The spring of healing: what a lackluster novel I read as a kid tells us about "America first" philosophies

I read a lot as a kid, although I may not have always read the best the world had to offer. My mom, something of an expert in early literacy, believed it was important for young people to read what they liked to read, rather than for parents to obsess over whether their children picked entirely edifying material. Therefore, I was given a relatively long leash with my reading choices, as long as I was reading something. For a few years, one of the chief sources of reading material for my brothers and me were the slightly dated copies of Sports Illustrated my grandfather brought us. I don't know where he got them, but they were free, and we all liked reading the same articles and then going over favorite lines with each other afterwards. 

When I got older, I started to get into fantasy novels a little bit. Not obsessively--sports-based reading was still my favorite--but enough that I would mix it up here and there. One series I picked up from my dad was Piers Anthony's Xanth series. It was set in a magical world with a geography very similar to Anthony's native Florida. It was also full of puns, something I found funny enough to read maybe the first dozen or so novels in the series, but eventually tiring enough I never read the many he's written since then. 

I might have begun to catch on even as a young reader that Anthony isn't a virtuoso as a writer. If I didn't then, I definitely realized it when I read of few of his novels to my son several years ago. Even my son seemed to realize something was amiss. He kind of liked the first novel, but by the end of the second, he was ready to move on to something new. 

Still, I wouldn't say that Anthony is a bad writer. He's an example of a kind of writing I have a greater tolerance for than many people in literary fiction seem to have, one with some great ideas but who is a little bumpy getting those ideas across. (One of the things that perhaps delayed my ability to get stories published was my level of tolerance in my own work for less than stellar presentation as long as the idea underlying it seemed sound to me.) In particular, I was fond of the thought experiments that appeared in his work.  

Probably the most notable thought experiments in Xanth are the meetings various mortals have with the demon who created the world. This demon is apparently locked in some kind of supernatural game with other demons, and he twice (that I read) asked mortals for help in winning his game. (If I recall correctly, Anthony admitted to borrowing some ideas for these scenes from articles he read about game theory.)

(Aside: I won't delve into the alleged misogyny in his works. I'm sure it's there, but for me to deal with it, I'd have to go back and read him seriously, something I just don't have time to do right now. It's got nothing to do with what made me remember Xanth recently.)

Yeah, like, a whole lot of puns

Reading about "realist" political philosophy brought another Xanth scene to mind

There's another, less pronounced thought experiment from Xanth that came to mind for me the other day. I was thinking about the nature of  "America first" arguments, and, more broadly, about "realist" philosophies of how a government should behave in international geopolitics. It started when I read about John Mearsheimer's belief that Western bad behavior was primarily to blame for Russian aggression in Ukraine. It echoed comments I've heard from other quarters, always coming from people who identify themselves as proponents of "realist" political philosophies. 

According to this line of thinking, the West has made a mistake trying to promote the growth of liberal democracies friendly to the West in places like Georgia and Ukraine. Expansion of the EU and NATO were needlessly poking the Russian bear, which nobody thought of as a threat prior to 2014. These analysts claim the US should have allowed Russia to maintain enough hegemony over its near neighbors for its own comfort, even if this meant letting those countries fester in a quasi-vassal state status. Even if it meant their citizens had to live under autocracy. 

Realists would argue that the reason we should have allowed this to happen, rather than attempting to bring these countries more closely into a Western orbit, was for one simple reason: it would have been in our self-interest to do so. In "great powers" politics, the U.S. should no more think of fostering friendly democracies on Moscow's doorstep than Moscow should think of placing a missile base in the Yucatan Peninsula. This just foments conflict, and conflict is bad for U.S. interests, measured--I suppose--in things like stock values and gas prices and GDP and whether people have the emotional energy to spend on some dumb event that happened at the Oscars. 

Trump was apparently influenced by this kind of thinking. His "America first" concept (I won't call it a political philosophy, because I don't think Trump is capable of sustaining any line of thinking deeply enough that it could rightly be called a "philosophy") seemed to involve a fairly straightforward, transactional calculation of debits and credits of any possible move in international politics. If something was "good" for America (according to whatever measuring stick he used for "good"), then we did it. If it was bad for America, we didn't. 

The healing spring and the complexities of self-interest

While thinking about this whole realist idea of how the world works lately, some neuron in my brain harkened back to something from Xanth. I had to get onto Reddit, find an Anthony community, ask a question, and wait a few days to fully remember what it was, but eventually, I found it. 

In the first novel in the Xanth series, A Spell for Chameleon, the main character Bink comes across a wounded soldier. He is directed by a dryad to a nearby magical spring that brings healing to those who touch or drink its waters. While Bink is investigating the spring, a finger he lost as a child is restored. However, the spring stirs to life and warns him that. "Who drinks of me and acts against my interest will lose all that I bring him." 

Seems legit. 

Bink immediately sees complications in this condition placed by the spring, because he wonders how the spring will judge actions for their effect relative to its interests. He assumes that there could be no logging or mining near the spring, because these would harm it in an immediate and tangible way. But what if a king levied a tax on lumber, and because of that tax, lumberjacks cut more wood in order to make up for lost revenue? Would the spring cause all those who had been helped by the spring to fight against the king? In fact, "...any action had widening results, like the ripples of a stone dropped in a pool. In time such ripples could cover the whole ocean. Or the whole of Xanth." Bink wonders if, should the spring's magic become strong enough, the spring might become the real ruler of Xanth. 

Bink realizes, though, that the interests of one spring are not the interests of all springs, nor of Xanth. He rejects the spring's terms and tells the spring to take its healing back. 

Bink was smart enough to realize something advocates of a narrowly defined self-interest fail to point out: that self-interest is complicated. Of course we all want what's good for us. Idealists want that, too. But what's ultimately good for us depends, often, on the unintended consequences of millions of decisions, none of which can be accurately guessed ahead of time, because the entire system is irreducibly complex. 

We have, of course, a great deal of responsibility to try to read the realities of the present, break down that which is complex, and make our best effort to calculate the effects of certain actions versus others. I myself mostly objected to the war in Iraq because of pragmatic, rather than idealistic reasons; that is, I thought the stated goals were unachievable, not necessarily immoral if they had been achieved. Right now, I'm more than half convinced the United States should get over the idealistic opposition to proliferation and accept North Korea as a nuclear state, mostly because the practical reality is that we've failed to prevent them from becoming one, so we might as well try to live with that reality. 

We have an obligation to reduce the complexity as much as we can, but at some point, we are making best guesses. A commitment to always keep recalculating for self-interest, based on new information, is a formula for being in a constant cycle of reassessment and reapplication of new strategies. That's great if you work for a think tank and you want to be producing a new calculation every few weeks, but it's bad for formulating a predictable and consistent policy.

Much more to the point than that, though, if we are humble enough to assume that we're going to miscalculate now and again and end up harming our interest in ways we didn't intend, shouldn't we do so for reasons we believe in, reasons we accept as worthy of suffering for? Rather than decide, case-by-case, whether supporting one would-be democracy or another is more trouble than it's worth, isn't it better to say that we believe, in the long run, that democracies (assuming they're organic and not something we're foisting on other countries) are worth supporting, even if there are costs? To say that in the long run, we believe that the costs of not supporting a democracy are worse? 

Mearsheimer stated that there are always practical and moral elements to politics. He said it would be great if the two always aligned, but that sometimes, a country has to accept an immoral policy because the costs of the moral policy are too great. I wonder, though, if in an irreducibly complex game, it isn't ultimately safer sometimes to take the moral route simply because it's the moral route. This is what Bink elected to do when he gave up his own physical wellbeing in order to keep from putting himself in a compromising position. (In the story, there is a twist when he makes this decision, but the point is that he was willing to make this decision.) Sometimes, the very complexity and danger of the game might make a certain moral naivete more, rather than less, safe.  

Realism in political science doesn't mean "realistic," as opposed to someone who believes in fantasy. Realists emphasize the fundamentality of conflict or competition in world events, while idealists emphasize cooperation. It's not supposed to be a question of dreamers versus realists, but I think the cognate nature of the two words has led some to believe that political realists are more grounded in the real world. In fact, though, both realists and idealists care about self-interest and are looking at the real world for clues about how to achieve it. One might say the fundamental difference between them is more one of how both come to grips with irreducible complexity.

The most realistic, pragmatic, eyes-wide-open, non-dreamy belief might be that making hard political choices for moral reasons might sometimes be the most pragmatic solution. As I've suggested before, sometimes, when faced with a decision where it's impossible to predict all the bifurcating future time lines, it might be best to rely not on calculations, but on what I've called ontological ethics. That is, when in doubt, we make decisions guided by a sense of who we are. 

We might still, of course, make wrong calls this way, but there are benefits that can accrue from making decisions out of a sense of who we are. It gives our allies reassurance that we will remain consistent even in the shifting face of events. It gives our adversaries security that they can predict our policies, making them less likely to miscalculate. It gives us an internal sense of purpose and mission. There are real, pragmatic values to these things. One could say that in the long run, moral decisions might be better for our self-interest. 

Or not. In the long run, as John Maynard Keynes is said to have noted, we're all dead. At some point, this experiment in democracy will fail or fade, or the multitudinous problems of the human race will doom us to extinction. If we have to go down, though, I'd rather go down for something I believe in than a wrong guess about what would have been good for us. I'd rather refuse the immediate good that seems to offer itself rather than be compromised by it. The only way to win a game of irreducible complexity, perhaps, is not to play it.  

The responsibility to live happily for others is too much to bear

Since Russia first invaded Ukraine, I've been stuck on the same bad idea: that I should go to Ukraine to help fight against the invaders. This is an inherently stupid idea, for any number of reasons. I've been having foot pain for over a year, pain doctors can't quite figure out the source of and which makes it difficult for me to walk long distances or to run any distance. Now to add to that, I'm getting a test next week to see if I have a hernia. I'm kind of old, and have a lot of miles on me. Even though I was once a Marine, I was a linguist, and don't have any advanced combat training. Even if I did, I'd have forgotten it all by now. I'd likely be in the way. Then, there are all the practical reasons, like how I'm my family's main earner and it would cause hardship if I left. Still, in spite of how terrible I know the idea is, I can't put it out of my head. Russia has invaded a country without cause, and it's now hitting civilian targets without compunction. To act like the world is a normal place right now seems perverse. 

Yet life around me does seem to be going on like normal. The weather turned warm in the last few days, and people were out biking and walking together. A few grills in the neighborhood reemerged, the scent of meat cooked outdoors mixing with the already-prevalent South Asian spices that typically fill the air in the streets around here, flooding my senses with the feeling of being surrounded by people alive and enjoying life. 

And why shouldn't they be enjoying themselves? The United States government has decided it has limited means it can take to help Ukraine without making the situation much worse. If the government is already at the end of its resources, what can any of us do? It won't alleviate suffering if we suffer, too. It reminds me of what Thae Yong Ho, the former North Korean deputy ambassador to the UK who then defected to South Korea, concluded when his family decided to defect:

"I decided to claim my rights as a human being. I couldn't live as a slave any longer. Having lived my life that long as a slave was enough. I made up my mind to defect. If we defected, it would cause significant problems for our siblings and parents, but we chose to first seek freedom for ourselves. It would suffice if we lived our lives to the full for their sake" (translation mine). 

Thae was lucky, because by extreme good fortune, he was able to defect along with his wife and two children, whereas most North Korean diplomats are not able to take their children abroad with them. Still, he knew he would be making life harder for family members not lucky enough to escape. He made the decision that rather than everyone living as a slave together in North Korea, he would find what happiness he could for himself and his family, and that happiness would justify his decision. It would have to.   

We who are, for the moment, spared from warfare in our streets could choose to suffer in order to honor the suffering of others, but that would only ensure that there is only ever suffering in the world. Moreover, this isn't just something that started a few weeks ago; there was more than enough suffering long before Ukraine that anyone who was paying attention could have felt guilt over enjoying life. As you drink your coffee perusing the internet (I assume for hours and hours, because you've finally ended up bored enough to visit this blog), a child is being abused by her parents. Many children are dying of preventable diseases and malnutrition. Someone was killed by a drunk driver. Somebody who supports a family living paycheck to paycheck just lost their job. Before Ukraine, there was already Yemen. 

There is, in fact, so much suffering going on in the world at any moment, that the quest for those who are temporarily spared from suffering to enjoy themselves on behalf of those who cannot is far too much to take. None of us can possibly love life enough to somehow balance out all that suffering and make life on Earth appear to make sense somehow. 

Some people assert that the suffering of others should make me all the more grateful for what I have. On the one hand, I understand this sentiment. Knowing that innocent people are dying in Yemen or fighting for their lives in Kyiv should provide me with enough sense of proportion to be kind to the server who is running late with my order or to suffer Beltway traffic with grace. In another, deeper sense, though, the notion that because terrible things have happened to others but I personally have been spared I should therefore be grateful is perverse. 

Thankful to whom? To God? I don't have one specific reason why I'm an agnostic now. There are a whole host of reasons. If I had to pick just one, though, I think the existence of suffering might be the one I'd pick. Not just suffering, but suffering that is both broad (abundant and ubiquitous) and deep (profound and acute). Does anyone really believe in thanking God that a meteor struck the house next door and spared you? What kind of capricious lunatic runs creation like that? Not one I'd ever express gratefulness toward. 

There is a difference between acknowledging I live better than ninety percent of the globe and being thankful that ninety percent of humanity doesn't have it very good. The knowledge that human life is such a shabby affair for so many makes it much harder, rather than easier, to enjoy my relative good fortune. Certainly, it makes it hard for me to live life to the fullest on behalf of those who are barely living.  

Why I'll probably spend the last few decades of my life on the couch doing nothing

All writers have had to deal with the question of how to support themselves so they can focus on writing. The top four solutions in history have been:

1) Succeeding commercially enough to be able to support oneself. This is nice work if you can get it, but most writers, even the ones we remember through the ages, have not. 

2) Marry well. Also nice work if you can get it, and a few writers, both male and female, have, living of the fortunes of their spouses while turning their attention to writing. Most people don't manage to do this, though, so they have to rely on either option three or option four.

3) Accept a life of penury. Much like those called to religious professions might take vows of poverty, some view writing as a pursuit so serious, it requires limiting the demands of the flesh to the bare minimum. 

4) Take on all the normal responsibilities the majority of humans do, and do the best you can to write with the time and energy you have left over after all of that. 

As I've mentioned many times on here before, there was a time in my life when I really thought I was going to choose option number three. I wrote a whole personal manifesto in which I determined that lots of people can have kids, but only a few can create lasting art. Based, I guess, on the notion of scarcity, I felt like it was therefore important enough for me to devote myself to writing that it would be okay if I never had kids or found a serious job. 

I'm not sure what changed my mind. It might have been going to graduate school and realizing how few people who "did art for a living" I liked. It might have been that I got tired of leaning on family and friends who had real jobs to help me survive. Maybe it was a biological impulse to reproduce reasserting itself after lying dormant. It could have been all of these things. In any event, I quit graduate school with only a Master's and got what for lack of a better term we'll call a "real job." I've been in the "real" economy since. Mrs. Heretic and I had one biological child and adopted another. It's been rewarding in all the ways living a normal life can be. No, I wouldn't trade my kids for a novel people will still be reading a thousand years from now. 

Not for lack of trying, but I could never quite shake the need to write. I tried to become a normal person who worried about normal things, but there were two hard facts I couldn't escape: the world didn't make sense, and I felt a need to try to make sense of it. Writing was how I tried. It still is. 

A funny thing happened on the way to taking door number four, though. I meant to get the kind of job that would pay the bills and enable me to take care of family but leave me free to reserve most of my mental and emotional energy for life outside of work. That didn't happen. Well, I mean, maybe it did. Some people in my profession do seem to do their nine-to-five and then leave it at the plant. They go home and coach little league or have bowling night or whatever it is normal people do, and they don't think about work when they're not there. 

I've never been able to achieve true indifference to work. What I do has seemed important enough to me to deserve my best effort, or at least as close to my best effort as is possible to achieve at work. That's meant spending time on my own to improve my understanding of matters related to work. Mostly, it's meant trying to improve my skills in whatever language I've been translating from, because that was always the core ability I had that would make or break the quality of my output. 

I've come home from work, then, and felt the urge to keep on working. But that's not the only impulse I've felt. I also feel the impulse to work on writing, because the universe ain't getting any more comprehensible. And I also feel guilty about not being involved enough in family matters, such as keeping on my son about getting ready for grownup life. Or maybe I feel guilty about how Mrs. Heretic sometimes wants a partner she can sit down and watch television with, but I'm always off trying to fit a full-day's effort on three different things into a single day. 

Usually, this all manifests itself in one very mundane, but to me very important, question each day. What do I do with the little bit of time each day I get to call my own? Do I write? If I do, do I write fiction? Do I write for this blog? If not writing, then I should read? If so, what do I read? Should I read Korean news? A Korean fiction book? A Korean non-fiction book? What about some modern fiction in English, so I can learn from it to improve my own writing as well as better know the lay of the land in a world I want to inhabit? Or what about reading some non-fiction about a science or history or philosophy or religion topic, something to feed my soul as it grapples for answers about the world? 

None of this makes me unique, of course. Everyone has limited time and more things they'd like to do than they have time available. Lately, I've come to a realization, though, about how badly I've managed my time in my life. Not that I haven't managed to buckle down and get productive. I've done that plenty. But I keep changing my mind about what I'd like to be productive about. One week I think I should put dreams away and focus on knowing everything about Korea I can. The next I tell myself what's life for if not to follow my dreams, so I chuck work and write. Or read something completely not work-related. At the moment, I'm trying to have it both ways and read a book on religion (God's Problem by Bart Ehrman), but the Korean translation of it.  

All I've really managed to accomplish by ping-ponging back and forth between subjects in my life is that I'm okay at a few things but probably not great at any. I've suspected this for a long time, but every time I try to force myself to pick one thing to go all-in trying to master, I am wracked by self-doubt. What if I've picked the wrong thing? What if I'm putting all my effort into something I'll never be that good at? The result is that I start and stop efforts to keep moving in one direction over and over. 

Lately, I've been doing something with my free time I've never done before: nothing. I'm so exasperated with myself and my inability to pick something, I just do nothing. I fritter my precious free time away, hate myself for having wasted it, then do it again the next day. 

Essentially, I feel I've frittered so much time away that I'm now too old to become great at anything. At that point, I become momentarily frantic and start to work doubly hard to make up for lost time. Soon after that, I am overwhelmed by how hard it is to get better even when I'm trying my best, start thinking that all the effort is pointless, and I stare off at nothing for an hour until it's time to go to bed.

I usually return to the idea that what I ought to do is focus on work and other practical matters I all too often neglect. I should make money, save money, and use that money to help people who need it. It's what I settled on in my early thirties when I gave up on writing. And I succeeded for years at keeping my mind on secular matters. But I just couldn't keep that other person locked away for good. 

Some intellectual-minded people tend to look down on those who live an unexamined life. I don't do that at all. The wise preacher in Ecclesiastes--possibly the book that has dealt with how little the universe makes sense better than any other--didn't come up with much better. "Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart...Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life God has given you under the sun--all your meaningless days" (Ecc 9:7,9). 

I probably still have a few more rounds of futilely cycling through trying to get better at things I think of as "important" in my life, but I'm starting to imagine the later acts of my life not involving much serious thought at all.