In his 1985 book, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, Kenneth Jackson related the first known expression of the “suburban ideal”:
“Our property seems to me the most beautiful in the world. It is so close to Babylon that we enjoy all the advantages of the city, and yet when we come home we are away from all the noise and dust.”
—From a letter to the King of Persia, written in cuneiform on a clay tablet in 539 B.C.
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Founded in London in 1660, The Royal Society had this commitment to the scientific method they helped establish:
“They have never affirmed anything, concerning the cause, till the trial was past; whereas, to do it before is a most venomous thing in the making of Sciences: for whoever has fixed on his Cause, before he has experimented, can hardly avoid fitting his Experiment and his Observations to his own Cause, which he had before imagined; rather than the Cause to the truth of the Experiment itself.”
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In his 1993 book, Memories of Summer, Roger Kahn told of a speech given by Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey to students at Brooklyn Technical High School during World War II:
“‘Undoubtedly, scientists will lead the years to come—young men very much like yourselves, indeed perhaps your very selves, will be the true rulers of society.’ As Rickey spoke, he shook a glass jar containing raisins and nuts. The prop made no sense until Rickey reached his peroration. ‘Those who succeed in baseball and in science will first be keen observers and, gentlemen, I hope you have been observing this little jar. Raisins and nuts, nuts and raisins. No matter how many times I shake this jar, as I trust you have observed and marked well for your future, the nuts always come out on top.'”
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In 1948, psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave subjects a personality test and then a personality analysis supposedly based on their responses. All subjects, in fact, received the same analysis (assembled from horoscopes), but their average rating of its accuracy for them was 4.26 out of 5. The analysis was:
“You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.”
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In his 1961 book, “Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too?,” John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under Lyndon Johnson and founder of the nonprofit organization Common Cause, described the value of all human activities:
“We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
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The recording of a meeting between President Richard M. Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, in the Oval Office on June 23, 1972 was the “smoking gun” from the Watergate scandal which caused Nixon to resign on August 9, 1974:
Haldeman: Okay -that’s fine. Now, on the investigation, you know, the Democratic break-in thing, we’re back to the-in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn’t exactly know how to control them, and they have, their investigation is now leading into some productive areas, because they’ve been able to trace the money, not through the money itself, but through the bank, you know, sources – the banker himself. And, and it goes in some directions we don’t want it to go. Ah, also there have been some things, like an informant came in off the street to the FBI in Miami, who was a photographer or has a friend who is a photographer who developed some films through this guy, Barker, and the films had pictures of Democratic National Committee letter head documents and things. So I guess, so it’s things like that that are gonna, that are filtering in. Mitchell came up with yesterday, and John Dean analyzed very carefully last night and concludes, concurs now with Mitchell’s recommendation that the only way to solve this, and we’re set up beautifully to do it, ah, in that and that…the only network that paid any attention to it last night was NBC…they did a massive story on the Cuban…
Nixon: That’s right.
Haldeman: thing.
Nixon: Right.
Haldeman: That the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say, “Stay the hell out of this…this is ah, business here we don’t want you to go any further on it.” That’s not an unusual development,…
Nixon: Um huh.
Haldeman: …and, uh, that would take care of it.
Nixon: What about Pat Gray, ah, you mean he doesn’t want to?
Haldeman: Pat does want to. He doesn’t know how to, and he doesn’t have, he doesn’t have any basis for doing it. Given this, he will then have the basis. He’ll call Mark Felt in, and the two of them …and Mark Felt wants to cooperate because…
Nixon: Yeah.
Haldeman: he’s ambitious…
Nixon: Yeah.
Haldeman: Ah, he’ll call him in and say, “We’ve got the signal from across the river to, to put the hold on this.” And that will fit rather well because the FBI agents who are working the case, at this point, feel that’s what it is. This is CIA.
Nixon: But they’ve traced the money to ’em.
Haldeman: Well they have, they’ve traced to a name, but they haven’t gotten to the guy yet.
Nixon: Would it be somebody here?
Haldeman: Ken Dahlberg.
Nixon: Who the hell is Ken Dahlberg?
Haldeman: He’s ah, he gave $25,000 in Minnesota and ah, the check went directly in to this, to this guy Barker.
Nixon: Maybe he’s a …bum.
Nixon: He didn’t get this from the committee though, from Stans.
Haldeman: Yeah. It is. It is. It’s directly traceable and there’s some more through some Texas people in–that went to the Mexican bank which they can also trace to the Mexican bank…they’ll get their names today. And (pause)
Nixon: Well, I mean, ah, there’s no way… I’m just thinking if they don’t cooperate, what do they say? They they, they were approached by the Cubans. That’s what Dahlberg has to say, the Texans too. Is that the idea?
Haldeman: Well, if they will. But then we’re relying on more and more people all the time. That’s the problem. And ah, they’ll stop if we could, if we take this other step.
Nixon: All right. Fine.
Haldeman: And, and they seem to feel the thing to do is get them to stop?
Nixon: Right, fine.
Haldeman: They say the only way to do that is from White House instructions. And it’s got to be to Helms and, ah, what’s his name…? Walters.
Nixon: Walters.
Haldeman: And the proposal would be that Ehrlichman (coughs) and I call them in
Nixon: All right, fine.
Haldeman: and say, ah…
Nixon: How do you call him in, I mean you just, well, we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things.
Haldeman: That’s what Ehrlichman says.
Nixon: Of course, this is a, this is a Hunt, you will-that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there’s a hell of a lot of things and that we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves. Well what the hell, did Mitchell know about this thing to any much of a degree.
Haldeman: I think so. I don ‘t think he knew the details, but I think he knew.
Nixon: He didn’t know how it was going to be handled though, with Dahlberg and the Texans and so forth? Well who was the asshole that did? (Unintelligible) Is it Liddy? Is that the fellow? He must be a little nuts.
Haldeman: He is.
Nixon: I mean he just isn’t well screwed on is he? Isn’t that the problem?
Haldeman: No, but he was under pressure, apparently, to get more information, and as he got more pressure, he pushed the people harder to move harder on…
Nixon: Pressure from Mitchell?
Haldeman: Apparently.
Nixon: Oh, Mitchell, Mitchell was at the point that you made on this, that exactly what I need from you is on the–
Haldeman: Gemstone, yeah.
Nixon: All right, fine, I understand it all. We won’t second-guess Mitchell and the rest. Thank God it wasn’t Colson.
Haldeman: The FBI interviewed Colson yesterday. They determined that would be a good thing to do.
Nixon: Um hum.
Haldeman: Ah, to have him take a…
Nixon: Um hum.
Haldeman: An interrogation, which he did, and that, the FBI guys working the case had concluded that there were one or two possibilities, one, that this was a White House, they don’t think that there is anything at the Election Committee, they think it was either a White House operation and they had some obscure reasons for it, non political,…
Nixon: Uh huh.
Haldeman: or it was a…
Nixon: Cuban thing-
Haldeman: Cubans and the CIA. And after their interrogation of, of…
Nixon: Colson.
Haldeman: Colson, yesterday, they concluded it was not the White House, but are now convinced it is a CIA thing, so the CIA turn off would…
Nixon: Well, not sure of their analysis, I’m not going to get that involved. I’m (unintelligible).
Haldeman: No, sir. We don’t want you to.
Nixon: You call them in.
Nixon: Good. Good deal! Play it tough. That’s the way they play it and that’s the way we are going to play it.
Haldeman: O.K. We’ll do it.
Nixon: Yeah, when I saw that news summary item, I of course knew it was a bunch of crap, but I thought ah, well it’s good to have them off on this wild hair thing because when they start bugging us, which they have, we’ll know our little boys will not know how to handle it. I hope they will though. You never know. Maybe, you think about it. Good!
**********
Nixon: When you get in these people when you…get these people in, say: “Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that” ah, without going into the details… don’t, don’t lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, “the President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case”, period!
Haldeman: OK.
Nixon: That’s the way to put it, do it straight (Unintelligible)
Haldeman: Get more done for our cause by the opposition than by us at this point.
Nixon: You think so?
Haldeman: I think so, yeah.
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When I asked my college-age son how his friends organize and store their digital pictures, he said, “They put them on Facebook.” According to George Dyson in his 2012 book Turing’s Cathedral, one of Facebook’s founders described the goal of the company as, “How much human life can we absorb?”
In 1976, the Rush song 2112 portrayed the rulers of a dystopian future society who claimed to have achieved that goal:
We’ve taken care of everything
The words you hear, the songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes
It’s one for all and all for one
We work together, common sons
Never need to wonder how or whyWe are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls
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Big Brother’s speech in the 1984 Apple Macintosh commercial:
“Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology where each worker may bloom secure from the pests purveying contradictory thoughts. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!”
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Accepting the first-ever Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences in 1985, Claude Shannon began:
“I don’t know how history is taught here in Japan, but in the United States in my college days, most of the time was spent on the study of political leaders and wars—Caesars, Napoleons, and Hitlers. I think this is totally wrong. The important people and events of history are the thinkers and innovators, the Darwins, Newtons and Beethovens whose work continues to grow in influence in a positive fashion.”
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In 1990, George Carlin talked about the differences between baseball and football:
“Baseball is different from any other sport in a lot of different little ways. For instance, in most sports, you score points or you score goals; in baseball, you score runs. In most sports, the ball or the object is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defense puts the ball in play and only the defensive team is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball, if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he’s out.”
“Also, most sports, the team is run by a coach; in baseball, the team is run by a manager, and only in baseball does the manager or the coach have to wear the same uniform the players do. Can you picture Bill Parcells in his New York Giants uniform?”
“Now baseball and football are different from one another in other kind of interesting ways, I think. First of all, baseball is a nineteenth century pastoral game; football is a twentieth century technological struggle. Baseball is played on a diamond in a park, the baseball park; football is played on a gridiron in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium. Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life; football begins in the fall when everything is dying. In football, you wear a helmet; in baseball, you wear a cap. Football is concerned with downs: ‘What down is it?’ Baseball is concerned with ups: ‘Who’s up? Are you up? I’m not up. He’s up!’”
“In football, the specialist comes in to kick; in baseball, the specialist comes in to relieve someone. In football, you receive a penalty; in baseball, you make an error. ‘Whoops!’ Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, blocking, piling on, late hitting, unnecessary roughness and personal fouls; baseball has the sacrifice.”
“Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, sleet, snow, hail, mud, can’t read the numbers on the field, can’t read the yard markers, can’t read the players’ numbers; the struggle will continue. In baseball, if it rains, we don’t come out to play! ‘I can’t come out to play, it’s raining out!’”
“Baseball has a seventh-inning stretch; football has the two-minute warning. Baseball has no time limit; we don’t know when it’s going to end, we might have extra innings. Football is rigidly timed and it will end even if we have to go to sudden death.”
“In baseball, during the game in the stands, there’s kind of a picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low but there’s not that much unpleasantness. In football, in the stands during the game, you can be sure that at least twenty seven times you are perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being. Preferably a stranger.”
“And finally, the objectives of the two games are totally different. In football, the object is for the quarterback—otherwise known as the field general—to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack which punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line. In baseball, the object is to go home and to be safe. ‘I hope I’ll be safe at home! Safe at home!’“
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Neal Stephenson’s 1999 essay, In The Beginning Was The Command Line, described a moment on Main Street USA in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom:
“Directly in front of me was a man with a camcorder. It was one of the new breed of camcorders where instead of peering through a viewfinder you gaze at a flat-panel color screen about the size of a playing card, which televises live coverage of whatever the camcorder is seeing. He was holding the appliance close to his face, so that it obstructed his view. Rather than go see a real small town for free, he had paid money to see a pretend one, and rather than see it with the naked eye, he was watching it on television.”
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In the 2003 Broadway musical, Wicked, the “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” described his view of history:
Where I’m from, we believe all sorts of things that aren’t true.
We call it – “history.”A man’s called a traitor – or liberator.
A rich man’s a thief – or philanthropist.
Is one a crusader – or ruthless invader?
It’s all in which label
Is able to persist.
There are precious few at ease
With moral ambiguities,
So we act as though they don’t exist.
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In his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined in 2011, Steven Pinker contended that the level of violence in our world has never been lower:
“A loathing of modernity is one of the great constants of contemporary social criticism; everyone longs to turn back the clock.”
“Lamentations of a fall from Eden have a long history in intellectual life…and ever since the 1970s, when romantic nostalgia became the conventional wisdom, statisticians and historians have marshaled facts against it. Our ancestors, they remind us, were infested with lice and parasites and lived above cellars heaped with their own feces. Food was bland, monotonous, and intermittent. Health care consisted of the doctor’s saw and the dentist’s pliers. Both sexes labored from sunrise to sundown, whereupon they were plunged into darkness. Winter meant months of hunger, boredom, and gnawing loneliness in snowbound farmhouses.”
“But it was not just mundane physical comforts that our recent ancestors did without. It was also the higher and nobler things in life, such as knowledge, beauty, and human connection. Everyone was ignorant of the vastness of the cosmos, the prehistory of civilization, the genealogy of living things, the genetic code, the microscopic world, and the constituents of matter and life. Musical recordings, affordable books, instant news of the world, reproductions of great art, and filmed dramas were inconceivable, let alone available in a tool that can fit in a shirt pocket. And then there are modernity’s gifts of life itself: the additional decades of existence, the mothers who live to see their newborns, the children who survive their first years on earth.” [I live a half-mile from a nineteenth-century cemetery where 12 of 43 markers are for children age two or less.]
“Even with all these reasons why no romantic would really step into a time machine, the nostalgic have always been able to pull out one moral card: the profusion of modern violence. At least, they say, our ancestors did not have to worry about muggings, school shootings, terrorist attacks, holocausts, world wars, killing fields, napalm, gulags, and nuclear annihilation. Surely no Boeing 747, no antibiotic, no iPod is worth the suffering that modern societies and their technologies can wreak.”
“And here is where unsentimental history and statistical literacy can change our view of modernity. For they show that nostalgia for a peaceable past is the biggest delusion of all. We now know that native peoples, whose lives are so romanticized in today’s children’s books, had rates of death from warfare that were greater than those of our world wars. The romantic visions of medieval Europe omit the exquisitely crafted instruments of torture and are innocent of the thirtyfold greater risk of murder in those times. The centuries for which people are nostalgic were times in which the wife of an adulterer could have her nose cut off, a seven-year-old could be hanged for stealing a petticoat, a witch could be sawn in half, and a sailor could be flogged to a pulp. The moral commonplaces of our age, such as that slavery, war, and torture are wrong, would have been seen as saccharine sentimentality, and our notion of universal human rights almost incoherent. Genocide and war crimes were absent from the historical record only because no one at the time thought they were a big deal.”
“On top of all the benefits that modernity has brought us in health, experience, and knowledge, we can add its role in the reduction of violence. For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment we can savor, and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible.”
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On his web site xkcd, “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language,” Randall Munroe totally nailed my impression of Ayn Rand on reading her 1943 novel, “The Fountainhead“:
“I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at ‘therefore, be a huge a**hole to everyone.'”
The Truth is in the Middle 
