Written by John Turner   

There appear to be an endless array of books arguing about whether the internet is a good or a bad thing. The two latest I’ve noticed are Clay Shirkey’s Cognitive Surplus (chirpingly positive) and Evgeny Morozov’s The Net Delusion (modestly negative). Such efforts will keep on coming because, obviously, the internet has both useful and harmful features.

My interest today is not to hold forth on the internet but rather to point out the meaninglessness, and ultimate silliness, of arguing about whether huge realities are either good or bad. It’s a habit the human race has devoted vast energies to, and the efforts are always futile.

Probably, the biggest, and longest lasting, fuss of that sort, has taken nature as its topic. We have lots of champions of nature, who praise it as the only source of valid law, as the face of God, and so forth. It’s true that if you’re sitting on a sparkling beach, cooled by a mild breeze, in the shade of wondrously swaying palm trees, nature is glorious beyond belief. But if, less than a hundred yards from that idyllic spot, you were to get your leg sliced off by a wandering shark, you would probably adopt a different view. It would all be nature, though.

The most grandiose and fatuous debate of that sort now proceeding in America has to do with the nation state and its government. One of our political parties is thoroughly schizophrenic on the issue. The United States, its members regularly proclaim, is magnificent beyond any magnificence ever brought forth on earth, an entity fully deserving of reverence and worship. Its government, however, is deep-dark evil -- except when it is slaughtering people of other nations; then, of course, it’s heroic. But, ordinarily, it is engaged in nothing but nefarious acts, taking money from people who earn it and giving it to worthless riffraff, interfering in the freedoms of people who simply want to dump their garbage for free, as is the god-given right of any American, wasting the substance of the people on childish schemes to improve public health, paying the teachers of children far more than any sensible person knows they deserve, trying to get in between employers and their employees, who if they were free of government interference would conduct their interactions on the basis of perfect equality, and, worst of all, carrying out absurd scientific research which does nothing but attempt to deny the truths of God.

Why such a splendiferous enterprise would conduct such a morally flawed and worthless activity as government is very hard to understand. I heard Ron Paul holding forth on this subject just a couple nights ago and the certainty with which his face was suffused was inspiring to behold.

Moralizing is a hideous habit because people who become addicted to it are eventually driven insane. And attempting to put a stamp of morality on something as gigantic and diverse as a large nation is probably the most infectious form of moralizing and, thus, the most prominent source of craziness.

The nation state has become the principal form of political organization in the world today. How long it will maintain that status no one can say. But at the moment it’s what we have. Trying to say whether it’s good or bad is senseless. It’s the political reality we live in.

The only intelligent way to respond to reality is to see it for what it is and use it as best we can, avoiding its dangers and maximizing its gifts. If the government is sending you a regular check, for past services or past investment, which allows you to live comfortably, it’s a good thing. If it’s snatching you up and throwing you in a hole, where it keeps you for years , without explaining why, it’s very bad. And the government does both things regularly. It you think you have a moral yardstick that can tell you for sure whether all the good things the government does outweighs the bad things, or vice versa, then you’re delusional.

Our stance towards government ought not to be judging it but rather pushing it in the direction we want it to go. Is the United States, or its government, a good thing or a bad thing? Who could possibly know? And why should anyone care? We know one thing for sure: they’re not perfect. If we can repair some of the imperfections we can make them better, which is the only goal that’s sensible to take towards them.

If you had to live in a cave where the air was breathable, but was charged with enough pollutants to make you sick now and then, would you say the air was a good or a bad thing. Wouldn’t it just be the air? And if by installing some ventilating devices you could flush out part of the dirty air and replace it with fresh air, wouldn’t that be the reasonable, the intelligent thing to do?

The nation state, and for us, the United States, is the political air we breathe. I’m not interested in fighting with anybody over whether it’s grand or odious. But I sure don’t mind pointing to the things about it that seem nasty to me, or conferring with others about how to get rid of them.