Elizabeth's Exile, a Novel of a Cherokee Refugee, by Stan Rice, part three. What Was Andrew Jackson Like?

Author Stan Rice has just published the second of three novels (Elizabeth’s Exile) in the series Trail of Tears: Novels of Cherokee Identity. Because Kindle has unreliable availability and formatting, the author has also posted a free PDF download. This second novel is about a Cherokee woman, Elizabeth Hilderbrand Pettit who, in middle age, walked with a contingent of other Cherokees on the infamous Trail of Tears from the Appalachians to what is now Oklahoma, after losing their land and possessions. As Rice’s novel explains, this was totally illegal, as the law under which Andrew Jackson prosecuted this Trail of Tears was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

 As in any novel written by a Cherokee author, president Andrew Jackson will appear as an evil man. And that is because he was. Rice would have to totally alter the historical background of the novel in order to make Jackson appear even the least bit heroic.

But there are a significant number of white Americans who idolize Andrew Jackson. Their spiritual leader is Donald Trump, who has a Jackson portrait prominently displayed in the
White House.

I then realized something about Rice’s novel. The way he portrayed Andrew Jackson was, in fact, very much as we know Donald Trump to be. Rice was modeling Jackson after Trump, including his anger, his vanity, and his racism—even his facial expressions. Rice even put some of Trump’s words into Jackson’s mouth.

To this day, most Cherokees resent having the face of Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill. When a new series of twenty dollar bills came out a couple of decades ago, Jackson’s face was still on it, but larger. A Cherokee artist told me that this was fine with him; it just made the target a little larger for Cherokee bullets. He was joking of course, because most Cherokees are poor enough that they cannot waste a twenty dollar bill on target practice.

During the Biden Administration, the opportunity came along to have a different face on this bill. The federal government was planning to issue new currency featuring the face of Harriet Tubman, who was one of the driving forces behind the Underground Railroad. She earned her place in American history. But Donald Trump, offended by the thought of having her on American currency, canceled these plans and insisted on keeping Jackson’s face on the currency.

A Modest Proposal: How Trump and Musk Can Save the World from Global Warming

The only truly effective way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is for all of us to quit producing so much of it: buying less, traveling less. This is my personal solution. But never in all of human history have a large group of people ever cut back on consumption and waste, except recently in the European Union, and then only mildly.

Big-thinking engineers have offered high-tech, expensive, and risky solutions generally called geoengineering, that is, engineering the entire Earth. Two examples are huge carbon-absorption towers and spewing reflective particles into the stratosphere.

The huge towers would collectively breathe in the entire atmosphere, sponge the excess carbon dioxide out of it (leaving only what plants need for photosynthesis), and then exhale the neutralized atmosphere. Such towers, even if there could possibly be enough energy to run them, would have to be huge and incredibly numerous. Proponents of this type of geoengineering are not too clear about what to do with the waste products of these towers. The cost of this kind of project would start in the hundreds of billions of dollars and could reach a trillion.

The other solution would be to inject hundreds of millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it would produce a suspended white haze that would reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface. The particles could be released from a fleet of special aircraft. The everlasting gloom might be a small price to pay for release from global warming. This solution would actually not remove carbon from the atmosphere. No one is sure if the toxic particles might settle and pollute the entire planet. Once again, the cost would start at hundreds of billions of dollars and could reach a trillion.

The Trump II administration would clearly be unwilling to spend this kind of money to solve a problem they refuse to admit exists—global warming.

Unless.

If these geoengineering schemes could be proposed by companies owned by Elon Musk, then Trump would be willing to demand a trillion dollars for them, and Congress would not dare to say no. No amount of money is too much for the federal government to give to Musk. He already owns Space-X. All he would need to do is to produce another hundred thousand aircraft to release the sulfur.

Right now, Musk’s companies are losing money, largely because of the overwhelmingly negative image of Musk Himself. There may not be anything wrong with Teslas, as cars, but when half the world starts calling them Swasticars then the company will start to fail. But Musk’s rockets keep exploding also. So it is possible that Musk’s companies would be unable to competently carry out these geoengineering projects.

But that doesn’t matter. Musk does not need to build cars or rockets that actually work. His market is Donald Trump. Donald Trump can get Musk a trillion dollars of federal money, no problem. The cars and rockets themselves do not matter.

And if one of Musk’s aircrafts explodes, it is no matter, since this too would add reflective particles to the stratosphere.

What could possibly go wrong?

Conservative Christians already worship Donald Trump. Any arguments, in this blog or anywhere else, that addresses any other aspect of Christianity other than the Donald are a waste of time. These geoengineering projects would, moreover, demonstrate that the efforts of conservative Christians to worship Trump would prove to have been correct, for, in this way, Musk and Trump could literally save the world.

Gulf of America: Why Stop There?

It is usually scientists who have the right and responsibility to decide the scientific names of organisms, and in some cases the common names as well. For example, the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Now International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants) gets to decide the rules for plant names and the International Code ofZoological Nomenclature for animal names. However, this is scientific convention, not law.

The new Trump Administration singlehandedly decided to rename the Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America.” Trump has no legal authority to require this, although he can personally call it anything he wants. However, he has already excluded the Associated Press from press meetings because they continued to use “Gulf of Mexico”. He can, and presumably will, cancel funding for any recipient of federal funds or any government agency that uses the name Gulf of Mexico.

My upcoming book, Forgotten Landscapes, makes one unnecessary reference to the Gulf of Mexico. I am proofreading the final pages, and I will change this to simply “the gulf” since the meaning is clear: it is where the Mississippi pours its water. I will stand and fight some other time when it is more important.

But such a time might come sooner than later.

Consider the example of the giant sequoia tree. It is the species with the largest trees in the world, and they are trees of incomparable beauty. I have written, and continue to write, a lot about them, including in Forgotten Landscapes. After these trees were discovered in the nineteenth century, the British originally insisted the scientific name be Wellingtonia; Americans countered with Washingtonia. Finally the name that was used was Sequoiadendron giganteum, named after the Cherokee scholar Sequoyah who single-handedly invented the indigenous Cherokee writing system, which allowed the Cherokee tribe to, within decades, achieve the highest literacy rate in the world, in their own language. The common name is giant sequoia, and thus it has been known for over a century.

The Trump Administration, I do not doubt, considers Native Americans to be savages. Or, at least, to have been so in previous centuries. Would Donald Trump and Elon Musk tolerate a savage name for the biggest trees in the world? I can foresee that Trump might want the name changed to Trumpia muskii, or maybe Megalotrumpia muskii. Or maybe Musk, unabashed admirer of the old South African apartheid system, might want Apartheidia muskii. They might just let the common name be “giant redwoods” and let it go at that, because “Trump trees” sounds too silly even for them. I think.

Trump would have no authority to enforce a name change for the giant sequoia tree. But he might have at least provisional authority to require all government agencies to change the name to Megalotrumpia, and to cancel funding for any government project that refuses the name change. Any legal challenges to this would take years, and even then Trump could just ignore the court ruling.

Such a decision would profoundly affect my book, Forgotten Landscapes, not only because of its frequent references to giant sequoia trees but also because of its front-and-center defense of the non-savagery of Native Americans, who transformed the North American landscape by fire, hunting, agriculture, irrigation, and orchards. But by then the book will already be rolling off of the presses. Such a decision might even throw a spotlight on my book, which would mean publicity, probably positive. The only people who would agree with Trump on this matter are those who do not buy or read books. But, all the same, I would prefer my book to stand on its own merits.

At the present time, this essay is written in a spirit of humor rather than alarm. But if the Oval Office proclaims that the plague bacterium, now known as Yersinia pestis, be renamed Obamabacterium bidenii, don’t be totally blind-sided.

A New English Verb: To Trump

This blog focuses mostly on evolution and science. Part of evolution is cultural evolution, and for humans the most important kind of cultural evolution may be language. I have written several essays about the evolution of language. Now it’s time for me to focus on a language issue for the current day.

For centuries, the verb to trump has meant, in card games, that the hand of cards that one person has prevails over the hand that another person has. The ace trumps the jack, for example. But since Donald Trump has entered the political scene, this word has been given a new meaning, not by the dictionaries and the people who watch over our language, but the way the word is used in everyday speech. I wish to propose a slight extension of the meaning.

It hasn’t just been since Trump entered the presidential campaign the first time in 2016. The image created by his behavior has been going on for decades. Back in the 1990s, news articles commonly presented Trump as an arrogant rich man, an image he cultivated in his television show. Even while he faced one bankruptcy after another, he promoted his image as a powerful man because of his wealth. See, for example, these Newsweek articles from thirty years ago:

·         March 4, 1990, about Trump’s collapsing real estate, casino, and airline empires, and others on May 14 and June 18.

·         A cartoon published on May 4, 1991 with Natives joking about Trump wanting to sell the island of Manhattan back to them.

Trump’s behavior has also given him the popular image as thinking himself unbridled in his approaches to women. Further Newsweek articles from thirty years ago include:

·         March 4, 1990, about Trump’s divorce woes;

·         December 24, 1990 with an article about Trump and Rowanne Brewer;

·         July 8, 1991with an article about Trump and Carla Bruni;

·         April 19, 1993 with a photo of Trump embracing Marla Maples.

But since being president the first time, Trump has used his power to squelch any and all criticism of himself.

Therefore, I suggest a new meaning to the verb “to trump”: it means to screw over. The reason is that Trump was convicted of financial felonies connected to sex, and has been accused of sexual harassment, and has said demeaning things about how much women love to have him grab them. Even in those cases where his negative image did not lead to a conviction, it is still part of his image.

Because of all of this, I suggest that the following uses of the verb to trump are useful figures of speech:

·         A big corporation can trump a smaller one.

·         A big country can trump a smaller one.

·         A man can trump a woman.

Language continues to evolve. Already, according to this article in The Atlantic, people who dislike Trump are avoiding the use of the verb. But maybe we can make it into a useful verb once again.

Corporate War on Altruism

Altruism, which I have defined many times in many ways on this blog, is doing well by doing good. It is not selfless sacrifice. The altruist gets many personal benefits by doing good to and for others.

Altruism confers such a strong evolutionary benefit that natural selection has given us very, very strong emotional pressures to support it. Altruism feels good. Going against altruism feels bad. We call it guilt. That is, unless you are a psychopath, which is a person (maybe one percent of the population) who completely lacks these feelings. Non-psychopaths can train themselves to stop feeling guilt, but it comes at a great emotional price.

But in today’s business world, corporate leaders are required to crush their feelings of altruism. Our modern corporate world is set up to eradicate altruism and guilt. I realized this as I was reading David C. Korten’s When Corporations Rule the World, which has an immense trove of examples. I will quote from pages 224 and 225:

“Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard University…suggests that top corporate executives must be paid such outrageous sums to ensure that they place the short term interests of shareholders above all other interests that they might otherwise be tempted to consider—such as those of employees, the community, and even the corporation’s own long-term viability. In short, top executives have to be paid outrageous salaries to motivate them not to yield to their instincts toward social responsibility (emphasis added).

“As one CEO related to Fortune (magazine), “You get through firing people the first time around, accepting it as part of business. The second time I begin wondering, ‘How many miscarriages is this causing? How many divorces, how many suicides?’ I worked harder so I wouldn’t have to think about it.’”

One executive who was repeatedly required, by his corporate boss, to continue firing people, “…began breaking out in spontaneous fits of crying and one day couldn’t get out of bed.”

Korten then says that the executives “are learning…that no amount of money can buy peace of mind, a strong and loving family, caring friends, and a feeling that one is doing meaningful and important work.”

This makes it clear, to me, that altruism is an instinct and that to go against it is emotionally devastating. Unless, that is, you are Donald Trump. His greatest moments of joy were when, on television, he fired people. He still exults in devastating people. That’s why his own niece, a psychologist, calls him the world’s most dangerous man. And millions of Americans want him to be the face of America to the world. If we give him this opportunity, again, then the nations of the world will hate us, for good reason. They may fear us, but they will hate us. And to millions of Christians, this is the very image of Jesus they want the world to see.

Science and Democracy: Confusion

I read a pre-publication copy of a book about attacks on science and on democracy, to be published soon by a company that has published two of my books. Because I do not want to give bad publicity to this publisher, I will give no further identification of the book.

The book has no overall theme, because it is a collection of essays from different authors, each one writing whatever he or she wants. The essays contradict one another. That is fine, and is part of the appeal of a multi-author edited volume. One possible theme is that both science and democracy are being attacked by the same people and for the same reason: the so-called conservatives want to control the world, and they want to brush aside or destroy any criticism they may receive from scientists. Another possible theme is that science is essential to a functional democracy: citizens without access to reliable knowledge cannot make the right decisions for running their society. Along these lines, essays range from the extremely pedantic (e.g., John Dewey would not have approved of the modern attacks on science) to leftist pot-shots, with which I agree but I would prefer to make my own rather than to read someone else’s. I may throw potshots into this blog but I try to leave them out of my books.

I see two major problems with all of the essays in this volume. First, there is the assumption that science is essential to democracy. This is true. It was certainly what the Founding Fathers envisioned, especially the very scientifically literate Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. The first presidents, all Enlightenment figures, governed with the spirit of scientific reason, even though they were sometimes wrong. But, starting with Andrew Jackson, everything got messed up and has remained messed up ever since. Andrew Jackson despised scientific knowledge, or any knowledge at all. Even when he was shown that the Cherokee tribe had adopted the advancements of civilization, he continued to call them savages and insist that their land be taken by white people. He simply would not look at the facts in front of him. That is exactly what Donald Trump does today. Trump has a painting of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. To discuss the importance of science to democracy is so Enlightenment and has been an irrelevant topic in American politics for almost two hundred years.

A more important problem is that all of the warring approaches to the relationship between science and democracy, whether positivism or Popperianism or Deweyanism or post-modernism or whatever, totally ignore the evolution of the human brain. As I point out in my new book Scientifically Thinking, the human brain did not evolve to reason. It evolved to rationalize in such a way as to promote the evolutionary success of the person with that brain. The human brain creates illusions that may or may not bear any resemblance to the real scientific world. That is, without science, the human brain is open to infection by any and every kind of delusion, whether from the right or from the left. Ideas live in human brains as organisms live in habitats, and the successful ideas are not necessarily the ones that are right but the ones that, for any reason or no reason, people like.

As I plowed through all the approaches to science and democracy in this book, I wondered, which approach is right? Probably none of them.