The political climate these days has got me reading about the 16th century Italian Nicolo Machiavelli. Living, as he did, in tumultuous times and never ending political intrigues which saw him rise to prominence and then fall out of favor with the ruling elites and, being the libertine he was, it’s pretty clear why he maintained a pessimistic assessment of his fellow men.

Machiavelli has earned his reputation as the paradigm of hard-fisted (under-handed?) political maneuvering due, to a great extent, to his book The Prince. In the book Nicolo determines that the Prince, whether secular or religious must learn to do evil and develop the art of deceit. Testosteronal virtu, necessary to tame O Fortuna is an absolute must for anyone wishing to sustain power, he writes. A Prince must exhibit cruelty, kill a few of his people, maybe, in order to instill fear among the populace.

Interestingly, around the same time the Prince was written, Martin Luther, in a pretty disagreeable frame of mind due to hemorrhoidal issues, brought about the beginnings of centuries of religious conflict, breaking as he did from the Catholic Church (not that that body was in anyway an innocent victim).  So, it seems to me, 16th Century Italian power struggles resulting in a blatant disregard for the well-being of the people, although perhaps being a bit more violent than today, still seems pretty familiar.

I suppose an evolving humanity plodding along by fits and starts into the future is about all we can really expect. Still, hope is in my nature; I always look forward to tomorrow.

As I understand it civilization advanced, as the human mind developed, from nomadic hunter gatherers to an understanding of domestication of plants and animal life; which led to a fairly sedentary existence and population growth. Clan organization gave way to diverse populations that learned to work together for mutual benefit; up to a point. Class structure developed and with it the inherent violence of workers and overseers, haves and have-nots.

Which I guess, is kind of where we’re at right now, although what ‘having and needing’ means has changed no doubt. Beyond our basic needs of food, clothing and shelter we have found significantly more is required for our well-being; our mobility and entertainment needs require considerable resources. I wonder, sometimes, if happiness might be better served up living closer to basis subsistence, growing and raising what is needed; supporting and receiving support from my neighbors.
It seems pretty appealing, this agricultural life-style, in a Thomas Hardy pastoral sort of way. But, of course it’s just a romantic delusion isn’t it.

I think we might do well to continue subsidizing the farmers.

I’ve been reading, lately, about the second law of thermodynamics. I guess physicists have figured out that the transfer of energy will invariably result in a net loss (you know, carbon emissions and such); entropy will invariably increase over time until heat distribution reaches equilibrium and the last star blinks out, which will occur, according to sound estimates, sometime in the distant future. That is, the universe will remain functional and in existence for a very, very long time. Physicists are pretty sure about this and who am I to question learned scientific minds.

No matter how dark things may look at present, even if the world we know and love loses its capacity to sustain life (through every fault of our own), there will, I truly believe, be stars somewhere out there supporting planets where life will be sustainable. Stephen Hawking is pretty sure that, to his reckoning, we probably should be looking for such places in the interests of species survival.

I feel optimistic about such thinking: on a planet in a galaxy far away perhaps politics will be less offensive.