good job sean! Sean ran a 125 km race this week. This was his second ultramarathon, but this one was much harder than the first because it climbed four mountains with a total elevation rise and fall of 27,615 feet. Extended sections of the route were technical, clambering over rocks and routes with only strips of survey tape to mark the way. It took Sean 21 hours which meant that he, like the other competitors, had to run through the night using a headlamp. I have to say Sean worries me when he does things like this! I woke up several times during the night to check on his progress. mutton/swuq'us A new exhibit opened at MOA last week, The Woolly Dog. There were three news crews on site covering the opening when I volunteered on Tuesday. We regularly have new exhibits, but this amount of news coverage is unusual. Why all the interest in a dog pelt? I'm not sure I can answer that question, but my guess is that the answer swirls around our notions of authenticity. Anyone can see the Mona Lisa at high resolution, right in their home. Why travel to Paris and the Louvre to wait among the smelly crowds to view the small painting behind thick plexiglass? Just so you can take a selfie? If MOA were to 3D print most of its collection, and put the original belongings away for safe keeping, would people still want to come? Or is there a sense that we go to museums in order to make real contact with a real object (as opposed to digital/virtual)? I feature the pelt on the index page. why are we ruled by oligarchs? I started down this road last week, commenting on Jeffrey Winters book The Blind Spot. And maybe you think this is all too much ink about politics. But to me this is not just about politics. We are asking one of the central questions of modern life: why in democracies, where every citizen gets one vote and only one vote, do the 99% allow themselves to be ruled by the 1%? We are social animals and we are talking here about the way our human groups make decisions. Why do the many want to be dominated by the few? Anyway, I promised you an outline summary of the reasons provided by Winters (and me), so here you go. These reasons are given in no particular order and, undoubtedly, these behaviours interact with each other in unknown ways. Having said that, what do these "reasons" achieve? When we ask "why" questions about human behaviour the process tends to be recursive - you just keep going on and on and so what's the point? But part of this reasoning nihilism - this shoulder shrugging "that's just the way it is" - is not that we can't find answers to why, it's that we don't like the answers. . reasons why we vote for an oligarchy   comments many people are apolitical This is not saying that some people don't care if rich people rule over poor people. It's simply saying that many people don't care about politics, period. They have other things to worry about, or the subject just doesn't interest them. It is interesting to note, however, that this group is large and so mandatory voting would require this cohort to vote even though they knew nothing and cared nothing about the different candidates. the myth of meritocracy The myth of meritocracy claims that people get what they deserve. The rich deserve to be rich. The poor deserve to be poor. This myth is generally embraced because it grants individual humans agency over their life's outcomes. In America, however, the myth is foundational to the culture. In part, this myth excuses nefarious means to an end. If, for example, riches were stolen from Indigenous peoples, the pejorative "theft" would be negated by the merit of those who became wealthy. the rich don't injure the many This belief is summarized nicely by the adage "a rising tide lifts all ships." It is felt that the rich don't injure the poor. Rather, they create jobs and inject money into a collective that then raises the lifestyles of all. the horizontal axis of inequality distracts us from the vertical axis of inequality There are inequalities within a social class. Oligarchs are content for the working class to debate gun control or abortion, for example. But the oligarchy will not allow the working class to debate or consider legislation that would decrease financial inequality. the rich conceal their power Oh, for those good old days! In the 20th century, governments were run by the oil and gas industry, so-called petrostates. In those days, the Koch family would organize politics via secret meetings of the elite, and channel "dark money" to politicians to get their wishes. In the 21st century, oligarchs have been emboldened by Trump. They think, "The public is embracing a dictator. They can't possibly object to a few oligarchs." Nowadays the elite of the tech industry funnel billions of dollars to Trump openly, and openly bribe members of the Supreme Court. Then they stand behind Trump in the Oval Office with their purchased political power - a spectacle for all to see. the US constitution favors oligarchy I wrote about this last week; you have to read Blind Spot by Jeffrey Winters. The USA has had two constitutions. The first one had to be replaced because it took too much power away from oligarchs. The second and current constitution created two unelected branches of government, the Senate and the Supreme Court, that could be appointed by oligarchs. fears of large scale societal decline prompt people to elect "strong man" candidates Many people intuit that massive public, corporate, and private debt, combined with unsalvageable infrastructure deficits, and the effects of pollution and environmental resource depletion - these emerging factors (debt and resource depletion) are creating a perfect storm for a future of hard times. People are scared and they want a strong man in place to be ready for war. people believe "handouts" create long term dependency The belief here is that redistribution of wealth doesn't work. It depletes the resources of the wealthy but doesn't improve the outlook of the poor. In fact, they say, giving handouts to the poor creates a dependent class that cannot now escape poverty under their own power. wealth inequality is "progressive" The 0.1% make way more than the 1%, but the 1% make way more money than the 10%. So oligarchies are protected not only by oligarchs, but by the tiers of less wealthy people below them who still think their interests are best served by a paradigm that favours the well off. Related to item number one above, most of the "political class" in a country are wealthy to some degree. tax structure Donating to political parties is a huge tax write off. Donating to charities much less so. The rich give money to political parties and in exchange pay less taxes. AND they obtain political power which then makes them even richer. Anyone who has ever asked themselves: "Why are the rich allowed to evade taxes via off shore accounts?" will understand that there is zero governmental interest in curtailing the wealth of oligarchs. police states Class warfare has always been suppressed via a police state and the penalties for dissent against oligarchy are severe, including death. we don't even envy the rich There is a belief that the rich are unhappy, and there are good reasons to believe this is partly true. The White Lotus is a perceptive TV series that looks specifically at the unhappiness of the very rich. Season Two ends with the Sam Cooke song The Best Things in Life are Free. electoral systems There is no question that a two party first past the post (FPTP) electoral system makes life easier for oligarchs; they have fewer people that they need to bribe. anosognosia/cognitive dissonance Bit of a long story this one. The gist is that we do not like to be ignorant or behave in stupid ways. So if it begins to appear that we have elected exactly the wrong people to govern us, we might well be tempted to defend our choice rather than admit wrongdoing. I am not some starry-eyed believer in egalitarian utopia. I think there will always be wealth inequality. The question, however, is how much inequality do we want? Why is this never up for discussion when our endless cycles of election roll around?