This is an excerpt from Einstein's Enlightenment
Einstein and Lennon
John O. Campbell
Many of the greatest challenges that life
presents us take the form of choosing the type of person we will be. Clearly, these choices are tightly constrained, largely by the cultural circumstances in
which we are born; we all learn the language of our parents as well as
countless other attributes specified by our culture. However, all cultures
provide some wiggle room; some choices are individual ones and may be chosen
from the menu which our culture makes available.
Thus we copy from among the cultural
beliefs, attitudes and ways of being which the evolution of our culture has
made available and make this selection our own. This allows for some individual
variations as the copying is never perfect; we all exhibit
some small variations in the cultural traits we adopt.
Still, how do we best chose or select from
those choices available to us? Social scientists studying cultural evolution
understand that a common and successful strategy is to make the same choices we
observe being made by the most successful individuals in our group (1) .
This is a brilliant selection mechanism as
it allows one to adopt the best of the cultural traits which their culture has
evolved. It also furthers cultural evolution in that the most successful
cultural traits tend to become mainstream or conventional.
I will just note in passing that this description
of cultural evolution is in terms of a Darwinian process: one with copying,
variation and selection.
A related strategy for individuals, one
which minimizes the stress of agonizing over such weighty decisions, is to
choose the culture’s conventional answers, those adopted by the majority. Conventional
traits are likely to be relatively successful and so this provides an easy way
of arriving at a near-optimal choice.
However, there may be good reasons for not
always taking this easy path. What has proved successful in the past, may not be as
successful now or in the future. As well, there may be new successful
opportunities that have not yet been widely recognized or adopted by the wider
culture. Thus the adoption of non-conventional cultural traits can result in a
big payoff but unfortunately, this is unlikely; most unconventional traits are
unsuccessful and are ultimately rejected by the wider culture. Yet from the perspective of cultural
evolution it is the few non-conventional but successful traits that provide
evolutionary progress, which allow for the expansion of the conventional
wisdom.
Again I will note in passing that this is
similar to the evolutionary process in biology where most mutations are harmful
but it is the rare beneficial ones that are adopted by the population and
which contribute to its evolution.
It is difficult to think of an individual
who originated more successful non-conventional traits than Albert Einstein.
His unconventional understanding of scientific subjects is widely considered
brilliant and is a legend. I will argue that, as well, his non-conventional
understanding of religion and humanism, although less well known, are equally
brilliant. Those unsatisfied with selecting their life choices from the
conventional may do well to consider the alternatives which Einstein has
bequeathed us.
Einstein was able to synergize between two
of his most brilliant eccentricities to create a blazingly radical vision of
human society. The first is his unequalled ability to develop a logical chain
of thought including its many implications and the second is his great powers for
free-thinking, brilliantly original and unconstrained by conventional bias. He
thought, in big brush strokes, about what human society was and what it could
be.
He died an isolated man. Although his insights
had transformed all of physics and formed the starting point for the generations
of physicists following him, he left behind no devoted group of followers. During the last half of his career, he
conducted a futile quest to unify General Relativity with the quantum forces. His other scientific legacy during
this period was sniping at the consensus claim of quantum theory that it was a
complete description of micro-reality and the numerous attempts he made to
demonstrate this incompleteness. Among
those in the consensus, his non-believer stance contributed to a widespread view
that the old man had lost his marbles.
Outside of physics Einstein’s legacy is practically
unknown, his philosophical and sociological views remain obscure. At the time
of his death in 1955, one of those waves of conservative fanaticism that periodically
sweep America was well underway.
Conservative elements had whipped the citizenry
into a nationalistic frenzy through false claims that their government and
society was riddled with the agents and spies of their great enemy, the
communists. The hitherto obscure US senator, Joseph
McCarthy was rocketed to national prominence by speeches he made fanning this paranoid
frenzy:
The State Department is infested with
communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made
known to the Secretary
of State as being members of the Communist Party and
who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.
Fortunately, these periodic waves of witch
hunting do eventually pass and in late 1954 McCarthy was censured by the Senate
for his excesses. His personal popularity quickly faded and President Eisenhower, who
had always despised McCarthy, quipped that McCarthyism was now
"McCarthywasm"
Einstein did not find McCarthyism amusing.
In the 1930s he had direct experience of Hitler and the Nazis, they had raided
his apartment, confiscated his belongings, denounced his science, and chased him
out of Germany to America. He was neither cowed nor deceived by the likes of
Hitler and wrote to a friend (2) :
A group of armed bandits in Germany has successfully silenced the
responsible segments of the population and imposed a kind of revolution from
below which will soon succeed in destroying or paralyzing everything that is
civilized in society.
He was certainly not cowed by the pathetic
antics of McCarthyism. Although under scrutiny himself, Einstein argued that those
called before the committee should assert their rights (3) :
Invoking the Fifth Amendment was
problematic, Einstein wrote, because “the individual is offered no legal middle
ground for him to defend his actual rights.” In closing, he pointed to a more
“revolutionary” tactic - non-cooperation, like Gandhi used with great success
against the legal powers of the British Authorities.”
Later that year, Einstein also
counselled fellow physicist Al Shadowitz to refuse to provide testimony at the
McCarthy hearings—not by invoking the Fifth Amendment, but by asserting that
the questioning was in violation of the First Amendment.
However, Einstein’s sociopolitical views
were considered “verboten” by the American authorities for some time after his
death as Cold War fervour and lingering McCarthyism maintained their hold on the
nation. American society was reduced to frantic demonstrations of flag saluting
and loyalty pledges. In this milieu, Einstein’s more rational pleas for world
government and democratic socialism fell largely on deaf ears. During this era,
it was unsafe to hold such political views; many were imprisoned and even more
lost their jobs. Some of the victims of this purge were homosexuals, as somehow
right-wing logic understood that ‘sexual perverts’ are by nature politically
subversive.
Wikipedia describes some of the more
shameful persecutions of this era (4) :
It is difficult to estimate the number of
victims of McCarthyism. The number imprisoned is in the hundreds, and some ten
or twelve thousand lost their jobs. In many cases simply being subpoenaed by
HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired. Many of those who were imprisoned, lost their
jobs or were questioned by committees did in fact have a past or present
connection of some kind with the Communist Party. But for the vast majority,
both the potential for them to do harm to the nation and the nature of their
communist affiliation were tenuous. After the extremely damaging "Cambridge
Five" spy scandal (Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt, et al.), suspected
homosexuality was also a common cause for being targeted by McCarthyism. The
hunt for "sexual perverts", who were presumed to be subversive by
nature, resulted in thousands being harassed and denied employment. Many have
termed this aspect of McCarthyism "The Lavender Scare".[
Einstein himself was in danger. For the
last 23 years of his life, the FBI amassed a 1,427-page
file on him and colluded with the Department of Immigration
to bring deportation proceedings against him.
The New York Times reported on this bizarre episode of official paranoia
regarding Einstein (5) :
For many years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies spied on him, acting on suspicions as disturbing as a tip that he had been a Russian spy in Berlin; as vague as an unease with his support of civil rights and pacifist and socialist causes; and as goofy as claims that he was working on a death ray or that he was heading a Communist conspiracy to take over Hollywood.
America did not fully emerge from this wave of fanaticism until a younger generation began questioning the contradictions between the officially espoused notions of liberty, freedom, and equality on the one hand and the reality of segregationist laws making second-class citizens of Blacks on the other. A little later in that decade this same generation of Americans also protested the actions of their country (the so-called champion of revolutionary and anti-colonial movements) in subjugating the Vietnamese and in the process causing the death of between 1.5 and 3.6 million south-east Asians (6) .
American cities burned, and the ideals of
the counter-culture emerged to become a major influence in the culture’s
evolution. Environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, and anti-racism enjoyed a
rebirth during this period and have since become more or less accepted
standards of American society. This new
generation dealt the final death blow to McCarthyism when Jerry Rubin and his
Yippee collaborators appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee
in revolutionary garb complete with toy assault rifles. The jig was up; the ridiculousness
of McCarthyism suddenly became clear, the Emperor had no clothes.
Figure
4 : Jerry Rubin and the Yippies demonstrated that the House of
Un-American Activities Committee was a sham and a laughing stock.
Perhaps some of the headiest aspirations of
this movement were encapsulated in the near saintly status bestowed upon the
great musical prophet John Lennon. The lyrics to ‘Give Peace a Chance’ were
chanted at many mass demonstrations against America’s war machine.
Figure
5: Lennon's Give Peace A Chance campaign was an integral part of the
American anti-Vietnam war movement.
Just as the FBI had sought to quell
Einstein’s influence through deportation, they used the same strategy to
counter the huge popularity of John Lennon’s radicalism. A file was maintained
on him that was used by the Nixon administration to initiate deportation
hearings. In many ways, it is understandable that the FBI saw both these men in
a similar light, for Lennon’s political idealism and demands for social justice
are a close reincarnation of Einstein’s views.
Perhaps the principles of the counter-culture
achieved their most direct and poetic expression in Lennon’s song Imagine. Those lyrics envision an ideal world, a world
with no religion, no nations, no possessions, no greed or hunger, a brotherhood
of man. They describe a world very much like the one advocated by Einstein.
However, Einstein’s radical societal views were
set forth in his usual logical manner which tended to lack the poetic punch achieved
by Lennon. Nevertheless, his vision, while perhaps more thoughtful, was equally humanitarian and cosmic.
Lennon’s lyrics start with an invocation to
imagine a world with no religion.
Imagine
there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…..
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…..
Likewise, the religion advocated by Einstein was the
religion of Spinoza and did not envision heaven or hell nor any type of
personal God.
Perhaps of greater interest is Lennon’s dream that
instead of living our lives in the hope of a better life after death, it is
best to focus on the lives we have now, here on earth. This notion of the
value of life is central to the philosophy of Humanism. Wikipedia describes it (7) :
Humanism
is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of
human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical
thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over established doctrine or
faith (fideism). The meaning of the term humanism
has fluctuated, according to the successive intellectual movements which have
identified with it. Generally, however,
humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of human freedom and
progress. In modern times, humanist movements are typically aligned with
secularism, and today "Humanism" typically refers to a non-theistic
life stance centred on human agency, and looking to science instead of
religious dogma in order to understand the world.
Einstein fully endorsed Humanism and lent his great influence
to promote humanist organizations. His dedication to this movement is
documented in the Wikipedia article on Einstein’s religious beliefs (8) :
Einstein was a Humanist and a supporter of the Ethical Culture
movement. He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New
York. …. He was an honorary associate of the British Humanist organization, the
Rationalist Press Association and its journal was among the items present on
his desk at his death.
Clearly, Einstein and Lennon were kindred spirits in their
views concerning religion and humanism.
The second verse of Imagine envisions a future where war
is obsolete, where the main causes of war, nationalistic fervour, and religious
belief, have been left behind.
Imagine
there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
Many of Einstein’s writings echo these sentiments to a
surprising degree. He recognized nationalism as a great evil and advocated for
a world government as the only possible means of avoiding future wars (9) .
Einstein was plagued throughout his life by religious
believers who thought that given his spiritual nature he must believe in a
religion similar to their own and in 1954, shortly before his death, he wrote
to an offending Rabbi, spelling out in the clearest possible terms, his
non-belief in conventional religions (10) .
For me the Jewish religion like all other
religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.
Imagine’s chorus stresses human
agency, especially the possibility that humanity could choose a cooperative and peaceful world society.
You
may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
This same vision of a world society was shared by
Einstein (9) :
The
UN and world government eventually must serve one single goal – the guarantee
of the security, tranquility, and the welfare of all mankind.
The last verse of Imagine is considered by many to be it's most radical. In a few lines, Lennon outlines a society that has out-grown
competition and has endorsed sharing.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
Lennon’s
socialist vision is close to the democratic socialism advocated by Einstein (9) .
I
am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely
through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational
system which would be oriented toward social goals…. The education of the
individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to
develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the
glorification of power and success in our present society.
Einstein
was not naive, he had a sophisticated view of socialism and acknowledged the
many potential problems entailed with centralized bureaucracy:
Nevertheless,
it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A
planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the
individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some
extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of
the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent
bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of
the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the
power of the bureaucracy be assured?
Nevertheless, for Einstein, these problems
were not ‘show stoppers’ but rather obstacles to be overcome on the path to a
cooperative and sharing world society, a world society very much like the one John
Lennon envisioned thirty years later.
Bibliography
1. A framework for the
unification of the behavioral sciences. Gintis, Herbert.
s.l. :
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/FrameworkForUnificationOfBehavioralSciences.HGintis2007.pdf,
2007, BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES.
2. Einstein,
Albert. Letter to Paul Langevin. 1933.
3. The
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American HIstory. Albert Einstein on the
McCarthy hearings and the Fifth Amendment, 1953. The Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American HIstory. [Online] [Cited: 1 10, 2016.]
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/fifties/resources/albert-einstein-mccarthy-hearings-and-fifth-amendment-1953.
4. Wikipedia.
McCarthyism. Wikipedia. [Online]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Victims_of_McCarthyism.
5. Overbye,
Dennis. New Details Emerge From the Einstein Files; How the F.B.I.
Tracked His Phone Calls and His Trash. The New York Times. May 7,
2002.
6. Wikipedia.
Vietnam war causalties. Wikipedia. [Online]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties.
7. —.
Humanism. Wikipedia. [Online]
8. —.
Religious View of Albert Einstein. Wikipedia. [Online] [Cited: April
9, 2015.] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein.
9. Einstein,
Albert. Essays in Humanism . s.l. : Philosophical
Library/Open Road , 2011.
10. —.
Letter written to Eric Gutkind . 1954.
11. —.
Letter written to Raymond Benenson. January 31, 1946. Vols. Einstein Archives
56-505.
12. —.
Letter written to Margot Einstein. 1951.
13. —.
Letter written to Ugo Onofri. 1954. Einstein Archives 60-758.
I think of Imagine as an extreme science fiction song bordering on magic.
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