Danubia, Identity, Questions Without Answers, and More

I picked up a book called Danubia last week.  It's been kind of fun.  The author is a bit quirky, I'm not sure I'd agree with his assessment of places he's visited.  I also am pretty sure he's glossing over the history tremendously, but I think he had to in order to fit it into a short and readable book.

I enjoy coming across places I've actually been, courtesy of a trip I took along the Danube back in 2011.  Bratislava?  Melk Abbey?  Budapest? Prague?  It adds something to know I've been to the places he's talking about.  Plus I learned about things I just flat out didn't know.  (Bear moats?!?  That was a thing?!?)

But that's not why I'm writing a post now.  I'm writing...because books like this make me realize just how little I actually know about history.  That, and I wonder about how we all form our own identities.  Why didn't the Hapsburg lands ever become Hapsburgia?

To start it off right, though, I suppose I ought to sum up some of what I've already learned.

I went to a pretty decent school in the US, and I'm only beginning to realize just how little it actually covered.  Not, I think, because our classes are bad.  It's just...there's a lot of history to cover.  And some of it just doesn't seem relevant to us.  I met a German woman who had come over to the States on a cultural exchange, and she pointed out that in Germany you can't study German history without learning a lot about European history as well.  It's too connected.  Here, however, we can have a whole year dedicated to US history and hardly touch on anything else.  In retrospect, our history focused mostly on England, France, Spain, and maybe a little bit about the rest of Europe when we studied World War I and II.  (So yes - most Americans don't realize just how much Russia helped win World War II.  We just know that the Cold War started before it had completely finished.)

I'm exaggerating.  Slightly.  I did learn a bit about the Moors, and Spain, but that was because my high school Spanish class showed us a clip from a move on El Cid.

If I went into all the things I've learned about history since, this post would get too long...and probably bore even more than most.  So I'll focus more on Europe.

I took a class in college on European history from 1815 to the present.  I remember realizing just how much colonialism was to blame, as almost every hot spot in the world was tied to the mess left behind.

After 9/11 I delved more into Middle Eastern history.  A chance remark about central Europe (and my own trip to Afghanistan) had me looking at some of the history there, as well.  I'm about halfway through the Baburnama, for example.  And read a book a few years back discussing the history After Tamerlane.

The things I've learned have come in drips and drabs, as curiosity has struck.  I might read up on the last empress of China, pick up a book on Pablo Escobar, whatever strikes my fancy.

So to bring this to a point - I didn't realize until that trip to the Danube just how little I knew about the Holy Roman Empire under the Hapsburgs.  I vaguely knew about Charlemagne, though I associated him with France more than Germany.  I knew that Hitler called his empire the Third Reich because it was supposed to be the third empire...but I was kind of fuzzy on which ones he was referring to and when.

I recognized the Hapsburg name, mostly as an aristocratic family that married into a lot of families.  I had no idea that Phillip II was a Hapsburg, and notionally controlled the Netherlands, until I was reading up on it for something else.  (The Netherlands were controlled by Spain?  Really?  Except it wasn't really Spain at the time, was it?)

Yes, I also vaguely remember hearing that nationalism didn't matter, that nobility often did not come from the same background as their subjects, and that it took a while to get the European nations we know today.  Spain wasn't always Spain, and it wasn't just the wedding of Ferdinand and Isabella that united them.  The history of Sicily just plain astounds me.  The Athenians tried invading?  Vikings? Wth?!?  Southern Italy for that matter, as well.

I knew that Germany and Italy took longer to become 'a nation' than the rest of Europe.

I knew about the Hundred Years' war between France and England, though I didn't realize how much of it was tied to the fact that the English king was also a vassal to the French king in his secondary role.  Made it sound less like the clash of competing nationalities and more like some sort of family quarrel.

I also read an excellent book that described how France formed a national identity, and was shocked to realize how much village patois and differences challenged that.  Right up until World War I, even.  Their obsession with keeping the French language pure suddenly made some sort of sense, at least.

So anyways.  I've picked up little bits of history here and there, and somehow never really understood the role of the Hapsburgs...and the history played out on the frontier between their empire and the Ottoman empire.

And it kind of fascinates me to ask - why didn't their lands ever form a nation and identity like Spain, Germany, France, etc?  What is this magical formula that creates a sense of identity, as a people?  Why did Portugal end up it's own separate country with it's own separate language, whereas Catalonia didn't?

You can ask this question about practically every country today.  When did Americans stop being colonials?  Stop caring more about being Virginian, or from Maryland, and start thinking of themselves as American?

I ask these questions, knowing there's an entire iceberg underneath, and a ton of academics who are already exploring those questions.  There's good and bad, you see, to having that sort of identity.  The sense of nationhood that can bring everyone together is the exact same thing used to persecute the 'other'.  Those who are 'not like us'.

Somewhere along the way our ideas of what was acceptable changed, too.  We're horrified now by actions that, honestly, are exactly what rulers in the far distant past did.

It seems like the usual conflict between centrifugal and centripetal social forces.  There's advantages to acting as one large country, there's strength in numbers and resources.  And there are disadvantages, particularly if one group is trying to impose on or control another.  (As nationalism took root, many groups that are minorities in one country start to feel like they will always be second class citizens unless they can have their own country.  So there's pressure to create Catalonia, Kurdistan, to 'balkanize' a region, etc. and so on and so forth.)

It's enough to make you think we should just give everyone their own nation...except history is so full of migrations and conquest that it's practically impossible to sort everyone out.

Which means practically every major nation has to figure out how to lead a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic state.

A multi-cultural, multi-ethnic state like the Hapsburgs...except look what happened to them.

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

I just finished reading the latest Vorkosigan book (science fiction), and find myself unwilling to do anything more than think about what I just read.  I love her characterization - they're so strong, vivid, and well rounded.  I also love that she puts the 'science' in science fiction.  Science fiction is wonderful for imagining what might be.  For example - what would it be like if you could decide to have children at the age of 76, after the death of your spouse?  And what would it do to your already grown, adult children?

There are times where I honestly wish I were a writer, and could create such interesting worlds.

But that's not what has me unwilling to start reading another book, or to start my Saturday errands.

Lois McMaster Bujold has this great ability to touch on the darkest aspects of life, and make it somehow come into the light, and humanize us.  I just re-read the entire series, you see.  The earlier books were more action oriented, which is part of what drew me to them when I was younger, I think.  When she wrote Memory I remember being shocked at first.  The pacing was so slow, it was less-action packed.  And then it turned around and became my favorite Vorkosigan book so far.  (Re-reading them all, now, makes me realize how much I was anxious to get through those previous action-packed adventures and get on to the more recent stuff.) 

Memory became a favorite in part because that's when the main character truly came into his own.  Took all the skills he'd been learning in the previous books and brought them into the world he belonged to...the one with family, friends, and acquaintances.  The one he was making his home.  It wasn't fast-paced, it wasn't action packed.  Most of the action was taking place internally, inside his own head.  It was - growth.

There are times I wish the real world were more like a book, because that sort of incandescent fulfillment of yourself seems so rare.  Or maybe it's just that authors can skip through the long and boring slow bits, so that all we really notice are the moments where things come to fruition.

It's the kind of thing that makes me wonder.  If God created such amazing people - and I think we all are amazing, in a way - why is it so hard to create a world where we can all reach our full potential? 

Waffling. Income Inequality and Non-profit Work

So let's bring this home.




I read this article a month or two ago, and I keep coming back to it.  It's about a charity named JIFFI that some students at Notre Dame started, essentially lending money in order to help people break out of dependence on payday loans and other crazy/high interest rate loans. 




A bit of background.  While I'm not sure this technically falls under the category of a micro-loan it's based on a rather similar concept.  I've personally been following the concept of micro-lending for years now - ever since I heard about the Grameen Bank back in college - and the basic idea is pretty simple.  Let's say I make money driving a rickshaw.  I make $20 a day, but I have to pay $10 a day to rent the equipment.  If I take out a small loan, I can pay back that loan with my profits and eventually own the rickshaw free and clear...and basically double my income (once the rickshaw is paid off).  Same principle can also be applied to getting a cow, which can make a huge difference in household income as I start selling off milk, butter, yogurt and cheese.  Or buy chickens so I can start selling eggs.


I like the idea that we can use loans and financing in a positive way, rather than adding to the growing income inequality we see today.



Programs like this, to me, sound like the exact reverse of an anecdote that I sometimes ponder about how and why some people profit off of debt.  This anecdote, btw, also makes me think of Shay's Rebellion.




Both raise great questions about the role of debt, financing, and self-sufficiency in an economy (as well as the potential for unrest if the system is not perceived as just.)




So I have this idea in my head of a non-profit like JIFFI, described above.  It might focus on more than just predatory payday lending, maybe try to provide a lower interest rate for debtors who have never missed a payment.  It would not really be debt consolidation, because most of the debt consolidation programs I see really fall under bankruptcy regulations.




The only problem is...well, there's a ton of problems with this:

There’s other non-profits doing similar work.  I would need a business plan, and how much is realistic?  $1 million?  More?  Less?  I don’t know enough about banking, or government regulations for non-profits and banking.  I don’t have any backers.  I don't even know anybody who could be a backer.  I suck at fundraising (as the annual Big Brothers Big Sisters bowling fundraiser reminds me).  I don't really know much about grant writing, or whether I could get enough grant money to make it work.  It’s too idealistic.  Too risky.  I have a mortgage and car payments and don't really want the uncertainty.  I don't know enough about underwriting, or the credit system.

And on, and on, and on.  Yet I keep circling back to it.  It would be something...meaningful.  It could make a huge difference in people's lives.  And what would it be like to see sand start sliding down the sand dune?

Various Broad Brushstrokes on Income Inequality

Lunchtime edition part II:

There are so many underlying assumptions that I’m not quite sure where to start, particularly if I don’t want to get bogged down in pedantic details.

Let’s start by saying I want to improve our quality of life.  I like to think about things holistically, try to identify which parts could be the underlying key to making big changes.  A tipping point, if you will.  I think (in a world of finite resources) that we have to be smart about where we put our efforts.  A combination of the inkblot counterinsurgency strategy and Malcolm Gladwell’s tipping point.

That’s nice and broad, and you can apply that way of thinking to almost any issue you care about.  You can also apply it internationally or domestically.  (If I had the resources, I’d have one department focus on each).

Let me narrow it down a bit, for now.  I want to look at domestic (i.e. US) income inequality.

Even bringing it down to that, this is a broad topic with all sorts of different underlying assumptions and strategies.  It’s all tied up with whatever your thoughts are on capitalism, the free market, government intervention, etc.  I think you’ve heard it all before, and probably aren’t open to changing them.

I want to brainstorm/muddle through a couple ideas that appeal to me.

First:  Our Founding Fathers believes in the importance of independent small businesses.  Technically, farmers.  Jefferson did the Louisiana Purchase in part because he thought that large quantity of land would help ensure a large quantity of small family-owned farms.  Those small family-owned farms had an independence hard to imagine these days.  Sure, they had to take out a loan and buy seed-stock and farming equipment…but they weren’t some salaried stiff working for a large corporation.  With the shrinking of farmers as a portion of our population, the growth of corporations, etc…more and more Americans are dependent on other people to make a living.  By ‘other people’ I ultimately mean the 1%.  There is a lack of independence that stifles us. 

Second: There’s a competing worldview of competition and scarcity versus abundance.  That is – are we fighting for larger portions of one small pie?  Or trying to grow the pie so we all can have larger portions?  Does your success mean less for me?  Or more for all of us?  Are we doomed to compete to be at the top of the pyramid?  Or can we invert the pyramid so we can support a large portion of people at the top?  (i.e. the truly wealthy can live off of capital gains.  Can we get to the point where more and more people are living off capital gains…and if so, what would that do to the economy?  Would it cause inflation, if we had four times as many people making a livable wage off of investments?  Or would it create an economic boom as more people could afford to spend on various consumer items.  There’s a lot more to this, but again I don’t want to get dragged down into the weeds.)

Tied in with this – do we need fear as a motivator, to boost productivity?  Or are we more productive coming from a sense of security?  Are we more creative when we’re forced to be, in order to make a living?  Or when we know we can afford to take our time and really come up with something amazing?

Third: People who aren’t wealthy often don’t know how to handle a large quantity of money.  Lottery winners, for example, often wind up exactly where they were before winning the lottery.  Handling wealth…well, I’m not wealthy so I can’t prove I understand this.  But someone I knew once said that you should never spend your principal.  If you are lucky enough to get a windfall, you should invest it and learn how to live off that 6% (give or take) profit from the investment.  (By my calculations, you’d need at least $1 million in principal.  Assuming you can earn 6% off that it would give you a yearly income of around $60,000 to live off of.  No…not crazy rich, though it sounds like that to the vast majority of us who don’t have a million to invest.  But that can make you pretty comfortable if you don’t blow it all on expensive items.)

This, btw, is extremely hard to do if you don’t already have money.  Many people are living paycheck to paycheck, and have a hard enough time setting aside money for their 401K much less getting to the point where they can live off capital gains.  What’s even crazier is that those with less money wind up spending more (in terms of interest rates, etc) just because they are more of an investment risk.  I get the free market principles behind why this is the case, and I understand that a higher interest rate is better than the inability to get any sort of loan at all.  But it’s also kind of crazy when someone has been successfully making their payments for years, and yet doesn’t qualify for a lower interest rate.  You’d think it be even easier to make the payments if they’re smaller than what they’re currently paying!  If they’re able to pay their current bills, and aren’t late, then why would the system consider them a risk that justifies a higher interest rate?  There’s something kind of screwy about that…

And finally, for this post, number four:  How does the growing rate of automation and industrialization affect all of this?  The low-skilled jobs are going away.  It will be harder and harder to make a living if you don’t have the resources to become high skilled.  Can we transition to an economy full of higher skilled individuals?  Or is it inevitable that more people are going to fall out of the economy, with all the consequences that entails?  And if that does happen, how much will that lead to future instability, as the have-nots get shut out?

How to Change the World - A Theory

Lunch-time edition:


I sometimes ponder the connection between the micro and macro levels.





That's a broad statement, but true.  What's the connection, for example, between your economic activity as on a small scale (microeconomics) and economic activity on a large scale (macroeconomics).  Or between physics at a size smaller than Planck's constant, versus Newtonian physics at the level we see every day?  The macro, after all, is made up of the micro (again...tiny grains of sand that add up to one big sand dune).






And I think of that, sometimes, as applied to changing the world.  You can try to change in broad brushstrokes.  Focus on getting mosquito nets, for example, to reduce the impact of malaria in Africa.  Or focus on a more micro level, like volunteering as a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters.






Why choose one over the other?  I can't help thinking that a mentorship program like BBBS is more...in depth.  When I think of how people change, its normally because of long term and daily interactions.  There's no silver bullet, no shortcuts.  True change comes from the type of involvement you have with your family and friends.  I believe that's one of the underlying reasons why research repeatedly shows that economic segregation is bad.  Bad for rich, bad for poor...bad in part because there are few role models of success for the poor when all they know is other poor people.  And there's a lack of understanding on the part of the rich, when their only experience with poverty is to come sweeping in with charity.






Having that level of interaction, that type of involvement, is slow.  Time consuming.  You can only help one person or one family at a time, because who has the energy (or capability) to have that kind of relationship with hundreds?  Big Brothers Big Sisters is a great program, yet they struggle to find enough mentors. 


Funny enough, it's also some of the most rewarding experiences available.  Being a Big Sister is a bit like being an aunt, or other caring relative.  All those studies on happiness discuss the importance of having a caring connection with the people around us.  Family.  Friends.  Mentors and mentees.  This is what makes life worth living...and yet so many people are too busy to support it, and would rather just give a donation. 






I do see the appeal of working on a large scale.  It can seem more satisfying, in that you can help so many more people all at once.  But there are dangers to that, as well.  It can be more impersonal.  De-humanizing.  I think some of the criticisms about foreign aid are, in part, because it's so bureaucratic.  Disempowering.  You don't get the sense that they care about you, as an individual.  Or that they are giving you a choice, a say in your own life.  It can come across as patronizing, an "I know better than you what will fix you (and boy, do you need fixing.)"


In my own life, I've travelled so much that I feel more connected to the macro (i.e. national politics, world events) than I do to my own personal micro (i.e. the events affecting the town I live in.  Or even my state.)  Yet all those national events - like our upcoming presidential election - are made up of any number of micro events.  The local political structure that tries to get out the vote.  The local politics and history that determine our voting districts.  I'm more likely to know the presidential candidates than the candidates running for my state representative, or mayor.


But I digress.  The point I was getting at is that in-depth, micro activities (if they have enough support) can lead to some truly amazing macro changes.  And that maybe, just maybe, it's better to focus on growing and nurturing those small changes instead of trying to make a sweeping big change.


Stay tuned for part II.

Speaking of Horrible Events

Two of my current 'horrifying news' stories:

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan.  As more and more details come out it's so horrible I can't even.  Like literally, thinking about it makes me so mad I don't want to start.  If I did, who knows when I'd stop?

The second one:  Hillary's e-mails.

Yeah, yeah.  I  mostly blew off the Benghazi hearings, as typical Republican witch hunting.  But the e-mails? 

Before I go any further, I think I need to share a link.  This is actually even better than one I found yesterday, because it goes into a lot of detail on what it takes to get material from one classified network to another.  I didn't realize until I saw articles like this how little people knew about the process.  I can remember what a headache it was to get material off one network and onto another...going down a security level, that is.  I had to e-mail it off to the right department, where they would check the material to make sure it didn't have anything too high for the network we were sending it to.  They'd e-mail it back to me on the desired network when they were done, if it all checked out.

Yes, there are issues with over-classification.  And in some situations (I imagine diplomatic talks that you participate in) it may not really seem like classified material at the time.  I'll leave it to the FBI to sort out whether or not a crime has been committed.

That said - if known classified material was deliberately sent to an unclassified network (ANY unclassified network!!! Not just 'a private e-mail server') then that's a Big. Friggin. Deal.

It's huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge.  It is going to jail level bad.  Everybody I know who's been in intel understands that.  We all know that if we had done what appears to have happened, we'd be facing some sort of judicial proceedings.

And so it horrifies me, absolutely  horrifies me, how many people are giving Hillary a pass on this one!  Yes, I know the Republican candidates are horrible.  I don't think Trump has a chance in hell in the general election, but I could be wrong.  I know Hillary has been pushed as 'the establishment' candidate...

But if they overlook this, in their rush to help support her, then it typifies everything that is so scary and disturbing about  America today.  It shows that power trumps justice.  That someone who, at a minimum, is responsible for creating the environment where something like this could happen, would be a potential President.

I don't care about Benghazi.  I don't want to see any of the current Republican candidates as president.  But I sure as hell don't want to see Democrats ignore or minimize these e-mail problems, and I find it very disturbing that so many respected institutions are acting like this is no big deal.  (If 'everyone is doing it', as one alleged, than we've got an even bigger problem than I thought.)

One Tiny Grain of Sand Sliding Down

The military taught me a certain kind of ettiquette:

- Don't criticize if you can't offer a better solution.
- No excuse, sir.
- I don't know, but I will find out.

For the most part, I get it.  As a people leader myself I get tired of complaints and criticism that doesn't really help.  Yet trying to abide by those rules makes things difficult...

Because I just don't want to sound like just another whiner.  Complainer.  Or an armchair quarterback telling everyone else what 'ought' to be done, when I'm not making it happen myself.

There's so much going on in the world today.  So much that I find disturbing, and horrifying.  I ask myself when things changed, why it didn't seem like this when I was younger.  Or maybe it's always been like this and I just didn't know. 

I think that last one is the most likely, particularly when I consider the age of songs like "We Didn't Start the Fire", or "It's the End of the World as We Know It".

So yes, things are pretty awful out there.  I've got my own ideas on what we can do about it, of course,  But so does everyone else.  I think mine are better, naturally, but why would anyone support my ideas over anyone else's?!?

Which is the critical part, I think.  Not coming up with ideas, not executing them.  But getting enough supporters to actually make a difference.  (And not just supporters, in terms of people.  I have to make a living somehow.  Like everyone else, I'd love to combine my own natural interests with a career.  But I don't want to get into that, right now.)

Anyways.  What's frustrating is I don't feel like it matters how many times we share a link on Facebook, for example.  Or hit 'Like' on an article. 

Or it does, but only to a small degree.  One more grain of sand sliding down a sand dune that's already in movement.