On Wolves, Idiots, and Freedom through Dialogue
Thoughts On the Imminent Reintroduction of the Wolf to Places of Human Habitation in the State of Colorado
ZEEBO D. GEEBO and I are engaging in a dialectic of epic proportions. We exchange sincerely ironic prompts, with one of us publishing something every week on Thursdays. So far, we’ve covered the end of the world, every kind of excess, cannibalism, martial arts, and long train rides.
My dear Zeebo,
Thank you for re-orienting this project. My last few posts have held you at arm’s length, referenced with subtle nods and sly winks, more for you than with you. I agree that we should return to our roots, try and capture the spark that happens when we're together: feverish philosophizing in dim, smoky rooms; staring in silent rapture at the beauty and brutality of the natural world atop a mountain pass and amidst thunder and hail; the simple pleasure of a warm embrace firm handshake after a night of friendship and conviviality.
I'll do my best going forward to capture that conversational spirit, starting with your prompt for this week:
They’re reintroducing wolves to Colorado at the end of your year. Do you think this is a good idea or bad idea?
I'll level with you here: I voted to bring the wolves back. Why? No good reason. It sounded cool, and vaguely right, like "yeah, this is Colorado, there should be wolves here." I didn't even know there weren’t wolves here prior to casting my vote. Now — almost two years later— I'm sure I could go back and rationalize it. Look up some pro-wolf arguments, co-opt them as if it had anything to do with my original decision. That would be normal. It’s just what humans do.
I. Righteous, ergo right
Official friend of the newsletter Jonathan Haidt has lots of thoughts on this phenomenon. His argument is that when humans make decisions, we mostly just go with our gut and rationalize everything afterwards. He thinks we do this so seamlessly that we fool even ourselves into thinking we're rational agents, making logical decisions from a place of moral certitude. We're all basically good beings that make decisions based on truth, or at least on systems of valid belief. I am Jack's prefrontal cortex, I reason then I act.
Haidt further breaks down this idea of 'intuitionism' as the real basis for human decision-making into six constituent parts. He argues our intuition guides us to action based on the fairness of the situation, a sense of liberty, our drive to care, a pull of loyalty, a deference to authority, and a bias towards sanctity. There is no rationalization, no enlightenment logic; there is only the tribal brain-stem hair trigger, facades of reason hastily assembled post-facto.
Given your penetrating brilliance Z, this may seem rather foreign. "Make rash and inscrutable decisions based on hormonal imbalance and entrenched cultural norms?!" I hear you cry, "Succumb to flesh and biochemicals and superstition? Never!" Yet even as you protest, it’s true. Somewhere in Colorado, a wolf howls at the moon.
When I bubbled in the little box and scribbled my John Hancock on the mail-in ballot -- delivered to my door deep within the suburban enclave of one of the most liberal cities in the United States, undoubtedly while sipping on single-origin coffee originally harvested somewhere natural predators are actually a thing people need to be concerned about -- there was no rational decision-making process happening. I was not weighing the pros and cons of the reintroduction of a pack predator to a state that devotes a large portion of its land to animal husbandry. I was not 'weighing the facts' in any meaningful way. Vaguely liberal notions of the injustice of wolves having been killed off in Colorado's past mixed haphazardly with a tenuous instinct of care directed at canines in general, with just a dash of feel for the sanctity of nature added on top.
Just like that, apex predator.
II. The village is only idiots
I only read the first chapter of his book, but as far as I'm concerned Haidt has it spot on. We're monkeys that have constructed a maze, its complexity far surpassing our limited biological capabilities. We can't escape. The best part is, it's obvious from the extrinsic perspective, but indecipherable when we look within. We can see that other people are irrational, motivated by an internal map that is completely disjointed from the territory of real life, but when we look at our own we only see roads of rationality leading from A to B.
It's not just that we can't effectively introspect our own process of decision-making by default: we're more confident that we're right when we don't have any rational reason to be. Ignorance correlates strongly with confidence. Rigorous education would seem to be the answer, but those that believe themselves to be educated are even more likely to be confident idiots. Knowing about something is not knowing the thing itself, but that itself is rarely known. Not only do we make decisions solely on gut instinct, on entrenched cultural norms and societal superstition, you can't convince us that we're anything other than perfectly rational.
Children do this interesting thing where they ascribe too much intentionality to things in the world as they learn about them. In a child's mind, the most important aspect of something is the role it plays in their own life. Asked why elephants exist, children will say they were made for being in zoos. Except, this isn't just something children do. As we grow up, we never really lose this narrative inclination, the curse of telling stories. We breathe intention into the still, lifeless stuff of nature, because it's more easily understandable when there's narrative. But the story rarely correlates with reality. Elephants exist by virtue of being the most biologically fit of Earth's large mammals. They exist to continue to exist, nothing more.
For a mind as tremendously illuminated as yours, this might seem inane, but it's the truth: we're all confident idiots.
III. Dialogue will set you free
What do we do then, lest we be consumed by wolves of ignorance wrapped in hubristic wool? I doubt you ask this yourself, having none of the mental flaws of mortal men, nor suffer the temptations and moral failings that plague the commons. But for the sake of the rest of us —sorry members of the idiocracy all— it must be asked.
I believe the answer lies in dialogue. Not just the simplistic back and forth most people engage in regularly, whether it be inane Zoom-cooler chatter or the mindless churning of digital Newspeak, a steady stream of blue bubbles from furious thumb-tapping. I mean dialogue in the philosophical sense, the verbal or inscribed conversation between minds, the three-legged potato sack race towards understanding, a fumbling tandem journey towards Truth. The act of putting your thoughts to words, of sharpening the edges of argument against foreign wit and reason, of being forced to extract the dew of clarity from the muddled interior of your own mind.
Unfortunately, this means most people are gonna stay ignorant.
Once upon a time, people actually wrote to each other pretty regularly. They sat down and put their thoughts to words, spending large chunks of time wrangling with the complexity of vocabulary, the intricacies of grammar, forcing thoughts to take shape within characters on a page. After we invented telephones, they didn't do that as much anymore, but they still talked with one another, thoughtful conversation uninterrupted by anything less than doorbells or lack of nickels.
Now we have Twitter, constant context switching, short form content overload. We speak in abbreviation, parroting text-speak or witty sound-bites optimized for seven second virality. We write in 140 character chunks when we write at all, and the depth of our thought runs only as deep as those character limits. There is no space or reason for the everyman to explore the range of human thought that is only accessible long-form.
The good news for us is that you and I are engaged in a written dialogue that can only be described as long form. Mind has unraveled toward mind as the weeks have progressed, gray-matter tips poised to touch.
All this to say: I think the imminent reintroduction of wolves to the state of Colorado can only be described as a good of the highest level. Regardless of the ecological implications, the canines have provided fertile ground for the blossoming of this dialogue and the subsequent warding off of ignorance. They've given a gift, the excuse to bring forth words from the mental void, to reach across the chasm, to express ourselves in a way that is uncommon in our age.
They're almost certainly going to kill a bunch of farm animals once they get here.
Next up: