If Turkana Boy (H. ergaster) saw something that H. heidelbergensis had, the former would envy the latter.
Let’s not confuse responsible exploitation of resources with irresponsible exploitation. We occupy the planet just as the sequence of various ancestor groups occupied it. From the perspective of Homo futureensis, aren’t we aboriginals? And if we are the current aboriginals, isn’t all this stuff ours?
*Feynman, Richard P. as told to Ralph Leighton, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character and “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” Further Adventures of a Curious Character. New York. Quality Paperback Book Club, 1988 and 1991.
**Ibid.
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