one of the other things I've learned as
a social scientist and I've been warned
about this by I would say great social
scientists that you want to be very
careful about doing large-scale
experimentation with large scale systems
because the probability that if you
implement a scheme in a large-scale
social system that that scheme will have
the result you intended is negligible
what will happen will be something that
you don't intend and even worse
something that works at counter purposes
to your original intent and so and that
that makes sense because if you have a
very very complex system and you perturb
it the probability that you can predict
the consequence of the perturbation is
extraordinary low obviously if the
system works though you think you
understand it because it works and so
you think it's simpler than it actually
is and so then you think that your model
of it is correct and then you think that
your manipulation of the model which
produces the outcome you model will be
the outcome that's actually produced in
the world that doesn't work at all I
thought about that an awful lot thinking
about how to remediate social systems
because obviously they need careful
attention and adjustment and it struck
me that the proper strategy for
implementing social change is to stay
within your domain of competence and
that requires humility which is a virtue
that is never promoted in modern culture
I would say it's it's a virtue that you
can hardly even talk about but humility
means you're probably not as smart as
you think you are and you should be
careful and so then the question might
be well okay you should be careful but
perhaps you still want to do good you
want to make some positive changes how
can you be careful and do good and then
I would say well you try not to step
outside of the boundaries of your
competence and you start small and you
start with things that
you actually could adjust that you
actually do understand that you actually
could fix I mentioned to you at one
point that one of the things Carl Jung
said was that modern men don't see God
because they don't look low enough it's
a very interesting phrase and one of the
things that I've been promoting I
suppose online is the idea that you
should restrict your attempts to fix
things to what's at hand so there's
probably things about you that you could
fix right things that you know that
aren't right
not anyone else's opinion your own
opinion that aren't right you can fix
them maybe there's some things that you
could adjust in your family although
that gets hard you have to have your act
together a lot before you can start to
adjust your family because things can
kick back on you really hard and you
think well it's hard to put yourself
together it's really hard to put your
family together why the hell do you
think you can put the world together
right because obviously the world is
more complicated than you and your
family and so if you if you're stymied
in your attempts even to set your own
house in order which of course you are
then you would think that what that
would do would be to make you very very
leery about announcing your broad-scale
plans for social revolution well it's a
peculiar thing because that isn't how it
works because people are much more
likely to announce their plans for
broad-scale social revolution than they
are to try to set themselves straight or
to set their family straight and I think
the reason for that is that as soon as
they try to set themselves straight or
their families the system immediately
kicks back at them right instantly
whereas if they announced their plans
for large-scale social revolution the
lag between the announcement and the
kickback is so long that they don't
recognize that there's any error there
and so you know you can get away with
being wrong if if nothing falls on you
for a while and so and it's also an
incitement to hubris because you can
Ouse yours your plans for large-scale
social revolution and stand back and you
don't get hit by lightning and you think
well I might be right even though you're
not you're seriously not right I might
be right and then you think well
how wonderful is that especially if you
could do it without any real effort and
I really do think fundamentally I
believe that that's what the
universities teach students now that's
what they teach them to do I really
believe that and I think it's absolutely
appalling and I think it's horribly
dangerous because it's not that easy to
fix things especially if you don't
especially if you're not committed to it
and I think you know if you're committed
because what you try to do is you try to
straighten out your own life first and
that's enough there's a I think it's a
statement in the New Testament that it's
I think it's in the New Testament that
it's more difficult to rule yourself
than to rule the city and that's not a
metaphor it's like all of you who've
made announcements to yourself about
changing your diet and going to the gym
every January know perfectly well how
difficult it is to regulate your own
impulses and to bring yourself under the
control of some what would you say
well-structured and ethical attentive
structure of values it's extraordinarily
difficult and so people don't do it and
then instead they wander off and I think
they create towers of Babel and the
story indicates well those things
collapse under their own weight and
everyone goes their own direction I
think I see that happening with the LGBT
community I think because one of the
things I've noticed it's very
interesting because the community is
some sense it's not a community but
that's a technical error but it's it's
composed of outsiders let's say and what
you notice across the decades is that
the acronym list keeps growing and I
think that's because there's an infinite
number of ways to be an outsider and so
once you open the door to the
construction of a group that's
characterized by failing to fit into the
group then you immediately create a
category that's infinitely expandable
and so I don't know how long the acronym
list
is now it depends on which acronym list
you consult but I've seen lists of 10 or
more acronyms and one of the things
that's happening is that the community
is starting to fragment in its in its
interior because there is no unity once
you put a sufficient plurality under the
sheltering structure of a single
umbrella say the disunity starts to
appear within and I think that's also a
it's a manifestation of the same issue
that this particular story is dealing
with so that ends I would say the most
archaic stories in the in the Bible
there's something about the flood story
and and also the Tower of Babel I think
they outlined the two fundamental
dangers that beset mankind one is the
probability that blindness and sin will
produce a natural catastrophe or entice
one that's something modern people are
very aware of in principle right because
we're all hyper concerned about
environmental degradation and
catastrophe and so that's the continual
reactivation of an archetypal idea in
our in our unconscious Minds that
there's something about the way we're
living that's unsustainable and that
will create a catastrophe it's so
interesting because people believe that
firmly and deeply and but they don't see
the relationship between that and the
archetypal stories because it's the same
story overconsumption greed all of that
is producing an unstable state and
nature will rebel and take us down right
you hear that every day in every
newspaper and every TV station it's
broadcast to you constantly so that idea
is presented in in Genesis in the story
of Noah and then the other warning that
exists in the stories one is beware of
natural catastrophe that's produced as a
consequence of blindness and greed will
say the other is beware of social
structures that overreach
because they'll also produce
fragmentation and disintegration and so
it's quite remarkable I think that that
with at the close of the story of the
Tower of Babel we've got both of the
permanent existential dangers that
present themselves to humanity already
identified